“One Battle After Another”: How a Single California Road Became The Year’s Most Hallucinatory Effect
Spoilers below.
Let’s try to ditch hyperbole for a second and get to the heart of the matter, to something we might even call objective: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a movie that meets its moment head-on. The visionary writer/director doesn’t make uninteresting movies—this, too, feels like an objective statement—yet he has rarely worked in the present day. For a 19-year period, between 2002 and 2021,
Inside “Weapons”: Zach Cregger on Atlanta Crews, Practical Effects, and That Haunting Opening
Weapons became one of the year’s most acclaimed box office hits, and while the film’s success was certainly by design, it still surprised writer/director Zach Cregger. Cregger knows how to craft a movie that gets under your skin—his last film, Barbarian, was one of 2022’s most unsettling and surprising films, not even he could have predicted that Weapons would become a pop culture phenomenon.
The story Cregger presents in his new film is deceptively simple;
Costume Designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb on Dressing Scorching, Corporate-Controlled Future in “Alien: Earth”
Alien: Earth (streaming on FX) pictures our future here on Earth as a wildly advanced, increasingly grim corporate kleptocracy—a scorching hot planet that doesn’t get any more welcoming after it’s populated with flesh-eating “Xenomorphs” (thanks to a crashed research vessel owned by one of thoes corporate overlords, Weyland-Yutani) that is then pursued by a private army owned by tech genius Boy Kavalier’s company Prodigy. While face-bursting and brain-controlling eyeballs roam the rainforest,
Stripped Bare: A Few of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Most Devastating Portraits of Human Nature
Warning: This article contains spoilers
From the furious ambition of oil magnates to the quiet desperation of lonely souls, Paul Thomas Anderson’s films plunge into the dissonant symphony of the human experience with unflinching intensity. Across his eclectic filmography, Anderson crafts narratives that orbit around deep emotional truths, both exhilarating and unsettling. The hunger for connection, the burden of legacy, and the corrosive pull of obsession — whether in the drug-fueled haze of Boogie Nights,
How “Nino” Producer Sandra da Fonseca Turned a First Time Director’s Story Into Global Festival Gold
As producer Sandra da Fonseca is telling The Credits about the theatrical release of her newest film, Nino, serendipity strikes. “Oh, I just saw a bus go by with the film’s poster on it,” she says. “That makes me happy — it’s the first one I’ve seen!”
The poster may have been on the bus side, but Nino is gaining acclaim at rocket speed.
Scarlett Johansson on Her Directorial Debut “Eleanor the Great”: “I Don’t Think I Could Have Done It 10 Years Ago”
Grief makes people do crazy things.
And sometimes that includes moving across the country after the death of your closest friend, befriending a 19-year-old college student, and lying about your identity.
Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, stars June Squibb as Eleanor, a 95-year-old woman who moves to New York after the passing of her dear friend. The film explores how grief spans generations,
Final “Wicked: For Good” Trailer Brings Dorothy to Oz
When we spoke with Wicked and Wicked: For Good co-writer Dana Fox, they were just at the very end of the years-long process of bringing the colossal Broadway smash hit to its cinematic conclusion. Fox told us that she’d recently watched both the films, which were shot back-to-back, back-to-back herself, and had this to say, “By the end of the day, I was like a shell of a person who had to be swept off the floor – makeup all over,
“Alien: Earth” Cinematographer and Director Dana Gonzalez on Bringing Cinema’s Most Iconic Monster to TV
On Earth, everyone can hear you scream. No apologies for the dreadful play on the classic logline for Alien, which continues to reach new, strange heights in FX’s Alien: Earth, created by Fargo‘s Noah Hawley. Cinematographer and director Dana Gonzalez establishes the expressive vision in the pilot, titled “Neverland,” which introduces a young, terminally ill girl named Marcy Hermit (Florence Bensberg) to a future world in which she’ll survive,
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!” Rises: Christian Bale is Frankenstein’s Monster & Jessie Buckley is his Resurrected Companion
The first trailer for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! has officially risen.
“Was I just the same before the accident?” asks Jessie Buckley’s The Bride in the opening seconds of the trailer for writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! The response comes from none other than Frankenstein’s Monster, played by Christian Bale. “There wasn’t any accident,” he says. “Everything we did, we did it on purpose.”
We see Buckley’s Bride murder,
Caged Dynamics: How DP Ula Pontikos Frames Willem Dafoe & Corey Hawkins in “The Man in My Basement”
The Man in My Basement marks Nadia Latif’s feature directing debut, and it’s a doozy. Latif adapted author Walter Mosely’s acclaimed 2004 novel of the same name, from a script she co-wrote with Mosely. The film is set in the quiet village of Sag Harbor, New York, where Charles Blakely (Corey Hawkins) is a man adrift until he gets a strange offer from an even stranger businessman, Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe), to rent out his basement.
