Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Continues Remote Pre-Production

The entertainment industry has seen productions freeze as COVID-19 has spread across the globe. Some of the biggest productions going at the moment, from Warner Bros. The Batman and The Matrix 4 to Paramount’s Mission: Impossible 7 to Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings have shut down. As of now, with the situation around the world so fluid, there is no expectation that productions can start up again until at least mid-May,...

All The Recent Releases You Can Watch Now

We’ve been covering the effects that COVID-19 has had on the entertainment industry. These stories have included news about production shutdowns to delayed premieres, from interviews with filmmakers on current and stalled projects to how the industry is helping citizens and the healthcare industry alike.

Another novel scenario that the global pandemic has created, another one on the positive end of the spectrum, is that studios are making their recent releases available on digital platforms early...

Patty Jenkins & Gal Gadot Share New Wonder Woman 1984 Animated Poster & Words of Hope

The production and premiere delays due to the spread of COVID-19 have been unprecedented, but that, of course, doesn’t mean that we’ll never be seeing these films. What we are dealing with is a tremendous amount of uncertainty; the novel coronavirus does not have a finale date, so nobody knows for sure just when we’ll have this under control and it will be safe for all of us, including the studios, filmmakers, their casts and crew, and theater owners and employees can go back to work...

Rian Johnson & Edgar Wright Share Their Favorite Musicals & Comedies

While we all deal with the massive changes that the spread of COVID-19 has thrust upon our daily lives, there has been no shortage of watch lists to get us through our socially distanced reality. Initially, most of these lists were focused on films and television series that touched upon pandemics, epidemics, and the post-apocalyptic. You could find Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion and Wolfgang Peterson’s Outbreak and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later on many of them...

Costume Designers Guild to Sew Masks for Hospitals

With critical medical supplies in short supply, the Costume Designers Guild is currently rallying its members to step into the breach to help sew masks for hospitals dealing with the spread of COVID-19. Salvador Perez, president of the Costume Designers Guild, told Variety, “We are organizing all our members from local 892 and local 705 costumers who can sew, to manufacture masks for hospitals. It will be good to keep busy and help the community.” This followed a conference call with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees,...

Silent Sunday Nights Host Jacqueline Stewart’s Easy Going Film Expertise

Jacqueline Stewart is a film scholar, researcher, author and archivist. But when she gets before the cameras as the host of Silent Sunday Nights on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), she’s once again a kid watching movies late into the night with her aunt Constance.

“I was obsessed with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies as a kid. They always seemed to be on TV the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, late at night...

Read Christopher Nolan’s Passionate Piece on the Importance of Movie Theaters

You could hardly ask for a more passionate advocate for the importance of movie theaters than writer/director Christopher Nolan. The auteur of such epic, must-see-it-in-the-theater films like Inception, Interstellar, and, of course, The Dark Knight trilogy penned a passionate plea for the importance of movie theaters in the Washington Post as we face theater and production closures due to the spread of COVID-19. Nolan has long been an advocate for the movie theater experience...

Our In-House Former Movie Critic Submits An Epic Watch List for Trying Times

For reasons entirely to do with this crazy life we’re all living right now, I find myself revisiting the final scene of the great Three Days of the Condor. You know, the Robert Redford thriller that came out, like, before electricity. In the movie, Redford’s a CIA analyst who knows too much, and the CIA is hunting him down. In this climactic scene, he informs an adversary, played by Cliff Robertson, that he has a gun in his coat pocket and that he needs to walk with him for a little bit...

DP Kira Kelly on Lensing Netflix’s Self Made Followed by a Sudden COVID-19 Furlough

Self Made, Netflix’s four-episode biopic on Madam C.J. Walker (Octavia Spencer), the businesswoman, philanthropist, and first female American self-made millionaire, traces Madam C.J.’s late 19th-century rise from washerwoman to the successful founder of a haircare empire staffed by and made for African-American women. The production contrasts vibrant, colorful historic sets and costumes with a contemporary soundtrack, for an immersively satisfying period series that feels completely modern.

“Even before I got the job, the showrunners were very clear that they did not want a monochromatic,...

Here’s James Gunn’s Blessedly Pandemic Movie-Free Quarantine Watch List

With so many people at home right now, doing their part to help flatten the curve of COVID-19 by social distancing, watch lists have flooded the internet. Many of these watch lists are focused, understandably, on films and TV shows that deal with pandemics and other world-changing catastrophes. One of the most cited films on these lists is Steven Soderbergh’s genuinely terrifying Contagion (now available on Hulu) from 2011. Written by Scott Z. Burns, who researched the film by going to the CDC and learning first-hand how they handle pandemics,...

