Category Archives: Cinematography

Frigid Winter Warming Spectacular: Best Nuclear Explosion! (Pt. 2)

There’s little doubt my six or so loyal readers gobbled up Part One at a single sitting and, barely satiated, started pounding silverware on the table demanding more destruction porn. Let me oblige posthaste. As you’ll recall, we critiqued Hollywood’s take on nuclear explosions in six films: Asteroid City, The Dark Knight Rises, The Day After, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Failsafe and Fat Man and Little Boy. Let’s now light the fuse on our next five!

Continue reading

Frigid Winter Warming Spectacular: Best Nuclear Explosion! (Pt. 1)

Inspired by tense family holiday gatherings (and a recent rewatch of Oppenheimer), let’s turn our attention towards ranking Hollywood’s most memorable depictions of nuclear explosions, the kind of conflagrations I’d welcome with open, melting arms considering the temperature in my hometown hasn’t muscled its way past zero going on three days now. #wintersucks

Continue reading

Film Adaptations of John le Carré’s Novels: Part 2

In the two+ months since my shocking windfall courtesy Mrs. Renate Magdalena Settnik, Burkina Faso’s favorite paralyzed-philanthropic-German-widow daughter, my personal finances have taken something of a nosedive. With my accounts mysteriously drained, my credit rating in shambles and my utilities shut off for non-payment, I now find myself offering windshield

Continue reading

Film Adaptations of John le Carré’s Novels: Part 1

It’s been over two weeks since I provided the paralyzed philanthropic German widow in Burkina Faso, Mrs. Renate Magdalena Settnik, with my personal and banking information. (Click here for more detail on my windfall.) However, rather than seeing monies come in to my account, I’m noticing strange withdrawals from places like Nome, Alaska, and Tierra del Fuego.

Continue reading

Road to Perdition: The Art of No Dialogue

Being such a visual medium, it often surprises me how rare it is to come across a movie scene that dispenses with dialogue and instead leans on visuals (and soundtrack) to tell the story, often with more impact than any amount of character blabbing could ever achieve.

Continue reading

Atomic Blonde’s 7-Minute Staircase Fight as Narrated by Audio Description for the Blind

Revisiting this virtuosic scene recently, it occurred to me that someone working for the American Council of the Blind (ACB) had to describe the action, presumably with a straight face, for its Audio Description Project, which, as I’m sure you know, provides the visually impaired with “high-quality audio description in television, movies, performing arts…and other venues where the presentation of visual media is critical to the understanding and appreciation of the content.”

Continue reading

Cinematography & Editing: Unique Insights into Two Critical Cinematic Arts

As revealed by my admission that the first laserdisc (RIP) I ever purchased was the documentary Visions of Light, anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a nerd for the art of cinematography.

Continue reading

Apocalypse Now: A Smorgasbord of Thoughts

Been a while. Bike accidents, vacations, life, etc.

Anyway, went to see Apocalypse Now (1979) the other day at Chicago’s Navy Pier IMAX, which, unlike the local multiplex version of the format (snarkily referred to as “LieMax”), happens to be the real deal (60’H x 86’W

Continue reading

Ranked: Every James Bond Theme Song! (Pt. 2)

In the film world, a planned sequel often finds itself in limbo until its predecessor proves its box-office legitimacy.

Adapting this business model to the blogging world, I kept a close eye on the readership numbers for Part One of this planned Bond-song-ranking trilogy. Thankfully, my rabid fanbase came through big—for the first time in the history of the CFS I actually had to use both hands to tally the number of click-throughs! #onthecuspofviral

Continue reading

Un Film Français Épique en Deux Parties!

As we spiral deeper into yet another dark and hopeless Chicago winter, were you lucky enough to peek through the CFS’s hoarfrosted window you might just spy me thumbing through my mighty physical media collection in search of content that takes place in a warm locale and—to remind me that I don’t have it so bad after all—features emotional and physical catastrophes of Shakespearean magnitude. (Frankly, just typing that sentence reduced my Seasonal Affective Disorder by 18%.)

Continue reading