“Black is King” Producer Jason Baum on Beyoncé & the World of Visual Albums
Black is King, Beyoncé’s 2020 musical film that doubled as a visual companion to The Lion King, was lauded as dazzling, seductive, and, well, regal. Directed in tandem by Beyoncé and the directors Ibra Ake, Blitz the Ambassador, Emmanuel Adjei, and Kwasi Fordjour, the visual album dropped on Disney+ with very little fanfare, typical of the star’s preferred announcement style, or lack thereof. The film was an instant sensation thanks to its globetrotting sets and creative fashion as much as the music itself and has been nominated for Best Music Film at the 63rd Grammy Awards (which are currently delayed due to Covid until March)...
Filmmaker Noah Hutton on his Slyly Scorching Feature Debut “Lapsis”
Writer/director Noah Hutton was due to make his narrative feature debut with his sci-fi film Lapsis at SXSW in March of 2020. You know how that turned out. Nearly a year later, Hutton’s slyly lacerating debut is now available on Virtual Cinema, VOD, and Digital. His low-budget feature debut is an impressive feat of world-building, cinematic wit, and a darkly funny critique of late-stage capitalism, specifically corporate greed and the exploitation of workers.
Hutton not only wrote and directed his debut feature,...
Director Fran Kranz & Editor Yang-Hua Hu on Their Heartbreaking Film “Mass”
Mass, which recently premiered to much acclaim at Sundance, is the screenwriting and directorial debut of actor Fran Kranz. It’s a tense, claustrophobic, dialogue-driven film that explores the long-term aftermath of a school shooting, and essentially takes place in one room. Its success rests heavily on the shoulders of the cast, and Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, and Ann Dowd, who form the quartet at the center of the story, do not disappoint...
James Gunn Reveals “Peacemaker” Set Photos
Now our main image doesn’t come from James Gunn’s upcoming HBO Max series Peacemaker. No—the featured shot is from a little movie that introduces Peacemaker (John Cena) that we haven’t gotten a chance to see yet, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Yet even though the film hasn’t premiered, Gunn, Cena, and their fellow cast and crew members are already working on the spinoff in Vancouver. Folks, it looks like they’re having a bit of a good time,...
You’re Going to Want to “Get Over Here!” for First “Mortal Kombat” Trailer
Hold onto your winter hats, ladies and gentlemen, because Warner Bros. has revealed the red-band trailer for the live-action reboot of Mortal Kombat. The film, adapted from the iconic video game, will be making its theatrical debut on the same day it premieres on HBO Max, and from this first glimpse, it looks like it’s going to be a wild ride.
The film was directed by Simon McQuoid from a script by Greg Russo and Wonder Woman 1984 scribe Dave Callaham...
Ava DuVernay Launches Crucial New Database to Diversify Film & TV Crews
When is Ava DuVernay not pushing the entertainment industry to become more inclusive? The answer is never. The powerhouse director/producer is launching a new venture in collaboration with major studios, streaming platforms, and producers to help diversify film and TV crew members. The new database tool, called ARRAY CREW, launches today and is part of DuVernay’s nonprofit organization ARRAY Alliance. The tool is aimed to help bridge a gap that has long stymied talented filmmakers—how to get their names in front of producers and production companies when they don’t already have established relationships with the insular entertainment community...
From “Black Panther” to “Jeopardy,” Stunt Coordinator & Actor Zee James Hits Her Mark
Zee James is an actress, a stuntwoman and stunt coordinator, and a background performer in movies and on television, ranging from Black Panther and Dolemite is My Name to Bosch and Everybody Hates Chris. She has even demonstrated an entire category of Jeopardy! clues about martial arts. James spoke to us about taking advantage of opportunities that might not be exactly what she planned,...
Composer Jongnic Bontemps on Scoring America’s Past, Present, and Future
Jongnic “JB” Bontemps knows how to turn emotions into a musical composition, whether it’s for a character in a narrative or a historical figure in a documentary. Composing on narrative features, documentaries, shorts, and video games, Bontemps can speak to his collaborators in whatever narrative language they need. For Creed II, he provided director Steven Caple Jr. with additional music worthy of the film’s fighting spirit. For the doc United Skates, Bontemps threaded hip-hop through the story of America’s underground roller rink subculture as it was on the verge of being erased...
“The Investigation” Writer/Director Tobias Lindholm on Rethinking the Police Procedural
The police procedural has been a staple on television since its inception, and writer/director Tobias Lindholm felt it was time to shake things up. The Investigation, Lindholm’s six-episode miniseries currently playing on HBO, delves into one of the most sensational crimes in recent Danish history — the 2017 murder of journalist Kim Wall. And it turns the genre on its ear.
Wall went missing after meeting with an interview subject on his private submarine. After the submarine owner was taken into custody,...
DP Marcell Rév on Going Black and White in “Malcolm & Marie”
From the moment Marie (Zendaya) strides into view, entering the borrowed Los Angeles digs she’s sharing with her director boyfriend Malcolm (John David Washington), you sense trouble. The couple’s home, where they will spend the rest of the night wide awake and arguing, is spacious and stunning, and Malcolm’s movie premiere earlier that evening was an unqualified success. Too bad the auteur forgot to thank Marie in his speech, a particularly egregious omission given that his film was based on her life...
