SDCC 2018: Location Managers Discuss How They Find the Perfect Spot to Film
They found Jumanji in Hawaii, Skull Island in Vietnam, Hogwarts in England, and Wakanda in South Africa. The script calls for a 1970’s gas station or a Jane Austen-era house of an earl or the topography of another planet? Location scouts are the visual artists and logistical wizards who find the places that you see on the screen and oversee all of the details to make sure the crew has what they need and that,
Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is the Most Heartfelt Horror Film Ever Made
The story of Macbeth is certainly no stranger to adaptation. In fact, the Scottish play belongs to an impressive tradition of auteurist variation, including Orson Welles’ notoriously troubled 1948 production, Roman Polanski’s 1971 film and Kurosawa’s well-loved in 1957.
Any Shakespearean adaptation carries with it piles of textual and philosophical baggage, requiring not only a new spin on a well-worn story but a justification for a new iteration.
Third Annual Middleburg Film Festival Draws Deep Roster of Talent
In it's third year, the Middleburg Film Festival is becoming a vibrant late festival season stop for filmmakers and film enthusiasts alike. Middleburg is in Virginia's horse country, and its beauty can hardly be improved upon in late October, but as much as a draw as the setting is, the festival itself, created by BET co-founder and Sundance Institute member Sheila Johnson and ably directed by Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Susan Koch, is drawing people for it's discerning slate and roster of talent.
Ice Age & Rio Director Carlos Saldanha Shares Wisdom at Tokyo International Film Festival
Renowned film director Carlos Saldanha (Ice Age, Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, RIO, RIO 2) passed on his passion and process to the next generation filmmakers.
Showrunners From Power, Veep, Louie & More at NYTF’s Creative Keynote Panel
Last night at the New York Television Festival creative keynote panel "Running the Show: A Big Picture Conversation on Creating for the Small Screen," Power showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh expressed her frustration with gender politics in the entertainment industry.
“I’d like for it not to be a thing when there are a bunch of women showrunners,“ she said. “And also not for it to be pointed out all the time,
NYFF: In Where to Invade Next Michael Moore Picks Flowers, Not Weeds
After a six year hiatus, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is back with a kind of travel journal – Where to Invade Next. Moore’s mission was to find the best ideas from each country he visited, claim them as his own, and bring them home to America to help solve some of our biggest problems. The film is not about pointing finger or placing certain nations on a pedestal – its purpose is to serve as idea factory and catalyst for change.
NYFF: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet & More Talk Steve Jobs
Last Saturday we attended the New York Film Festival’s (NYFF) powerful panel discussion on and screening of Steve Job in anticipation of the film’s wide release on October 23. Earlier today, as part of our coverage of the Festival, we focused on the insights of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, director Danny Boyle and author Walter Isaacson.
Today we are turning to the actors – their thoughts in their words.
Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin & Walter Isaacson Talk Steve Jobs at NYFF
This past weekend we attended a panel discussion of Steve Jobs at the 53rd New York Film Festival (NYFF). Steve Jobs, like The Social Network (about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), is a masterfully crafted story of one of the most influential men of the last fifty years. The film, directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, written by Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote the The
Female Directors Shone at the Toronto International Film Festival
One of the surprises and highlights of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was the number of films about women and the number directed by women. Sure, most were small indies. But in an industry where only 1.9 percent of the 100 top-grossing fictional films distributed in the United States from 2007 to 2014 were directed by women, according to a report released in August by the University of Southern California, the news at TIFF was encouraging.
The Martian, Spotlight, Sicario, & Room Wow at TIFF
The Toronto International Film Festival is celebrating its 40th year with one of its most diverse and adventurous programming slates, from blockbusters to high-prestige, likely awards contenders to small films from directors from all parts of the globe.
Generating early buzz among the much-anticipated Hollywood films was The Martian, Ridley Scott’s adventure in space that had its world premiere at TIFF. Starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars while a dedicated ground crew (played by a cast including Jessica Chastain,
Comic-Con 2015: Suicide Squad‘s Bad Girls & Guys Wow Crowd
"Oh, I'm not gonna kill you," says Jared Leto's joker, whose wears less makeup and more bling in his teeth than Heath Ledger did in his iconic performance in the role in 2008's The Dark Knight. "I'm just gonna hurt you really, really bad." After watching the first look at David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, we're pretty sure Warner Bros. won't be hurting when they release this film in a little over a year.
