Director Retrospectives: The Wachowskis

Director Retrospective: The Wachowskis Special Edition: Women Directors For the past few months — with the exception of October (during my horror-film marathon) — I’ve been trying to focus my Director Retrospective project on the work of women directors. And with the end-of-semester frenzy and all its accompanying physical / mental / emotional exhaustion, I Read more about Director Retrospectives: The Wachowskis[…]

Director Retrospective: Julie Taymor

Director Retrospective: Julie Taymor Special Edition: Women Directors As stated in my most recent retrospective installments, I’m spending the next several weeks looking specifically at the works of women filmmakers — particularly those directors with fewer than 10 films (as that’s normally the minimum threshold for my typical director retrospectives).  So far, we’ve explored the filmographies Read more about Director Retrospective: Julie Taymor[…]

Director Retrospective: Kelly Reichardt

Director Retrospective: Kelly Reichardt Special Edition: Women Directors As stated in my most recent retrospective installments, I’m spending the next several weeks looking specifically at the works of women filmmakers — particularly those directors with fewer than 10 films (as that’s normally the minimum threshold for my typical director retrospectives).  So far, we’ve explored the filmographies Read more about Director Retrospective: Kelly Reichardt[…]

Director Retrospective: Sofia Coppola

Director Retrospective: Sofia Coppola Special Edition: Women Directors As stated in my last retrospective installment, I’m spending the next several weeks looking specifically at the work of women filmmakers — particularly those with fewer than 10 films (as that’s the threshold for my typical director retrospectives).  Last time, I took a look at arguably the Read more about Director Retrospective: Sofia Coppola[…]

Director Retrospective: Jane Campion

Director Retrospective: Jane Campion Special Edition: Women Directors After a break for Summer, I thought it would be a nice time to resume my exploration of the filmographies of various important directors — but with a twist.  For my previous 25 directorial retrospectives (how in the world did I watch that many movies last year?!?!), I Read more about Director Retrospective: Jane Campion[…]

Director Retrospective: Richard Linklater

Director Retrospective: Richard Linklater In my last Director Retrospective, we looked at the films of 1970s & 1980s director Hal Ashby, a director whose work I greatly enjoyed exploring (well…at least his 1970s films).  But that got me to wondering if there were any contemporary directors who reminded me Ashby — i.e. his various emotional Read more about Director Retrospective: Richard Linklater[…]

Director Retrospective: Hal Ashby

Director Retrospective: Hal Ashby For my last retrospective (on director Mike Leigh), I mentioned that one of the things that I found myself increasingly drawn to about Leigh’s work was just how consistently underappreciated and underwatched it was (at least among the casual American audience).  So…after a bit of a hiatus for travel, I thought Read more about Director Retrospective: Hal Ashby[…]

Director Retrospective: Mike Leigh

Director Retrospective: Mike Leigh In the previous installment of my Director Retrospective project, we took a long look at the films of Sam Peckinpah, a director very interested in exploring American mythos and masculinity (particularly in his explorations of “the West”).  So I thought it might be fun to shift gears a bit — to Read more about Director Retrospective: Mike Leigh[…]

Director Retrospective: Sam Peckinpah

Director Retrospective: Sam Peckinpah For my previous director retrospective, I explored the films of Kathryn Bigelow — a female director whose works are often surprisingly interested in engaging with themes of masculinity.  Following that, for this particular installment of my ongoing project, I thought it might be interesting to turn the “masculinity” up to eleven Read more about Director Retrospective: Sam Peckinpah[…]

Director Retrospective: Kathryn Bigelow

Director Retrospective: Kathryn Bigelow For the next part of my ongoing Director Retrospective project (where I watch and then review the works of directors with at least 10 films), we finally have the opportunity to consider something that I’ve been wanting to for awhile — i.e. the filmography of a female director.  In this case, Read more about Director Retrospective: Kathryn Bigelow[…]