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Long-time readers of THE DIRECTORS SERIES will remember that since 2021, we’ve been deep in production on an original horror feature, THE VEIL. We’re excited to share that THE VEIL (written and directed by THE DIRECTORS SERIES host Cameron Beyl) is now available to watch on demand (and just in time for the arrival of…
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It’s often said that history is written by the victors. The act of national mythmaking – America’s, in particular – is a process of elimination and curation, cherry-picking key events as well as deciding the perspective we’re supposed to remember them from. Atrocities are swept under the rug, or they’re sanitized through generalization. History books…
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Christopher Nolan’s 2010 feature INCEPTION is a heist film set inside the human mind, but underneath the myriad timelines structured like a nesting doll lies yet another, secret, layer: this is a film about making films, and each character represents a crucial player in the production puzzle. Watch our full breakdown on INCEPTION as part…
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Martin Scorsese may world-famous for his bloody crime classics, but he once said he considers his 1993 romance THE AGE OF INNOCENCE to be his most violent film. A punch might blacken an eye or bloody a nose, but love can cut to the bone, leaving scars that last a lifetime. This video is excerpted…
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FARGO opens with a simple phrase: “This is a true story”. In truth, it was anything but. In practice, it becomes the key to the Coen Brothers’ creative subversion of the crime genre’s tropes, fueling a unique mythos that’s grown beyond the film and continues to this day. This clip is from our full-length breakdown…
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When Fight Club was released in 1999, audiences were immediately divided into two camps: those who knew it was satire, and those who made it their whole identity. Some may call it reckless storytelling, but David Fincher knew exactly what he was doing. This video breaks down Fincher’s stealth dismantling of toxic masculinity, resulting in…
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When PT Anderson announced his followup to MAGNOLIA would be a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler, the film world didn’t know what to make of it. When they saw the finished product — 2002’s PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE — they were surprised to find not only one of the rising auteur’s best works, but a showcase of…
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Notable Festivals: Venice (Out of Competition) Before she was a filmmaker, director Sofia Coppola was a fixture in the fashion world. From an early age, her upbringing as Hollywood royalty regularly brought her into contact with celebrities from every walk of life. In her teen years, when most of us were driving around our hometowns…
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In setting out to make a film about nuclear war, Stanley Kubrick realized the only way to properly convey the horror of total annihilation was to make it as absurd as possible. Thus, DR STRANGELOVE was born, and a nuclear-armed world would never be the same. This video is a clip from our multi-part documentary…
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In 2022, Baz Luhrmann released ELVIS, his gargantuan ode to the King Of Rock And Roll. The Australian maximalist director’s take on an American icon was glitzy, gaudy, and appropriately over-indulgent – much like the singer’s latter Vegas years. Like any conventional biopic, ELVIS lionized its namesake, overlooking his moral shortcomings as the necessary byproduct…
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Midway through the production of DAYS OF HEAVEN, Terrence Malick stopped referring to his script. The result was thousands of feet of film, with no clear path to a coherent story. In the ultimate example of “fixing it in post”, he employed a trick that would become a defining signature of his artistic voice. This…
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“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl.” That line, spoken by the grown men still haunted by the Lisbon sisters decades later, is the key to understanding Sofia Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides. This video breaks down how Coppola used cinematography, music, and a singularly feminine perspective to build a film that men…
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Martin Scorsese was done with mob movies. He’d said everything he needed to say in Mean Streets and Raging Bull, and he had no intention of going back. Then he found Nicholas Pileggi’s book WISE GUYS in galley form on the set of The Color of Money. Just when he thought he was out, they…