Comic-Con 2015: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Director Burr Steers
Director Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down, 17 Again) said in an interview that his new film, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is about "the most repressed society you possibly could imagine and then bringing in the element of these agents of malicious chaos to bear. More so than early 1960’s America, where you had [George] Romero’s monsters as metaphors in those movies, challenging white hegemony. This culture is even more uptight.
Comic-Con 2015: The Stars of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Matt Smith and Jack Huston have a bit of a bro-mance going on. The eleventh Dr. Who and the Boardwalk Empire star play very different characters in the upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies but they both fail to gain the heart of Elizabeth Bennett (played by Cinderella star Lily James) and in an interview they joked that the main reason they made the film was the chance to work together.
Comic-Con 2015: Art Directors From Fantastic Four, Batman v. Superman, Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys & More
Before the sets are designed and the stunts are mapped out, before the costumes are created and sometimes even before there is a script, there are the illustrators of the Art Directors Guild, who come in at the very beginning to literally sketch out what the movie will look like. Their panel’s title referred to them as the “hidden gems” of film and television. Illustrators from superhero and fantasy films talked about how they got started and how they work.
Comic-Con 2015: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Panel
There were a ton of major moments for film and TV fans at Comic-Con, but it's inarguable which panel was the most hotly anticipated. So fans got to properly freak out in Hall H when Star Wars:The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, producer and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and writer Lawrence Kasdan sat down to dish some dirt on the film, bringing the cast up on stage—Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson,
Supergirl, Teachers, Impastor & More: TV Takes the Stage at Comic-Con
San Diego Comic-Con long ago transcended its origins as a couple of hundred fans swapping comic books and now covers every kind of entertainment. This is where content creators can reach the kind of passionate fans who don’t wait for anyone else to tell them what’s cool and love to spread the word about new movies, games, and TV shows. I always describe it as the Iowa Caucuses of pop culture.
So when TV Land wants to reboot its image as a place to find the series you watched as a kid and be seen as a place to go for contemporary and very NSFW new comedies,
Where to Watch Great Films Outdoors Around the Country
It is going to be a beautiful late spring/summer week. We can’t think of a more amazing way to enjoy the intersection of art and astronomy than by watching a film under the stars. Many cities and towns have wonderful outdoor movie programs (many of which are free). For example, if you were in NYC last Friday, you could have taken the family to see Space Jam at Frederick B Judge Playground in Queens.
Made in Louisiana: On Set With the Crew of NCIS: New Orleans
On a warm March day, we took a drive outside of New Orleans to Harahan, Louisiana, and found ourselves, improbably, back in New Orleans. We were standing in a courtyard off of St. Ann street between Bourbon and Royal. Directly in front of us was a large kitchen, and beyond that a high-tech command center where serious investigative work is routinely conducted. But out in the courtyard, we were marveling at the weather-beaten air conditioner, a fountain overflowing with plants,
4 Lessons About the Future of Horror From the Stanley Film Fest
Blood splatters the help, clouds roll over the mountains, zombie baby dolls hang from lamp posts, and the Stanley Hotel glows red at night during the Stanley Film Fest, a horror film festival that just wrapped this past Sunday, May 3. Horror genre icons, amateur filmmakers, legendary producers and Hollywood stars mingled in Estes Park, Colorado over a weekend of shorts and feature films haunted by the horror legacy of Stephen King’s The Shining.
From Robert Mugabe to Ray Liotta – That’s a Wrap at the Tribeca Film Festival
New York took center stage in the opening and closing films of the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival, however the winning films rounded things out with stories from much further afield.
The Saturday Night Live documentary Live From New York! kicked off the proceedings, demonstrating how the landmark comedy show has both responded to the times and occasionally had a hand in shaping them over the 40 years it’s been on air.