Barry Lyndon (1975) was Stanley Kubrick's most carefully composed film. Each frame was modeled on 18th century paintings by Gainsborough, Hogarth, and Watteau, with John Alcott matching the light and palette of period art shot by shot.
In Dunkirk (2017), Michael Caine has a secret cameo. He provides the voice of "Fortis Leader," the squadron commander speaking to Tom Hardy over the radio, nodding to his own past role in The Battle of Britain.
It was Gina Carano's very first fight scene ever, and Michael Fassbender slammed her head into a wall in Haywire (2011) hard enough that she lost it for a second. She hit back with a vase, terrified she'd just been fired on her acting debut.
The Rewatchables Podcast with Steven Spielberg taught me so much about Stanley Kubrick- not just about 2001, which was the central topic of conversation- but about Kubrick the person. Kubrick’s filmography honestly stands alone. Listening to Spielberg discuss it is film heaven.
The Irishman (2019) used a markerless de aging system from Industrial Light and Magic. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci performed without dots or sensors, letting Martin Scorsese direct them as actors rather than VFX subjects.
Kubrick filmed Barry Lyndon’s interiors with lenses designed for NASA
Specially modified lenses captured pure candlelight, creating that famously natural 18th-century glow.
Goodfellas lost the Best Picture Oscar to Dances with Wolves (1990). The defeat is now widely considered one of the most lopsided mistakes in Academy history, with Martin Scorsese's mob epic ranked far above the winner in nearly every retrospective poll.
The “Marcus Brody cut” in Indiana Jones is a masterclass in comedic editing. It works flawlessly because Spielberg isn’t just subverting the scene, he's weaponising our own knowledge of his filmmaking style against us.
Happy heavenly birthday, Denholm Elliott
Tommy Lee Jones’s stunning final monologue in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007). It's lifted almost word-for-word from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, reflecting Sheriff Bell’s dreams, hope and loss in a changing world.
In The Shining (1980), the film progressively becomes more disturbing starting with rivers of blood, escalating to Jack making out with a rotting corpse, and finally peaking in pure horror with the most nightmarish scene of all: a man in a furry suit caught mid-furry gay sex.
Morgan Freeman was not the first choice for Se7en.
Al Pacino passed on the role to make City Hall, and Harrison Ford turned it down after calling the script “too dark.” That opened the door for Freeman to step in and deliver an all time performance.