Zack Snyder’s Candid Talk With Christopher Nolan About Making Batman Bad
In their upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice issue, Empire has some intriguing insights from director Zack Snyder, specifically about seeking Christopher Nolan's blessing about his plans for Batman. Nolan was an executive producer on Man of Steel, which is when Snyder approached him about his intentions to turn Batman against Superman in a battle royale—one in which, Empire's John Nugent writes, "Batman would essentially be the bad guy."...
Sundance 2016: Review Roundup, Part IV
Welcome back. You’ve already read parts I, II and III of our Sundance film review roundup.
Let's begin with Whit Stillman's Jane Austen adaptation, Love & Friendship. While you might be thinking, another Austen adaptation, keep in mind Stillman is the man who brought you Metropolitan and Last Days of Disco, and is uniquely suited to bring out Austen's biting humor, which she has in spades...
Another Absurd Cameo Revealed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
As we wrote on Tuesday, there has been an endless cascade of reveals of secret cameos in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Perhaps the best is Daniel Craig's turn as the initially petulant Stormtrooper keeping an eye on a captured Rey. You remember that scene, right? The one where Rey tries out her Obi-Wan Kenobi skills? Obi-Wan famously told a Stormtrooper in the first Star Wars, "these aren't the droids you're looking for,"...
Sundance 2016: Review Roundup, Part III
We’re back with part III of our Sundance film review roundup. You can read parts I and II to catch up on all the films we've looked at thus far.
“Meet the She-Wolves of Wall Street,” writes Variety’s Guy Lodge about Meera Menon’s sophomore feature, Equity. Menon’s “refreshingly female-skewed financial thriller proves that the women of Wall Street can be just as cold-heartedly corrupt as the boys.”...
Watch The Birth of a Nation‘s Nate Parker’s Potent Short Film
This is the power of the Sundance Film Festival, it can turn a talented artist like Nate Parker into a sensation over night. As the undisputed King of Sundance this year with The Birth of a Nation, a film Parker wrote, directed, and starred in—after nurturing the project for 7 years and using $100,000 of his own money to find financing—the man has earned this moment. And as it happens when a filmmaker suddenly becomes an object of fascination,...
Sundance 2016: Nate Parker’s Huge Night & More
We wrote yesterday about the rapturous response to Nate Parker’s Sundance-shaking Nat Turner biopic, The Birth of a Nation. Today, reports are flooding in that the whopping, festival record-setting $17.5 million offer the film got from Fox Searchlight was actually less than what Netflix was willing to part with.
THR reports that writer, director and star Parker, who had put $100,000 of his own money into the film to fly around the country in an attempt to find financiers (he eventually had a dozen investor groups,...
Actor Alex Jennings On The Lady in the Van, his New Netflix Show & More
Alex Jennings is no stranger to playing real-life characters on stage or on screen. He was Prince Charles in Stephen Frears’s 2006 movie The Queen with Helen Mirren and is playing The Duke of Windsor in Peter Morgan’s upcoming 10-episode series The Crown for Netflix — a role that just might make this longtime star of the British stage better known to audiences stateside.
The Duke of Windsor became King Edward VIII ...
More Secret Cameos in Star Wars: The Force Awakens Revealed
With Star Wars: The Force Awakens now officially a part of movie history, secrets from the production have been steadily emerging. From Bill Hader's involvement as droid BB-8's 'vocal consultant' to Daniel Craig, Ewan McGregor and a whole host of others' involvement in various parts of the film. A huge data dump of these secret cameo performances was just released in a piece by StarWars.com, which details, in chronological order, many of the folks who voiced a Stormtrooper,...
Sundance 2016: A Roundup of Reviews, Part II
Let’s take a look at what the critics are saying about some of the films that have premiered at Sundance.
Nate Parker and Tony Espinosa in 'The Birth of a Nation.' Photo by Elliot Davis. Courtesy Sundance Film Festival.
Earlier today, we took a look at Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, including the many positive reviews the film has received,...
New Batman v Superman Trailer Nods at Wonder Woman’s Secret Identity
After releasing a few new TV spots for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. dropped a new trailer on us. Most of the footage you've seen before, but there's one intriguing sequence at the 58 second mark, which happens to be the main image fronting the trailer below. Have a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qywqs526u-I
So what's the big deal about seeing Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) onboard a Turkish Airlines flight (note how clearly visible the airline's logo is in the above shot)? It means Wonder Woman,...
