Manifest Destiny once signified the American persona and compelled settlers to cross punishing terrain in a professed duty of expansionism. On the pretense of a national movement, or perhaps a moral m...

Science-fiction is about creating intricate worlds and using those worlds to emphasize a discernible difference from our own. Whether the differences are political, societal, or technological, the gen...

François Truffaut called Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious “the quintessential Hitchcock film,” as if there could be just one. Truffaut’s wise assessment in the face of Hitchcock’s preeminent Psycho or Ver...

I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living! —Epic ...

Mind and body cannot coexist. Each works according to its own set parameters, degenerating with time, never in unison. Oblivious to the body, the mind exists freely until it is forced to contemplate i...

David Mamet is a magician whose tools are the natural illusions of character and mood. As writer and director, Mamet has no need for flashy computer effects, pyrotechnics, or complex visual demonstrat...

An ominous figure stands enveloped in a shadowy doorway, wrapped in a blanket of darkness, almost perfectly hidden save for its legs and feet. The wet street glistens, defining every cobblestone, whil...

An alternative to homogenized Hollywood action films, Die Hard incorporates qualities otherwise absent from action heroes prior to the film’s release: Personal shortcomings, vulnerability, and fallibi...

Based on the acclaimed novel by Philip K. Dick, Richard Linklater’s 2006 film of A Scanner Darkly presents a cautionary tale on drugs, surveillance, and perception in a unique formal arrangement. Set ...