The Kings of Summer

Dear Tyler B. Robinson, Production Designer,

Even if you end up having a long and illustrious career in Hollywood, I’ll bet good money that The Kings of Summer will forever be your calling card. Every frame feels carefully populated with joy, heartbreak, and hope. Your production design in this film isn’t just impressive – it’s moving. Like an emotional time capsule, each set piece transported me back into adolescence. Not by recreating a specific era, but by evoking an overall feeling. That’s a rare gift to get from a film.

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Man of Steel

Dear Christopher Nolan, Producer,

I barely even know where to start.

I mean, I certainly understand why DC Comics trusted you to oversee Man of Steel and the relaunch of the Superman franchise. No one’s going to argue that your Dark Knight Trilogy – which successfully walked the line between honouring the source material and presenting it with a fresh vision – isn’t loved (for the most part) by both mainstream audiences and devoted fans of the comics. And, like any influential piece of pop art, the dark, gritty style of those films became de rigueur for superhero movies looking to be taken seriously.

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The Purge

Dear Aaron Becker, Main Title Designer,

There’s something rather brilliant about the set-up for The Purge. One night a year, all crime is made legal throughout a reconstituted United States and citizens are encouraged to “purge” their inner demons. Basically, it’s a feature film treatment of George Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” from 1984. Security footage in your opening sequence introduces us to the concept, depicting acts of grainy savagery with convincing realism. Seeing these violent outbursts from across the country effectively ignites our imaginations about all the narrative possibilities that exist – that is, until the movie turns into a pretty standard home invasion thriller. 

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This is the End

Dear James Rawlings, Photo Double,

Don’t you think there’s something dangerous in the very premise of This Is The End? A special effects meta-comedy featuring young Hollywood stars playing (versions of) themselves? Doesn’t it sound kind of self-indulgent, prideful, decadent—a big inside joke that the audience will never be more than fractionally a party to? Even more worrisome: Seth Rogen co-wrote and co-directed the movie with his best pal Evan Goldberg, cast all his friends from Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, and, from start to finish, stuffed the film so full of cameos that it risks playing out like an episode of TMZ irradiated by gamma rays.

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Sarah Prefers to Run

Dear Bruno-Pierre Houle, Art Director,

I have a theory. It has to do with what makes a film worthy of playing at the Cannes Film Festival.

Obviously, films selected at Cannes always reflect a unique take on a theme or idea. The French, after all, were the first to fully embrace auteur theory, and have always been eager to worship the work of a cinematic auteur. But it’s more than that.  

I believe that all submissions to the festival are run through a computer algorithm that measures the consistency of the film’s art direction. If a rogue colour or flagrant shape invades the frame and contradicts the movie’s palette (established in the first few scenes), you can forget it. On both these fronts, Sarah Prefers to Run is worthy of being shown on the world’s most prestigious screens. Even if the film lack some of the simpler, emotional elements often craved by mainstream audiences.

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