Watch Jennifer Hudson Channel Aretha Franklin in The Official Respect Trailer
If you’re going to attempt to have someone portray the incredible Aretha Franklin, you’d need an insanely talented and very brave performer. Luckily for director Liesl Tommy, Aretha herself selected Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson, a sensational singer in her own right, of course. Franklin was consulting with producer Harvey Mason Jr. before she passed away, in 2018, about the long-gestating project. According to Variety, Franklin was involved with the film up until the very end and had been supportive of Hudson in the role.
A Stunning Surprise: Beyoncé Drops “Black is King” Trailer
It’s official—Disney+ is doing everything in its power to keep you glued to your TV screen in July. The first look at Beyoncé’s Black is King is here, a classic surprise release from the Queen herself, which she wrote, directed, and executive produced. Beyoncé has once again put together a visual album unlike any other, this time reimagining the themes from The Lion King to speak to all the young Black kings and queens who look to her for not only guidance but for the fearless creativity (and hard work) she’s famous for.
Pixar Reveals a Beautiful New Trailer For “Soul”
In case you missed this over the weekend, here’s a dose of something dreamy to start your week. Pixar released a new teaser trailer for Soul on Saturday, narrated by Jamie Foxx, who lends his voice to the lead character Joe. Joe is a jazz musician, a true lover of music, who carries this love into his teaching band at a middle school. This new look at co-writer and director Pete Docter’s latest was revealed at the Essence Festival of Culture over the weekend and focuses on Joe’s community.
New “Candyman” Spot Creates More Buzz for Nia DaCosta’s Film
A new TV spot for Candyman utilizes the gut-punch of a prologue director Nia DaCosta shared with the world on June 17 and mixes in new footage to hype the upcoming horror flick. That prologue, a thing of haunting beauty, teased the backstory to DaCosta’s continuation of the horror franchise, which first began in 1992.
The prologue—created with shadow puppets—revealed the nested stories that hint at the origins of the film’s titular “monster” and the world in which he was created.
How Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” Got Its Signature Look
Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, known for his work on films like Bohemian Rhapsody, Drive, Three Kings, numerous X-Men installments, notes that his first feature with director Spike Lee always “felt like a distant dream.”
Not because he hadn’t crossed Lee’s path before, since the two had collaborated on numerous commercials, and he mentions having “known Spike forever it seems—we both came up in New York at the same time.
A Chat About Netflix’s “Disclosure” and Trans Representation on Screen
We have something very special planned for tonight, folks. As part of our ongoing Pride Month coverage, the Motion Picture Association has teamed up with Netflix for our next installment of our Film School Friday series. We’re really excited for tonight’s conversation with leading transgender and LGBTQ+ creators of Netflix’s groundbreaking documentary Disclosure. Our panelists are Disclosure‘s director Sam Feder (you can read our interview with Sam here),
How They “Live-Captured” Hamilton
In this new clip from the upcoming film version of Hamilton, which is coming to Disney + on July 3, you’ll be able to feel a little bit of the magic that existed in the theater for all those folks who got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster Broadway musical. Yet as compelling as this clip is, and as great as it looks, it doesn’t quite represent what someone who got a chance to see “Hamilton”
David France on the Terror Facing the LGBTQ+ Community in Welcome to Chechnya
Oscar-nominated filmmaker and former investigative journalist David France has a new documentary, Welcome To Chechnya, debuting on HBO June 30th, which has already won multiple awards on the film festival circuit. His film reveals the ongoing danger to LGBTQ Chechens targeted for persecution and death in a campaign to ‘cleanse’ the republic. France follows the activities of heroic activists, and profiles the people they hope to rescue out of harm’s way,
New Book Will Reveal How Christopher Nolan Created The Mysterious Tenet
You have to hand it to Christopher Nolan. His films are so consistently epic, so gleefully ambitious, that even before his films premiere they have us all asking how’d he do it? Whether it was rebooting the Batman franchise with his beloved Dark Knight trilogy, creating a heist movie like no other in his dreamy sci-fi masterpiece Inception, or taking us beyond the stars in his space drama Interstellar,
Composer Hans Zimmer is Crafting Something Really Special For Dune
Hans Zimmer is a joyous man. We learned that when we interviewed him at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. He was there to talk about scoring Steve McQueen’s heist remake Widows, yet we ended up talking about a lot more, including his ever-shifting methods, depending on the director he’s working with. He was exceedingly humble for being one of the world’s most famous film composers. He was,
Netflix Releases Ravishing First Trailer For Their Animated Musical Over The Moon
There are trailers, and then there are trailers. The first glimpse at Netflix’s Over the Moon definitely falls into the latter category. While one can never be totally certain about these things, it sure does feel like the streaming giant has an absolute smash on its hands here.
