Baby Driver‘s Oscar Nominated Editor Paul Machliss on Marrying Music to Mayhem
Of all the masterly edited films of 2017, it would be hard to argue any were quite as revolutionary as Baby Driver. Edgar Wright’s music-charged heist flick was so flawlessly designed and edited it seemed almost as if the songs on the soundtrack had been recorded specifically for the scenes they amplified. In our interview with supervising sound editor Julian Slater, we learned, among other things, that the brilliantly matched music-and-turbo-charged-getaways were so complicated,
Living Biblically‘s Showrunner on Bringing the Bible to CBS—in a Comedy
A.J. Jacobs’ best seller, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, is now a new television sit-com that premiered on CBS on February 26, 2018. Mad Men’s Jay R. Ferguson plays Chip, a journalist who consults a priest (Ian Gomez) and a rabbi (David Krumholtz) for guidance when he is rocked by two life-changing events, the death of a friend and the news that his wife is having a baby.
Alexander Skarsgård Redefines the “Strong, Silent Type” In First Trailer for Netflix’s Mute
Blade Runner fans are in for a treat with Netflix’s new movie, Mute, by Warcraft director Duncan Jones. Alexander Skarsgård stars as a mute bartender, Leo, in futuristic Berlin. The movie is centered on Leo’s quest to find his girlfriend who has mysteriously disappeared. Despite his silence, Leo is not one to back down from a fight; the trailer opens with Leo throwing a bottle at and getting into a brawl with a patron who was a little too persistent with his girlfriend,
Shazam! Production is Officially Underway
Lightning is about to strike in the DCEU. Shazam! Director David F. Sandberg announced that production has begun on the film with the classic shot of a clapboard. Shazam! will bring to life every kid’s fantasy of joining their favorite legion of superheroes in the fight against crime.
Shazam!
How Does Your Favorite Movie Monster Size Up?
The joy of monster movies is often seeing how much destruction an enormous mutant can wreak on a city, or lost island, as the case may be. Visual effects artists often fill the entire screen with King Kong’s eyes or dwarf Dwayne Johnson with a silverback gorilla that doesn’t even fit on the poster to emphasize their enormous proportions. Godzilla and Kong are slated for a showdown in 2020, but we often don’t get to see giants of the screen side by side.
First Ant-Man and the Wasp Trailer Reveals Marvel’s Tiniest Super Duo
Well, we thought Marvel Studios might want until the Super Bowl to reveal the first Ant-Man and the Wasp trailer, but we’ve been wrong once before. Here’s your first look at director Peyton Reed’s sequel to his fun, funny caper original, which he took over from Baby Driver‘s Edgar Wright and, against the odds—considering how beloved Wright is and how excited fans were to see his vision for Ant-Man—delivered a delicious,
The Lucky Ones Who Saw Black Panther Are Hailing the King
Black Panther premiered last night in Los Angeles, and the reactions are more electric than Wakandan vibranium. Reviews are embargoed until February 6, but the excitement already took over Twitter. Fans and critics alike are gushing over Ryan Coogler’s film. Perhaps USA Today’s Brian Truitt described it best as, “simply awesome.”
#BlackPanther is simply awesome. Extremely bold and as touching as it is thrilling, it boasts GOT-style intrigue, crazy innovative action and a deep bench of memorable characters.
Will Ferrell Brushes Off His George W. Bush Impression for Saturday Night Live
One of the most successful SNL alums returned on Saturday to reprise his most famous impersonation. The legendary sketch comedy show is in a heyday with golden material coming out of the White House. Will Ferrell returned to remind viewers, however, that former President George W. Bush used to be at the center of the show’s punchlines.
Ferrell retired as a regular cast member in 2005, but has returned as a guest host four time since.
T’Challa Utilizes Crazy Awesome Technology in New Black Panther Spot
The long wait for Marvel’s Black Panther is almost over, and every teaser they release is more exciting than the last. The 60th Annual Grammy Awards were filled with exciting performances and surprising moments. Among them was a 30-second TV spot for Black Panther. We got a really good look at the Black Panther’s high tech super suit, more closeups of the amazing Wakandan technology,
The Title Sequence Isn’t Disappearing – It’s Headed Back To The Big Screen
It appeared quietly, in the right corner of your Netflix screen a few months ago: the “skip intro” button. A translucent shortcut customized by the streaming service built to work both with any series, cold open or no, meant to allow binge-watchers to expedite their viewing experience. In the past, new features and redesigns have come and gone on the site without a word, but the button almost immediately created quite a stir. Most notably,
Sundance 2018: A Conversation with the Director and Cast of Daring Heist Film American Animals
Whether it’s the reluctant exploitation of a super skill in Baby Driver or the stylish and sophisticated execution of Ocean’s Eleven, heist movies are an American cinematic staple. The masterminded plans, daring escapes, and thrilling shootouts look easy on screen, but what would happen in a real life do-it-yourself caper? Enter Sundance selection, American Animals.
