Closer Look at New Star Wars: The Force Awakens Characters Revealed
From the opening shot of what appears to be two Snowtroopers marching on the frozen plains of their secret base, Vanity Fair’s Star Wars cover shoot, including a 45-second video, is exactly what fans want on Star Wars Day. So yes, May the Fourth be with you.
Thanks to Vanity Fair, there’s some fresh news to report; revealing shots and video two of the film’s main characters—played by Adam Driver and Lupita Nyongo’o—are seen in a beautiful photo gallery (created by the legendary Annie Leibovitz) and the behind-the-scenes video they uploaded today.
Nick Kroll Talks Being Mentored by Mark Duplass for Adult Beginners
Nick Kroll knew that if he wanted a meaty role in a feature film comedy, he needed to develop it himself. Fortunately, Kroll has friends and colleagues who were willing to offer advice on transitioning from TV comic — he stars in his own Kroll Show on Comedy Central and has appeared in the sitcoms The League and Parks and Recreation— to film actor, even on a low budget indie.
From Robert Mugabe to Ray Liotta – That’s a Wrap at the Tribeca Film Festival
New York took center stage in the opening and closing films of the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival, however the winning films rounded things out with stories from much further afield.
The Saturday Night Live documentary Live From New York! kicked off the proceedings, demonstrating how the landmark comedy show has both responded to the times and occasionally had a hand in shaping them over the 40 years it’s been on air.
Who Freaks You Out More: these Grandparents, these Aliens, or Johnny Depp?
Three new trailers with very different sources of extreme tension. So the question we pose to you today is this; who would you rather be trapped in a house with less, the grandparents from M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming The Visit, Johnny Depp’s Whitey Bulger from the upcoming Black Mass, or whatever the hell those things are in Area 51?
Let's take a look:
The Visit
Yes,
Stormtroopers, Snoopy & a Virtual Reese Witherspoon: Highlights From the 2015 Creativity Conference
Stormtroopers, Snoopy and a one-on-one audience with Reese Witherspoon—the 2015 Creativity Conference was manna for film buffs, tech geeks and policy wonks alike. The stormtroopers, unusually accommodating, were on hand to help conference goers create the ultimate selfie (the James Bond gun barrel backdrop, where one could get their photo taken against the iconic opening montage in the opening credits to Bond films, was also pretty awesome), ditto Snoopy, who offered as many fist-bumps as he did hugs.
From Spader to Scarlett: 5 Great Voice Performances in Sci-Fi Films
So we saw Avengers: Age of Ultron yesterday and in an effort not to disclose any spoilers, we’ll just say this; James Spader absolutely nails his voice work as the eponymous villain. Spader’s articulate, sonorous baritone is put to perfect use, and the sound design work done to enhance his voice and give it a digital sheen was outstanding. His Ultron is a witty, wired (literally), emotional artificial intelligence,
CinemaCon 2015: Warner Bros.’ Mad Summer Slate
Today at CinemaCon, Warner Bros. Pictures is presenting an exclusive highlight reel of their upcoming summer slate. While technically starting in spring, the studio’s first big release will be Mad Max: Fury Road, which bows on May 15. We’ve already taken a look at the latest trailer from Fury Road, which looks relentlessly entertaining and beautifully shot.
On May 29, San Andreas, starring Dwayne Johnson as a search and rescue helicopter pilot looking to save his daughter after a magnitude 9 earthquake levels California.
Which Dinosaur Would You Fear The Most in New Jurassic World Trailer?
First of all, who in their right mind would get into one of those transparent orbs and go rolling off into a huge herd of dinosaurs? Tourists, will they ever learn? Anyway, this new Jurassic World trailer gives you a bevy of dinosaurs to fear, and the morbid question that popped into our heads was; which way you rather go if you had to be eaten by a dinosaur at this completely insane theme park?
The Mindy Project’s Chris Messina Moves Behind the Camera with Alex of Venice
We had a both delightful and thought provoking conversation with busy actor Chris Messina about his feature film directorial debut – Alex of Venice. Having premiered at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, this heartwarming and emotionally wrenching story of a woman and her family in quiet crisis is set to open on April 17th.
While Messina is perhaps best known as Dan Castellano in The Mindy Project,
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,
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?
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),
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;
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,
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.”
On Set With Alfre Woodard
June, 2011
INT. APARTMENT, BROOKLYN, NY – DAY
Alfre Woodard is on the set of a small, independent film in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. She’s sitting on a couch in a cockroach infested apartment next to the actress DeWanda Wise. The apartment had already been checked for bedbugs.
Wise’s scene isn’t until later on that night, so perhaps she’s come just to meet Woodard. The crew is preparing for the next set-up,
SXSW 2015: Constance Zimmer on her roles in Results, House of Cards & More
You know Constance Zimmer. If her name doesn't ring a bell, her face will. You've seen her before, typically as the no-nonsense, hard working, truth-telling badass who is this close to losing her cool on some less than forthright character. Perhaps you remember her as Dana Gordon from Entourage, the young, tough studio head who could ink multimillion dollar deals and go potshot for potshot with Jeremy Piven's logorrhific Ari Gold. (Fans of Zimmer as Gordon will be pleased to know she's reprising the role in the upcoming
SXSW 2015: A Q&A With the Director & Star of She’s The Best Thing In It
Films by women, about women, and in many ways, targeted to women were a huge part of this year’s South by Southwest festival. Women were tremendously prominent in the line-up, serving as two of the four SXSW film keynote speakers: Ava DuVernay, the noted director of Selma, and Christine Vachon, who has produced some of the most celebrated American indie features, including the Academy Award wining Boys Don’t Cry.
The Return of Cinderella
Disney’s original animated Cinderella, an inescapable fact of most Western childhoods, won the Golden Bear in the musical film category at the very first Berlinale in 1951. A live-action contemporary version, nearly singing-free and also produced under Disney’s auspices, premiered at the most recent Berlinale, some 64-years after the original. Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James (best known as Rose in Downton Abbey) in the titular role,
Patricia Clarkson on October Gale, Finding the Right Roles & More
If she’s not the hardest working woman in show business, she’s certainly one of the most visible. Patricia Clarkson, with her trademark sultry voice and a smile that could crack stone, has a new film out tomorrow and recently starred in the hit Broadway play “The Elephant Man” opposite Bradley Cooper. One of the most respected and versatile of contemporary actresses, Clarkson over the years has made important films with first-time directors (Lisa Cholodenko, Tom McCarthy, Peter Hedges) as well as iconic veterans (Martin Scorsese,
