9takes

Predator is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best film. It totally holds up after almost 30 years. With Commando of course coming a close second.

Nothing ruined a 2000’s show or movie like Michele Rodriquez. She was the original Zendaya.

QUESTION: If Andy Weir had told Drinker that he didn't like Landman, would the media have pressured him to apologize to Taylor Sheridan?

It's underestimated how much digital cameras commodified filmmaking and collapsed the industry. With film stock, there was a barrier to entry because the technical limitation was dangerous: to store, use, and develop it took care and time. Apprenticeships in the camera department took sweat labor from the loading of mags to the threading of heavy cameras. Now it's wysiwyg monitors, lower powered lights, and more critically - infinite takes. It's easy to become a DP as the image can be checked in monitor and you don't have to wait 24 hours to see if the film comes back black...so you can gamble with newbies. The financial pressure of selectively shooting within allotted film stock is lifted. Now directors can just do piss takes forever, which accounts for the rise of improvisational acting styles. I'm actually pro digital cameras. I shot film for years and I prefer the freedom that digital gives me. However it has obliterated foundational crew heirchies such as how the 2nd AC now just passed off cards to the DIT instead of loading mags. Filmmaking lost its magic secrecy and now everyone sees the magician's hands and sleeves. The production process is like a Burger King where everyone can see you make the burger, and the customer thinks it's easy. They just want their Whopper, no onions. It feels less surprising when someone moves up the chain and becomes a cinematographer or director. It also feels less surprising when a director or DP quickly flames out and goes back to another day job. The hard career ladder was time, respect, camaraderie, and a sense that the person paid dues. The disadvantage was it was harder to gain those positions. The advantage was once you had them, you were more secure in them. Experience still counts though in ways that most newer people surrounding production may not understand. Everything from resource management to effective decisions as the clock clicks on an expensive shoot day. Again I love digital cameras and I'm actually one of the first to switch over all my work to digital. It's obviously served me well. But there is a piece of me that misses the old Hollywood of filmstock, even though I fucking hated shooting it (and I'll never go back). How's that for conflicted!

During the iconic kiss scene in Cruel Intentions (1999) a literal string of saliva formed between Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar. The director kept it in the final cut because it added to the raw intensity of the moment.

There must be people who buy Criterion when it's not on sale, right? There must be?

This is relentlessly parroted like Chinese whispers with a megaphone... yet no one ever cites the source.