CinemaCon 2014: 20th Century Fox & Warner Bros. Tout Strong Women, Big Monsters

Funny, smart and tough women abound in 20th Century Fox’s upcoming slate of films. Three of them will be making appearances today in CinemaCon to tout their films—Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann for their revenge comedy The Other Woman and current Divergent star Shailene Woodley for the adaptation of the beloved YA book The Fault in Our Stars.

Cameron Diaz and Leslia Mann have proven their comedic acting chops time and time again,...

CinemaCon 2014: The High-Tech Moviegoing Experience

You’ve heard the logic before: high-definition screens and on-demand content have altered the moviegoing environment forever, creating a home entertainment experience that rivals a night out at the local movie theater. Of course, anyone who saw Gravity in IMAX 3D might beg to differ, but it doesn’t necessarily take a game-changing tour de force to pack an auditorium. Today, the local multiplex has done an impressive job of not just keeping pace but surpassing your trusty living room sofa,...

CinemaCon 2014: Sony Teases The Amazing Spider-Man 2 & More

What better way to enjoy Sony Pictures’ presentation than after a few cocktails? The studio is hosting a pre-event cocktail reception in The Colosseum Lobby at Caesar’s before they unveil their 2014 films. Classy. President, Rory Bruer is the man on hand to give folks a glimpse of everybody’s favorite web-slinger, as well as everybody’s favorite undercover cops, to name a few of the films that’ll be teased during their presentation.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) faces a host of super villains in The Amazing Spider-Man 2,...

CinemaCon 2014: Disney Unveils Maleficent, Million Dollar Arm & More

It's day three of CinemaCon and the schedule is packed. Alternative content and event cinema companies, fro Arts Alliance to Screenvision, will be hosting a special exhibit in the Palace Ballroom at Caesar's Palace this morning, followed by Walt Disney Studios exclusive presentation.

Disney Chairman Alan Horn and executive vice president of distribution Dave Hollis will host the presentation, which includes a screening of Million Dollar Arm presented in Dolby Atmos.

Along with Million Dollar Arm, ...

CinemaCon 2014: Universal Unveils Summer Lineup

While it’s an inexact science figuring out how much a festival crowd’s enthusiasm means for the future of a film, the screening of Universal’s Neighbors at SXSW must have delighted many in the studio. Hundreds of people waited patiently, in the rain, for roughly an hour to see director Nicholas Stoller’s movie and roared with laughter for just about all of its running time. Universal is offering a look at their summer slate today at CinemaCon, and will host a special screening of ...

CinemaCon 2014: A Brief History of Moviegoing

There's no substitute for watching movies in a theater. These days it's easy to watch the same film at home, but without the surround sound, the larger-than-life screen, the crowd around you making every emotion more intense and the tingle of excitement as the lights darken as you and all the strangers around you set off together on a journey into another world- it's not really the same film at all.

This week CinemaCon is taking place in Las Vegas...

CinemaCon 2014: A Peek at Paramount’s Summer Lineup

Paramount’s got a slate of massive films coming out in the next few months, with perhaps it most marquee release bookending the run—Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, coming on November 7. Nolan himself will be on hand at CinemaCon, as he was in 2012 when he showed a five minute clip of The Dark Knight Rises during a Warner Bros. presentation. Tonight at CinemaCon, Paramount will be showcasing some of their upcoming films for eager audiences at 6:30pm...

CinemaCon 2014: 5 Jaw Dropping American Theaters

The worldwide motion picture theater industry descends on Caesars Palace in Las Vegas today for the fourth annual CinemaCon, the official convention of NATO [National Association of Theater Owners] that runs through March 27. CinemaCon is the largest annual gathering of cinema owners and operators from around the world, drawing filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors alike for a four-day celebration of the theaters and films we love.

We’ll be celebrating CinemaCon this week by highlighting theaters and the films that’ll be filling them this coming summer...

How to Shoot Stunts & Action on a Budget

The stunts in the recent Liam Neeson action flick Non-Stop were breathtaking, thanks to the work of stunt coordinator (and Neeson body double) Mark Vanselow. In the upcoming Divergent, fight coordinator J.J. Perry helped turned Shailene Woodley into a credible action heroine. There will be more wild sequences on display in Noah, Darren Aronofsky's very singular take on the Biblical story in which he had his stars, including Russell Crowe, Ray Winstone and Emma Watson,...

The Grand Budapest Hotel Production Designer Adam Stockhausen Goes Handmade

Seven years ago, a young art director was given an appropriately quirky assignment on the set of The Darjeeling Limited: design the dishes for the dining cabin of Wes Anderson’s India-traversing train. It took “an awful lot of versions” to win over the discerning director, but Adam Stockhausen must have made a good impression—since then, he has served as production designer on Anderson’s last two films, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel...