From Abbey Road to “Alien: Earth”: Composer Jeff Russo on Bringing Xenomorphs Home Through Music
Alien: Earth doesn’t rehash the familiar, even if it beats with the acid-pumping heart of Ridley Scott’s original Alien. The series expands on the terrifying world Scott first unleashed on audiences on May 25, 1979 by focusing not only on the iconic Xenomorph, one of the most legendary movie monsters of all time, but by imagining what the world might look like decades later when the Xenomorph, and a slew of other captive galactic creatures,
New “Mandalorian and Grogu” Images Reveal AT-ATs, Alien Creatures & Sigourney Weaver
We just got a look at the first trailer for director Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and now it’s time to parse a slew of new images from Favreau’s film. What we know about what Favreau, his co-writer Dave Filoni, and the rest of the stellar cast and crew have cooked up is scant, but the trailer is nonetheless revealing. There are creatures aplenty—mainly of the classic Star Wars type,
Baby Yoda Speaks in the First “The Mandalorian and Grogu” Trailer
The first trailer for director Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opens on Din Djarin’s (Pedro Pascal) spaceship the Razor Crest curising over a coastline. The next thing we see is one of those images that has made the Disney+ series The Mandalorian such a hit—we’ve got Mando and Baby Yoda doing some recon in a desert landscape, with the little guy sporting a little single-lens pair of binoculars to aid him.
How Director Justin Tipping Mixed Art, Nike Ads & Multiple Genres in His Singular Sports Horror Film “Him”
Supernatural sports horror film Him not only blends two hugely popular film genres but also draws inspiration from the art of Jeff Koons and Edward Hopper, as well as Nike ads from the 1990s—a blend of disparate influences that cohere into a singular cinematic experience.
Produced by visionary filmmaker Jordan Peele, a man who had made his own sui generis horror films, from Get Out to Us to Nope,
“One Battle After Another” Review Round Up: Paul Thomas Anderson Delivers a Stone-Cold Masterpiece
A recent re-watch of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood reminded me—reconfirmed, really—that my experience in the theater watching his masterpiece, with an absolutely mesmerizing performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as the soused, ruthless oilman Daniel Plainview, had been exactly as transforming as I’d always remembered. It was and remains my favorite cinematic experience, and I’d waited years (decades, actually) to rewatch it. While finally sitting down and absorbing Anderson’s tale of carnivorous greed in America of the late 19th and early 20th Century on my couch wasn’t quite as transporting as being plastered to my seat in a New York City theater,
“Star Wars: Starfighter”: New Look at Ryan Gosling & Flynn Gray in Cryptic Photo
Ryan Gosling and co-star Flynn Gray are ready to make waves in their upcoming film Star Wars: Starfighter.
Director Shawn Levy posted a photo on Instagram of Gosling and Gray “somewhere in the Mediterranean,” according to Levy’s caption, although the geotag indicates “Sardinia, Italy.” It’s the second glimpse we’ve gotten of Gosling and the newcomer Gray since production began, after that first cryptic shot of Gosling and Gray sitting and leaning on a cruiser of some sort.
Paul Rudd and Jack Black Are Snake Bit in First “Anaconda” Trailer
Co-writer and director Tom Gormican has enlisted Paul Rudd and Jack Black for his bonkers reimagining of the 1997 horror film Anaconda in his new comedy (helpfully called Anaconda), and the first trailer is appropriately bananas.
Rudd and Black played best buddies Griff and Doug, respectively, friends since childhood who have sustained one lifelong dream: to remake their favorite film of all time, the cinematic masterpiece Anaconda.
From USC Benchwarmer to Cartel Smuggler: Inside “Cocaine Quarterback” With Director Jody McVeigh-Schultz
If the infamous trope “I know a guy who knows a guy” had a poster child, it should be Owen Hanson. Chronicled in a three-part docuseries, Cocaine Quarterback: Signal-Caller for the Cartel, from director Jody McVeigh-Schultz, the shocking events reveal how the former USC walk-on went from National Champion to convicted drug cartel smuggler.
McVeigh-Schultz, best known for helming the school spying scandal docuseries Spy High,
From “Barbie” to “Bridgerton”: Entertainment Partners is the Secret Sauce Behind Many of the Films & Shows You Love
For nearly five decades, Entertainment Partners (EP) has been the secret sauce behind the scenes of your favorite films, TV shows, and commercials, from Barbie to Bridgerton. Headquartered in Burbank, California, the company has revolutionized the way the entertainment industry manages payroll, accounting, and production finance, with a world-class team of experts specializing in a wide range of areas, including global tax incentives, labor compliance, residuals, and healthcare.
Their industry-standard digital platform featuring Movie Magic Budgeting and Scheduling,
Robert Redford, Hollywood Star and Sundance Visionary, Dies at 89
If it is possible to be both larger than life and understated, Robert Redford would be the person who managed the feat. The big screen idol of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men became a legendary, Oscar-winning director, helming classics like Ordinary People, A River Runs Through It, and Quiz Show. His work in front, behind, and well away from the camera equaled a singular life in the arts.
