New Trailer for Straight Outta Compton Raw & Exciting

The new Straight Outta Compton trailer has all the power of the movement that inspired it. N.W.A. was the musical progenitor of a new, and largely ignored, raw urban voice. Even in this short clip, we get a taste of the story of an America that we don’t read about in many history books, but nonetheless was a lived experience for millions. For N.W.A., including Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Eazy-E, their “art was a reflection of their reality.”

Avengers: Age of Ultron Teases Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch

Joss Whedon recently said that Avengers: Age of Ultron was by far and away the most challenging film he’s made, largely to do the sequel’s super-sized cast. It was tough enough to juggle the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, the Black Widow, Nick Fury, Captain America (honestly it just keeps going), but Ultron makes the original Avengers look like a walk in the park.

Well,

SXSW 2015 Preview: Women to Watch

The programming at SXSW has become more robust each and every year. Part of the appeal of the festival's selections is the wide representation of female filmmakers, who have produced an especially rich mix of films for this year's slate.There are far too many filmmakers to chose from, so here's just a very quick peek at some of these talented women and the projects they've brought down to Austin.

Hannah Fidell 6 Years

Hannah Fidell is back after winning the Chicken and Egg award here in 2013 for her film A Teacher.

The Return of Cinderella

Disney’s original animated Cinderella, an inescapable fact of most Western childhoods, won the Golden Bear in the musical film category at the very first Berlinale in 1951. A live-action contemporary version, nearly singing-free and also produced under Disney’s auspices, premiered at the most recent Berlinale, some 64-years after the original. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James (best known as Rose in Downton Abbey) in the titular role,

Berlinale 2015: Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert

Werner Herzog’s portrait of Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman), the early 20th century British adventurer who was instrumental in creating the boundaries of much of the modern Middle East in Queen of the Desert , omits her real-life role as a clandestine intelligence agent for the British Empire to explore her interior life, as Herzog put it. In Herzog’s version of events, Kidman’s luminous, head-scarf wearing Bell swears up and down to trusting sheiks that she is not a spy —

Berlinale 2015: Isabel Coixet’s Nobody Wants the Night

The 65th Berlinale opening film is a female-led, stressful adventure movie, set around a snowy, ill-fated journey loosely based on the memoirs of Josephine Peary, wife to Robert Peary, who aggressively, inaccurately claimed to be the first man to reach the North Pole in 1909. Director Isabel Coixet’s Nadie Quiere La Noche/Nobody Wants the Night is a tribute to Josephine’s singleminded journey through godforsaken northern hinterlands to be as close as possible to her husband as he (thinks he) achieves his incredible goal.

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’

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.

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,

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,

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,

Six New Films Offer Six Distinct Viewing Experiences

A hobbit, Teddy Roosevelt reanimated from wax, a bumbling dad, a brilliant, irascible painter, a indefatigable child, and an inveterate gambler walk into a bar. The bartender goes, oh hey, you're all starring in films this weekend.

Terrible jokes aside, we are heading into the home stretch of the holiday season, with a slew of big films set to land on Christmas Day (Unbroken, American Sniper, Selma),

Building the Sets of Middle-Earth for The Battle of the Five Armies

Peter Jackson and his crew shot The Hobbit trilogy concurrently over 266 days (the same total number of days it took to shoot The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Another 10 weeks was needed for cast and crew for pickup shooting for The Battle of the Five Armies on the performance capture stage, which ends the Middle-earth saga that Jackson and his team have been working on since last century.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies A Final Curtain Call for Middle-earth

Set 60-years before the start of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies premieres this Friday, December 19. Whether or not you’ve been a fan of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth sextet, there is no denying the awesome amount of love and effort he and his huge creative team have poured into this franchise. This has been a filmmaking enterprise every bit as epic as what the peripatetic Hobbits Bilbo and Frodo endured.

Costume Designer Mark Bridges Makes Inherent Vice Look Nice

“She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn’t seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half of a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & the Fish T-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she’d never look.”

So begins Thomas Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice,” five quick sentences that describes a change in the air and atmosphere of Los Angeles,

Paul Thomas Anderson & his Team Tweak Los Angeles in Inherent Vice

There can be few novelists more daunting to adapt for the screen than Thomas Pynchon. The worlds he creates, with their sprawling casts and Ouroboros-like narratives, present major problems for any filmmaker looking to keep his or her film coherent and under nine hours. Paul Thomas Anderson, the man who riffed on Upton Sinclair's "Oil" and turned it into the mesmerizing There Will Be Blood, is as good a candidate as you'd likely find to handle such an assignment.

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.