chris zois

GUEST COLUMN: When Film Directors Do TV

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: ABC

Photo: ABC

Chris Zois

The world of television is usually looked down on by others in the entertainment industry, but TV has hit its stride over the past few years and movies may have to watch their backs.

Movies tend to be a director’s medium and television a writer’s medium. You’ve got your Milchs, Sorkins, and Weiners, who run their shows with iron fists. And you’ve got hired-gun directors who are just trained to keep the ship afloat. But Andy Greenwald of Grantland recently wrote that there are a few A-list TV directors out there. Some major filmmakers have tried their hand at directing episodes for the idiot box, notably Steven Soderbergh with The Knick.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 4 of 4)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Millennium Entertainment

Photo: Millennium Entertainment

Chris Zois

They say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and that may have been the case with Linklater’s last round of films. Me and Orson Welles and Bernie should have been commercial hits, or at least had respectable showings at the box office, but poor promotion, Linklater’s Achilles heel, resurfaced.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 3 of 4)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Warner Bros.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Chris Zois

Linklater has always floated in and out of Hollywood. It’s a commendable thing for directors to have a “one for them, one for me” mentality, but if you’re going to do that, there’s no shame in injecting a bit of your own personality in a “one for them.” This era, in a sense, is when Linklater was a hired gun, sure he put out two or three of his own films, but starting in 2003, his Hollywood commitments starting seeming more like him simply cashing in a paycheque.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 2)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Chris Zois

When a filmmaker has a little taste of success, they have more control with your films and may want to try something different. While his first few features (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) were not runaway hits, they still got Richard Linklater on people’s radar. With his next batch of flicks, Linklater tried to do something new, but stayed with his old game of plotless films.

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GUEST COLUMN: A Look at Linklater (Part 1)

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: Gramercy Pictures

Photo: Gramercy Pictures

Chris Zois

When you think of the world of filmmakers, where does Richard Linklater rank? He is not in the pop culture echelon of Tarantino and Spielberg, nor is he an indie darling such as John Cassavetes or Steven Soderbergh. Rather, Linklater is a filmmaker all his own. The director’s relegated himself to making films in his home state of Texas and has, for the most part, stayed out of the confines of the Hollywood system.

That does not mean that he’s a forgettable filmmaker. In fact, he was one of the unsung and underrated filmmakers of the early 90s indie movement. When you ask a friend which Linklater film is their favourite, you may get a doe-eyed response of confusion. But that’s where the charm of his movies lies. Linklater has quietly made some of the most interesting and experimental films of the last 20 years, remaining unnoticed by the masses.

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GUEST REVIEW: Snowpiercer

/ Chris Luckett
Photo: The Weinstein Company

Photo: The Weinstein Company

Chris Zois

The first thing that stands out in Bong Jong-Ho’s American debut Snowpiercer is the lack of colour. That may come across as an oxymoron as not having colour isn’t a trait usually meant to be noticed, but the colour sets the tone of the film, and the characters that inhabit this piece of work are a larger representation of what this standout film means.

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