How Quentin Tarantino Protege Zoe Bell Traded Stunts For Acting
It’s not easy to switch from movie “staff” to acting, and Zoe Bell credits being “deluded” or at least “clueless” for her move from stuntwoman to actress. Quentin Tarantino deserves some credit, too. After working with Bell as Uma Thurman’s stunt double in Kill Bill, he went on to cast her in 2007’s Death Proof, her first acting role and one she took reluctantly. This year,
A Conversation with Director & Artist JR About his Film ELLIS
Last night installation artist JR's short film about immigration – Ellis, starring Robert De Niro and written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Eric Roth, premiered in New York. We had a chance to chat with JR about his film, his inspiration and more.
JR’s Background:
For those unacquainted with him, JR is a pseudonym for an artist and photographer who has made the choice to remain anonymous.
Check out the Bonkers Trailer for Gods of Egypt
The ambitious director Alex Proyas (Dark City, I, Robot, Knowing) has assembled quite the cast for his epic, insane-looking Gods of Egypt. There's something wonderfully refreshing about what looks to be a totally gonzo approach to telling the story of Egyptian gods going deity-y-deity in a nation-shaking battle. Starring Gerard Butler(300) as the evil god Set versus Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) as the falcon-headed god Horus, the first trailer for
Around the Web: It’s General Leia, Not Princess, Mad Max: Fury Road & More
Entertainment Weekly’s big Star Wars: The Force Awakens feature, with four separate covers, includes this tiny but not insignificant detail—in the film, Princess Leia is now General Leia. Director J.J. Abrams told EW this: “She’s referred to as General, But … there’s a moment in the movie where a character sort of slips and calls her ‘Princess.’”
Ever wondered why she was referred to as a Princess in the first place?
Talking to Bryan Cranston & Director Jay Roach About Trumbo
Blacklisted in 1950s Hollywood for having been a member of the Communist Party, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo continued to do what he did best: write scripts. He just couldn't do that under his own name, even when he penned two Oscar-winning movies, Roman Holiday and The Brave One. This period in the writer's life is the subject of Trumbo, directed by Jay Roach and with Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston in the title role.
The 33 & the Surprisingly Rich Tradition of Mining Movies
Warner Bros’ upcoming release of The 33, which recounts the 2010 rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners and the plight of their families and friends above ground, is part of a long history of movies’ fascination with miners and their way of life. It makes sense: mining is a tradition full of inherent drama and danger; there’s conflict between business and labor interests; as well as generational conflicts. By no means a definitive list,
A New Trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight
One of the films we're really looking forward to this December is Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. After a tortured production process (in that his first script was leaked), Tarantino's film is ready to see the light of day, and this new trailer gives all you Tarantino fans plenty of reasons to be excited. With his muse, Samuel L. Jackson, and a cast that includes Kurt Russell and Jennifer Jason Leigh (who is so excellent in her voice work in
Check out the First Trailer for Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq
Spike Lee's upcoming film Chi-Raq, whose title was born from the report that homicides in Chicago surpassed the death toll of American Special Forces operations in Iraq, looks at the troubling violence through the lens of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata." Written in 411 BC, "Lysistrata" tracked one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Her ingenious plan was to persuade the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their lovers and husbands until they ended the war.
Guns & God Converge in Abigail Disney’s Doc The Armor of Light
To make The Armor of Light, documentarian Abigail Disney followed two people with strong feelings about guns. The Rev. Rob Schenck is a longtime anti-abortion crusader and conservative cleric who has come to question the American right's enthusiasm for firearms. Lucy McBath is the mother of Jordan Davis, an 18-year-old African American who in 2012 was killed by a Florida man who fired into a car because it was the source of loud music.
The First Official Trailer for Charlie Kaufman’s Mind-blowing Anomalisa
We got a chance to see Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and Duke Johnson's stop-motion masterpiece Anomalisa at the Middleburg Film Festival, and we were floored. The film centers on Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), a customer service expert whose giving a speech at a convention in Cincinnati. While there, he meets a shy, insecure woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh),
Watch This New Girls Teaser and Get Excited About Season 5
The trials, tribulations and humiliations of Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) and her closest friends will continue in season five of Dunham's brilliant Girls. In 25 seconds, the new teaser packs a lot of funny into a small package—the package in this case being Hannah's body, as she dances 'as if no one's watching' in a class that includes at least one person she knows very well.
