Cleveland’s Flexibility Gives Captain America its Punch
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) spend some time at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, the massive flying aircraft carrier where this crucial agency at the heart of the Marvel Comics Universe deals with the paranormal and superhuman threats to America. This time they're dealing with a foe potentially more powerful than the Captain—the eponymous Winter Soldier.
When directors Anthony and Joe Russo were scouting for a location that could serve as the grand lobby of this flying strategic command center,
Missing 87-Year old John Ford Film Upstream Found, Screened With Live Score
This past Monday, composer Michael Mortilla and Nicole Garcia brought a slew of instruments (a piano, violin, kazoo, handbell, even a bag filled with aluminum cans) and performed a live score accompanying a screening of the 1927 John Ford film Upstream. “My basic role is to provide a soundtrack for a film that never had a soundtrack,” Mortilla says. He and Garcia performed their Upstream score in front of a live audience in the screening room at the Motion Picture of Association’s headquarters on Eye Street in Washington D.C.
The Future of Mad Men‘s Secondary Characters
On April 13th, the seventh and final season of Mad Men premiers on AMC. It's been a long, wild ride. Just think, a mere six seasons ago Don Draper was happily married to Betty, Peter Cambell was a brash and ambitious young buck, Peggy was a secretary, and Sterling Cooper was still a thing. The world around them had barely heard of the Beatles. Who could have guessed then where they would be now?
The Sports Coordinators on Upcoming Draft Day & Million Dollar Arm
Spittin’ and cussin’ and scratchin’ like a Major Leaguer doesn’t take a whole lot of skill for an actor. But hitting a home run when the director calls “action!” and making it look easy? That’s a whole other story. Enter the sports coordinator. These former top jocks train onscreen talent how to swing for the fences, catch a touchdown pass, or sink a game-winning jumper at the buzzer and convince audiences it’s athletically legit.
“I”m like a stunt coordinator but with sports,”
Top 10 EDM Remixes of Songs from Movie Musicals
So you're watching a musical. This is great, you think. It's like a normal movie and a Broadway show put into a blender and turned into a delicious, nostalgic smoothie. But there's something missing, you think. Where's the drop?
Go figure, Disney has an answer to this insanely specific problem. Walt Disney Records announced recently that they are compiling an album of EDM remixes of Disney songs old and new,
Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s Composer Henry Jackman on Scoring a Superhero
The versatile Henry Jackman follows his scores for Seth Rogan's apocalyptic comedy End of the World and the animated NASCAR-racing snail film Turbo with a full-on superhero, Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He took time for an interview to talk about the superhero who finds himself something of a Rip Van Winkle, dealing with a world more than 60 years after he was frozen in WWII.
How do you approach a score for a superhero?
Game of Thrones: What We Learned From Season Three
Our beloved lunatics from Westeros are back for season four of Game of Thrones, which means it’s time for a refresher course on what the hell is going on in the Seven Kingdoms (and beyond). We all needed a breather after last season’s penultimate episode, “The Rains of Castamere.” That infamous hour of television delivered such a collective gut punch to the millions of fans who hadn’t read George R.
Painting a Renaissance Masterpiece From Scratch for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Renaissance painter Johannes van Hoytl the Younger (1613-1669) worked in solitude. Known for his use of light and shade, as well as his attraction to the lustrous and velvety, the painter was particularly un-prolific and a financial failure. Yet, van Hoytl nevertheless produced up to a dozen of the finest portraits the world has ever seen.
He also never existed.
In 2012, director Wes Anderson approached 62-year-old British portrait artist Michael Taylor with a unique challenge: create a fictional Renaissance painting—not too Italian and with a bit of a northern spin—for his upcoming film,
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me Director Chiemi Karasawa’s Rising Star
Although she’s being heralded as a breakout director for the acclaimed documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Chiemi Karasawa is no overnight sensation. The California native moved to New York the day after she graduated from Boston University’s film program and began working for a film producer. She apprenticed as a script supervisor, then worked for many years in that position on numerous films including High Fidelity, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,
Talking With Diego Luna About Directing Cesar Chavez
Directing his second feature, and his first in English, Mexican actor Diego Luna turned to one of the most admired figures in recent history: Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez. In the 1960s Chavez co-founded the United Farm Workers, organized an historic grape boycott, and led a 300-mile march from Delano to Sacramento, California that drew global attention to the plight of migrant farm workers.
