Many argue this is the best Christmas Carol. How will it fare in the Christmas Carol gauntlet?

A Christmas Carol comes to TV, accompanied by Vincent Price.

In which Reginald Owen plays the holliest, jolliest Scrooge of them all.

Sound comes to A Christmas Carol, as do the loosest interpretations of the spirits ever put to film.

An introduction to the Christmas Carol Advent Calendar™️ and a look at what happens when A Christmas Carol tries silence.

The following is based on behind-the-scenes interviews, production documentaries, production notes, marketing materials and even one or two private conversations.

From 1981 to 2023, Michael Mann only made 12 feature films, with the gap between each film widening. However, over these three decades, Mann’s name has been attached to a myriad of fascinating projects. The range of these projects is startling - anywhere from a contemporary media mogul drama to a medieval archer story and everything in between. Below is a list of these projects with brief details, including when they were announced and if any news followed their announcements. There are likely even more films than mentioned here, and one can hope we, as an audience, get to see some of these one day.

To celebrate the release of a new Australian outback thriller THE ROYAL HOTEL, I talk with writer/director Kitty Green about the differences between narrative and documentary cinema, the balance of time and style, Julia Garner choosing her own own love interest, and so much more.

To celebrate the roadshow release of a new Australian Neo-Noir ("Yeah Noir") SLANT, I talk with writer/star Michael Nikou, director James Vinson, producer Monique Fisher and the icon Sigrid Thornton about shooting chronologically, being "in for a penny, in for a pound" making an independent original film and so much more.

To celebrate the release of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, I speak with one of my favourite filmmakers, the Oscar-winning writer and storytelling laureate Christopher McQuarrie about casting Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis, bringing back Henry Czerny, and the 'fiat that ate Rome'.

An audio essay on Reign of Fire written and read by Maria Lewis, produced and edited by Blake Howard.

To celebrate the release of his latest "starkly atmospheric outback noir" LIMBO, I talk with writer/director Ivan Sen (Mystery Road, Goldstone, Beneath Clouds) about his obsession with the Australian justice system, inspiring Simon Baker's career-best performance, drafting GOLDSTONE as the best Australian film of the 21st Century, his love of Peter Weir and the possibility of the third MYSTERY ROAD sequel gracing our cinema screens.

After the very public failure of his 2003 film Gigli, Martin Brest disappeared from the public eye. An exhaustive 2014 Playboy article by Matt Patches attempted to track him down with limited results. Then, several years later, Brest miraculously and unexpectedly appeared for an in-person Q&A with Paul Thomas Anderson to discuss Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run in July 2021. Their friendly, banter conversation didn’t touch on Brest’s disappearance, save a throwaway joke by Anderson about how long people have to wait for a new Martin Brest film (akin to the wait people had to endure for a new Stanley Kubrick movie). However, that may now actually be a possibility. 

An audio essay on Albert Pyun’s Mean Guns written and read by Brandon Streussnig, produced and edited by Blake Howard.

Between Art and Life: An audio essay on Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans written and read by Ethan Warren, produced and edited by Blake Howard.

 Michael Mann is clearly a ‘new Hollywood’ filmmaker dislocated from his period of origination. Thoret best describes the ‘brand’ of Mann’s work when he writes: “Mann’s artistic project… [charts] the effects of this era, tracing its origins and testing some of its hypotheses.” [xv] The films of Michael Mann study the effects of ‘new Hollywood’ from its immediate end after Raging Bull to the present, primarily rendered through the frame of masculinity.

Mann’s casting in Heat allows Pacino and de Niro’s portrayals to incorporate the same morally ambivalent and politically ambiguous archetypes formulated during the 1970s because the actors’ previous work permeates and influences their portrayals – without being explicit in either execution or effect in their multi-levelled performance. The role histories of these actors epitomise ‘new Hollywood’ as they were the pioneers of a new generation of actors that were cast because of their lack of established studio/role history.

The Insider is evidence that Mann’s cinema is marked by a formal and cultural ‘tense’ linked to his historical heritage. In the watershed article ‘La politique des auteurs’, Bazin writes: “Jacques Rivette has said that an auteur speaks in the first person. It’s a good definition; let’s adopt it.”[iii] Mann’s film language speaks in the ‘past tense’ about Mann’s biography.

“Guns Akimbo” is now irrevocably the film that’s both about and embroiled in a painful online saga with offline consequences.

I can't fathom a world that "The Beach Bum" exists where it wasn't some instant cult classic.