Girls returns for season five on February 21, and Dunham has said that the series will likely end after the sixth season.
Trouble in Paradise: New Trailer for Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea
Talk about a massive shift from one film to the next—Angelina Jolie's third feature as a director, the experimental By the Sea, follows her adaptation of Lauren Hillenbrand's nonfiction bestseller Unbroken. From the WWII set Unbroken, which followed the incredible true story of Olympian, soldier and eventual POW Louis Zamperini, Jolie's tackled a dark, emotionally volatile story about the dissolution of a marriage between two people who happen to be exceedingly good looking and married in real life.
Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is the Most Heartfelt Horror Film Ever Made
The story of Macbeth is certainly no stranger to adaptation. In fact, the Scottish play belongs to an impressive tradition of auteurist variation, including Orson Welles’ notoriously troubled 1948 production, Roman Polanski’s 1971 film and Kurosawa’s well-loved in 1957.
Any Shakespearean adaptation carries with it piles of textual and philosophical baggage, requiring not only a new spin on a well-worn story but a justification for a new iteration.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Director J.J. Abrams Finally Answers a Bunch of Questions
Okay sort of. Abrams was part of Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in which big, bold names in business, entertainment, technology and politics gathered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to chat about, well, nearly everything. Tesla Motor's Elon Musk, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Girls creator Lena Dunham, former ESPN writer and Grantland found Bill Simmons, photographer Annie Lebovitz and more were on hand.
Third Annual Middleburg Film Festival Draws Deep Roster of Talent
In it's third year, the Middleburg Film Festival is becoming a vibrant late festival season stop for filmmakers and film enthusiasts alike. Middleburg is in Virginia's horse country, and its beauty can hardly be improved upon in late October, but as much as a draw as the setting is, the festival itself, created by BET co-founder and Sundance Institute member Sheila Johnson and ably directed by Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Susan Koch, is drawing people for it's discerning slate and roster of talent.
The Incredible Link Between Helena Bonham Carter & Suffragette Villain
In Sarah Gavron’s film Suffragette, about the fight to gain votes for women in Edwardian England, the Prime Minister, Lord Herbert Asquith, opposes women’s suffrage and, on this issue, falls squarely on the wrong side of history. When it came time to cast the film, which stars Carey Mulligan, Gavron had Helena Bonham Carter at the top of her wish list to play one of the Suffragettes.
Middleburg Film Festival: Miss You Already Director Catherine Hardwicke
Director Catherine Hardwicke is well into her third successful career. The former architect was one of the most ambitious, consistently excellent production designers in Hollywood, working on gorgeous, genre-defying projects like Three Kings for David O. Russell and Vanilla Sky for Cameron Crowe. She launched her directing career with the excellent Thirteen, which she co-wrote, about a young girl’s relationship with her mother as she begins experimenting with drugs,
Ice Age & Rio Director Carlos Saldanha Shares Wisdom at Tokyo International Film Festival
Renowned film director Carlos Saldanha (Ice Age, Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, RIO, RIO 2) passed on his passion and process to the next generation filmmakers.
Suffragette Director Sarah Gavron Puts Struggle on Screen
Carey Mulligan stars alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep in Sarah Gavron’s moving drama about the turning point of the women’s suffrage movement. Suffragette begins in 1912 London and follows a group of women from different walks of life who come together as activists and engage in acts of civil disobedience to draw attention to their cause: gaining the vote for women. We talk to Gavron about the process of bringing this story to the big screen for the first time.
Trailer for Pride + Prejudice + Zombies, Oh My
“A woman must have a thorough knowledge of singing, dancing and the art of war.”
When you think of Jane Austen you think of the landed English gentry of the 19th century, women dancing in long Empire-waisted dresses gossiping and plotting, and English class. If we were to play a word association game what would you say if we said “Pride and Prejudice” – you might say Mr. Darcy, Laurence Olivier, Colin Firth,