Michael Pena stars in the biopic that focusses on Chavez’s early years,
Noah: Artistically Ambitious, Economically Advantageous
At first blush, it appeared that Noah represented writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s first real foray into pure big budget spectacle. The indie auteur that burst onto the scene with his twitchy, unsettling debut Pi, only to follow that up with one of the most breathtakingly devastating cinematic depictions of addiction in many years with Requiem for a Dream, was now going big budget CGI in the retelling of the Biblical story of Noah's ark on a grand scale.
CinemaCon 2014: 20th Century Fox & Warner Bros. Tout Strong Women, Big Monsters
Funny, smart and tough women abound in 20th Century Fox’s upcoming slate of films. Three of them will be making appearances today in CinemaCon to tout their films—Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann for their revenge comedy The Other Woman and current Divergent star Shailene Woodley for the adaptation of the beloved YA book The Fault in Our Stars.
Cameron Diaz and Leslia Mann have proven their comedic acting chops time and time again,
CinemaCon 2014: The High-Tech Moviegoing Experience
You’ve heard the logic before: high-definition screens and on-demand content have altered the moviegoing environment forever, creating a home entertainment experience that rivals a night out at the local movie theater. Of course, anyone who saw Gravity in IMAX 3D might beg to differ, but it doesn’t necessarily take a game-changing tour de force to pack an auditorium. Today, the local multiplex has done an impressive job of not just keeping pace but surpassing your trusty living room sofa,
CinemaCon 2014: Sony Teases The Amazing Spider-Man 2 & More
What better way to enjoy Sony Pictures’ presentation than after a few cocktails? The studio is hosting a pre-event cocktail reception in The Colosseum Lobby at Caesar’s before they unveil their 2014 films. Classy. President, Rory Bruer is the man on hand to give folks a glimpse of everybody’s favorite web-slinger, as well as everybody’s favorite undercover cops, to name a few of the films that’ll be teased during their presentation.
Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) faces a host of super villains in The Amazing Spider-Man 2,
CinemaCon 2014: Disney Unveils Maleficent, Million Dollar Arm & More
It's day three of CinemaCon and the schedule is packed. Alternative content and event cinema companies, fro Arts Alliance to Screenvision, will be hosting a special exhibit in the Palace Ballroom at Caesar's Palace this morning, followed by Walt Disney Studios exclusive presentation.
Disney Chairman Alan Horn and executive vice president of distribution Dave Hollis will host the presentation, which includes a screening of Million Dollar Arm presented in Dolby Atmos.
CinemaCon 2014: Universal Unveils Summer Lineup
While it’s an inexact science figuring out how much a festival crowd’s enthusiasm means for the future of a film, the screening of Universal’s Neighbors at SXSW must have delighted many in the studio. Hundreds of people waited patiently, in the rain, for roughly an hour to see director Nicholas Stoller’s movie and roared with laughter for just about all of its running time. Universal is offering a look at their summer slate today at CinemaCon,
CinemaCon 2014: A Brief History of Moviegoing
There's no substitute for watching movies in a theater. These days it's easy to watch the same film at home, but without the surround sound, the larger-than-life screen, the crowd around you making every emotion more intense and the tingle of excitement as the lights darken as you and all the strangers around you set off together on a journey into another world- it's not really the same film at all.
This week CinemaCon is taking place in Las Vegas.
CinemaCon 2014: A Peek at Paramount’s Summer Lineup
Paramount’s got a slate of massive films coming out in the next few months, with perhaps it most marquee release bookending the run—Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, coming on November 7. Nolan himself will be on hand at CinemaCon, as he was in 2012 when he showed a five minute clip of The Dark Knight Rises during a Warner Bros. presentation. Tonight at CinemaCon, Paramount will be showcasing some of their upcoming films for eager audiences at 6:30pm.
CinemaCon 2014: 5 Jaw Dropping American Theaters
The worldwide motion picture theater industry descends on Caesars Palace in Las Vegas today for the fourth annual CinemaCon, the official convention of NATO [National Association of Theater Owners] that runs through March 27. CinemaCon is the largest annual gathering of cinema owners and operators from around the world, drawing filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors alike for a four-day celebration of the theaters and films we love.
We’ll be celebrating CinemaCon this week by highlighting theaters and the films that’ll be filling them this coming summer.
Fight Coordinator J.J. Perry Calls the Punches in Divergent
For most young adults, one of their most pressing questions is “What do I want to be when I grow up?” In the futuristic society in Divergent, the answer to that question is predetermined. At sixteen, they are sorted into one of five factions where they spend the rest of their lives. Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, Secret Life of an American Teenager) and Theo James (Underworld: Awakening) star in this adaptation of the bestselling young-adult novel by Veronica Roth.
