Gus Van Sant's Constant Thematic and Cinematic Elements
The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.

College student Ella is completely focused on her ambiguously romantic relationship with her dorm-mate, Chris. She is so consumed by trying to understand his behavior that she's neglecting the screenplay she is supposed to write in order to graduate. When she does sit down to work on the script, her increasingly awkward social life bleeds onto the page and her work begins to express her true feelings about her own situation.
The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.
I believe in homages, but there's a proper way to borrow a creative idea instead of making it appear as if you hit the copy and paste button. Most likely, anyone is better off simply reading the books. Or just put on Scream.
'Ganja & Hess' is a 1973 experimental horror film, written and directed by the visionary auteur Bill Gunn. It was meant to be a straightforward blaxploitation film – but director Gunn had grander ambitions.
Dead Poets Society brilliantly combines defeat and optimism, rejection and love, craziness and daring, fear and freedom.
Dead Poets Society relies on patriarchal tropes such as overbearing fathers, contrived brotherhood, and faux-individuality in order to portray its straight white male characters as oppressed.
Tran Quoc Bao succeeds in telling us a story about martial arts, human decay, and friendship. The originality shown by his filmmaking is admirable and brings fresh air to the classic Chinese martial arts genre.