Emma Stone Shines in First “Cruella” Trailer
The first trailer for Disney’s Cruella is a glamorous hoot. Emma Stone stars as one of the Mouse House’s most beloved (and fashionable) villains, with her two-tone black and white hair, perfectly placed beauty mark, and total lack of remorse. The live-action Cruella comes from director Craig Gillespie, a man who knows a little something about building a ferociously entertaining film around a misunderstood woman. He did it back in 2017 with I, Tonya, revisiting the infamous figure skater-turned-criminal Tonya Harding,...
Yuh-jung Youn on Creating Family in “Minari”
Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung’s film Minari is about a Korean family chasing the American dream in 1980s Arkansas. Steven Yeun and Yeri Han play parents Jacob and Monica, who have brought their two kids Ann and David to live and work on a farm, one Jacob hopes to make successful. Yuh-jung Youn plays foul-mouthed but loving grandma Soonja, who leaves Korea to come help care for the children. At first, David thinks Soonja just smells weird and doesn’t act at all the way a grandmother should,...
New Fight Footage Highlights “Godzilla vs. Kong” Teaser
So where do you stand, with Team Godzilla or Team Kong? It seemed from the first trailer of director Adam Wingard’s upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong that we were being nudged to join Team Kong. Obviously, Kong is closer to our meager human species genetically, and we humans love stuff that reflects ourselves. Then there’s the pesky fact that the trailer set Kong up as the protector to an orphaned girl named Jia (Kaylee Hottle). Hard to root against that...
The Joker Gets the Last Word in Official Trailer for “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”
We finally got our first proper look at Zack Snyder’s Justice League when the trailer dropped this past weekend. It arrives four years and change after the first Justice League, shepherded to its theatrical release by stand-in director Joss Whedon, hit theaters in 2017. That’s a long time to wait to see Snyder’s original vision for the film, but it might just be that the wait was worth it. The trailer opens with Superman (Henry Cavill) in pain,...
“To All the Boys” Producer Says Goodbye with “Always and Forever”
What began with a letter is poetically set to end with one too. Okay, probably an email, but you get the idea. Netflix’s hit To All the Boys series will premiere its final installment on February 12. As the trilogy concludes, Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and Peter (Noah Centineo) are simultaneously coming to the end of their high school career and awaiting their college acceptance letters.
We met the adorable couple in 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before...
“Zack Snyder’s Justice League” Teaser Reveals Batmobile, Superman’s Laser Eyes & More
Consider this brand new teaser for Zack Snyder’s Justice League just a little appetizer before the main course hits this weekend, with the full trailer due to drop on Valentine’s Day. Until then, HBO Max is here to sate your appetite—just a bit—with 16-seconds worth of Justice League goodness.
So what will you see here? You’ll get some Batmobile action, some Wonder Woman action, and one very ticked off Superman. Just in case you’ve not been following the long,...
New “WandaVision” Featurette Teases Wanda’s World Coming Undone
A new behind-the-scenes featurette makes the case that the wild ride we’ve been on in WandaVision hasn’t even kicked into high gear yet. Showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman’s patient, period-perfect series has begun to reveal some of the secrets it holds. The sitcom world that Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) exist in seems to be of Wanda’s creation. As we’ve seen in recent episodes, Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) infiltrated Wanda’s Westview creation to find out just what the heck is going on in there...
“Clarice” Producer/Director DeMane Davis on Seizing the Moment
DeMane Davis, co-executive producer/director of the new CBS series Clarice which premieres February 11, calls her career “incredibly fortunate.” But Davis was ready when opportunity arose in the form of Ava DuVernay. When DuVernay opened the door for women directors on her groundbreaking series Queen Sugar, Davis burst through it. On crutches.
“I had broken my ankle and I’d had surgery; the cast had just come off and I was still on crutches,” recalls Davis in a phone interview from Toronto where she is shooting Clarice...
DP Sean Bobbitt on Framing a Historic Power Struggle in “Judas and the Black Messiah”
The late Fred Hampton, former chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers, was renowned for his skill as an orator and his work in his community, though the American government chose to mainly view the young activist as a threat. After convincing competing and even hostile groups as disparate as Chicago’s Young Lords and the rural Young Patriots to work together with the Panthers toward the common goal of a better quality of life for all, Hampton was assassinated in his bed by the FBI and the Chicago and Cook County police in 1969...
Oscars Announce Shortlists for Nine Categories
We’re starting to get a little bit of an outline of how this year’s Oscars is going to look. First, the Golden Globes nominations allow us to start our annual ritual of trying to read the tea leaves on what they might say about the Academy’s pending big night. Often, due to the Globes having a much smaller base of voters (the Hollywood Foreign Press) and the relatively little overlap between the HFP and the Academy means that the Globes nominations are hardly predictive...
