CinemaStix

In this series of Heath Ledger interviews, made up of every Heath Ledger Joker interview and rare behind the scenes account I could find, audio and visual, Heath Ledger explains how he prepared to play The Joker in the Christopher Nolan directed The Dark Knight (2008), what inspired his take on The Joker and his iconic Joker voice, and what it was like for the actor to play the iconic Batman villain. The Dark Knight is a 2008 Batman film directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics characters, this second entry in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and Batman, Heath ledger as The Joker, and features Aaron Eckhart, Sir Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman.

Today I’ll take a look at what made Willem Dafoe so great as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002). Spider-Man is a 2002 superhero movie directed by Sam Reimi, starring Toby Maguire and Willem Dafoe. It was one of the first modern Marvel movies, and Dafoe's performance as The Green Goblin helped set a precedent for many Marvel movie villains to follow. So let's look at how he got the role, and what made his Green Goblin so great.

A mini documentary on the events leading up to the long-anticipated release of Zack Snyder's Justice League. The theatrical release of Justice League was a critical and commercial failure. But thanks to some good timing, a little luck, and a lot of support from a devoted fanbase, original Justice League director Zack Snyder was able to get his lengthy "Snyder Cut" released just the way he intended. Here's how it happened.

Is The Silence of the Lambs overrated? Not from a filmmaking perspective. Is it worth watching? Absolutely. The Silence of the Lambs is scary good. From Anthony Hopkins' performance of Hannibal Lecter to Jonathan Demme's direction, The Silence of the Lambs is a masterpiece. In this analysis essay, I'll be delving deep into why. Also, whether you consider The Silence of the Lambs a horror movie or not, it was the first film of its kind to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. That's a pretty big deal.

An analysis of the train scene from Spirited Away.

The Witch (The VVitch), directed by Robert Eggers, is one of the most stunningly shot mid-budget indie films out there, as well as one of the most smartly-budgeted period horror movies. Here's why and how.

Before the iconic Darth Vader voice by James Earl Jones, someone else voices the Star Wars villain on set. In today's video, I'll look back at the history of Darth Vader's voice, play you what the original Darth Vader voice sounded like on set, and explore the legacy of James Earl Jones as Vader.

Tenet, Inception, Interstellar... Christopher Nolan movies are famously hard to understand. In part, this is because Nolan's use of sound mixing and sound design makes his dialogue hard to hear. In part it's because his plots are complex hard to follow. But ultimately Nolan is hard to understand and to connect with because of how much he relies on the relationship between these two elements. In this video, we'll examine a few Christopher Nolan movies, Tenet in particular, to see why Nolan movies are hard to understand and connect with, and what can be done to resolve the problem.

Making Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was no simple task. The first Star Wars movie was a major success and making a Star Wars sequel was extremely daunting. So who directed Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back? After directing the original Star Wars movie, George Lucas turned to his friend and mentor Irvin Kershner to direct the very first Star Wars sequel, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. In this video, we'll hear some stories straight from Irvin Kershner himself regarding his approach to directing The Empire Strikes Back and filmmaking in general, as well as what the property and genre of Star Wars meant to him.

David Fincher has made some of the best movies out there: Gone Girl, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network, just to name a few. Here’s how David Fincher faked his 2020 film Mank to look like an old Hollywood movie, using visual effects and an old cinematography style.

A video essay breaking down why the Batmobile chase scene from The Batman (2022) is perfect and awesome.

Let's take a look at how Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was made. We'll examine how it was animated and the various ways the movie's animation style was modeled off of the illustration techniques used in physical comic books.

Today we'll hear straight from the man himself: How Quentin Tarantino wrote Pulp Fiction--how he approached his dialogue and characters, the influence of the crime genre, and the significance of non-linear storytelling to Pulp Fiction's screenplay.

Chinese filmmaker Chloe Zhao is casting her films a little differently. Today we'll examine her approach to directing actors and non-actors alike in two of her best films: The Rider and Nomadland.

Director James Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael make some great films together. And they do it without green screen and with a very important filmmaking philosophy... so let's talk about it.

Today we'll take a look at Henry Cavill's voice as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher Netflix series, and how it was influenced by Doug Cockle's voice as Geralt from The Witcher video games.

Let's check out how Rian Johnson used the techniques of Alfred Hitchcock to elevate the traditional whodunnit into a thriller-infused mystery movie for his film Knives Out.

Sound designers in movies don't get enough attention. Today, let's analyze the opening scene of A Quiet Place and see how director John Krasinski and his sound engineers use the first 10 minutes of the movie to introduce the film's sonic rules.

A look at the 1996 horror movie Scream, directed by Wes Craven.

What makes films like The Godfather and Inglourious Basterds so great? Well for one, their pacing. They know when to slow things down and let the tension in a scene build. So let's take a look at what that looks like.

How do two independent filmmakers like the Safdie Brothers, with strong street casting roots, come to cast actors like Adam Sandler and Robert Pattinson in their movies? Let's break it down.

This is my love letter to Rocky (1976), one of my favorite movies of all time. Hope you enjoy :)

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is one of those rare superhero movie sequels that surpasses an already brilliant first film. That's in huge thanks to Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and the effort it took to bring the iconic villain to life.

Tim Burton didn’t direct The Nightmare Before Christmas. So how did director Henry Selick make The Nightmare Before Christmas look and feel like a Tim Burton movie? Let's find out.