Leaving Neverland‘s Composer on Scoring a Legacy Shattered
It’s sometimes hard to fathom the kind of pinnacle Michael Jackson reached. The King of Pop was a singular phenomenon without equal. His dominion was the entire planet. His star power was so colossal, his status as the greatest living entertainer so secure, it is not unreasonable to say no one will ever enjoy (if you can call it enjoyment) that level of fame again. His influence on artists far and wide is still being felt today. This was a different time and a different industry,...
Meet The Other Two‘s Secret Weapon—Songwriter Brett McLaughlin
If you haven’t watched Comedy Central’s The Other Two, I’m jealous of you. It is one of this year’s most consistently funny shows, with a joke-per-minute ratio that rivals some of our recent standard bearers, like HBO’s Veep. Go watch it and see for yourself. Created by SNL alums Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, The Other Two centers on a young musician named Chase Dreams (Case Walker),...
Sharp Objects & Big Little Lies Production Designer on Creating Signature Worlds
If you had not one but two critically acclaimed HBO series under your belt, you’d be permitted to gloat. If those series were wildly different yet deliciously unforgettable, you might even be expected to brag a little. But that’s not production designer John Paino‘s way. The laidback pro was happy to discuss his work on Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies without any unnecessary braggadocio. With Big Little Lies back for season two,...
Watch The First Trailer for Netflix’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Animated Series
The Jurassic Park world has always been kid-friendly, but simultaneously too scary for many a tyke. This duality was fairly robust until Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which was about as close to a horror film as any Jurassic installment could be. That film included a villainous Indoraptor that literally crept into children’s bedrooms and enough jump scares to unnerve children and adults alike. Now, a brand new trailer for DreamWorks Animation Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous offers the kids their very own dino theme park...
The One Tech Platform Used in Game of Thrones, Avengers: Endgame & (Much) More
From a remote outpost in Adelaide, Australia, a handful of techies in 2005 brought together far-flung filmmakers so they could critique VFX shots—not in the same room, but on the same screen. Today, cineSync software plays a behind the scenes role in nearly every spectacle-driven popcorn movie including this summer’s Men In Black, Spider-Man, X-Men and Godzilla sequels as well as recent hits like Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones...
Behold the Gorgeous Trailer for Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
The first trailer for Netflix‘s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance has lots of folks very excited. For those of us who grew up in the 80s, it offers a near-perfect blend of old school practical effects and today’s modern digital technology. For the millions of people who grew up loving the creations of Jim Henson, the closest we’ve ever come to a modern day Walt Disney, this Age of Resistance trailer is like a clarion call to return to childhood,...
The Handmaid’s Tale Makeup Designer on Creating Misery in the Colonies
In Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the radioactive Colonies are more felt than described. We’re told it’s where all Gilead’s undesirables, the childless handmaids, the criminals, the sick and insane, are sent to die. In Hulu’s adaptation of Atwood’s novel, however, the Colonies became one of the show’s most fecund sources of misery in season two. As Maria Elena Fernandez described in a piece for Vulture, The Handmaid’s Tales creators did something brilliant when they set out to create the location—the asked Atwood what she had in mind when she wrote about them...
How the The Simpsons new Composers Took on Springfield
The Simpsons boasts not only the longest run of any scripted primetime series, along with catch-phrases and characters that have been part of popular culture for almost two generations, but theme music recognizable within its first few notes—on a short list with Star Trek, Hawaii Five-O, Batman, Sesame Street, and a handful of others.
And now that series has new composers. Oh, the theme music—with Bart skidding into his family’s living room as they gather to watch TV themselves—remains the same Danny Elfman composition the show has had since arriving in its own evening time slot after leaving its “experimental-animation-this-will-never-last-long” roots as an interstitial cartoon on the Tracey Ullman Show,...
Building Thousands of Years of History in Amazon’s Good Omens
“Corners are where everyone makes decisions. This is the point where you change directions.” And corners are usually located at crossroads, to boot, the very place—especially if you’re a Mississippi bluesman—where it’s said deals with the devil can be struck.
The corner in question, however, concerns an angel, and the London bookshop that he owns—part of Michael Ralph’s production design on the upcoming Amazon/BBC adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens. And the “deals,” in this case,...
Showrunner Lauren Morelli Spins New Tales of the City for Netflix
The interwoven stories of the residents of Barbary Lane are being told again. Introduced in author Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City 40 years ago, and then adapted for television several times since the 1990s, the beloved San Francisco-set saga is being revived by Netflix and starts streaming this June.