Sundance 2016: Fox Searchlight Nabs Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker, writer, director, and star of The Birth of a Nation's seven year commitment to his labor of love has paid off in a distribution deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures, The Wrap reports. Parker's epic is currently the talk of Sundance. The Hollywood Reporter Rebecca Ford writes that Parker’s film earned a rapturous standing ovation at its' premiere in Eccles theater in Park City, perhaps the longest standing ovation in recent festival history...
Behold the Bleak Game of Thrones Season 6 Teasers
By the end of season five, things were bad for just about every major house in Westeros. The major players in the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens houses spent season five in various states of mutilation, rebellion and exile. And now with three new teasers, GOT is reminding us just how bad things truly are for these once proud Westeros powerhouses.
For the Starks, when have things not been bad? Of all the major houses,...
Our Long-Standing Love Affair With Alien Invasion Films
As the most recent entry into the alien invasion canon- The 5th Wave– hit cinemas this past weekend (chances are you were too snowed under, or in, to go see it), we take a look back at the other notable examples to try to figure out why the aliens are often (but not always) hostile towards us, why we keep retelling these stories, and how the heck we keep defeating the ones that mean us harm. ...
Sundance 2016: A Film Review Roundup
Earlier we looked at some of the films that have premiered at Sundance that have found homes in a variety of studios, from IFC to Amazon. Now let's take a look at some of the films reviews coming out of the festival this year, perhaps gleaning what will be next on the bidding block.
Vulture's Bilge Ebiri has written that Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea, which was purchased by Amazon for somewhere near $10 million,...
Batman v Superman Drops Two New TV Spots
The countdown to the biggest battle of the year (not including your fight to dig out from under Winter Storm Jonas and go to work this morning) has officially begun; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice premieres on March 25. As we inch closer to colossal fight between the son of Krypton and Gotham's Dark Night, Warner Bros. is releasing a bunch of new TV spots, including two just last night. Let's take a look...
Sundance 2016: Complete Unknown, Morris From America & More are Sold
As the first major film festival of the year, and arguably one of the most important on the ever expanding festival circuit, the Sundance Film Festival is something of a taste maker. Studios small and large vie for the distribution rights of a number of films, while unknown talents can, in a single Park City night, become hot commodities. Here's a look at the news coming out of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Before we get into what films have sold thus far,...
Talking to the Writer/Director of the Epic Balkan Western Aferim!
It’s a safe bet that you’ve never seen a movie quite like Aferim!
An epic Balkan Western shot in 35mm black-and-white, Romanian director Radu Jude’s third feature earned a Silver Bear for best director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival and was the Official Selection at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
Aferim! (an Ottoman Turkish expression that apparently translates as “bravo!” and is used ironically in the film) is set in the barren landscape of mid-19th-century Wallachia...
10 Episodes to Get Caught up on the X-Files Before Sunday’s Premiere
Thanks to its hefty publicity campaign, you’re probably aware that Fox has announced an official revival of the beloved science fiction show X-Files. And while reboots might strike fear in the hearts of many, this ground-breaking, well-reviewed and highly-rated show seems fitting, considering it changed the landscape of television before the cable explosion and putting the network on the map. It premieres this Sunday, January 24, at 10ET/7PT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1SmJUBT5q0
Most importantly,...
Not Just For Kids: Best Animated Feature Nominees
Though it wasn’t added to the Oscars slate until 2001 (when Shrek took home the statue), the Best Animated Feature category is more interesting than ever this year, pitting Inside Out, Pixar’s most astonishing and well-reviewed film in quite a few years, against the equally beloved but decidedly adult Anomalisa. Outside of the two front runners, the category remains a refreshing combination of stop motion, computer generated and traditional hand drawn animation,...
Watch Key & Peele’s Hilarious, NSFW First Trailer for Keanu
Plug in your headphones so you can enjoy this trailer at work, because this is Key & Peele in Red Band mode for the first trailer for their film Keanu. It's fitting the title of the trailer includes "from the minds of Key & Peele," because Keanu looks like a feature-length skit from their hit Comedy Central show, and that, my friends, is a good thing. Key & Peele quietly, and then not-so-quietly,...
