Category: Features

The Best Screenwriters, So Say Actual Screenwriters

The Best Screenwriters, So Say Actual Screenwriters

Posted by | Oct 3, 2017 | |

Best-of lists are too often cynical, randomly thrown together content churn designed to drum up internet arguments but not much new thought on the subject. Vulture’s list of the 100 Best Screenwriters is different; it’s packed with high-quality analysis and, perhaps most importantly, was generated by working screenwriters who are too often relegated backseat status to directors and actors. But it all begins with the word. So enjoy this list from Vulture, and let us know your favorites!   Featured Image: Columbia...

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22 Hispanic Horror Movies

22 Hispanic Horror Movies

Posted by | Oct 3, 2017 | , |

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, and to crossover with Haelloween, we’re bringing you a list of 22 Hispanic Horror movies (and a couple thrillers) to keep your heart rate up and celebrate the quality genre cinema coming out all over the world. You’ll note a distinct absence of GDT here. Not because we don’t celebrate him here at AE, but because he tends to dominate a lot of these lists and we wanted to lift up some gems you may not have seen. Check it out, and let us know what your favourite Hispanic horror movies are! Penumbra (2011,...

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BLOTTER | Jeffrey Dahmer, The Hot One, and The “Clown Shot Her”

BLOTTER | Jeffrey Dahmer, The Hot One, and The “Clown Shot Her”

Posted by | Oct 3, 2017 | |

Hello, pals. I’m back again with your roundup of Thursday true crime links. I have plenty, so let’s get started with TV. I’m excited for Waco, an upcoming six-part series about the disastrous 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas. Michael Shannon stars alongside a frighteningly accurate-looking Taylor Kitsch as leader David Koresh. The show will air in January but you can watch a trailer here. If you’re in the UK, you might be familiar with ITV’s Call the Cleaners, a reality show that follows the everyday situations the men of Merseyside House Clearance are presented with as they...

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Ranking Stephen King’s Film Adaptations

Ranking Stephen King’s Film Adaptations

Posted by | Sep 29, 2017 | |

After a month spent in celebration of the most prolific and celebrated horror author and his contributions to literature and cinema, how much more could we have to say? We’ve gone from hope to despair, teenage dreams to child abuse, nostalgia  to power, books that should be adapted and the problems with adapting them. But in truth, we’ve barely scratched the surface. There are a LOT of Stephen King films. And in our month long celebration of his 70th birthday, we thought it only fitting that we recap the full filmography. So today, we’re ranking all of the full...

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Criterion Discovery: Sid and Nancy

Criterion Discovery: Sid and Nancy

Posted by | Sep 29, 2017 | |

Background: After a long hiatus of being out of print, Alex Cox’s punk-rock cult hit Sid & Nancy (Spine #20) returns to the Criterion Collection. The film was Cox’s first to be included in the main collection, preceding Walker (Spine #423) and Repo Man (Spine #654). Story: After a fateful meeting, Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) and American junkie Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb) begin a star-crossed, mutually destructive romance. As the two plummet further and further into the grip of heroin addiction, Sid sets out with the Pistols on their disastrous American tour, becomes a solo...

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Christopher Nolan’s Long Infatuation with Time

Christopher Nolan’s Long Infatuation with Time

Posted by | Sep 28, 2017 | |

2017’s Dunkirk is something of a departure for director Christopher Nolan. His previous movies have all had mainly been set in cityscapes and focused upon technology, both real and imaginary. Dunkirk is a sparse, experimental movie set in elemental spaces: on a beach, on the water, and in the air. However, other than metropolises and theoretical devices, Nolan’s movies have another recurring motif, which is his fascination with and manipulation of time. Looking at his filmography it’s clear that Nolan is enamoured with time and how bendy it is, how intangible, and the ways in which it can be...

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Criterion Discovery – Certain Women

Criterion Discovery – Certain Women

Posted by | Sep 28, 2017 | |

Background: Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women (Spine #893) adapts three short stories from writer Maile Meloy to create an understated yet powerful examination of isolation and loneliness in the cinematically overlooked wilds of rural Montana. It is Reichardt’s first movie in the Collection. Story: In the outskirts of Montana, the wanting lives of three women are tested: frustrated lawyer Laura Wells (Laura Dern) gets called in by the police to help defuse a hostage situation when one of her disabled clients named Fuller (Jared Harris) holds up the offices of the company that cheated him of worker’s comp following an...

