James Franco, Jonah Hill Matched up for Murder? Director Rupert Goold Explains
True Story is just that: the real-life story of a journalist who meets with a criminal to understand his crime and write a book about the experience.
In one corner is Michael Finkel, a former star journalist for The New York Times who gets fired after stretching the truth in a magazine cover story. And across the table is Christian Longo, an Oregon man accused of murdering his wife and two children and then going on the run in Mexico...
Abraham Lincoln in Film, on the 150th Anniversary of his Assassination
Today, April 14th, marks the 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln while attending a performance of ‘The American Cousin’ at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC. The 16th President passed the following day, leaving a shocked, grieving nation to heal the wounds of the Civil War without its leader.
Lincoln’s epic story has been manna for filmmakers from the inception of the medium. From D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) to Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) to the television movie Killing Lincoln starring Tom Hanks in 2013,...
Writer/Director Vindu Vinod Chopra on Broken Horses
The bonds of brotherhood are explored and testing in Broken Horses, the gritty thriller from writer-producer-director Vindu Vinod Chopra (Parinda, 1942: A Love Story.). The story follows a young music prodigy, Jacob Heckum, (Anton Yelchin) who returns to his desolate hometown only to discover that his brother, Buddy (Chris Marquette), has been persuaded by a local drug gang to join their ranks. As they grapple with the memories of their father’s murder when they were children,...
Game of Thrones Music Editor David Klotz Makes Melody of Mayhem
On the surface, it may seem like Game of Thrones, Glee and American Horror Story have little in common. The first is a mythological drama about feuding families lusting for power. The second is a musical comedy focused on the daily activities of a high school singing group, and the third is an anthological horror series.
One asset they do all have in common though is David Klotz, a two-time Emmy-winning music editor whose indelible influence has been featured on all three programs...
Who’s Funnier, Iron Man or Ultron in this new Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer?
Now that Avengers: Age of Ultron has had its world premiere at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, there are likely going to be a few more clips like this released in the build up to the film’s wide release on May 1.
There’s been all sorts of interesting stories surrounding the premiere of Ultron. There was the piece in Vulture yesterday where Whedon once again discussed how exhausting making this film was,...
New Ant-Man Trailer is Sort of Adorable
The new Ant-Man trailer has a few things going for it, and one of those is Evangeline Lilly. She was the underrated scene stealer and heartthrob that made Lost make sense even at the very end (when it sorta-kinda stopped making sense), and here she plays Paul Rudd’s ally and all around bad ass, Hope Van Dyne (that name!). And who isn't excited to see Rudd as a super-shrinking superhero, fighting bad guys while in miniature?...
Behind the Controls With Chappie Drone Operator John Gore
It’s a good time to be a drone operator. As the basic devices have gotten cheaper and the more expensive ones more sophisticated, drones have proliferated, not just in the film industry but for applications like mining, surveying and search and rescue.
John Gore, a South Africa-based drone operator who has worked on nine features to date, including Chappie, The Last Face and Seal Team 8,...
5 Interesting Choices Made by Cast & Crew in Skype Horror Unfriended
There are few things creepier in life than an unexplained, unwanted intrusion on our privacy. In the pre-internet era, the phone was the communication medium of choice for sadists to torture their victims in films. When a Stranger Calls (1979) revolves around that phone call from the titular stranger to a babysitter named Jill (Carol Kane), asking “have you checked the children?” Spoiler alert; the police trace the call and tell the babysitter the call is coming from inside the house...
Lies, Illusions & Murder: A Look at True Story
Journalist Michael Finkel had a promising career ahead of him when he started at the New York Times Magazine, although his future was soon shattered by his own mistakes. Finkel was caught fabricating elements of his feature story “Is Youssouf Malé a Slave?” which looked at the life of the young, titular laborer on a cocoa plantation on the Ivory Coast. Although Malé was a real boy, it was revealed that Finkel had create the version you meet in the article from a composite of several boys he met,...
Animation for Adults: Oscar Nominee Bill Plympton’s Gorgeous Cheatin’ World
Cheatin’, directed by Academy Award nominee Bill Plympton, the “King of Indie Animation,” is the animated, adults-only tale of love, jealousy, revenge and murder. It follows the story of Jake and Ella, who meet and become lovers — and then ultimately face problems when an “other” woman comes between them. “The personal inspiration for the film came from a relationship I had years ago, when I was madly in love with a woman and we moved in together,...
Making It: Ruth De Jong’s Designs on Paul Thomas Anderson & Terrence Malick
Ruth De Jong never thought she would end up working on movies. She wanted to be a painter.
