Movies with cinematographer Robert Elswit

With Magnolia, director Paul Thomas Anderson has segued into the realm of the three hour movie. It's an ambitious step to take - making lengthy, ensemble movies with tangentially related and occasionally interconnected storylines can be a risky en...

There was a time during the long history of the adult entertainment industry that porn films showed signs of artistic ambition. During the late '70s, a small cadre of directors believed that they could combine the raunch of real sex with an in...

You may have to look long and hard to find a 2005 movie with as cynical an outlook on global politics as Syriana. Sadly, this is a situation when the cynicism is understandable. In addition to painting a bleak picture, Syriana makes no concessions...

Since the death of Alfred Hitchcock, many filmmakers have vied to succeed the Master of Suspense. With apologies to rip-off artist Brian De Palma, my vote goes to David Mamet, whose films House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner can stand alongside ...

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana It's astounding that a treatment of a factual incident from five decades ago could have such powerful resonance today. Lessons learned, it seems, are not taken t...

The scrutiny surrounding Tomorrow Never Dies, the eighteenth "official" James Bond film (not counting Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again), isn't as intense as it was around Goldeneye, but the attendant hype is, if anything, even more severe. ...

When The Sure Thing was released in 1985, it was out of step with the times. Teen comedies in those years were saturated with sex and broad humor. Romance and realism (even to a modest degree) were undesirable relics of a bygone era. Nevertheles...

It’s clear that director Judd Apatow is comfortable collaborating with stand-up comedians on projects that contain at least some autobiographical details. The King of Staten Island represents his third such film, following in the wake of Fun...

When it comes to motion pictures, there are essentially two kinds of thrillers: visceral thrillers, which rely on action to generate tension and excitement, and intellectual thrillers, which burn more slowly but are often more satisfying in the end...

The best things about Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood are not elements that will build large audiences. This is a film about character development/disintegration and a comprehensive look at the early days of the oil industry. The more ...