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Cross the Border to the Trailer for Alex Garland’s Annihilation

Cross the Border to the Trailer for Alex Garland’s Annihilation

Posted by | Sep 27, 2017 | |

Here’s the first trailer for Alex Garland’s (Ex Machina) adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. VanderMeer’s novel, which we discussed last year, is one of the most haunting novels I’ve read in a long while. Centering on a group of women tasked with exploring ecological anomaly known as Area X, Annihilation is an existential sci-fi, horror journey that re-shapes these women’s knowledge of themselves and the world that surrounds them. With a cast consisting of Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriiguez, and Oscar Isaac, Annihilation will certainly be one of the most well-acted films to hit next...

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The Shawshank Redemption and the Fear of Hope

The Shawshank Redemption and the Fear of Hope

Posted by | Sep 27, 2017 |

While everyone is extolling praise for Stephen King’s nightmare-inducing skills, thanks to a certain killer-clown who is currently killing the box office (It), I couldn’t help but take a different direction for this month’s focus on the esteemed writer, with an analysis of The Shawshank Redemption. This is partly because I live for people-driven story lines with multi-dimensional characters.  The other part, admittedly, is because I feel a sense of relief when artists as great as King have human moments where they freak out like the rest of us for fear of being described as only one thing (e.g.,...

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We Will All Be Immortalized As Content In Marc Maron: Too Real

We Will All Be Immortalized As Content In Marc Maron: Too Real

Posted by | Sep 27, 2017 |

“We will all be immortalized as content.” Delivered as a tag to one of the many longwinded non-sequiturs that constitute the entirety of standup comedian Marc Maron’s latest hour-long Netflix special, Marc Maron: Too Real, the sentiment feels more than thematically appropriate for the time in which it is being delivered. In the fallout of the 2016 presidential election, Maron’s fears and anxieties in the age of Donald Trump have been given a new prescience. Rather than signifying any sort of hyperbolic neurosis, Maron’s stereotypical manic energy has a real bogeyman to attach itself to. Famous for his unconventional...

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BLOTTER | The Gatekeeper and The Death of Sherlock Holmes

BLOTTER | The Gatekeeper and The Death of Sherlock Holmes

Posted by | Sep 26, 2017 | |

Hi again! Earlier this week, I began the first in a two-parter looking at some of the best recent crime-related long reads and upcoming books. If you missed it, you can catch up here. I have much more coming for you today, but I’m kicking things off with a few podcast recommendations. This week’s Criminal is a must for true crime readers. “The Gatekeeper” tells the story of Marilyn Stasio, who has been writing her review of crime fiction for the New York Times Book Review for decades. Even if you’re not interested in the art and science of...

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Teenage Death Songs: Carrie, Christine and the Broken Adolescent Dream

Teenage Death Songs: Carrie, Christine and the Broken Adolescent Dream

Posted by | Sep 26, 2017 |

There’s magic in growing up. It’s a theme that forms the catalyst for many of Stephen King’s stories. The shifting of innocence into maturity, the awakening of self and awareness of all the possibilities of the future, and triumph over fear—the most powerful magic of all—are an element of the alchemy of childhood. In King’s world it is children who are the strongest, and adults often triumph by discovering their inner child…or meet terrible ends in their failure to do so. But there’s a space in between. A gap between kids like Danny Torrance, Jake Chambers, Mark Petrie, The...

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BLOTTER | Group Therapy, an Alien Con Man, and the Man from the Train

BLOTTER | Group Therapy, an Alien Con Man, and the Man from the Train

Posted by | Sep 26, 2017 | |

Hello, Early on this year, in a fit of either productivity or self-improvement, I decided I’d aim to read 50 books before the end of 2017. I was most likely inspired to do it because I knew I already had a healthy head start; in January I’d already managed to read seven. As the year went on, I noticed a defined inverse relationship between the weather getting nicer and the book totals barely budging. So this week’s two editions of Blotter will both focus on good reads to inspire me to hit the magic, arbitrary number (13 more to...

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Cinema Saint: Robert Rodriguez

Cinema Saint: Robert Rodriguez

Posted by | Sep 22, 2017 |

Between September 15 and October 15, AE will be running a series of articles celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, in which we elevate and celebrate Hispanic contributions and representation in the world of cinema, starting today with the induction of our newest Cinema Saint, Robert Rodriguez. — His name is Robert Rodriguez. Hell, you’re probably familiar with the guy. You either know him as the kickass director of the Mariachi trilogy and From Dusk Till Dawn, or you recognise him as Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic partner-in-crime. Either way, the man likely needs no introduction. It’s easy to talk and write about...

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