One of Alex Garland’s goals in writing the script for his directorial debut, EX MACHINA, was to get the science right, even for subjects such as consciousness and artificial intelligence, which are so poorly understood. He vetted the script with experts, refusing to shoehorn the science to make his story work. He’s still smarting from… Read More »
Perry Blackshear, MacLeod Andrews & Evan Dumouchel Insist that THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE is a first-rate existential horror film, as well as a psychological thriller. I got the same vibe watching it that I had gotten watching PI and BRICK, the maiden efforts of Darren Aronofsky and Rian Johnson respectively. Writer/director Perry Blackshear understands more than just how to create evocative, even sumptuous, visuals, he knows… Read More »
SUNSHINE
With SUNSHINE, Danny Boyle once again switches film genres with a masterly touch. Having explored gritty realism with TRAINSPOTTING, social satire with SHALLOW GRAVE, whimsical fantasy with MILLIONS, and apocalyptic horror with 28 DAYS LATER, he has moved on to science fiction, albeit science fiction that also functions as a white-knuckle thriller. For all the… Read More »
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Danny Boyle’s brilliant new film, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, is the improbable tale of how innocence triumphs against the most seemingly impossible odds. It begins and ends on the fateful night when Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former slum resident, plaything of an indifferent world, and current tea-boy in Mumbai, is about to answer a question on… Read More »
127 HOURS
Danny Boyle doesn’t make it easy for himself. After exploring the teeming slums of India with SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, he’s turned in a different direction with 127 HOURS. In it, James Franco, as intrepid hiker Aron Ralston, spends most of the film trapped in a sliver of a crevice carved very deep into one of the… Read More »
Danny Boyle’s 127 HOURS
Based on Between A Rock and A Hard Place, the book Aron Ralston wrote about his ordeal of being trapped in a slot canyon by a massive boulder pinning his hand, 127 HOURS was conceived by director/co-screenwriter Danny Boyle as a spiritual journey of a man forced to confront the solitary existence he had chosen for himself.… Read More »
Danny Boyle Translates SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
I talked to Danny Boyle on October 24, 2008, as the presidential campaign was in its final stretch, perhaps that was the reason politics was so much on Boyle’s mind during our talk about his latest film, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. From the innately American impulse to root for the underdog, to the practice of democracy in… Read More »
Danny Boyle Brings SUNSHINE
When I talked to Danny Boyle about SUNSHINE on July 16, 2007, I didn’t know where to start with the science fiction, the science fact, and the philosophical implications of that film. Boyle fielded all my questions with boundless enthusiasm and the sort of answers that come of having spent a lot of time pondering the… Read More »