How “Saltburn” Production Designer Suzie Davies Outfitted the Vast Estate in Emerald Fennell’s Thriller

Like many who worked on Saltburn, production designer Suzie Davies signed a contract promising not to reveal the location of the sprawling country house where much of the movie was shot. Writer/director Emerald Fennell wanted a centuries-old estate unidentifiable to audiences, and she found one in the English Midlands that had never been used onscreen. But a Tatler journalist sleuthed out the location a few months ago, effectively voiding the contracts. Drayton House,...

Mahershala Ali and Julia Roberts Face the Unthinkable in “Leave the World Behind” Trailer

In the official trailer for writer/director Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, we open on a married couple in disparate moments of readiness. At the foot of the bed, packing a bag, is Amanda Sanford (Julia Roberts), informing her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), lying prone under the covers, that she’s gone ahead and booked them a beautiful house by the beach and is prepping their suitcases so that he’s left with little reason to say no to the trip...

“Mission: Impossible 8” Gets New Title, Release Date, And Longer IMAX Run

There has been a flurry of calendar moves and even one very big title change announcement as the entertainment industry absorbs strike-related delays and the studios reconsider upcoming dates. With a new meeting on the SAG-AFTRA strike set for today, there are hopes that the impasse can be solved and the movie and TV business can get back to action. In the meantime, Paramount Pictures has announced that their upcoming Mission: Impossible movie is being moved nearly an entire year,...

Director Shawn Levy on Synchronicity Between His “Deadpool 3” and Secret “Star Wars” Movie

Director Shawn Levy is currently promoting All The Light We Cannot See, his Netflix limited series that’s adapted from Anthony Doerr’s best-selling novel of the same name. Levy is one of the busiest men in the business, with season 5 of Stranger Things, Deadpool 3, and a secret Star Wars movie all on his to-do list. The SAG-AFTRA strikes have slowed down production on the latter three titles, but when it comes to the two movies,...

“Saturday Night Live” Thrives in Bad Bunny “The Age of Discovery” Spanish Sketch

Bad Bunny brought his multifaceted talents to Saturday Night Live this past weekend as host and musical guest in a buoyant episode that made excellent use of not only his Spanish but Spanish-speaking SNL cast members, too. One sketch in particular, “The Age of Discovery,” finds Bad Bunny playing the King of Spain in the 16th century alongside his son, the prince (Marcello Hernández). They’re seated in the throne room, eager to hear about the incredible riches,...

“Lessons in Chemistry” Makeup Department Head Miho Suzuki Captures the Pressure Cooker of Being a 1950s Woman

Chemical reactions can be calculated and quantified, but matters of the heart are far less predictable. When scientist Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) finds herself pressed toward domesticity from all sides, she realizes that the way to pursue her passions, empower women, and advocate for equality may be through the kitchen after all. Lessons in Chemistry – based on the hit novel by Bonnie Garmus – follows Zott’s evolution from student to TV star.

Makeup was a mark of femininity in the 1950s,...

“Killers of the Flower Moon” Casting Directors Ellen Lewis and Rene Haynes on Their Historic Oklahoma Casting Call

With its prodigiously detailed and complex production, long running time, and sprawling cast, Killers of the Flower Moon (in theaters now) cut no corners in telling the true story about members of Oklahoma’s oil-rich Osage Nation who were systematically murdered in the 1920s by white men eager to inherit “head rights” worth millions of dollars through marriage and trickery. To surround Leo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro’s duplicitous usurpers with authentic Native American talent, director Martin Scorsese enlisted his longtime casting director Ellen Lewis (The Irishman,...

Martin Scorsese on Finding Truth in Tragedy in “Killers of the Flower Moon”

When Martin Scorsese was young, he had an experience where he became painfully aware of how Native Americans were being treated, and since then, it’s taken him years to find a story he could tell about the culture in a respectful way. Killers of the Flower Moon, which opens in theaters October 20 with a runtime of 3 hours and 26 minutes, presents that lifelong desire with a gentle, examining eye in what could easily be the director’s best work to date...

“Killers of the Flower Moon” Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto Illuminates Martin Scorsese’s Twisted Tale

When I connected with Rodrigo Prieto for our video interview, as one might imagine a cinematographer to do, he was perfectly lit in a warm amber glow, perhaps a nod to a fire motif visually laced in Martin Scorese’s Killers of the Flower Moon – a love story between Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone) and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) wrapped in the travesty the Osage Nation faced during the 1920s.

Having spoken previously with the Mexican native as far back as Argo (2012),...

New “Napoleon” Trailer Unleashes Ridley Scott’s Historical Epic

Warrior. Emperor. General. Genius. Tyrant. This is how a new Napoleon trailer describes the titular conqueror in Ridley Scott’s upcoming historical epic. Napoleon is played by Joaquin Phoenix—his second time playing an emperor for Scott—he first ruled the world as Roman Emperor Commodus in Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator. “Scenes with him just felt really authentic,” co-star Vanessa Kirby has said about working with Phoenix, “he was unbelievable about capturing the idiosyncratic, psychological portrait of this unpredictable personality.”

