The Imitation Game’s Production Designer Maria Djurkovich – Part II
Yesterday we published Part I of our conversation with production designer Maria Djurkovich, whose work on The Imitation Game would have made its’ genius subject, Alan Turing, proud. Benedict Cumberbatch's phenomenal turn as Turing has understandably garnered much of the press, but if you were to look closely at every frame of the film (and, preferably, be able to pause it), you would begin to see how Djurkovich put in a superstar performance herself, planting her own codes all over the screen...
The Imitation Game‘s Production Designer Maria Djurkovic – Part I
All the buzz for The Imitation Game is surrounding the phenomenal performance of Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Alan Turing, the mathematician and logistician who, along with a team of linguists, chess players and logicians helped break Germany’s Enigma code during World War II. Turing was a genius, and a difficult, unusual man, and Cumberbatch’s performance is indeed a marvel, bringing this still relatively unknown enigma (to American audiences) to vivid life. He needs no help from us to applaud his performance,...
Our Counter-Programming Watch List for Thanksgiving
With the launch of Where to Watch, it’s now considerably easier to find and watch your favorite films and TV shows. The holidays are usually a pretty excellent excuse to spend time with your family by all sitting silently in a dark room watching a movie.
Since the Interent became a thing and then a much bigger thing, and now a sort of all-encompassing and inescapable thing, the holidays also mean holiday watch lists. Nearly every online outlet is now providing you with some kind of Thanksgiving watch list,...
Ridley Scott’s 10 Commandments Making Exodus: Gods and Kings Part II
Yesterday we published part I of "Ridley Scott's 10 Commandments Making Exodus: Gods and Kings," looking at how the director and his team of hundreds of talented filmmakers managed to film God's wrath realistically, on location, and without losing the very human story at the Biblical epic's core. Here, then, is Part II, beginning with Scott's 6th commandment:
6. Thou Shalt Wear Tunics, lots and lots of Tunics.
Ridley Scott turned to his longtime ...
Ridley Scott’s 10 Commandments Making Exodus: Gods and Kings Part I
This holiday movie season brings us Hollywood’s next—and arguably biggest—Biblical blockbuster to date: Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. Out December 12th, Scott’s rendition of the Old Testament tale chronicles the story of Moses (Christian Bale) as he leads the Hebrews to freedom in a revolution against his pseudo-brother, the vengeful Rameses (Joel Edgerton). With the help of screenwriters Steve Zallian, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, Scott brought a film as grandiose in scale as the ancient Egyptian era itself,...
Remembering a Giant: A Mike Nichols Watch List
The passing of Mike Nichols on Wednesday, at the age of 83, brings to an end one of the most successful careers in the entertainment business, period. One of the few people to have won an Oscar, Tony, Emmy and a Grammy, Nichols excelled on the big screen, small screen and on the stage for more than fifty-years. He was 80 when he accepted the Tony for directing the astonishing revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in 2012,...
A Woman Goes Into the Wild
In the search for more female lead roles in Hollywood, Reese Witherspoon provides a guide map of how to do it—all while garnering Oscar buzz. In Wild, director Jean-Marc Vallée and Academy Award nominated screenwriter Nick Hornby bring the true-life story of Cheryl Strayed’s 1,100 mile hike (in truth, it was more than double that with all the switch-backs) along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) to through a raw performance by Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon. The film,...
Music for the Mind: Composer Alexandre Desplat on The Imitation Game
Composer Alexandre Desplat has been nominated for six Academy Awards, starting with his work on The Queen in 2006. He bookended his take on the music beneath royal narratives with his nomination for The King’s Speech in 2010. He’s also the man behind the score for franchise blockbusters (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, The Twilight Saga: New Moon), international sagas (Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, for which he earned his sixth Oscar nom in 2012) and some forty-plus other films in his long,...
Ava DuVernay’s Selma set to Stun Audiences on Christmas Day
Three major films about three tumultuous periods of American history will hit select theaters on Christmas Day. That two of the three films are directed by women is something to be excited about, and that one of those women is a woman of color, and that her film is covers one of the most crucial three months in American history, marks this single day as one of the most significant of the entire year in film.
You've no doubt heard about Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken (covering the story of Olympian and American soldier Louis Zamperini’s imprisonment by the Japanese during World War II),...
Prepping You for Mockingjay – Part I
When it's all said and done, Francis Lawrence will have directed three of the four films in the Hunger Games franchise. His task for the final two was not easy. As the filmmakers did with Harry Potter’s final book, Suzanne Collins’ third and final book has been split into two films.
In the event that you have not been keeping up with news in Panem—the future America in which the Hunger Games films take place—several of the districts are now in a full-blown revolt as a result of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence,...
