The Camera Moves That Built Hitchcock’s Suspense Machine
Few filmmakers understood the psychology of the camera as well as Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock believed suspense was not created by plot twists alone, but by…
The Blueprint, The Con, and Production Chaos: How Bruce Geller and His Team Built Mission: Impossible
In front of the camera, the Mission: Impossible team was a well-oiled machine: a group of elite specialists working in perfect harmony under a cool,…
Shark POV: How ‘Jaws’ Improved On The POV Shot Used In ‘The Creature From The Black Lagoon’
Steven Spielberg borrowed the underwater POV shots from the 1950s Universal monster movie but eclipsed them with confident and beautiful cinematography–and masterful pacing. Chrissie Watkins,…
‘Jaws’: The Monster Movie That Invented The Summer Blockbuster
How did a B-movie-type monster movie become a genre-defining blockbuster that changed modern film-making? On June 20, 1975, Jaws opened across North America and changed…
James Bond Enters a New Era with Producers David Heyman and Amy Pascal
In a seismic shift for one of cinema’s most enduring franchises, Amazon MGM Studios has officially tapped David Heyman and Amy Pascal as the new…
‘Die Hard’ Director John McTiernan Says The future of Filmmaking Is “Independent Financing”
In a recent interview with Forbes, John McTiernan, the director behind Die Hard, The Thomas Crown Affair and Predator, expressed dismay at the state of…
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Reinventing The Epic Fantasy Genre?
Ever since the release of Oppenheimer, there has been much speculation about Christopher Nolan’s next film. The internet was abuzz at the possibility of Nolan…
The Lost Jaws Prequel—Steven Spielberg’s Jaws 2 Described as “Saving Private Ryan, With Sharks”
Jaws 2 is the best of the sequels to the Steven Spielberg classic, but it is basically a retread of the first film and not…
Why Quentin Tarantino Hates Skyfall
Quentin Tarantino wanted to direct Casino Royale starring Pierce Brosnan. Although vocal about his intentions, EON Productions never called and soon after Brosnan was let…
How A Russian Thief Bought the Rights to ‘Casino Royale’ and Turned James Bond into a Woman
In 1955, flamboyant Russian actor and director Gregory Ratoff was in Cairo, Egypt, acting and directing a film entitled The Royal Bed, which was about…
