Talking With Legendary Director William Friedkin
William Friedkin, legendary director of The French Connection (1971), which won him the Best Director Oscar, and The Exorcist (1973), one of the greatest horror films of all time, recently published his memoirs, The Friedkin Connection, a candid look at his early life and his long movie career.
We caught up with him as he was touring the country to promote his book,
Film Historians on the Landscape of Cinema During the Civil Rights Era
Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. Leaders from all over our country are gathering in D.C. to mark the occasion, with a speech at the end of the day's proceedings by President Obama.
As we wrote yesterday, there are powerful documentaries on the civil rights movement available on DVD that, truly, every American should watch. What we started wondering was what narrative films we were being made at the time that might have had an impact,
5 Civil Rights Docs: Celebrating 50th Anniversary of March on Washington
Tomorrow marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. President Obama will deliver a speech on the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King gave one of the most famous, and moving, speeches in American History—his iconic “I Have a Dream” address.
This past July, Louis Menand wrote a moving, harrowing article for The New Yorker entitled “The Color of Law,” that investigated voting rights for African Americans,
Talking to Jane Lynch About her new Film Afternoon Delight
Since premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Jill Soloway’s provocative comedy about sex, marriage and finding oneself, Afternoon Delight, has garnered praise (Soloway won best director at this year's Sundance Film Festival) — with many singling out Jane Lynch’s performance as one of the fest’s best. Afternoon Delight follows Rachel (Kathryn Hahn), a hip, Silver Lake, California, mom with a lackluster sex life, who takes in a homeless stripper (Juno Temple) to spice things up.
The World’s End, Drinking Buddies, & You’re Next: Weekend Watch List
Movie calendars no longer really mean what they used to. Yes, movies with Academy Award aspirations do get back loaded and released during the fall and early winter. Yes, summer is still blockbuster season, a fact as immutable as gravity or Woody Allen releasing a movie a year. Yet assuming you can guess the relative quality of a film based on the date it was released is getting harder and harder to predict.
Take late August,
Creativity in Hollywood: Film Visionaries On Creative Process And Inspiration
Unlike most films and television shows, inspiration is not available on-demand. In the highly creative realm of movie-making, a good idea can catapult careers, spark motion picture franchises, and make cinematic history.
Inventing the next film can mean laying the groundwork for brilliant movies and television, from Inception, Taxi Driver, The Master, or Edward Scissorhands.
Of course, caveats abound.
Filmmaking 101: Vimeo’s Fantastic Video School
The Vimeo Video School is committed to helping budding filmmakers learn the tricks (and most importantly, techniques) of the trade through their series of lessons, tutorials, and advice. The Vimeo staff create the videos, as well as pulls tutorials, Q&As and films from the larger Vimeo community into their curriculum. They’re not only informative and fun, they’re also, blessedly, free.
A lot of the filmmakers we’ve spoken to over the past year said more or less the same thing at some point in the conversation—it’s never been easier to make your own film.
The World’s End: What’s Behind our Apocalypse Obsession?
Edgar Wright’s The World’s End (premiering August 23) is not the first, second, third or fourth film to come out this year about an apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic world. A cursory glance of 2013's film slate would suggest we are currently suffering from a collective panic attack about our prospects on the planet. This is the End, World War Z,
Your Big Break: Hollywood Studio Programs for Emerging Writers
How hard is it to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood? Watch the Coen brothers Barton Fink or Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard or last year’s Seven Psychopaths for a clue. All three films focus on a struggling screenwriter. All three, while wildly different and wonderfully perverse (in their own specific ways) get at the beating black heart of the unknown screenwriter’s soul—that your soul is for sale, so long as you can get your script made.
Breaking Bad, Austenland, JOBS: Your Schizophrenic Weekend Viewing Guide
Summer’s winding down, folks. So you really need to maximize all the relaxing you can do before the inevitable crush of obligations and stress that is fall, the holiday season, and the end of the year bears down on you.
August is the midday nap of the calendar. It’s a month for whiling away hours in repose. Movie theaters offer one of the last spaces on our hyper-connected planet where you’re obligated to silence your smart phone and be quiet for two hours.
