Pinstripes and Blood Spatter: Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Making Dark Magic in “Sinners”
Two-time Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter takes us behind the seams of Ryan Coogler's horror masterpiece "Sinners," revealing how she brought the 1930s Mississippi Delta to life while dressing Michael B. Jordan's gangster twins.
“Dark Winds” Showrunner John Wirth on Building a Peabody-Winning Thriller with Native Voices at its Core
"Dark Winds" follows tribal cops Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) as they solve crimes on their Navajo Nation turf.
Behind Netflix’s “The Four Seasons”: How “30 Rock” Veterans Lang Fisher & Tracey Wigfield Reimagined a Classic With Tina Fey
Adapted from the classic romantic comedy of the same name, Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield‘s The Four Seasons is a contemporary take on a tale as middle-aged as time: the highs and lows of evolving friendships and relationships between friends who have reached the middle innings of life.
The original film was written and directed by Alan Alda and co-starred Alda and Carol Burnett, and it was one of 1981’s biggest box office hits.
Avengers, Assemble the Goonies! How SetJetters Connects Movie Fans to Their Favorite Film & TV Locations
We chat with two of SetJetters co-founders about creating the ultimate travel guide for the cinephile and TV lover.
End Game: “Squid Game” Season 3 Trailer Teases Final Reckoning
The official teaser trailer for Squid Game‘s third and final season has arrived, bringing the games to a close with what promises to be the most sadistic season yet. But don’t take our word for it, this was confirmed for us by both the series’ star, Lee Jung-jae, and creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, when we interviewed both of them last month.
Seasons 2 and 3 were filmed back-to-back,
Genesis of Gemstones: Danny McBride and DP Paul Daley Reveal How Bradley Cooper Brought the Unholy Patriarch to Life
The Gemstones Sunday service has come to an end. After four seasons, Danny McBride’s dark comedy following a dysfunctional televangelist family aired its final episode with a glorious blood-soaked banger. But among the chaos, McBride and company focused its scripture on the series’ revolving theme: a family of unconditional love. And it was at the start of the season, we were introduced to the Gemstones’ family origins through a Civil War era epic with 12-time Academy Award nominee Bradley Cooper playing the OG bible preacher.
From “Thunderbolts*” to “The New Avengers”: Inside the Sudden Superhero Title Swap
Thunderbolts* SPOILERS AHEAD
Who knew an asterisk packed such a punch? Thunderbolts* rolled into theaters this weekend and just as quickly rolled out a new movie title. The mysterious asterisk that hung on the end of the film’s title left some fans perplexed—that was, until the last ten minutes of the film.
Today, Marvel branding and marketing from billboards to posters to online ticket services have all changed the Thunderbolts* title to the newly revealed real title for the movie: The New Avengers.
“Highest 2 Lowest” Trailer Reveals Spike Lee’s New Joint With Denzel Washington
You want to get film nerds salivating? Drop a new trailer for a Spike Lee joint starring Denzel Washington that reveals Lee’s latest, which is a riff on the work of another film legend, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Lee’s film, produced by A24 and set to hit theaters on August 22 before streaming on Apple TV+ (with a world premiere set for Cannes), stars Washington as a music industry titan who is targeted in a ransom plot,
Take On Me: Ellie & Dina Find Love as Jeffrey Wright’s Isaac Brings New Darkness to “The Last of Us”
Oscar-nominated performer Jeffrey Wright is no stranger to prestigious HBO dramas—he was a central figure in Westworld—yet it was still a fun jolt to see him, at last, enter the picture in the 4th episode of The Last of Us season 2, “Day One.”
In the opening scene, Wright appears as a FEDRA soldier during a flashback to 2018 in Seattle’s quarantine zone, 11 years before the current timeline.
