Francis Ford Coppola on the Importance of Theme »

When you make a movie, always try to discover what the theme of the movie is in one or two words. Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In “The Godfather,” it was succession. In “The Conversation,” it was privacy. In “Apocalypse,” it was morality.The reason it’s important to have this is because most of the time what a director really does is make decisions. All day long: Do you want it to be long hair or short hair? Do you want a dress or pants? Do you want a beard or no beard? There are many times when you don’t know the answer. Knowing what the theme is always helps you.

I remember in “The Conversation,” they brought all these coats to me, and they said: Do you want him to look like a detective, Humphrey Bogart? Do you want him to look like a blah blah blah. I didn’t know, and said the theme is ‘privacy’ and chose the plastic coat you could see through. So knowing the theme helps you make a decision when you’re not sure which way to go.

Lego Release an Upscaled Version of the Original Galaxy Explorer »

Spaceship!!

Meet Mavis: A Powerful, Patchable, Analog Synth | Moog »

Moog have launched a really cheap (well, for Moog), build-it-yourself, semi-modular analog synth and the reviews have been pretty great so far.

robinsloan > The lost thread »

Many peo­ple don’t want to [quit Twitter] because they worry: with­out my Twitter account, who will lis­ten to me? In what way will I matter to the world beyond my apartment, my office, my family? I believe these hes­i­ta­tions reveal some­thing totally unre­lated to Twit­ter. I don’t have words for it, exactly, but if you find yourself fret­ting in this way, I will gen­tly sug­gest that it’s worth quest­ing a bit inside your­self to dis­cover what you’re really worried about.

Pronounce GIF · The Correct Way, Without Question »

Simply stated, the proper pronunciation of the acronym GIF is with a ‘soft g’ sound. As in, ”it is a gigantic waste of your time to try and debate me on this, because I’ve worked out all the angles.”

Hypercritical: An Unsolicited Streaming App Spec »

Forwarding this to the RTE Player team.

Joel Coen's "The Tragedy of Macbeth", Reviewed by Ethan Coen »

In the interest of full disclosure, my editor has requested that I mention that I was Mr. Coen’s writing partner, producer, and creative collaborator on the aforementioned 18 films. I am also his brother. We parted ways prior to Macbeth in a split that the press described as completely amicable. Despite my prior association with Mr. Coen, I feel that I am entirely capable of reviewing his work in a fair and objective way.

Macbeth is Joel Coen’s shittiest movie by several billion light years.

How we made: Billy Bragg’s A New England | Billy Bragg | The Guardian »

By 1980, Margaret Thatcher had been elected, the band had broken up and punk had dissipated into synthesiser groups, so A New England was my way of saying that I needed a hug as well as a new ideology.

Me too, Billy. Me too.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines | Netflix Awards »

I love a good artbook and Netflix have uploaded the artbook for The Mitchells vs the Machines. The film is great and the artbook is lovely.

Modern for Wikipedia »

A handy browser extension to re-skin Wikipedia to make it a bit more modern. Has some nice customization options.