Getting Schooled by Anna Deavere Smith on her HBO Documentary

Playwright, actress, and professor Anna Deavere Smith does not like to be precious about the work she has done with her students over the years. She’s bracingly honest and laid back about the time and effort she’s devoted to helping young people who dream of carving out a career like the one she has had. “It’s not so noble as sharing the craft,” she said when asked why she continues to teach well into a successful career as varied as it is impressive...

Re-Drawing History With the Storyboard Artists of Mr. Peabody & Sherman

They rose to prominence more than half a century ago, a genius talking beagle who invented a time machine (plus won a Nobel prize and two Olympic medals) and the dorky little boy he adopted. As the whimsical world travelers who showed up in the middle of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Mr. Peabody and Sherman brought a generation of cartoon audiences to the farthest reaches of history thanks to their WABAC machine. Today, the characters are doing they’re own bit of meta time traveling,...

SXSW 2014: Richard Linklater’s Epic, Masterful Boyhood

Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was in pre-production for roughly a year. The film took 39 days to shoot, and then two more years for post-production. It premiered at Sundance in mid January, played at the Berlin International Film Festival in early February (where Linklater won the Silver Bear for Best Director), and then played at the Paramount Theater here in Austin on Sunday morning, March 10, at 10:30 a.m. Linklater, a legend here in Austin, the founder and creative director of the Austin Film Society,...

SXSW 2014: Sarah-Violet Bliss & Charles Rogers on Grand Jury Prize-Winning Fort Tilden

How do you write and shoot feature in a few months, cut it, have it accepted by a major film festival and then have it win that festival's major award? Writer/directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers would be the perfect speakers on a panel here at SXSW on this very subject, considering as recently as last May, their Grand Jury Prize Winning feature Fort Tilden wasn’t even a thought in their mind.

“A lot of favors,”...

SXSW 2014: Catherine Gund’s Born to Fly Tracks Elizabeth Streb’s Genius

Dancers strut, cling, and leap from a giant swinging metal contraption. It looks like a massive mouse wheel, something you might see in a Cirque du Soleil performance or perhaps the circus. Despite the padding on the floor, the thing looks medieval and very, very dangerous, but the dancers atop, inside and below appear calm and in control. During one of the wheel’s rotations, a young man holding onto one of the bars appears to lose his grip, and as the heavy wheel swings down he’s brutally thrown onto the ground and into a block of padding...

SXSW 2014: Jason Bateman’s Directorial Debut Bad Words

There was something perfect about watching Jason Bateman’s Bad Words on opening night here at SXSW. There are no official press screenings here; your press badge allows you access to any film, but you take in the movie with the general public as well. The vibe is different from Sundance, which befits the laid back Austin setting. Screenings here differ from screenings at Sundance in another, significant way—one can enjoy a drink while watching a film...

SXSW 2014: Things to See & Hear

Now that SXSW is underway and The Credits lounge is open for business, let’s take a quick glance around the festival at some of the things going on over the next nine days. Obviously this is but a tiny little snapshot—SXSW is a festival with so much going on it’s a little like a moving Louvre, you can’t possibly hope to see everything in your allotted time, so you have to pick and choose your spots. Here are some of ours...

Building a Plane From Scratch With the Production Designer of Non-Stop

Have you ever walked through a missile silo? What about into the Oval Office or onto an alien planet? We didn’t think so. But chances are each of the millions of moviegoers who have flocked to see Non-Stop know what the inside of an airplane looks like. And since he was charged with creating an interior that looked totally realistic and doubled as a functional movie set, that posed a pretty big challenge for production designer Alec Hammond...

Flying the Unfriendly Skies with Non-Stop Stunt Coordinator Mark Vanselow

Using an airport bathroom can have the degree of difficulty of a gymnastics floor routine. But when your job is United States air marshal and there’s a mystery man on your plane threatening to kill one passenger every 20 minutes, taking care of business means means squeezing into the stall to swap punches with a bad guy like two angry sardines in a can. And though star Liam Neeson, playing air marshal Bill Marks, no doubt took some licks during filming,...

Post Oscars Wrap-Up: Our Social Awards Season App Delivers the Goods

The things that we could agree would happen, like Ellen hosting with her easy going charm (has there ever been a more relaxed, amiable host?) and Gravity mopping up a slew of technical awards. And how did our Social Awards Season App, the DataViz, fare in predicting the winners?  Let’s have a look.

To access the DataViz and see for yourself, click here. For our brief synopsis, see below:

Best picture

Predicted Correctly?...