The Florida Project’s Young Stars & Director Discuss Dazzling new Film
The Florida Project shows a side of Disney’s influence on the Sunshine State that tourists rarely see from inside the glittery artifice of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Namely, the economic reality of those struggling to make ends meet as they are forced to reside in the budget motels populating roadside areas beyond the theme park.
Amazingly, the film offers an often upbeat view of this lifestyle since filmmaker Sean Baker — who made a splash by shooting his previous effort,
Watch Artists Create Rocket & Baby Groot for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Digital effects are so outrageously good at this point, we take it for granted that Andy Serkis can become an utterly realistic intelligent chimpanzee and give arguably the greatest motion capture performances of all time throughout the new Apes trilogy, or, say, watch a talking, hybrid raccoon and a sentient plant-based alien, voiced by stars Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel respectively, and never once be taken out of the film by just how outrageous what it is we’re seeing actually is.
Director Donna Dietch on her Iconic Lesbian Romance Desert Hearts Criterion Release
Donna Deitch is a respected television director with a host of credits including her Emmy-winning, Holocaust-themed The Devil’s Arithmetic (1999). But it’s Desert Hearts, the groundbreaking lesbian romance she made 31 years ago, recently re-released and restored by Janus Films and the Criterion Collection, that allows Deitch to remember and also to look ahead.
“There have been so many screenings, so much press. It’s a strange but wonderful thing,” she says.
Director Sean Baker on The Florida Project‘s Kids on the Fringe
“If you like ‘The Little Rascals,’ you’re going to like The Florida Project.” That’s director Sean Baker, talking about his 21st century riff on the Depression-era comedy shorts featuring adorable mischief-maker George “Spanky” McFarland and his raucous gang.
Flash forward 85 years and Baker updates the kids-at-play theme, only this time the pint-sized heroes find their adventures amid the cheap motels located outside of Disney World. Once favored by tourists,
The 55th Annual New York Film Festival Begins Today
The New York Film Festival, which runs from September 28 to October 15, is a funny bird. Housed in that Temple of Culture, Lincoln Center, the 55th edition of the festival is showing as many movies in its Robert Mitchum Retrospective as it is in the Main Slate, its showcase for the annual crop of prestigious indies (25 each to be exact). The festival doesn’t try to compete with industry heavyweights like Cannes, Sundance and Toronto.
Artist & Populist Both: HBO’s Spielberg Goes Deep on a Living Hollywood Legend
Is Steven Spielberg a populist or an artist? Like his exemplar, the iconic director Alfred Hitchcock, critics have often pointed to Spielberg’s fame to detract from or overlook his artistic accomplishments. At what many consider the height of Spielberg’s career in the 1970s and 80s, the director was one of the best-known filmmakers in the world, as well as one of the highest-grossing, with movies like Jaws, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark smashing box office records.
Meet the Courageous Amputee Who Stunt Doubles Paul Rudd on Ant-Man and the Wasp
Stunt performer Brett Smrz is living proof that one of the film industry’s most difficult jobs attracts the very best people. When Smrz was 16, he lost his lower left leg in a trampoline accident. Yet today, Smrz is a professional stunt driver and one of two of Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man stunt doubles. When you watch the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp, you’ll be seeing the work of one of Hollywood’s most courageous stunt performers.
HBO Pulls Back the Curtain on Directing Legend in New Spielberg Trailer
Director Steven Spielberg reveals in a new trailer what drives his creativity, and it’s not your typical day in the office. The celebrated director has created some of the most popular, beloved, and iconic films of all time and now it’s his turn to tell his own story.
HBO documentary Spielberg puts the legend in front of the camera, along with a dizzying number of A-list stars. Documentarian Susan Lacy helmed the project,
The Last Movie: Character Actor Harry Dean Stanton, RIP, Finally Gets Lucky Title Role
Stealing scenes for more than half a century in some 200 movies and TV shows, Henry Dean Stanton has played everything from spaceship crew member (Alien) and psychotic criminal (Repo Man) to a Mormon patriarch with fourteen wives (Big Love). Instantly identifiable in his later years for haunted eyes suggesting a man who’s stared straight into the abyss and lived to tell the tale,
Designing Jake Gyllenhaal’s Look in Boston Bombing Film Stronger
The scene of two homemade bombs exploding at the Boston marathon in 2013 was devastating, but from it rose images of hope and stories of triumph. Jeff Bauman was among the crowd of victims whose lives were changed by the attack. Bauman lost both of his legs, which began his incredible journey to recovery. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays Bauman in Stronger, the emotional film that examines the pain of grief and tragedy under the public eye.