Director Michelle MacLaren’s a Wonder Woman
It’s time to get excited about a comic-book movie that’s not directed by Christopher Nolan or Joss Whedon, that doesn’t star or co-star or have a cameo by Robert Downey Jr., and that's not centered on a brooding dude, or a rich, conflicted dude, or a bunch of dudes with various powers. We're talking about a film that’s poised to make a household name of not one woman but two. Your excitement will be warranted, as it looks increasingly likely that the prolific,...
Top Flight Stunt & Effects Team Jacks Up Horrible Bosses 2
Horrible Bosses 2 is both a comedy and an action movie; its' protagonists spectacularly idiotic schemes lead to all manner of mayhem. The first Horrible Bosses, bowing in 2011, was a hit, follwing a rich cinematic tradition of pitting hopelessly maligned employees against their superiors. Some of the more memorable horrible bosses in film history include Meryl Streep's humiliator-in-chief Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Gary Cole's all to real turn as supervisor Bill Lumbergh in Office Space, ...
Welcome to Where To Watch: Your Favorite Films & TV Shows All in One Place
Finding your favorite films and TV shows legally and quickly online has always involved searching and sifting. There are more than 100 platforms that legally stream content now, but there's never been a single source to help you find them, and, find out what movies and shows they're offering. Simply searching for “Inside Llewyn Davis legal streaming” brings up RottenTomatoes.com (which then directs you elsewhere), Amazon, some illegal service (negating the “legal” in your original search to begin with),...
At Long Last Filmgoers Will Head Into the Woods
Into the Woods began its life as a musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, debuting on Broadway on November 5, 1987 at the Martin Beck Theater. Former New York Times' theater critic Frank Rich (later an Op-Ed writer, now an editor-at-large at New York Magazine) wrote in his review, "The characters of ''Into the Woods" may be figures from children's literature, but their journey is the same painful, existential one taken by so many adults in Sondheim musicals past."...
Disney Animation Pushes the Boundaries of Technology With Big Hero 6
Fighting an evil villain and saving the day are probably not very high on an average teenager’s daily to-do list. But for robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, star of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ animated feature Big Hero 6, those tasks just happen to pop up on a typical weekday. With the film opening in domestic theaters this past Friday, audiences are now joining the mini mastermind and his inflatable robot sidekick, Baymax, on an action-packed adventure as they get entangled in a dangerous plot unfolding in the bustling,...
Beyond Interstellar: 12 Films to Put On Your Calendar
After months and months of speculation that Christopher Nolan alone seems able to create around his films, the general public will get a chance to weigh in on his most passionate project yet, Interstellar. You’ve already heard about Interstellar. Everyone has. What we thought we’d do is give you a quick cheat sheet on some upcoming films, leading you right to Christmas day.
November 14
It’ll be a very strong week for serious film,...
Harsh Conditions Bring out the Best in The Homesman‘s Crew
When we interviewed Marco Beltrami, he was particularly jazzed up about the work he did for Tommy Lee Jones’ upcoming film The Homesman. Beltrami is the type of composer who seeks out directors (as he did with Joon-ho Bong for Snowpiercer) and he was excited about Jones’ second directorial effort. The film’s set in the punishing Nebraska frontier in the middle of the 19th century. This inspired Beltrami to record a lot of his score outdoors,...
From Scream to Snowpiercer: Composer Marco Beltrami
At the age of 30, composer Marco Beltrami was the composer on a little film by horror master Wes Craven called Scream. It was 1996, and it was the first horror film he had ever worked on. It was also the first horror film he had ever seen.
This might explain why his approach to the score didn't follow the typical conventions of horror, and might go some way to explaining how he's built his impressive career on his thoughtful, searching approach to a film without worrying about its'...
Three-time Academy Award Winning Costume Designer Colleen Atwood Talks Shop
Colleen Atwood is one of the most prolific costume designers of her generation. She has never gone more than four years without a Oscar nomination, beginning with her work on Little Women in 1994 and leading up to her nomination for Snow White and the Huntsman in 2012. Atwood is responsible for one of the most iconic pieces of a costume in film history (more on this later), and has had her hand in some of Tim Burton’s greatest creations...
Sundance East? Middleburg Film Festival’s Second Year A Success
In 1974, the little town of Telluride, Colorado was the location for what would become one of the most influential film festivals in North America. At the time, Telluride was a highly unlikely a candidate to become a place where filmmakers and dealmakers would gather and careers would be made. As Salman Rushdie explained in his essay on the festival some thirteen years ago for The Guardian, the town was originally named “To Hell You Ride” by 19th century silver miners who “tobogganed down the mountains to what was then a wild place,” it was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed their first bank and was,...
