How Documentary Now!’s Emmy Nominated Director Makes a Joke of Serious Films

Saturday Night Live is a mecca for comedians, where stars like Eddie Murphy, Amy Poehler, and Will Ferrell and writers like Conan O’Brien and Tina Fey took their careers to new heights. The show’s most memorable sketches have launched successful spin off projects like Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers. Documentary Now! is one of the latest SNL inspired projects to unite the show’s alums outside Studio 8H.

Trophy Doc Takes Unflinching Look at World of Big Game Hunting

It takes a lot to rattle Brooklyn-based documentary maker Shaul Schwarz, who mingled with drug dealers to make his earlier feature Narco Cultura and weathered numerous war zones in his earlier career as a photojournalist. But two years ago, Schwarz was shaken to the core when he filmed game hunters killing an elephant in the wilds of Namibia. “That was really tough to be honest, because I’d never seen elephants before in the wild,”

Veteran Documentarian Joshua Z. Weinstein on his Yiddish Comedy Menashe

Making his scripted feature debut, director Joshua Z Weinstein drew not only on his background as a veteran documentary filmmaker but also on silent films. His Menashe is spoken nearly entirely in Yiddish, even though Weinstein speaks very little of the language, and it stars the largely unknown Hassidic comic and actor Menashe Lusting, whom Weinstein describes as “Chaplinesque.”

Yiddish was necessary because Menashe, a contemporary father-son story.

Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton on Adapting Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle

Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton re-teamed with his Short Term 12 star Brie Larson for The Glass Castle, based on Jeannette Walls’ best-selling memoir about her chaotic childhood. Walls’ parents struggled with substance abuse and mental illness, and their four children were often hungry and neglected. Larson plays Walls as a young adult, professionally successful as a gossip columnist in New York. As the film opens, we see her leave an elegant restaurant after dinner with her Wall Street fiancé and his prospective client. From her taxi,

Taylor Sheridan Talks his Chilling Directorial Debut Wind River

From actor (lawman David Hale on FX’s Sons of Anarchy) to acclaimed screenwriter (2015’s Mexican drug-war thriller Sicario, 2016’s Texas-set neo-Western Hell or High Water) to writer-director (Wind River, opening today), Taylor Sheridan has had quite a career trajectory since he first popped up on the Hollywood scene in the mid-90s as a TV acting staple. The 47-year-old Lone Star native considers his three feature films so far to be part of a trilogy that examines the state of the American frontier,

Talking to the Director and the Star of the Sensational Documentary Step

Ever since Step wowed them at Sundance, the documentary that follows an all-girls step-dance team at an inner-city charter school dedicated to helping female African-American students pursue a college degree has been winning fans at festivals. Even Michelle Obama gave her seal of approval to “Step” in May, when the Lethal Ladies squad from the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSYW) performed at a National College Signing Day event in New York City.

Lisanne Skyler on her Warhol HBO Doc Brillo Box (3¢ OFF)

Most people are familiar with the groundbreaking artistry of the late Andy Warhol, known for replicating the packaging of popular consumer products. For filmmaker and documentarian Lisanne Skyler, Warhol’s take on pop culture hit close to home, even in it. Skyler’s parents bought a Warhol “Brillo Box (3¢ off)” for $1,000 in 1969 — managing to get him to sign it — and displayed it in their house for two years before trading it for another artwork.

Talking to Landline Writer/Director Gillian Robespierre & Producer Elisabeth Holm

The year is 1995. Bill Clinton is president, Natalie Merchant sings about the weather, Mad About You is must-see TV, Lorena Bobbitt jokes are all the rage, floppy discs are a clunky necessity – and cellphones are nowhere to be seen.

Director-writer Gillian Robespierre and producer Elisabeth Holm’s first film together, the 2014 art-house circuit darling Obvious Child, was a moving contemporary comedy that focused on a stand-up comic (Jenny Slate) who deals with an unexpected pregnancy after a one-night stand.

Quentin Tarantino Prepping new Film About the Manson Murders

We mean this in a good way; we can’t think of a better director to tackle a film about the Charles Manson murders than Quentin Tarantino. The scoop comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which has it that Tarantino is already in talks with actors, and one can only imagine the mayhem of a movie about the most infamous murders in American history through Tarantino’s lens. 