Like its predecessors, which were based on Maupin’s nine novels, the 2019 version focuses a lot on the LGBTQ community—but it does so with some new characters and a modern take...
Sir Patrick Stewart Returns in First Star Trek: Picard Trailer
The captain is back.
Sir Patrick Stewart returns to the role that made him famous (in America, at least)—CBS All Access has released the first trailer for their new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Picard. Stewart returns to the role of Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek‘s most cerebral captain, who logged stardates (and much more ) for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation and four movies—Star Trek: Generations,...
Martin Ruhe on Shooting George Clooney’s Catch-22 Adaptation
“Certain things I don’t think we’d be legally allowed to do now,” observes cinematographer Martin Ruhe, ASC, when reflecting on the prior attempt to bring Joseph Heller’s classic, absurdist, and decidedly non-chronological Catch-22 to the screen.
That would be the 1970 Mike Nichols film version, which was somewhat of a commercial and critical bust at the time but has since come to be regarded in more classic “70’s cinema” terms. But Ruhe was referring to things like how close live B-25 bombers were allowed to come to actors,...
Three new Black Mirror Trailers Tease Season 5
Black Mirror is back. Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones‘ techno fever dream of a series is returning with a truncated—but hotly anticipated—three-episode season. Three new trailers for each episode gives us a tiny bit more information, yet, we still really don’t know much about what these stories will fully explore. We just know they’ll likely make us feel paranoid and freaked out, which is precisely what we want from a fresh Black Mirror installment...
The Moment in Game of Thrones When Jaime Lannister Predicted his Fate
*This post reveals details from Game of Thrones’ finale and penultimate episode.
Now that Game of Thrones has come to an end (and broke some long-standing records along the way), interviews with reflective cast members are popping up left and right. One such interview was with Emilia Clarke, who spoke to both The New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly about Daenerys Targaryen’s long, difficult journey. Now Nikolaj Coster-Waldau talks with EW about Jaime Lannister’s arc,...
Stranger Things Season 3 Clip Takes you to the Pool
We’ve got a fresh Stranger Things season three clip, which reveals that terrifying monster from season 2—Billy Hargrove (Darce Montgomery). Last season’s ruthless bully is yet another Stranger Things character with a cool new summer job. While Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) is working at the mall, Billy’s doing the very Billy thing and spending his time at the local pool, nominally as a lifeguard (can you really imagine him saving anybody?).
The clip is—limited...
Emilia Clarke on Daenerys’ arc in Game of Thrones
*The following contains spoilers for Game of Thrones. If you’re not caught up all the way through the finale, read no more.*
Now that Game of Thrones has finally ended, there will be much rumination on what the show meant. To those of us (and we are legion, of course) who watched every episode and spent as much time, if not more, debating the series various merits, deficits, and many, many plot twists, it’s safe to say the arc of Daenerys Targaryen will rank as the most debated facet of all...
Westworld‘s Surprising Season 3 Trailer Hints at Totally Different Show
When we heard that Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul was joining Westworld for season three, we had no idea he would be doing so in a completely different looking show. if you were one of the millions of people hunkering down for Game of Thrones‘ series finale last night, you likely caught the trailer for Westworld season 3, without realizing it was a trailer for Westworld season 3 until the very end...
Put up Your Dukes for Black Mirror‘s Season 5 Trailer
One of the best shows on TV is back. Black Mirror has released the first trailer for season 5, and it’s as cryptic and unsettling as you’d expect. It’s not a stretch to say that Black Mirror has been one of the most consistently excellent, boundary-pushing series on television since it first aired on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom back in 2011. Since moving to its new home at Netflix, Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones have delivered ever more ambitious,...
Game of Thrones Finale Images Tease the Mad Queen
How do we know that HBO wants to keep whatever secrets are left in Game of Thrones as secret as possible? Usually, they release about a half dozen (or more) photos for the upcoming episode—for the finale, they’ve given us but two. The first and most potent is the featured image of Daenerys Targaryen looking down upon her victorious army and the smoldering ruins of King’s Landing. It’s safe to say that last Sunday’s episodes “The Bells”...
Game of Thrones “The Bells” Breaks Series Record for Viewership
Divisive, devastating, and now, historic. Game of Thrones’ penultimate episode “The Bells” broke the series record for viewership this past Sunday. The episode in which Daenerys Targaryen turned King’s Landing into a hellscape hauled in a record 18.4 million viewers across HBO’s platforms. This topped the previous record holder, “The Long Night,” which aired a mere two weeks ago. It’s not terribly surprising that the series’ two top performing episodes would be the final seasons’...
