Reels

Photo: CBS Television / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain On the morning of January 13, 1968, the gates of Folsom Prison admitted an unusual kind of visitor. Johnny Cash arrived at the California prison with a guitar, a small band and a recording crew from Columbia Records. Inside the cafeteria, hundreds of inmates took their seats … Read more

Photo: BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 On February 27, 2011, a theater full of tuxedos held its breath for a cartoon. The category was Best Animated Feature, and the favorite was a sequel about a box of plastic toys. Sequels are supposed to sell popcorn, not close out conversations about childhood itself. When … Read more

Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 On the night of February 27, 2011, Hollywood prepared to honour a film about a man who could not finish a sentence. The Kodak Theatre audience had heard the title all evening, because the film arrived carrying twelve Academy Award nominations. No other picture that year … Read more

Photo: Jürgen Fauth / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 On the night of February 24, 2008, Hollywood gathered inside the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Two films about ruthless men in empty western landscapes had dominated the entire awards season. Each production had arrived at the ceremony carrying exactly eight Academy Award nominations. One was … Read more

Photo: ManoSolo13241324 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 On the evening of September 24, 2010, the New York Film Festival opened with a film about a website. The choice sounded like a joke Hollywood might play on itself during a nervous autumn. Facebook was barely six years old, and half a billion people already used … Read more

Photo: Tom Ackroyd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 On the first day of December 2003, the capital of New Zealand surrendered itself to a story. Wellington had spent six years turning itself into Middle-earth, one workshop, one hillside, one extra at a time. Now the third and final film was coming home to the … Read more

Photo: Sgt. Michael Connors, 302nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain On the night of March 7, 2010, the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles went quiet over an unopened envelope. Inside it lay the name of the year’s best director, and perhaps the end of an eighty-two-year story. The favorite that night … Read more

Pete Docter in Cannes in 2015, six years after Up premiered at the festival.Photo: Georges Biard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 On the evening of May 13, 2009, the grand auditorium of the Cannes festival settled into darkness. Outside the Palais, the red carpet had welcomed tuxedos, gowns and the cameras of the whole … Read more

Photo: HarshLight / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 On the night of June 28, 2003, Disneyland closed its gates and rolled out an unlikely red carpet. The carpet wound through New Orleans Square, past the entrance of a gentle boat ride from 1967. Beyond it, workers had raised a giant screen above the Rivers of … Read more

Photo: Montclair Film / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 On the last Saturday of August 2008, a borrowed projector lit a small screening room in the Colorado mountains. Telluride is a festival that hides its programme until the very morning the films unspool. By most accounts, this particular screening had been added late, almost as … Read more