American Beauty was Sam Mendes's directorial debut (on film), which is just gut-punchingly impressive. He was a seasoned stage director before breaking into films, but it's pretty amazing to win an...

If you've watched Six Feet Under, you know that screenwriter Alan Ball is a master of black comedy and infusing drama with humor. You can definitely see those qualities at play in his screenplay fo...

The Jinks/Cohen Company actually started when Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen teamed up to produce American Beauty. They went on to work on other projects that earned critical praise, including Milk and...

A View From AboveThe movie begins with a bird's-eye view of the Burnhams' town and street, so we get the sense at the beginning that we're going to get a pretty wide perspective on all the characte...

Thomas Newman's score is just as quirky and distinctive as the movie itself—and it does not hang out in the background of the movie, like lot of film scores do. With a whole jumble of unexpected...