But now, a decade into her career as a production designer and art director, she’s tallied up credits on films like The Tree of Life, To the Wonder and Knight of Cups from director Terrence Malick, and There Will Be Blood, The Master and Inherent Vice with Paul Thomas Anderson...
Before & After: Watch What Crowdfunding Did for Aurora in 2 Trailers
On April 26, 2013, Aurora was posted on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. Aurora’s an ambitious sci-fi love story set after a human-created apocalypse has destroyed the Earth and left the machines they created to protect them in control. The machines, led by a super-computer named Kronos, take over under the guise of creating a utopia. Sixty years later, the protagonist, Andrew (Julian Schaffner), finds himself living in this Kronos-ruled world when he meets Calia (Jeannine Wacker), a girl on the way to a place called Aurora...
Sesame Street spoofs Game of Thrones With Game of Chairs
In the land of Jesteros, no one could have seen this plot twist coming…
Sesame Street is on point once again with their parody of Game of Thrones; sorry, we mean Game of Chairs. Ned Stark, along with Grover (Bluejoy), is in charge of administering the game (musical chairs), which will crown the new king or queen. Robb Stark, Cersei Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, and Daenerys Targaryen are all on hand to fight for the ‘Iron Throne’...
Check-It Follows a DC Gang that Disproves Gay Clichés
Filmmakers Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer (The Nine Lives of Marion Barry) are relying on an Indiegogo crowdfunding platform to raise $60,000 to finish Check It, their documentary about a gay gang in one of Washington D.C.’s most violent neighborhoods. The campaign ends on April 4 — and as of this writing they have raised a bit more than $53,000 — or approximately 89 percent of their goal.
The film, which has been in the works for more than three years,...
3 Countries, Forged Art, Lighting? The Struggles of Directing Woman in Gold
In 2011, in his cinematic directorial debut, Simon Curtis helped bring a simple yet personal story to life in the film My Week with Marilyn. The film— which told the true tale of a young man’s adventures with Marilyn Monroe during one eventful week in the 1950s— earned critical raves and helped nab Oscar nominations for stars Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh.
This year, Curtis has brought another incredible true story to the big screen in the new film The Woman in Gold...
Sick Ride: A Look at Furious 7‘s Supercharged Cars
“Cars are like a cowboy’s horse or a Samurai’s sword. They are an extension of our heroes and representative of their personalities," says Furious 7 screenwriter Chris Morgan. "We always try to maintain that philosophy but accomplish it in a fresh new way with every film. The constant though: Brian (the late Paul Walker) will always get the fast car, while Dom (Vin Diesel) always gets the furious car.”
With Furious 7 charing into theaters this Friday,...
Actress Katharine Emmer Wanted A Life in Color, so she Became a Director
NYU graduate Katharine Emmer looked to have a bright acting career in front of her. She landed an episode of Desperate Housewives; she had a role in indie film Puccini for Beginners, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. At NYU she was the recipient of the Annual Tisch Artistic Achievement Award. But even with her growing resume, she was not a full-time working actor; the way she was paying the bills was as full-time working nanny...
Masterminds Trailer Delivers a Solid Gut-Punch
This trailer for Masterminds starts off like so many armored car/ bank heist thrillers – the set up is a news broadcast of the theft in a shaky, blurry camera and a newscaster's voice over explaining the audacity of a bank robbery– but it all changes, and becomes wonderfully Galifianakian, with a bullet in the pants, “It feels like it just grazed my biscuits, right in between stuff,” Zach Galifianakis says.
This tease for Masterminds is chock full of the raw fun and sensationally silly escapades we've come to expect from America's preeminent clown (he can really act,...
It’s Hard to Tell Who’s Crazy in the New Mad Max: Fury Road Trailer
While watching the new Mad Max: Fury Road trailer, the phrase that resonates is, “Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!”
Director George Miller’s trailer is a breathtaking tease for the return of the Mad Max ‘franchise’ after a 30-year gap. We get a snippet of context for the high adrenaline car chases. We get a Charlize Theron with a fantastic buzz cut and four unidentified girls trying to escape, but from what and who –...
New Trailer for Straight Outta Compton Raw & Exciting
The new Straight Outta Compton trailer has all the power of the movement that inspired it. N.W.A. was the musical progenitor of a new, and largely ignored, raw urban voice. Even in this short clip, we get a taste of the story of an America that we don’t read about in many history books, but nonetheless was a lived experience for millions. For N.W.A., including Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Eazy-E, their “art was a reflection of their reality.”
There is every indication that Straight Outta Compton will be an edgy,...
