Saving Mr. Banks & the Story Behind Mary Poppins

As Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks debuts, step back in time to discover the story behind the making of Mary Poppins and the inspiration behind one of the greatest and most beloved films ever made.

INT: The Walt Disney Studios. Burbank, California, April 1961.

A rehearsal room in the Animation Building—suffused with sunlight and equipped with storytelling necessities: an upright piano, storyboards, a table and a couch.

Breaking Braddock: New Christian Bale Film Puts Spotlight on Hard Hit Town

Director Scott Cooper’s new movie, Out of the Furnace, boasts a cast that includes Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Zoé Saldana, Sam Shepard and Forest Whitaker. It’s a thrilling drama about the lengths we’ll go for family, and, what pernicious elements fills the void in a town when the jobs disappear. Filmed and set in the ragged, depressed Rust Belt town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Bale’s Russell Baze works at a mill that is likely going under,

Christopher Nolan and the Increasing Utilization of IMAX Cameras in Film

Camera nerds, film lovers, Nolan-heads and even some regular film enthusiasts were abuzz earlier this week when word spread that Christopher Nolan was up to some wild business (once again) with an IMAX camera. Nolan is probably the format’s most prodigious advocate (he’s part of a tribe of filmmakers who utilize the bulky-but-beautiful technology), and he always seem to be pushing the boundaries of what can (and should?) be done with these cameras. This past Monday,

All Hail Mary: Three Minutes With Writer/Director Extraordinaire Mary Harron (VIDEO)

Mary Harron is probably most well know for taking Bret Easton Ellis’s notoriously gruesome novel, American Psycho, and adapting it for the big screen in 2000 as both writer and director. It has become a cult classic, cementing Harron’s status as a daring filmmaker with a penchant for taking difficult protagonists (some might argue despicable) and crafting compelling, often very funny, and ultimately challenging films around them. American Psycho was engulfed in controversy before the film even began principal photography—but Harron’s handling of Ellis’s graphic,

Brothers in Arms: Chris Hemsworth & Tom Hiddleston Talk Thor: The Dark World

For the last time, do not—repeat—do not leave the theater before the end credits are done scrolling in Marvel’s newest epic Thor: The Dark World. As any fan knows, Marvel has nearly created its own cottage industry of mid- and post-credit scenes that reward the patient moviegoer (shawarma ring a bell?) That being said, stay put till the lights come on, because this film is filled with enough action to have you white-knuckling the back of the seat in front of you—especially because of Thor and Loki’s shared plight—for most of its two hours.

The Many Moving Parts to The LEGO Movie

The toys and games of our youth have long been fodder for filmmakers. There have been six films (all direct-to-video, it should be noted) made from Mattel’s ‘American Girls’ line. Dungeons & Dragons was made into a feature film in 2000 and starred Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons. G.I. Joe has been called into duty twice, in 2009 and just this year, in monster big budget spectacles. Transformers have been clanging their multi-purpose parts together since 2007 in three films,

Star Wars: Episode VII’s Galaxy of Talent Behind J.J. Abrams

As useful as IMDBpro is, it’s recommendable to take the “projects in development” rubric with at least a grain or two of salt. Because really, how could one man have 28 projects in development, including the next Star Trek and Mission Impossible, while also working on a little film franchise called Star Wars?

If it were any one other than J.J. Abrams, you’d be right to assume that most of these would fall through,

Ender’s Game and 8 Films That Touch on Bullying

Looked at in a certain way, Ender’s Game follows The Hunger Games into theaters (even though the story itself predates it) as a film about the pernicious reality of bullying, and, the myriad ways one can stand up to it.

In each film, some form of tyranny is meted out, both from up close and personal and from afar. There are antagonists who tease, torment and threaten our protagonists,

Directing Diana: Oliver Hirschbigel On His Princess Di Film

German director Oliver Hirschbiegel is no stranger to controversy. His 2004 Oscar-nominated film Downfall triggered rancor in the German press for its complex, humanistic depiction of Adolph Hitler, played by Bruno Ganz. Now Hirschbiegel faces another firestorm in Great Britain for Diana, a portrait of another larger- than-life figure: Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Naomi Watts. The British press has been vitriolic towards the film, which is based on the book “Diana: Her Last Love”

A Bloody Good Job: Carrie’s Makeup Maestro Jordan Samuel

Makeup department head Jordan Samuel had quite a task in front of him when he joined director Kimberly Peirce and the filmmaking team behind Carrie. "Truthfully, blood itself is one of the most difficult things for a makeup artist," Samuel says, "and the more there is the more difficult it is."