THR reports that Tarantino has already written the script (naturally he’d direct),

Talking to The Journey’s Director Nick Hamm on Facing Ireland’s History Head-on

Belfast-born producer-director Nick Hamm has worked mostly in British television, although he's also directed theater and movies. As a filmmaker, he's drawn to stories that are contemporary, set close to home and involve real-life characters. 2011's Killing Bono was a comedy about teenage rockers upstaged by the Dublin schoolmates who founded U2. Hamm's new movie, The Journey, is a sometimes comic drama that fictionalizes a pivotal 2006 van ride shared by two confirmed enemies: Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) founder Ian Paisley (Timothy Spall).

Women Directors Made the Best Movies of the Summer

Director Patty Jenkins has been reaping breathless headlines since Wonder Woman’s premiere — having made a summer blockbuster that isn’t rote or corny, with a lead, relative newcomer Gal Gadot, who deservedly looks like the breakout star of the summer, the film has exceeded all of Warner Bros.’ box office expectations and met with critical success. Audiences are broadly into a superhero film about a woman, made by a woman,

Writer/Director Edgar Wright Talks his Brilliant new Film Baby Driver

*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.

It’s is odd that British auteur and fan-boy fave Edgar Wright, 43, known for spoofing horror flicks (2004’s Shaun of the Dead), buddy-cop procedurals (2007’s Hot Fuzz) and sci-fi thrillers (2013’s The World’s End) has produced his most mature and satisfying spin on a popular genre – this time,

John Waters Interviews Sofia Coppola at the Provincetown Film Festival

Sofia Coppola is Hollywood royalty, an Oscar winner for Lost in Translation, and she has a highly-anticipated new film, The Beguiled, ready to hit theaters. But the soft-spoken director is known for being reticent in interviews.

So it’s no wonder that the Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) paired Coppola with renowned raconteur John Waters for a one-on-one conversation when Coppola was honored recently as the PIFF’s 2017 Filmmaker on the Edge.

Dear White People Creator Justin Simien Talks Race and Comedy

In Netflix series Dear White People, sarcastic black radio host Samantha (Logan Browning), worn out after a long day of anti-racist activism at fictional Ivy League Winchester College, asks her best friend Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson) to "Say something funny and specific." Joelle obliges with a snappy one liner involving Drake and his ancient sitcom Degrassi High, propelling the show into its next scene on a buoyant comedic note.

One to Watch: Dream, Girl Director Erin Bagwell

You could be excused for reading into the success of Erin Bagwell's directorial debut, the documentary Dream, Girl, and assume she's a graduate of one of the most prestigious film schools in the country. Dream, Girl focuses on more than a dozen female entrepreneurs, uncovering their unique paths, their many challenges and setbacks, and their insights into how they succeeded. Bagwell hired an all female crew, moved into an office,

Zoe Lister-Jones on her Directorial Debut Band Aid

Zoe Lister-Jones has a robust career as a comic and dramatic actress. She’s a regular on the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces and had a featured role as then-Senator Joe Biden’s assistant in HBO’s 2016 drama Confirmation about the Clarence Thomas hearings famous for the testimony from Anita Hill.

But in the indie film world, Lister-Jones has thrived by creating her own roles and wearing many production hats.

Black Mirror‘s Charlie Brooker & Annabel Jones on TV’s Most Twisted Show

British sci-fi series Black Mirror reflects with chilling plausibility myriad ways in which technology brings out the worst in human behavior — one freestanding episode at a time. Creator Charlie Brooker and producer Annabel Jones, in Los Angeles on a break from shooting the fourth season of their Netflix limited series, say they hate repeating themselves and love the anthology format. "It's lunacy but by doing each episode as a one-off 50-minute film,

Director Stephen Daldry on The Creation & Execution of Netflix’s Brilliant The Crown

Rumoured to be the most expensive television show ever produced, the first series of Netflix’s lush period drama The Crown delves deep behind the palace doors into the events around Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne. Director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot), chats to The Credits about how the idea for The Crown came about, diverting from the truth,

Talking to Writer/Director/Star Demetri Martin About his new Film Dean—Part II

In part I of our interview with the comedian-turned-filmmaker, Demetri Martin explained how he came to make his first semi-autobiographical feature, Dean. The second part begins with Martin’s discussion of the way he incorporated aspects of his own experiences into supporting characters in his script.

"They're not based on anybody, and the story didn't happen to me. My mom sold our house years ago. I was happy about that.

Talking to Writer/Director/Star Demetri Martin About his new Film Dean—Part I

Although best known from TV, beginning with The Daily Show in 2005, actor-comedian Demetri Martin has acted in such movies as Contagion, Taking Woodstock, and In A World…. Now he adds a few more hyphens to his resume as the writer-director-star of Dean, a comedy about a New York-based illustrator who flees to Los Angeles after his mother dies.