Oscar Race Shapes Up With “Dune” & “Licorice Pizza” Leading DGA & WGA Nominations
The Oscar race clarified a bit yesterday, with some clear frontrunners emerging from the pack. Oscar voting began in earnest, while four of the most influential guilds delivered their own nominations. The Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, and the American Cinema Editors delivered their lists, giving some shape to the race ahead. The DGA and WGA nominations specifically help define the pack of Oscar hopefuls.
The only two films that were selected by all four groups were Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune and Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age story Licorice Pizza. ...
Final “Uncharted” Trailer Finds Tom Holland Hanging By a Thread
The final trailer for Uncharted has arrived, charting the adventures of Nathan Drake (Tom Holland), a thief tapped by treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to help him track down a bounty worth a cool $5 billion. The film, from director Ruben Fleischer (Venom), is adapted from the hugely popular PlayStation game and is Holland’s first role since he starred in the world-beating Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Holland is ideally suited to play Drake,...
Watch Tom Holland Get Roughed Up in “Uncharted” Stunt Video
Tom Holland is not new to wild stunts. Considering he’s played Spider-Man, the most acrobatic of superheroes, for three movies now, the guy knows a thing or three about using his body during a performance, and in the case of Spider-Man, often attaching said body to wires. Even though quite a bit of the stunt work in a Spider-Man or MCU film is computer generated, there are still plenty of sequences in which Holland is putting in the work himself...
“No Time To Die” Editor Tom Cross on Cutting to the Chase
No Time To Die gave us an appropriately epic sendoff for Daniel Craig’s final mission as James Bond. With ripping action rooted in Bond’s emotional journey, unusual for this franchise until Craig became 007, No Time To Die manages to be a breathless, nearly three-hour-long sprint towards the most bittersweet ending in Bond film history. From the riveting opening scene, a flashback that reveals the connection between Madeline Swann (Léa Seydoux) and the film’s villain, Safin (Rami Malek) through Italy,...
Director Sam Raimi on Watching “Spider-Man: No Way Home” & the Status on His “Doctor Strange 2”
Director Sam Raimi was in a very unique position when he got a chance to see Spider-Man: No Way Home. Unlike the rest of us, who delighted in seeing the return of not only iconic villains like Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) but also see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their respective versions of Peter Parker, it was something of a family affair for Raimi. He was the man who brought us Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker to the big screen,...
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Almost Featured This Iconic Villain
When you think about the now history-making Spider-Man: No Way Home, one thing you’d probably never say is, “that movie needed more villains.” No Way Home already provided a slew of legendary adversaries once Peter Parker (Tom Holland, obviously) messed with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the middle of a spell. Yet concept art from one of the film’s designers reveals that a sixth villain was considered at some point.
Before we get to that potential sixth villain,...
The “Encanto” Earworm “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” Makes Music History
You may have heard that Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s soundtrack for Encanto has become a massive musical hit, returning this week to number 1 on Billboard’s album chart, beating out stiff competition from superstar the Weekend. More to the point, the soundtrack’s biggest earworm, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” has surpassed Frozen‘s Oscar-winning smash “Let It Go” as the biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit from a Disney animated film since Aladdin...
“Batgirl” Movie Cast Ivory Aquino to Play DC’s First Trans Character
The Batgirl movie keeps getting more intriguing. Ivory Aquino has joined the cast to play Alysia Yeoh, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl’s best friend (to be played by Leslie Grace). This is a historic piece of casting, as Aquino, who is transgender, will play the first openly trans character in a live-action DC movie. Alysia Yeoh was created by writer Gail Simone and first appeared in “Batgirl #1, Volume 4” in 2011. She was the first major transgender character written in a contemporary context for a mainstream comic book...
“Drive My Car” Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi on His Moving Portrait of Life’s Twists & Turns
One of the most intriguing cinematic journeys of 2021 emanates from Japan and is aptly named Drive My Car.
A mesmerizing sojourn that exactingly unfolds over a three-hour running time, the film follows acclaimed actor and theatre director Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), beginning with his unorthodox marriage to Oto (Reika Kirishima), before segueing to a stage production he is directing of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. The latter brings him together with Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura),...
“The Batman” Drops New TV Spot Teasing the Riddler’s Deadly Game
We are getting ever closer to seeing writer/director Matt Reeves’s The Batman, which means we can expect more TV spots to emerge in the coming weeks. To that end, a new Riddler-focused spot titled “Game” is focused on The Batman‘s main villain, Edward Nashton/The Riddler, played by Paul Dano. The new spot is centered on the Riddler’s psychotic interest in Batman (Robert Pattinson), which takes the form, as you’d expect given his personality, as deadly a deadly puzzle...