Now, add to the amount of blood Samuel would be working with in Carrie to the fact that he was a major part of making sure they could pull of recreating one of the most iconic scenes in horror film history,

Gravity Shines Light on Future of 3D Filmmaking

How do you create a 3D film that’s truly worth the price of admission? If one lesson can be taken from James Cameron’s Avatar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, it’s that the extra dimension has to be crucial to the narrative itself. It’s not enough to wow people—you need a good story reason for the technology, which all of the above directors had in spades.

3D Serving the Story

Cuarón’s masterpiece took place in space,

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of The Right Stuff With Writer/Director Philip Kaufman

“There’s a demon that lives in the air. They say that whoever challenged him would die.” –Levon Helm’s narration at the beginning of The Right Stuff.

Test pilots attempting to break the sound barrier at Muroc Army Air Field in California, where that demon lived, often died. It’s at Muroc where Philip Kaufman’s seminal film begins. Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) has been given the opportunity to try and break the sound barrier in the X-1,

Diablo Cody Discusses Paradise, her Directorial Debut

Diablo Cody is still probably best known for her freshman outing as a screenwriter with Juno, back in 2007. After all, the smart, offbeat comedy-drama about a pregnant teenager earned the Illinois-born-and-bred scribe a flurry of ovations for her original screenplay, including an Oscar, a BAFTA and honors from the Writers Guild of America. But come October 18, Cody, who has since penned and produced Jennifer’s Body, Young Adult and Showtime’s United States of Tara,

Spike Jonze’s Soulful, Searching Sci-Fi Romance Her

A Spike Jonze film is always an event. He’s made four features in fourteen years—starting with Being John Malkovich (1999), a film so singularly peculiar and original (a puppeteer finds a portal that leads into the actual mind of John Malkovich), that the long-time music video director found himself nominated for an Academy Award at the ripe old age of 30.

Malkovich was written by Charlie Kaufman,

Everlasting Love: Jim Jarmusch’s Beautiful Only Lovers Left Alive

How often do you walk away from a vampire film and think, ‘Well, that was really lovely’? I’d wager never. Yet that is exactly the feeling I left with after the screening of Only Lovers Left Alive at the New York Film Festival.

True to its title, Only Lovers Left Alive is a love story, even a comedy. It’s a film about Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton),

Alexander Payne’s Nebraska Delights at the New York Film Festival

Alexander Payne first got Bob Nelson's script for Nebraska back in 2003 or 2004 (he isn’t quite sure). He liked it, and he immediately thought of Bruce Dern for the lead role, so he sent it to him. Dern liked it, and was surprised Payne had thought of him for the lead. Dern was so excited, in fact, he went to Toys R Us and bought a toy truck (a new truck has a lot of significance in the plot) and sent it to Payne,

The U.S. Premiere of 12 Years a Slave at the New York Film Festival

Screening in the United States for the first time, Steve McQueen’s powerful, heart rending 12 Years a Slave once again left a festival audience in silence and many viewers weeping in their seats. The story of Solomon Northup’s betrayal, his years of horror while a slave in Georgia, and his desperation to return home to his family in New York requires the viewer to face an unflinching portrayal of humanity at its worst trying to break a man taken at his best.

Paul Giamatti & Director Phil Morrison Talk All Is Bright, Paul Rudd & More

In All is Bright, Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd play two Canadian former partners in crime who travel to New York to try and sell Christmas trees (“try” being the operative word). Giamatti is Dennis, who, out on parole after four years in the clink, finds out that his daughter think he’s dead and his wife is romantically involved with Rene, played by Rudd. Directed by Phil Morrison (Junebug,) the comedy also features the inimitable Sally Hawkins as a Russian immigrant who befriends Dennis.

51st New York Film Festival: Watching Film’s Future at the Shorts Program

Countless legendary film careers began with short films. This is one reason every major film festival, from Cannes to Toronto to New York, showcases short films—these same filmmakers often end up returning with their features a few years later (sometimes extended versions of those shorts), having used their short as a launching pad for successful careers. Martin Scorsese might have gotten onto the map with Mean Streets, but it was his 1963 short What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This,

Transformations: Matthew McConaughey & Jared Leto on Dallas Buyers Club

If the adage that dramatic weight loss or gain is the key to Oscar glory, then Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are shoo-ins this year. Both transformed their bodies to play characters battling AIDS at the height of the epidemic in Dallas Buyers Club. But there’s a whole lot more to their performances than just the physical changes they submitted their bodies to—the transformations helped each actor achieve a near spiritual connection to characters rarely seen in mainstream films.