Making History: Selma Casting Director Aisha Coley
By now we all know that actor David Oyelowo didn’t get nominated for his utterly captivating performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s Selma. Nor did DuVernay get the nod for director. The film, however, was nominated for Best Picture, and there’s zero doubt that Oyelowo and DuVernay could and likely should have been nominated. Yet neither one of them, nor any of the members of the cast or crew, worked on this film for the awards...
Slamdance 2015: Gabrielle Demeestere on Adapting James Franco’s Yosemite
Last night Slamdance Film Festival’s closing night selection was Yosemite, adapted and directed by Gabrielle Demeestere from three of James Franco’s short stories, earning her a female directing grant from the festival for her fantastic first effort. Yosemite is structured as a triptych, following the thread of three 5th graders, Chris, Joe and Ted, who all live in Palo Alto, a picturesque Californian suburb that Demeestere infuses with dread. In the opening section, Chris stumbles upon a fire while camping with his dad (Franco) and younger brother in Yosemite,...
Project Almanac Shoots Found Footage With Cinematographer Matthew Lloyd
As director Dean Israelite spun Matthew Lloyd a tale about kids creating a time machine, showing him detailed storyboard panels with picture of teens with a secret tools that looks liked a dark graphic novel, Lloyd made a decision. He would be the cinematographer for the Paramount feature Project Almanac.
The next challenge was figure out how to make the film’s found footage style work. The duo decided to split the difference, combining the jittery style of found footage with traditionally shot footage to “engage the viewers in the reality,”...
Sundance 2015: Talking With The Royal Road Director Jenni Olson
One of the world’s leading experts on LGBT cinema and long a force in the independent film world, Jenni Olson is also a respected filmmaker whose latest, The Royal Road, earned critical acclaim when it played to enthusiastic audiences at its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
The Royal Road is a personal, poetic film essay marked by empty urban land-and cityscapes of San Francisco and Los Angeles, against Olson’s voiceover narration...
Julianne Moore, Co-Director Wash Westmoreland & Cast Discuss Still Alice
In Still Alice, Julianne Moore plays a linguistics professor who is shockingly diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's disease. With her family (husband Alec Baldwin and grown children Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish) by her side, she tries to deal with the debilitating and horrifying disease — saying at one point that she even wished she had cancer instead. Based on the novel by Lisa Genova, Alice has won critical praise, and most recently,...
Sundance 2015: The Horizon Award Reception for 20-year-old Verónica Ortiz-Calderón
Park City, Utah – Twenty-year-old Syracuse University Student Verónica Ortiz-Calderón was awarded the inaugural Horizon Award last night for her short film Y Ya No Te Gustas (And You Don’t Like Yourself Anymore), at a reception held at Sundance House.
Ortiz-Calderón’s thoughtful, arresting debut, which was selected from more than 400 submissions from up-and-coming female filmmakers, premiered to a room full of film industry heavyweights. Accepting the award, and a $10,000 scholarship check from Sharon Waxman,...
Sundance 2015: Talking to Cassian Elwes, Co-Producer of Inaugural Horizon Awards
The Sundance Film Festival has made a few recent announcements that speak to a fresh commitment to help spread some of the festival’s opportunities around. The first was a new tool to help lesser-known filmmakers get their work seen by using a new service, Quiver Digital. As reported by Mashable, Quiver Digital is a distribution dashboard that allows users to push their films to Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Google Play and Sony Entertainment Network, simultaneously and all in one place...
Legendary Casting Director Bonnie Timmerman On Blackhat & More
To say that Casting Director Bonnie Timmermann’s influence on the movie business over the last 40 years has been enormous is no understatement. George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Ben Stiller, Sandra Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, Diane Lane, Jennifer Connelly, Jessica Alba, Jim Carrey, and Halle Berry are just a few of the now superstar actors discovered by Timmermann as they were starting their careers. Responsible for casting the likes of Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Christopher Walken in early theater roles in the 1970s at NYC’s Phoenix Repertory Company,...
7 Great Filmmakers On Their Craft
This week we’ve been sharing Movies OnDemand’s video interviews with some of this year’s Oscar nominees on their craft. In parts I, II and III, we've heard what artists such as Alejandro G. Iñárritu, J.K. Simmons, Felicity Jones, Keira Knightley, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, and Bennett Miller have had to say about their craft.
It’s the case every single year, however, that films and filmmakers get left off the nominee list that could have easily been selected...
Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation – Part III
We’ve heard from nominees like directors Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Bennett Miller and actors Felicity Jones and J.K. Simmons, all discussing their preparation for tackling their subjects. Movies OnDemand put together these fantastic (and very brief) video interviews not just with the nominees, but with many of the serious contenders this year, including director Jon Stewart (Rosewater), composer Atticus Ross (Gone Girl) and actress Katherine Waterson (Inherent Vice)...
Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation – Part II
Last week we shared videos of the insights of but a few of the incredibly talented ‘The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ acting nominees, created by Movies OnDemand. Today we flip to those behind the camera. 2015 Oscar nominated directors Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman, discuss their their approach on bringing their vision to the screen.
Miller and Iñárritu couldn’t have delivered two more disparate films than Foxcatcher and Birdman,...
Short Stuff: Animation and Live Action Oscar Nominees
One of the delicious joys of Oscar season — beyond dissecting the nominations and speculating on who will win, of course — is the opportunity to catch up on the short form nominees all in one sitting. This year marks the tenth anniversary that the shorts in each category — animation, live action, and documentary — will each be grouped together and have their own theatrical release courtesy of ShortsHD.
There’s nothing like watching the films together to get a sense of perspective and better understand the filmmakers’...
Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation
With the 2015 awards season in full swing, yesterday was a big day for creators and makers, both in front of and behind the camera. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominees for the 2015 Oscars – to be held on February 22nd.
It has been an amazing year in film, with some of the truly finest cinematic offerings ever. ‘Movies OnDemand’ sat down with a number of this year’s nominees to discuss how they got ready for their roles,...
Playing Politics With Red Army Documentary Director Gabe Polsky
On the surface, Gabe Polsky’s superb new documentary is about the legendary Red Army hockey team, one of the most dominant collection of athletes ever assembled — in any sport. At the height of the Cold War, in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, the team swept away opponents with ease. They won eight world championships and three Olympic gold medals, in 1976, 1984, and 1988. Only the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. team denied them a complete sweep.
The team’s style was unique,...
Novel Approach: 5 Films Based on Books Premiering at Sundance
Who will break out big at Sundance this year? Which film, which director, which star will get the major viral boost from word of mouth or jury prize?
The 2014 iteration of the Park City, Utah, festival opens on January 22. As usual, there is an abundance of riches to consider beyond the big screen. There are the excellent panel discussions, for instance, which this year features a first-ever appearance by director George Lucas. The Star Wars legend will sit in with the Sundance man himself,...
A Q&A with James Dever, Military Advisor on American Sniper
James Dever was just following orders. In 1986, Clint Eastwood arrived at Camp Pendleton, the Southern California Marine Corps base, to direct, and star in, Heartbreak Ridge. Dever, a gunnery sergeant with more than 13 years in the Corps under his belt at the time, was assigned by his Colonel to work with Eastwood — whose character, Thomas Highway, is also a gunnery sergeant.
The experience proved intoxicating. “I said to myself, this is something I want to do when I retire form the Corps,”...
Women on the Big Screen: Eight Movies to Watch for in 2015 (Including Tina & Amy)
So we bid adieu to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as perhaps the most charming, witty Golden Globe hosts of all time. The longtime friends and charismatic collaborators finished their three-year run last at last night’s 72nd annual Golden Globes ceremony just as they began it: sharp, topical, irreverent, and so comfortable together on stage they make everyone else comfortable (even those at the butt of their jokes). It was a great run, and hats off to the Hollywood Foreign Press for knowing a good thing when they had it,...
A Glimpse at the 72nd Annual Golden Globes
The 72nd Annual Golden Globes air this Sunday night at 8 pm EST, with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returning for a third consecutive time. You know these two are going to keep it fresh.
Let’s take a look at a few of the nominees and see what we know going in.
Best Motion Picture, Drama
On the one hand, you have Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, one of the singular achievements in modern filmmaking...
Taken 3 & Liam Neeson’s Long History of Bringing the Pain
Poor Bryan Mills. He's had a rough couple of years. This CIA operative had put in his time for his country and just wanted to enjoy his retirement. The Sunday paper. Slippers. Maybe a little light gardening. But then, his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) gets Taken (2008) in France. So that was bad. But then it got worse; she was taken by human sex traffickers. Oof. The thing is, if these monsters had made a list of all the people whose daughter it would be inadvisable to kidnap,...
Invisibly Invaluable: Birdman Editors Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione – PART II
Yesterday we posted Part I of our interview with Birdman editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise. As you know by now, Birdman was shot in a such an ingenious way that it made you feel like you were watching a single, 119-minute continuous shot. Watch it and try to find a single cut, a single break in the action or a clear transition that would alert you to the work of an editor. But there were editors,...
