My Top 30 All-Time Favourite Films

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in 1995's "Before Sunset" Whenever someone asks me, "What's your favourite movie?", the question always feels approximately as useful as asking, "Which one of your kids do you love the most?" Sure, I have my favourite but like I'm going to tell them. Ahem, scratch that. What I meant to say was, "How can you pick one when there are so many to love?" (Two points for good parenting.) To make it easier (though hardly...

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My Top 20 All-Time Favourite Film Composers

These are my personal choices based on: how each composer's music affects me emotionally, regardless of what I or others think of the particular movies or other media production in question; their ability to score a broad range of totally unique, totally different "soundscapes" from movie to movie, despite having an identifiable signature sound;  the degree to which their music complements what appears on screen, assisting in telling the...

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Write Now #3: Get Real & Study the Craft

It's my observation that there are two kinds of writers, and for that matter, two kinds of professionals in any field: Those who think they can do it completely on their own and those who feel they could benefit by learning a few things from others. I hear from members of the first group all the time: "Come on, you don't need to go to school to become a good writer. You don't need to read books. What do those guys really know, anyway? Writing...

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