Directed by animation legend and Oscar-winner Glen Keane (you can read our two-part interview from a few years back with Keane here and here),
Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 Trailer Reveals Disney+’s New Docu-Series
It’s not so often we get a proper documentary on the making of an animated film, which makes Disney+’s Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 an intriguing new entrant. Now we get to see how the most successful animated film of all time was crafted, which, at The Credits, is what we do every day. It’s why we interview folks like Frozen 2 composer Christophe Beck and head of special effects Marlon West.
Foundation Trailer Reveals Apple TV+’s Hugely Ambitious Sci-Fi Epic
If you’re a fairly new streaming service and you’re prepared to go all-in on an epic sci-fi series, you could hardly pick better source material than legendary sci-fi author Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series. In fact, many consider it the greatest work of science fiction ever produced. This is precisely what Apple TV+ has done, and the first trailer for their adaptation reveals a hugely ambitious new show with excellent performers and the kind of big-budget production design and visual effects we now want and expect from our television series.
Director Ivy Meeropol on Her Deeply Personal HBO Documentary About Roy Cohn
After Ivy Meeropol directed her powerful and deeply personal HBO documentary Heir to an Execution (2004) about her grandparents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed for alleged espionage in 1953 with prosecutor Roy Cohn leading the charge, she felt she’d finally put the subject behind her.
“I thought for years that a film about Roy Cohn was in order, that it should be done and I couldn’t believe no one had done it.
Hamilton Trailer Brings Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway Smash Into Your Home
If there is one good thing to come of what COVID-19 has done to the entertainment industry, it’s the fast-tracking of the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Miranda’s Broadway juggernaut is arriving on Disney + a full year ahead of schedule, and now we’ve got the first official trailer. Miranda’s miraculous musical, which began its’ run on Broadway in 2015, has been a very hard ticket to get (not that there are tickets to be had these days).
Sam Feder Takes a Revealing Look at Transgender Depiction in Hollywood in Disclosure
Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen offers an eye-opening look at the history of transgender depiction in two universal media: film and television. The story is told through the perspectives and memories of trans people in the entertainment industry — Laverne Cox (also an executive producer of Disclosure), Lilly Wachowski and Jen Richards among them — and features clips and images that shed light on how American culture has dehumanized and made assumptions about the transgender community.
Celebrating Black Artists on Juneteenth
Today we celebrate Juneteenth, commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States on June 19, 1865. This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the Civil War ended. It was on June 19, 1865, that Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, galloped into Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were free. Their delayed emancipation had finally come.
Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel on Shooting Spike Lee’s Epic Da 5 Bloods
On its surface, Spike Lee’s latest joint, Da 5 Bloods, is about four Black Vietnam war veterans who return to the country decades later to bring home the remains of their leader, Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), who was killed in action. Secondary to this mission, the remaining four of the five Bloods (played by Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Norm Lewis) also plan to locate and dig up a chest of gold bars they’d buried in battle.
Zack Snyder Reveals The First Look at His Snyder Cut Justice League
And there you have it, the first glimpse—and we do mean glimpse—of Zack Snyder’s vision for the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League. Snyder has revealed the teaser via tweet, and we’ve got it for you below. Snyder was, of course, the original director of Justice League before he had to exit the production due to a family tragedy. The result was that the Justice League everyone saw in 2017 was partially Snyder’s,
Composer Sherri Chung on Batwoman, Riverdale & More
Composer Sherri Chung faced the production freeze due to COVID-19 with equal parts equanimity and patience. Because her work is often done alone, the self-quarantine aspect of the pandemic hasn’t changed her process all that much. Chung has a studio where she has her own recording stage that can fit about 15 players, so that part of her process has been shuttered, but the fact that she was already on a natural hiatus, as she described it,