The Below-the-Line Talent Who Make the Films & Shows we Love

With the spread of COVID-19 affecting the entertainment industry in unprecedented ways, below-the-line filmmakers are facing the prospect of weeks, or months, without income, some without health insurance or paid sick leave. These are the folks who make the films and television shows we love possible. They’re costume designers and assistant directors, gaffers, grips, and animators. They’re makeup artists and hairstylists, they’re art directors and location scouts, they’re the people who design the sets, tailor the clothes, block the shots,...

Watch the First 10 Minutes of The Skywalker Legacy Documentary

We’ve all got way more time at home on our hands at the moment. While we practice social distancing responsibly, it’s nice to have as many entertainment options as possible. Disney has made the first 10-minutes of The Skywalker Legacy documentary available online, which we’ve embedded below for your viewing pleasure. This sneak peek comes on the heels of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker becoming available for digital download yesterday,...

Studios & Stars Offer Social Distancing Education & Entertainment

Comedians, musicians, actors, and film and television studios have begun stepping up to try and add a little levity, light, and a sense of much-needed solidarity as we all deal with COVID-19. Individuals and companies with massive platforms can do a lot of good by informing citizens about the best way to stay safe and keep others safe in these unprecedented times. With governments across the world urging citizens to practice social distancing and, in many cases, stay in their homes,...

Amy Adams & Jennifer Garner Team Up to Help Kids Affected by COVID-19

While all of us are trying to come together—mostly, and crucially, by staying apart—to help flatten the curve of the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the damages, it’s nice to see those with a large platform doing their best to spread the word. There was Max Brooks’ hilarious and heartfelt message, alongside his dad, the legendary Mel Brooks, for people to keep their distance from one another.

A message from me and my dad, @Melbrooks...

Universal Pictures to Offer First Run Films in Your Home

With governments across the globe asking people to hunker down due to the spread of COVID-19 (the United States joined today, suggesting that folks don’t congregate in any groups larger than 10), and the film and TV industry facing an unprecedented stoppage of work, responsible people all over the world are looking for options to keep them sane while they sequester themselves in their apartments and homes. While there is no shortage of entertainment available to stream,...

An Easy Girl Director Rebecca Zlotowski on Her Version of French Feminism

Lush and sun-kissed, An Easy Girl, the latest feature from French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, is a Cannes-set summer vacation coming-of-age centered on a teenager named Naïma (Mina Farid) and her visiting older cousin, Sofia (Zahia Dehar). A screen descendant of Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, Dehar is enviably confident and sexy; however, many French audiences have struggled to separate Dehar’s character from her real-life persona, the one who was involved in an underage prostitution scandal in 2009...

How Coronavirus is Affecting Below the Line Filmmakers

As COVID-19 has spread across the globe, hundreds of governments are attempting to deal with the rapidly spreading pandemic. The first and most important factor in assessing the damage that coronavirus has caused is measured in human lives. According to the most recent accounts from the New York Times, coronavirus has sickened more than 170,400 people, with 6,619 deaths. The pandemic has spread to at least 140 countries.  

Then there is the damage to the economy...

The Trailer for the Spike Jonze Directed Beastie Boys Story is a Sure Shot

Joy feels in short supply about now, which is why this is a good a time as ever to take in the first trailer for director Spike Jonze’s Beastie Boys Story. The saga of how three buddies from New York became, against considerable odds, global superstars, reinventing themselves and their entire approach to music and life in the process, is both joyous and bittersweet. Joyous because Beastie Boys fans will finally get to see a proper documentary about their unlikely rise,...

Swallow Production Designer Erin Magill Builds a House of Horrors

Handsome husband, rich in-laws, and a stunning house might seem to provide a comfortable perch for the newly pregnant housewife at the center of Swallow. And yet, Hunter (Haley Bennett) suffers privately from a disturbing disorder hinted at in the film’s title. For the psychological thriller (now playing), production designer Erin Magill joined writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis in setting up a seemingly perfect milieu riddled with dark secrets.

Magill, who also re-tooled the small Louisiana town of Garyville to serve as West Texas backdrop for Michael Shannon’s thriller The Quarry (opening April 17),...

The Official Soul Trailer Reveals Pixar’s Latest

Pixar is taking a deep dive into the afterlife, the meaning of life, and the necessity of living your life in the (scarily) timely Soul. In Pixar’s vast stable of excellent writers and directors, few so reliably break your heart as Pete Docter. Docter has brought us Monsters, Inc., Up and Inside Out, three of the most searching films in the company’s history. In Soul, he’s training his eye on the afterlife,...