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The Mann and his movies

Michael Mann is one of those select American directors who has become a brand name -- not by marketing himself, but by making movies so distinctive and with such visual fluency that they are immediately identifiable as Michael Mann films.…

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Are YOU Kevin Smith's friend?

View image: From The Onion New York Magazine reports on "How Kevin Smith Reinvented Movie Marketing." By manufacturing a dust-up with a TV movie critic just before the opening of his film and getting lots of free publicity? Sure. But…

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Tex Avery: Escape from Alka-Fizz

"Boo." Dennis at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has posted his favorite Tex Avery cartoon, "Rock-a-Bye Bear," in response to posts by Peet Gelderblom and That Little Round-Headed Boy, who remarked that this exchange has turned into a…

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Me & Mr. Colbert

Mr. C & me. Hooray, for America! On Monday's "The Colbert Report," M. Night Shyamalan made #2 on the "ThreatDown," thanks to my diligent review of "Lady in the Water." I wrote: The key to deciphering M. Night Shyamalan's fractured…

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Chasing the image: Barred

View image: "Vertigo": The bar View image: "Vertigo": The hand. View image: "Munich": The bar(s). View image: "Munich": The hand. Both movies begin with a close-up of metal barrier at night. A hand grabs it, and a man pulls himself…

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Opening Shots: 'The Rapture'

From Nathaniel Soltesz, Pittsburgh, PA: One of my favorite opening shots is from Michael Tolkin's "The Rapture." First, a black screen, menacing ambient music, vague noises of typing, people speaking. The camera rises and we realize we're looking at the…

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Opening Shots: 'Yojimbo'

In the spirit of "Rashomon," two views of the opening shot of another Akira Kurosawa picture: From Or Shkolnik, Israel: We see a beautiful mountain landscape, a dramatic music starts playing while the name of the movie appears in big…

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Who is the gaucho, amigo?

Cousin Dupree? A couple days ago we published an Opening Shot contribution for Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" in which Allen cited an old joke to illustrate a point about his view of life: Two elderly women are at a Catskills…

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Darth Vader goes all Sybil on us...

... and channels roles from the entire career of James Earl Jones. That's the premise of this very funny short, "Vader Sessions," from Akjak Moving Pictures, in which the Imperial Villain speaks in Jones' voice through sound clips from "The…