“Pinocchio” Teaser Reveals Guillermo del Toro’s Take on the Iconic Tale
If you’re going to take a fresh look at Carlo Collodi’s deathless story about a wooden marionette who’s magically brought to life to help heal the soul of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto, can you think of a better filmmaker for the task than Guillermo del Toro? The visionary director has appropriately chosen to tackle the tale via a stop-motion musical, and Netflix has delivered the first official teaser. Del Toro co-directs the film alongside Mark Gustafson, and it’s a project that has deep meaning for the Oscar-winning director...
Costume Designer Justine Seymour on Subtle Power on Display in “Women of the Movement”
After his 1955 murder, Emmett Till’s death became a galvanizing event for the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. The mutilated 14-year-old was given an open casket funeral at the behest of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who wished the world to see what Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam had done to her son. Lynched while on holiday to visit family in Money, Mississippi, after being falsely accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, (Emmett had a stutter, and he whistled as part of his coping mechanism to control it),...
“The Batman” Runtime Reveals one of the Longest Superhero Movies Ever
The Batman has already surpassed all previous stand-alone films based on Gotham’s Dark Knight in one way—it’s going to be the longest film in the franchise. Writer/director Matt Reeves’s forthcoming trip to Gotham has a runtime of two hours and fifty-five minutes, topping Christopher Nolan’s trilogy capping The Dark Knight Rises, which ran to two hours and forty-four minutes.
The Hollywood Reporter scooped the runtime, which we should note includes eight minutes of credits,...
How the “Scream” Team Created The Best Film in the Franchise Since The Original
How do you create the fifth film in a beloved slasher franchise that’s both a nod to everything that’s come before, a clever meta-commentary on horror films and toxic fandom, and something that’s entirely your own? This was one of the questions we put to Scream directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and their producing partner and the third member of their Radio Silence triumvirate, Chad Villella. The trio has once again brought the same passion that imbued their last outing,...
“West Side Story” Music Supervisor Matt Sullivan on The Cast, Spielberg, and Capturing Magic
When we interviewed West Side Story‘s music producer David Newman, he made clear not only how massive of an effort was required to pull off Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece musical, but how personal it all felt. “There were hundreds of us involved in it, and I loved it. It just was a completely pure feeling,” Newman told us. “We were all just doing it for the love of it. That is the feeling I get with this movie...
“The Batman” Drops Two New Posters Highlighting a Different Kind of Gotham
The look of writer/director Matt Reeves’s upcoming The Batman has a distinct feel to it we haven’t quite seen before. Two new posters released by Warner Brothers highlight this aesthetic, one offering the rare sunny day in Gotham and featuring Batman (Robert Pattison) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), and another a darker nod towards the film’s central struggle.
The new posters got us thinking about the ever-morphing look of the entire Batman franchise. While Gotham is always depicted as a dangerous place,...
“Ray Donovan: The Movie” Writer/Director David Hollander Gets Inside the Anti-Hero’s Head One Last Time
When Ray Donovan debuted on Showtime in 2013, Liev Schreiber introduced the character as a brooding fixer who uses a baseball bat to make problems go away for shallow celebrities and sleazy Hollywood moguls. But over the course of seven seasons, the one thing Donovan could never fix was his own broken family, headed by the charming but awful con artist father Mickey (Jon Voight).
In February 2020, Showtime dumped the series without warning. Longtime fans were not happy and neither was showrunner David Hollander...
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Swings to 4th on All-Time Box Office List
Spider-Man: No Way Home has swung into history. The multiverse-tripping, Spider-Man tripling mega-hit officially became the fourth-highest-grossing film ever on Monday, passing Black Panther to end the day with $702.6 million in ticket sales. No Way Home joins only five films to ever cross the $700 million mark domestically—Black Panther ($700.4m), Avatar ($760.5m), Avengers: Endgame ($858.4m), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.7m).
It’s extra incredible that No Way Home has crossed this threshold considering it did so during a pandemic, ...
How Andrew Garfield Kept His “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Secret Mostly Hidden
How hard did Andrew Garfield work to keep his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home secret hidden? He lied to his ex-girlfriend and good friend Emma Stone. In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Garfield admitted that he had to lie to his ex, who was also his The Amazing Spider-Man co-star.
“Emma kept on texting me, and she was like, ‘Are you in this new Spider-Man film?’”...
Robert Pattinson Hints His Batman Isn’t Straight-Up Heroic
It was never a question that Robert Pattinson would be a different kind of Batman. He’s a wholly different kind of performer from the last two talented men who donned the cape and cowl, Ben Affleck and Christian Bale. What’s more, writer/director Matt Reeves had already promised that The Batman would be less like your typical superhero movie and more of a noir detective film. Add to that the fact that The Batman‘s synopsis calls Bruce Wayne a “...