“Thunderbolts*” Director Jake Schreier: From “Beef’s” Parking Lot Rage to Superhero Trauma
With critics praising Thunderbolts* ahead of its May 2 release as something decidedly new (and according to its Rotten Tomatoes score, decidedly fresh) in the MCU, director Jake Schreier has opened up the aperture on how he approached his Marvel debut. Schreier is a seasoned, respected indie helmer with a string of critically acclaimed titles to his name. After launching his career with the Sundance hit Robot &
Soul Transcendent: How DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw Captured Black Music’s Timeless Continuum in “Sinners”
In part one of our interview with Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the groundbreaking DP discussed how she leveled up to frame Coogler’s soulful supernatural epic by learning to use the largest film format available. Coogler’s ambitions for his vampire thriller, starring Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, were massive. The brothers return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after serving in World War I and then taking their talents to Chicago,
Marvel’s Misfits Hit Big: Florence Pugh-Led “Thunderbolts*” Strikes a Chord With Critics
The reviews for Thunderbolts* are hitting the internet like so many lightning strikes, and Marvel Studios is very much liking the weather report. Director Jake Schreier’s film about this assemblage of Marvel misfits—Rolling Stone‘s David Fear calls them the “off-brand Avengers“—who were all scooped from previous MCU outings and thrown together like possibly toxic leftover ingredients, has resulted in something satisfying. Thunderbolts* is being hailed as a surprisingly soulful,
Blues, Blood, & Big Formats: How DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw Brought “Sinners” to Epic, IMAX-Sized Life
Yes, there are vampires, but Sinners also excels as a period piece, a history lesson, a romance, a drama, an action movie, and a music-driven drama in ways that have made director Ryan Coogler‘s fifth movie the top-grossing original film of the decade. Based on his own script about gangster twins Smoke and Stack (played by Michael B. Jordan) who return to their Mississippi roots with a bag of ill-gotten cash and a plan to start their own juke joint in the middle of the woods,
Dwayne Johnson Enters the Ring in First Trailer for Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine”
A24 has revealed the first trailer for Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, which stars Dwayne Johnson as MMA legend Mark Kerr, sporting a prosthetic and an accent in his first turn, potentially marking an intriguing career pivot into prestige films. (Johnson is part of a potential all-star cast for a projected Martin Scorsese-directed gangster film set in Hawaii.)
Kerr was one of the seminal early stars of the UFC,
Lost in the Labyrinth: Production Designer Jeremy Hindle on Deepening the Designs in “Severance” Season Two
Season two of Severance managed to do the impossible—it justified the historic wait that fans had endured. It delivered a deeply satisfying mind-bender that answered plenty of season one’s pressing questions while leaving more than enough mystery for season three. In the frighteningly real sci-fi show created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller, the scale of drama, conspiracy, and fear spreads across a range of new environments, much like a disease manufactured by Lumon Industries.
Home Field Advantage: “NCIS: Origins” Showrunners on How Tax Credits Anchored Their Prequel Series in California
Already renewed for a second season, the NCIS franchise spin-off NCIS: Origins has been capturing a new generation of fans. In addition to the 90s set prequel’s heady mix of powerful storytelling, music, and a dynamic young cast, showrunners David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal credit a lot of the show’s appeal to the fact that it’s set in and filmed in California.
The CBS show follows a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell),
No Character Is Safe: How DP Ksenia Sereda Frames “The Last of Us” Season 2’s Heightened Stakes
Sanctuary is fleeting in The Last of Us. With savage grudges and the ever-evolving infected hordes, who seem to be learning tactics through their cordyceps-controlled brains, no one is safe. Here comes your spoiler alert warning—the savagery proved especially true when antihero Joel (Pedro Pascal) was brutally clubbed to death by vengeful Firefly, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). You don’t need to be a member of the undead to do dreadful things in this world.
“Sinners” Takes a Big Second Bite: Ryan Coogler’s Vampire Thriller Has Historic Second Weekend
Writer/director Ryan Coogler has officially gone five for five.
The 39-year old auteur can now make the very rare claim to have had five consecutive hit films in his first five attempts, as his wildly ambitious, beautifully composed fifth feature, the R-rated supernatural period thriller Sinners, just boasted the most impressive second weekend for any film in well over a decade, pulling in $45 million for the smallest drop for a movie’s second weekend since James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar.
Ledgers and Lethal Force: Gavin O’Connor on Directing Ben Affleck in “The Accountant 2”
Almost a decade after they first worked together, the action sequel The Accountant 2 reunites director Gavin O’Connor and star Ben Affleck for a third time. First announced seven years ago, the journey to bring the follow-up to the screen has been challenging, but it’s one the Warrior filmmaker is grateful for.
Set and filmed in Los Angeles, Affleck returns as Christian Wolff, the titular number-crunching hero with a brilliant mind and a talent for solving complex problems,
Emergency Realism: Production Designer Nina Ruscio’s Blueprint for “The Pitt’s” Immersive Medical World
Producer John Wells and creator R. Scott Gemmill took a big swing with The Pitt and hit a home run that would have cleared the 410-foot deep left-center field wall of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. The riveting series, which has garnered the kind of collective enthusiasm we usually associate with dark comedies set at fancy resorts, is powered by gruesome surgical procedures, arcane medical terminology, and volatile personalities. The high concept: each episode constitutes one hour in an emergency room over the course of a 12-hour shift,
