After Earth Screenwriter Gary Whitta on the Script’s Evolution
Sometimes the process of making a movie is as much of a surprising journey as any adventure tale that is being told.
After Earth, for example, started as a story of a man and his son trying to survive a crash in the wilderness.
The movie's original outline called for the pair in contemporary Alaska. Will Smith, star of the movie and credited with writing the story,
Rounding up the Cast and Director of Eco-Thriller The East
In The East, Zal Batmanglij and his filmmaking partner, Brit Marling, deliver an edge-of-your-seat eco-terrorism thriller in which an undercover overachiever (Marling) infiltrates a militant anarchist eco-vigilante group (including Alexander Skarsgard and Ellen Page) that arranges “jams” against corporate evildoers. Without giving too much away, you may find yourself asking, "What's really in this prescription drug I'm about to take?"
This is the second big screen collaboration for Marling and Batmanglij (pronounced “Baht-mahn-glitch”),
Poetry From Conflict: Writer-Director Musa Syeed on his Valley of Saints
Conflict zones have a long history of providing an amply angst-ridden backdrop for cinematic romance, but in his narrative feature debut, Valley of Saints, Musa Syeed takes a surprisingly lyrical look a largely untold conflict in India’s Kashmir region, an area that Indians and Pakistanis have fought three wars over during the past century. And the one-time documentary writer-director does it by exploring the idea of protecting Kashmir’s ecological beauty as a way of restoring stability to the region.
Recreating the Past on Film, Historical Advisors Are a Director’s Lifelines
The year is 1805. Captain “Lucky Jack” Aubrey is surveying the foggy Atlantic horizon for the renegade Acheron, a Napoleonic privateer warship out to sink Aubrey and his fellow Brits into watery oblivion. As he peers through his telescope, Aubrey suddenly recoils in disbelief—the Acheron is headed straight for his ship!
But wait—what does that enemy ship look like? What color is the telescope Aubrey—or Russell Crowe in period attire—is holding?
500 Strong: The Joint Effort in Making 20th Century Fox’s Epic
How do you oversee the work of more than 500 people over the course of several years on a giant 3D animated film without losing your mind? Producer Jerry Davis of Blue Sky Studios, who helped shepherd the production of Twentieth Century Fox's Epic along with his producing partner Lori Forte, gives us the scoop.
Epic, which features characters inspired by William Joyce’s children’s book
Homegrown: How Star Trek Left the Galaxy Without Ever Leaving California
As Star Trek: Into Darkness basks in the space-age glory of an $84.1 million opening week, the blockbuster can take pride in an even more impressive accomplishment: from ever-growing Paramount Studios in Hollywood to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of Oakland, every frame of the J.J. Abrams blockbuster was shot in the state of California.
In an era when billionaire bachelor Tony Stark’s fall and rise was filmed primarily in North Carolina and James Franco’s awe-inspiring Oz was actually located in Pontiac,
Sarah Polley on her Astonishing new Documentary Stories We Tell
Once known primarily for her work as a child actress, as of late, Sarah Polley has distinguished herself as a writer and director, first, on 2006’s Away From Her, and then again with 2011’s Take This Waltz. This month marks Polley’s debut as a documentarian. In Stories We Tell, the Oscar nominee uses recollections of her late mother,
From Hot Topic to Hollywood: Costume Designer Trayce Field of 2 Broke Girls
Tonight is the season finale of 2 Broke Girls, so it’s a perfect time to get to know the woman who gives the show it’s indelible look. In a quick Q&A, costume designer Trayce Field reveals how her road to primetime success has a lot to do with Hot Topic, what she’s working on with Will Ferrell (she was the costume designer for his Casa de mi Padre),
Eli Roth on Aftershock, Learning to Love Horror, and Woody Allen
Brilliant, demented horror master Eli Roth — the Frank Sinatra of The Splat Pack — is ready to make the next round of moviegoers barf, thanks to Aftershock, a shock fest that chronicles the hell-on-earth circumstances that befall coastal Valparaiso, Chile, after an earthquake levels the town. While the film is helmed by Chilean director Nicolás López, Roth produces and stars, playing a hapless American who goes from partying and chasing girls to worrying about collapsing nightclubs and escaped prisoners.
Golden Age of Documentaries: A Q&A With Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer
Documentarian Jamie Meltzer knows how to pick his subject matter. Take his award-winning film Informant, which took home the Grand Jury Award at the DocNYC Festival as well as Best Documentary at the Austin Film Festival. Informant examines the life of Brandon Darby, a radical leftist activist turned FBI informant. Darby became a hero when he traveled to a Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a friend of his stranded in the Ninth Ward.
