The Ghost in the Machine: How ‘The Frighteners’ Built the Foundation for Middle-earth
Thirty years ago, on July 19, 1996, Peter Jackson’s supernatural horror-comedy The Frighteners premiered in theaters. Released in the shadow of the Atlanta Olympics and the cultural juggernaut Independence Day, the film was quickly relegated to the…
The "Sex Purge" Phenomenon: Why Director Will Gluck Prioritized Human Connection Over Dystopian World-Building
Since the first trailer for One Night Only hit the internet, the film has been saddled with an unavoidable, punchy moniker: the "Sex Purge." The comparison to James DeMonaco’s Blumhouse horror franchise—where, in a dystopian future, all crime…
The Indelible Presence: Why Willem Dafoe Is Cinema’s Most Essential Shape-Shifter
When Willem Dafoe enters the frame, the temperature of a film changes. There is a serene, unsettling gravitas he brings to the screen that is almost gravitational—it pulls the viewer into his orbit, regardless of whether he is playing a painfully human…
The Making of a Myth: How Matt Johnson’s ‘Tony’ Deconstructs the Legend of Anthony Bourdain
The culinary world has long held Anthony Bourdain in a state of hallowed reverence. From the gritty, sweat-stained trenches of New York’s late-night kitchens to the global stages of No Reservations and Parts Unknown, Bourdain was more than a chef—he was…
The Art of Letting Go: How Kent Jones Found His Voice in ‘Late Fame’
For decades, Kent Jones was the sharpest set of eyes in the American film criticism landscape. As a contributor to Film Comment and a key figure in the institutional preservation of cinema history, he became renowned for his forensic, deeply empathetic…
The Anxiety of the Architect: Will Gluck on the High-Stakes Art of the Modern Rom-Com
All good comedy is rooted in a fundamental, sometimes uncomfortable, honesty. So, when I sat down over Zoom last month to interview the perennially sharp and candid filmmaker Will Gluck, I opted for a standard, polite icebreaker to set the stage for a…
A Circle of Shadows: Juliette Lewis on Returning to the ‘Cape Fear’ Universe
Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for the entirety of Apple TV’s “Cape Fear” series. The television adaptation of "Cape Fear"—a visceral, sun-drenched exploration of Southern Gothic dread—arrived on Apple TV+ with a…
The Weight of Silence: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner Reinvents the Jidaigeki
What happens when you cross the claustrophobic tension of a classic whodunit with the brutal, rigid code of the Edo-period jidaigeki? For legendary Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the answer is a cinematic meditation on power, faith, and the…
The Sugar-Coated Slaughter: How Eli Roth Built His Most Audacious Horror Vision Yet
Since the breakout success of Cabin Fever—a film defined by that indelible, stomach-churning sequence of a woman shaving her legs only for the skin to peel away—Eli Roth has cemented his status as the undisputed architect of cinematic visceral dread.…
A New Chapter for the Wall-Crawler: Destin Daniel Cretton on the Emotional Core of ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a vast, interconnected tapestry, but few threads have been as tangled or as highly anticipated as the future of Peter Parker. Following the monumental success of the Tom Holland-led trilogy directed by Jon Watts,…