In 2004, Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, Chas Allen, and Eric Borsuk fell headlong into a reckless amateur effort to break out of the mundanity of their lives.
Sundance 2018: The Tale Composer Delicately Threads a Fragile Story of Adolescent Abuse
For decades, documentarian Jennifer Fox had convinced herself that the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child was consensual. In revisiting her memories and the events under the light of adulthood, Fox had a reckoning with the true nature of the events. Her memoir, starring Laura Dern as Jennifer, is laid bare in Sundance premiere The Tale. After decades of employing coping mechanisms to avoid the atrocities of sexual abuse she experienced as a child,
Meryl Streep to Make Rare TV Appearance in Season 2 of Big Little Lies
With 4 Golden Globes and 8 Emmy wins, Big Little Lies was the talk of the TV year. Avid reader Reese Witherspoon sparked the passion project when she began pushing for an adaptation of the Liane Moriarty novel. Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Alexander Skarsgård came on board for a star studded first season cast. Now, the explosive HBO drama has caught the eye of record holding Oscar nominated actor,
Watch How They Made an Amphibious Creature a Credible Romantic Lead in Awesome The Shape of Water Video
You don’t get 13 Oscar nominations for nothing, folks. Guillermo del Toro’s lovingly made, gorgeously realized The Shape of Water is that rare film—both a technical and emotional triumph. You don’t have much time to marvel at the technical stuff because you’re pretty much immediately swept away by the emotions of the story, by the radiant performance of Sally Hawkins, as the mute heroine, Elisa Esposito, and her utterly believable, ultimately incandescent love for the Asset,
Sundance 2018: Keira Knightley Illuminates Lush Portrayal of French Literary Icon in Colette
In 2015, director Wash Westmoreland and his husband, Richard Glatzer, watched the Oscars from a hospital room at Cedars Sinai. Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her role in their film Still Alice. Glatzer passed away days later following a battle with ALS. The next project he wanted to pursue was Colette, and Westmoreland honored Glatzer’s wishes this week at Sundance.
Westmoreland, who won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 2006,
This new “Kinetic Energy” Black Panther Solves a Curious Puzzle
Just how technologically advanced is T’Challa’s new suit in Black Panther? Put it this way—getting shot at makes the suit more powerful.
In a fun, potent new Black Panther clip, we get a peek at the upgrade to T’Challa’s suit (the one he wore during Captain America: Civil War was, like an old Iron Man Mark II, an outdated model) and a clever reveal of a sequence we’ve seen in countless trailers and TV spots.
Monsters and Newly Vibrant and Nimble Jaegers Collide in new Pacific Rim Uprising Trailer
Behold the new trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 film starring The Last Jedi‘s John Boyega as Jake Pentecost. One of the most striking things about this new trailer are the upgrade to the colossal mech saviors the Jaegers—they are more colorful, much swifter, and much more streamlined than del Toro’s lumbering mech-beasts. In fact, these new Jaegers owe about as much stylistically to Michael Bay’s improbably lightning-quick Transformers as they do to del Toro’s lovingly (and practically) rendered saviors.
Sundance 2018: The Tale Sheds Light on Adolescent #MeToo Victims
The combined courage and talent of Jennifer Fox displayed at the premiere of The Tale was overwhelming. The audience couldn’t stand and applaud long enough. Caroline Libresco, Senior Programmer and Director, Special Programs, introduced the film saying, “This movie is inventing a new cinematic language for an ineffable human experience.”
Fox, a celebrated documentarian, began doubting her recollection of an adolescent experience when she began interviewing women about their sexuality for Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman.
Sundance 2018: This Close Director on Shoshannah Stern & Josh Feldman’s Groundbreaking Series, the First by two Deaf Creators
Director Andrew Ahn made at splash at Sundance in 2016 with his feature Spa Night, which focused on a closeted Korean-American teenager who takes a job at a Korean spa to help his struggling family, and ends up discovering a underground world of gay sex that terrifies and thrills him. Ahn was back at Sundance this year for another intriguing project, This Close, a groundbreaking new series on Sundance Now created by Josh Feldman and Shoshannah Stern,
Oscar Watch: Baby Driver’s Supervising Sound Editor Dissects the Movie’s Unique Syncopated Style
As a contingency for speaking with me about his work on Baby Driver, supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer, Julian Slater, made me promise two things: watch it on a really good system and turn up the volume. After running a check on my speakers and ensuring my neighbors were out for the day, I cranked it up and was blown away. It would take dozens of viewings to begin to appreciate the layers of audio that Slater has choreographed for Baby Driver,