Director Stephen Frears on Directing Dame Judi Dench in Victoria & Abdul
Stephen Frears steered Helen Mirren to an Oscar as The Queen and landed Meryl Streep in the Best Actress circle last year for Florence Foster Jenkins. But when it comes to Judi Dench, who stars in his latest film Victoria & Abdul (opening Friday //Sept. 22// in New York and L.A.) the veteran British filmmaker brushes aside any suggestion that he contributed in any significant way to her bravura performance as England’s 81-year-old Queen Victoria.
Jake Gyllenhaal & Jeff Bauman on Their Bond, Using Real Pain to Fuel Stronger
When it comes to cinematic accounts of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Stronger is the flip side to last year’s Patriots Day. The earlier film – an action thriller about catching the bad guys – focused on Beantown native Mark Wahlberg’s fictional composite-character cop being celebrated as a hero. Stronger, opening this Friday, instead is an intimate look at what happens when a survivor of a tragedy is seen as a hero while trying to recover from the loss of his legs as well as his former life.
Ali Fazal on Playing Queen Victoria’s Friend & Teacher in Victoria and Abdul
Victoria and Abdul director Stephen Frears said he had to go to India to find an actor to play the Muslim who was Queen Victoria’s friend and munshi (teacher) in the last years of her life. “I knew that you needed somebody from India,” he said, to get “that sort of wide-eyed quality….When Ali [Fazal] came in, by the time he left the room I said, ‘Well, I can see why she’ll like him.’ It was really as simple as that.”
Meet the Team Behind World’s First Fully Oil Painted Film, Loving Vincent
Every once in a while, a film comes along that profoundly alters how we perceive the images that flicker on the big screen. The animated biopic Loving Vincent , which recounts the final weeks of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh’s life as a murder mystery, is definitely one of those game-changers. The Polish-U.K. co-production that opens Friday is the world’s first fully oil-painted feature. The project ,10 years in the making on a tight $5.5 million budget,
Talking to Legendary Organizer Dolores C. Heurta & Director Peter Bratt About Their Documentary Dolores
Not that many people know that Barack Obama’s “yes we can” slogan was translated from the Spanish “si se puede.” Even fewer know that the phrase, sometimes credited to United Farm Workers of America leader Cesar Chavez, was actually coined by the group’s co-founder, Dolores C. Huerta. This and much more is set straight in Dolores, the new documentary written and directed by Peter Bratt and executive produced by musician Carlos Santana.
Battle of the Sexes Editor Pamela Martin on Turning Emma Stone & Steve Carell Into Tennis Pros
When I heard that Emma Stone and Steve Carell were starring in a new movie about the legendary Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, I rolled my eyes. I’m both a filmmaker and a tennis nut. (I got rid of my cable TV, literally, for 10 years because I couldn’t stop myself from watching the Tennis Channel). I winced at the thought of the obvious cutaways and close-ups the editor would need to rely on to hide the fact that Stone and Carell,
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.
Westworld‘s Emmy-Nominated Cinematographer on the Park’s Sinister Secrets
HBO’s Westworld hypnotized viewers this year. The titular park was a literal tourist trap, offering the well-heeled the opportunity to live out any fantasy without consequence, until the hosts get other ideas. Inspired by Michael Crichton’s 1973 film, the reboot was a hit featuring the clean, calm lines of the welcome center contrasted with the gritty Wild West themed park. Cinematographer Paul Cameron (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) disrupted the serene pretense upheld by the park’s producers to deliver a sense of foreboding about the sinister secrets within.
DP Captures Ugly Behavior in Sun-Dappled New Series Riviera
Boasting a resume that includes Peaky Blinders, BAFTA Award-winning London Spies and gritty indie High-Rise, British cinematographer Laurie Rose shoots most of his projects in overcast England. But not long after he spent six weeks in a dank British warehouse working on claustrophobic shoot-em-up Free Fire, Rose spent last summer in the sunny south of France filming the first two episodes of Riviera.
Here’s How They Created The Loot Train Dragon Attack in Game of Thrones
While we’ve written a lot about how extensive, incredible (and gross!) the practical effects are on Game of Thrones, the work done by the visual effects team is equally impressive. You don’t get to have a show with dragons, giants, direwolves, an exploding Sept of Baelor, and an army of 100,000 renanimated dead people without a really, really good visual effects team. As Game of Thrones has shifted from palace intrigue and mostly human concerns to the war between the living and the dead,