Napoleon will transport viewers back to France in 1793 in the midst of a period of cataclysmic turmoil as the Jacobins have seized control of the National Convention and are instituting a series of radical measures...

Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Stitching Together Her Legendary Career

With more than 70 films to her credit, including Malcolm X (1992), Amistad (1997), Selma (2014), Black Panther (2018), and Dolemite Is My Name (2019), costume designer Ruth E. Carter has created a visual representation of Black history and the Black experience for generations of moviegoers.

“Costumes can be another character in the film. For Do the Right Thing, Ernest Dickerson’s cinematography and my costumes created the tone for the film...

How “Killers of the Flower Moon” Production Designer Jack Fisk Created 1920s Oklahoma

Killers of the Flower Moon became a journey of inspirational research for production designer Jack Fisk (The Revenant, There Will Be Blood). He traveled to Oklahoma to visit the very homes of the Osage portrayed in the Scorsese film – a story that unpacks the painful history of the Osage during the 1920s, whose oil-backed wealth was methodically stolen from them under false pretense.

The screenplay was adapted by Eric Roth and Scorsese based on David Grann’s meticulous 2017 work of non-fiction...

“The Zone of Interest” Trailer Reveals Jonathan Glazer’s Harrowing, Urgent New Film

Jonathan Glazer’s films have a way of sticking to your ribs. Whether he’s taking on a gangster story, like his irresistibly intense Sexy Beast (2000), or delivering a powerhouse sci-fi meditation on what it means to be an outsider in his alien-among-us masterpiece Under the Skin (2013), a Glazer film is an experience unlike any other. This is why his latest film, The Zone of Interest, comes with the promise of something both unforgettable in the best sense and in the most urgent and upsetting...

Godzilla Stomps to the Rescue in New “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” Trailer

The first thing you see in the new trailer for Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the most iconic of monsters rising from the Pacific Ocean. Such is the luxury enjoyed by showrunner Chris Black (Severance) and the rest of the Monarch creators—their series boasts the most famous cinematic beast of them all.

The trailer takes us back to the events depicted in Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla when the titular Titan arrived on the shores of San Francisco and wreaked havoc...

“Killers of the Flower Moon” Costume Designer Jacqueline West on the Power of the Osage Blanket

“It’s a power symbol,” costume designer Jacqueline West (The Revenant) says of the blankets the Osage cast wears in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. “I felt it was some kind of armor against what is being imposed on them and what’s being done to them. You put it on against the world and against evil, and it becomes a real symbol of that.”

The “evil” West is referring to are actual events that took place during 1920s Oklahoma when the Osage Nation grew incredibly wealthy,...

How Osage Tradition Influenced the Hair & Makeup in “Killers of the Flower Moon”

There is perhaps nothing more important than authentically depicting the Osage in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, a poignant tale based on real events where the oil-rich nation was devilishly deceived, manipulated, and murdered for their money and oil shares by the very ones who married them. Newspapers later described the tragedy, which lasted from 1921-1926, as the “Reign of Terror.”

Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth brought David Grann’s best-selling novel of the same name to the screen with tremendous care and understanding...

Hilarious “Saturday Night Live” Sketch Forces Pete Davidson to Revisit a Humiliating Moment

Saturday Night Live gave Pete Davidson the Wired treatment last night. Davidson returned to the program to host the season 49 premiere, and one of the funniest sketches of the night had the Staten Island-born funny man play a sweet-natured TV star forced to revisit some of his, um, less stellar moments in his personal history. The sketch is a spoof on Wired‘s autocomplete interview series, where they get stars to sit down and answer the most searched questions from the web about themselves...

“The Fall of the House of Usher“ Production Designer Laurin Kelsey Reanimates Edgar Allan Poe for Netflix

It’s October, the right time of year for an Edgar Allan Poe revamp. Creator Mike Flanagan delivers, with a contemporary mini-series adaptation for Netflix of The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe’s 1839 short story about the creepy undoing of wealthy but disturbed Roderick Usher. In Flanagan’s updated version of the story, Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and his sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell), are the filthy rich heads of an unscrupulous pharmaceutical company, siblings who come from humble beginnings to which they seem destined to return,...

“Cat Person” Production Designer Sally Levi on Turning a Viral Short Story Into a Feature-Length Film

“Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines.” This is how writer Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” begins, a vignette about a young college student, Margot, meeting an older man named Robert. It was published in The New Yorker and appeared online on December 4,...

Learn Filmmaking Network Founder Gabriel Alexis on Building a Community

Bronx-born Gabriel Alexis’s love of visual storytelling began when he was a kid in his childhood home, capturing family moments, a prelude to a career in which he would devote himself to helping filmmakers connect, inspire each other, and grow. After learning the ropes himself on a variety of projects, from TV to commercials, from music videos to creating short videos for the New York State Bar Association, Alexis had a moment while driving his car in 2018. “I was trying to create a community around me,...