Iron Man Unmasked: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle & More Talk Character
There’s more to Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle’s characters than hardware as they ramp up the buddy action in Marvel’s Iron Man 3, in theaters today.
For all those high-flying, save-the-world acrobatics, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there’s a man behind the suit—Tony Stark is Iron Man. And just as Iron Man is nothing without Tony, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Marvel’s Iron Man films without actor Robert Downey Jr.,
From Soldier to Filmmaker: Q&A With The Iceman Director Ariel Vromen
How does an 'extreme' special unit Israeli Air Force soldier, law student and world-traveling DJ become a successful director working with some of the country’s biggest stars? Here’s the circuitous route Ariel Vromen took on his path from performing military maneuvers in Israel and reading dense law texts in England to getting behind the camera. Vromen faced an endless string of challenges to get his latest project, The Iceman,
Drawing Inspiration: Sketching With the Storyboard Artists of Oblivion
Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) heads down to planet Earth — or what’s left of it anyway — to find a downed surveillance drone that has landed in the charred remnants of the New York Public Library’s Rose Reading Room. It’s only when Harper hits the ground of this cavernous space that he realizes he’s entered a trap. Someone — or something — wants to capture this drone repairman alive.
Whether he’s rappelling into a forgotten old library,
Why the Experience of Seeing Movies in the Theater Will Never Get Old
It’s well past midnight at the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, yet nearly every seat in the theater is taken. There’s a palatable sense of glee in the dark room (likely aided by the cinema’s plentiful bar) as the film reaches its crux: “Run! Go! Get to da choppa!!” screams Arnold Schwarzenegger. The audience breaks into hysterics.
That’s right; we gathered here tonight not to see some newly released Blockbuster but to watch the original 1987 Predator.
Meet Amy Hunter, General Manager of AMC Loews Theater Lincoln Square 13
There might not be an institution we love more than the movie theater. The smell of fresh buttered-popcorn, the soothing glow of high quality projection, the joy of an epic two-hour cinematic journey – the movie theater, so far as we’re concerned, is the ultimate venue for entertainment. So in this latest installment of our Meet A Maker series, we’re thrilled to present theater manager, Amy Hunter.
As General Manager of New York City’s AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 –
“Playing the Palace”: A History Of Motion Picture Palaces
Today’s motion picture exhibitors treat the movie going public to the most technologically advanced presentation in the history of the medium. We take a look back to see why this has always been so.
In 1914, Mitchell Mark and his brother Moe, opened what many consider the first movie palace, the one-million dollar Mark Strand Theater in Times Square, New York City. Mitchell Mark hired Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel to manage the theater and bring in the crowds.
Scoring Giants: Mark Isham on Composing the Jackie Robinson Biopic 42
Let’s take a quick glance at some of the giants composer Mark Isham has worked with; Robert Redford, Brian De Palma, Jodi Foster, Robert Altman, and Sydney Lumet. In the music realm, his list includes; Bruce Springsteen, Willie Neslon, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison. Yet there is one legend Isham has worked for (in a very different sense) that loomed even larger when he joined director Brian Helgeland’s team to take on Warner Bros.’
Veep‘s new VIP: Veteran Actress Mimi Kennedy Takes us Behind-the-Scenes of HBO’s Comedy
Mimi Kennedy pops up on the screen in the most unexpected places, but as an actor, writer and political activist that should be no surprise. She recently played the formidable madam in a house of ill repute in ABC's Scandal, Jason Segel’s tough talking mother on the big screen in The Five-Year Engagement and the soigneé mother-in-law-to-be in Woody Allen’s all-star cast of
Company Man: A Conversation with The Company You Keep Author Neil Gordon
“During the war in Vietnam, you were either for Jane Fonda or you were for John Wayne,” says Neil Gordon. The author and professor doesn’t remember where he first heard this maxim, but it perfectly sums up his feelings about one of the most tumultuous eras in our country’s history. Though he’s firmly on Team Fonda, Gordon’s 2003 novel The Company You Keep — and the big-screen political thriller it inspired —
The Midas Touch: From Mad Men and Breaking Bad to Copper, Christina Wayne’s on a Roll
You will not meet a lot of TV executives who were once writers and directors themselves. This might go some way in explaining how Christina Wayne, now the president of Cineflix Studios, has had such a keen eye when it comes to selecting incredible (and oft-overlooked) scripts and getting them made. Wayne’s credits include not one but two game-changing shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad,
