Consider this an entry for Studio Ghibli's entire output. But, since I have to pick a single example from Hayao Miyazaki & Co.'s truly remarkable catalogue, it would have to be the explosion of imagination that is Spirited Away. It's one of those rare instances where the poster's tag line perfectly captures the ess...

Story, story, story. That's what keeps people coming back time and time again to The Godfather. While Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece has many technical elements in its favour, it all comes back to the engrossing saga playing out on screen.

Coppola's friction with Paramount Studios is well-documen...

I admire Darren Aronofsky as a filmmaker. I think he came out of the gate strongly with Pi and has so far continued in that fashion with Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler. Even so, The Fountain isn't quite as leftfield a direction for Aronofsky as it might at first seem. Pi, for instance, ...

Writer/director Andrew Niccol debuted in 1997 with this powerful science fiction film of genetic manipulation and discrimination in the near future. Yes, it's science fiction. You could even label it biopunk; but what makes Gattaca such a...

The SyFy Channel premiered the latest installment in the ongoing Stargate franchise two weeks ago with a feature length pilot. I loved it. Here's some thoughts:

Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. Stargate Universe is the offspring of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and Star Trek: Voyager. It's impossible to deny...

Maybe this is a really obvious, noobie pick. It's the most recently-released film to make it onto my list, and the only direct sequel, but it had a really profound impact on me in terms of what a superhero movie could seriously achieve, and what a crime drama could be made to do. I didn't really know what to expect after ...

Prohibitive production costs and an inability to secure therights to The Lord of the Rings turned an early attempt by John Boorman at bringing Tolkien’s masterwork to the screen into another of the director’s dream projects. That project was 1981’s Excalibur, the most unashamedly romantic, mythic ...

Picked up these ones during the last month.

Gollancz have re-released the two Lyonesse books yet again with new covers, so I picked these up as soon as I saw them at White Dwarf Books, probably my fa...

I think Johnnie To is perhaps Hong Kong's best director of action and gangster films since John Woo. His films receive all kinds of awards and regularly screen at festivals such as Cannes, Toronto and Berlin. Though they may tread similar territory, there are distinct differences between the two directors: Woo forged a stylistic trademark out of his bullet-ballet ac...

Ah, Casablanca. The little movie that could. It's one of those 'classics' everyone talks about that you force yourself to watch as part of your education in film, never expecting it to be nearly as good as everyone says, let along to be any fun. Yet that was exactly my experience when I saw the film for the first ...