"There you are. Sitting there, calm in your knowledge of health, secure in your well-being. Yet who could suffer the agonies of the damned tomorrow? Yes, even today. Or maybe the next hour, the next minute. And if we were to know which of you it was, what an awful sight it would be. A soul, doomed to the everlasting bottomless pit of a divine wrath! Yes, death comes unexpectedly!"

Each year, as the seemingly-endless award season gets underway, I tell myself "THIS is the year Roger Deakins will win a little gold statue for Best Cinematography; this is finally the year." And then, each year, I am disappointed (sometimes bitterly so). This year, the suspense was short-lived. Deakins wasn't even nominated. So I'm keeping myself busy by watching this mash-up of the nominees.

I enjoyed Zach Snyder's interminably long-titled Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice more than most, but even if that were not the case, I'd still love this "Behind the Scenes/Pulling Back the Curtain" video because I'm a huge sucker for this kind of stuff.

"Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is to photograph the people's eyes."

"That is the official version of what happened to the Maltese Falcon. But it is just one chapter in a complex tale. It turns out there is another, far stranger version, and another Falcon, several more in fact."

When I saw the film some years back, I simply could not separate the fictional character from Wayne himself. Watching the legendary star so close to the end (and such a shadow of his former, iconic self) was hard for me; it felt like a dirge, not a film. And my sadness at watching Wayne "go out" was the only emotion I could remember in the years since, so I've been exceedingly disinclined to return to it any time soon/ever.

I watched the latest Marvel extravaganza for the first time (with the Elder Three Sons) on Sunday, and while it wasn't my cup of tea, I did find one thing that was in my wheelhouse: the end credits.

Anything saying that film titles are an important part of the creative process/setting the cinematic scene is exceedingly likely to grab my attention. And if it also says (essentially) that "Saul Bass Is King?" Even more than exceedingly likely. (My only criticism? Too short; not enough detail. Luckily, we'll always have ArtOfTheTitle.com.)