Austenland Latest in our Centuries-Long Love Affair With Jane
Sony Picture Classic’s Austenland (coming out tomorrow), based on the novel by Shannon Hale (who also co-wrote the script with director Jerusha Hess), is the latest film to be inspired by the legendary 19th century English novelist. Austenland is about a woman named (naturally) Jane (Keri Russell) who is so obsessed with Austen (and “Pride and Prejudice” in particular, and Mr. Darcy very particularly) that she decides to spend her life savings on a trip to an English resort that caters to Austen-crazed women,
The Science of Streaming: How You’re Able to Binge-Watch Breaking Bad
We’ve come a long way since the days of rushing to Blockbuster on a Sunday evening to avoid paying the late fee on that VHS rental of Independence Day. Now, with a decent Internet connection and a few clicks of your mouse you can legally and easily stream and download movies to just about any device–something that your 90s-self would have probably assumed to be the sole reserve of science fiction.
“If you were to go back a decade and tell people that the Internet would be fast enough to stream video they wouldn’t believe it.
Meet the Makers Behind Disneytoon Studios’ Airborne Adventure, Disney’s Planes
Close your eyes. Imagine you’re in the air flying, not a cloud in sight. It’s just you and a blue pastel-colored endless sky and then, suddenly, you shift gears and enter a high-speed race with two fighter jets. You’re propeller-to-propeller with your opponents and just as you’re about to gain the lead, you smell… manure?
That’s how Dusty Crophopper, star of Disneytoon Studios’ new animated feature film, Disney’s Planes,
From Kathryn Bigelow to Martin Scorsese, Filmmakers & Their Inspirations
In 2010, the British Film Institute published a wonderful book entitled “Screen Epiphanies: Filmmakers on the Films that Inspired Them.” We found this book after one of those rabbit hole web searches that began with this fantastic article by Martin Scorsese in The New York Review of Books that began with a recollection of the film that made him want to devote his life to the medium.
George Mastras on Writing & Directing One of Breaking Bad’s Best Episodes
George Mastras has been a criminal investigator for the public defender’s office in Washington D.C., a counselor at a juvenile correctional facility during the crack epidemic of the 1990s, a litigator in New York, and a defense attorney in Los Angeles. Then he quit, bought a one-way ticket to China and backpacked around the world for two years. He wrote a novel while he was in Indonesia that was published by Scribner in early 2009 to very good reviews.
Writer/Director/Producer/Star Lake Bell on In a World…
In the dramedy 'In a World…', out August 9, writer/director/producer/star Lake Bell visits the voiceover industry as a newbie competing for the same gig as her industry-veteran father. Here, Bell, who has delivered memorable acting turns in such movies as No Strings Attached and It’s Complicated, talks about writing the script for her feature-film directorial debut, why she loves trailers, and what “voice” annoys her most.
The Credits: What insight can you offer about voices and accents?
Retired Director of NASA’s International Space Station on Plausibility of Elysium
The idea of putting all of Earth's richest people in space permanently has its appeal. Some very much would like to go, and a few of us would like to send them there.
Is such a thing possible, though? To build a huge, permanent, self-sustaining home-off-of-home?
Director Neill Blomkamp, the man behind the fantastic aliens-as-refugees film District 9, uses that idea in his new film Elysium (which opens August 9) to explore the relationship between the have-lots and the have-nots.
HBO’s Casting By Shines a Light on Casting Legend Marion Dougherty
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced the creation of a new casting director’s branch, finally elevating the women and men who provide films with that somewhat vital ingredient—the cast—to full membership. This comes after years of lobbying on the part of filmmakers and actors themselves to give casting directors their due.
The Academy's decision means that casting directors will get three seats on the board of governors,
An Evening With Filmmaking Icon Norman Jewison
Lauded filmmaker Norman Jewison may be as entertaining a storyteller in person as he is through film. Rocking New Balance sneakers, sunglasses and youthful exuberance at a July 22 event at the MPAA in Washington, D.C., the 87-year-old filmmaker regaled a delighted audience with tales from his more than four decades of historic success in the industry.
Jewison boasts a repertoire of films that have amassed a remarkable total of 46 Oscar nominations and 12 Oscar Awards.
Disasters in Space: Hollywood’s History of Co-Opting NASA’s Real Fears
In a way, outer space is like a vast movie screen–we project our hopes, our dreams, and our worst fears onto it. A lesser species might stare into the glittering stars and see randomness—we have been looking up at the night sky for millennia and have seen a near endless array of characters; lions, bulls, twins, a sea monster, a chained princess, a centaur–gods.
It’s no wonder, then, that space has been the setting for some of Hollywood’s most iconic movies—Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,
