Strain(ge) Magic

As you can tell from my infrequent posting, I haven’t had a lot of time to watch TV or movies over the last few months. It has been an enormously busy summer that has included trips to Toronto, Washington DC, Baltimore (for 4 hours), and Cincinnati, as well as a new venture. This is in addition to greatly increased hours at my job and continued freelance work for movies.com (I had LOTS of fun doing 1984 marketing tie-ins to 2014 summer movies with John Gholson). That said, I have had time to fall head over heels in love with Guillermo del Toro’s jaunt into the world of television- The Strain.

Brief Thoughts about the Sight and Sound Director Lists

A lot of the bluster is finally dying down regarding Sight & Sound’s recent release of their Greatest Films of All-Time list. They have both a list compiled by critics and a list compiled by directors, with various director top 10s trickling out over the last few weeks. Most of the discussion has centered around Vertigo (1958) toppling Citizen Kane (1941) for the top slot. But I don’t care about that. They’re both great, and you should see them both if you like movies. It’s the director lists I’d like to discuss.

Television Commercials Directed by Movie Directors

Ad agencies are turning to Hollywood more and more. Every year around the Super Bowl, audiences discover that a handful of their favorite ads during the game were actually directed by notable movie directors. Throughout the past, directors have made TV commercials for a variety of reasons. For many, it was an opportunity to hone their craft and gain exposure with Hollywood. For others, it was a chance to make important public service announcements. Here are some of my favorite commercials directed by movie directors. 

The Big Fat List of Directors I Don’t Talk About Enough

I love talking about movies. So do you. Why else would you be here? In the discussion process, it’s very easy to become enthusiastic about certain directors and their films. And the unfortunate byproduct of the genius of these various directors is that it’s easy to fixate on them, often at the detriment of other moviemakers who have plied their craft with similarly deft touches. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen at least a few articles about Ingmar Bergman, Buster Keaton, Louis Malle, Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, Edgar Wright, and the Coen brothers. But there is a humongous list of other directors that I love just as much, if not more, than many of the names on that list. Here’s a list of directors that I don’t write about nearly enough.

My Criterion Top Ten Top Ten

The Criterion Collection has an excellent series called Top 10 where they invite filmmakers, film critics and theorists, actors, cinephiles, and celebrities to list their Top 10 from the Criterion Collection. It’s a really unique series because it provides wonderful insights into what has influenced these people. Now that I’ve been reading these lists for a few years, my own personal top 10 of Criterion Top 10 lists has started to emerge. Here are the 10 people whose lists I like the most: