Alexander Payne’s Longtime Editor On Stepping into the Directing Chair for Crash Pad
If you’ve seen Sideways, About Schmidt, The Descendants, or Nebraska, you’re likely headed to the theater this weekend to see Alexander Payne’s newest project Downsizing. You have also seen the work of longtime collaborator Kevin Tent who has been the editor on all of those movies and more. After years of collaborating with Payne, Tent stepped out on his own to direct the neurotically funny Crash Pad this year.
How VFX Artists Kept Ryan Gosling’s Head From Being Smashed (and More) in Blade Runner 2049
When we interviewed Blade Runner 2049 sound designer Theo Green, one of the sequences he discussed was the very first in the film—the epic brawl between Ryan Gosling’s Officer K and Dave Bautista’s hulking replicant Sapper. Officer K is there to “retire” Sapper, a euphemism if ever there was one, and the fight that ensues is brutal, made all the more intense by the size difference in the two combatants.
Love & Other Illusions: How Blade Runner 2049‘s Sound Designer Played With our Heart Strings
For part one of our interview with Blade Runner 2049 sound designer Theo Green, click here.
One of Blade Runner 2049’s most inspired characters is Joi (Ana de Armas), the holographic love interest of Officer K (Ryan Gosling). Joi is, in the strictest of senses, a product, one produced by the Wallace Corp (lead by the film’s villain, Niander Wallace, played by Jared Leto),
Replicant vs. Replicant: How Blade Runner 2049’s Sound Designer Pulled no Punches
K. vs. Sapper
It’s a mismatch. One replicant is 6’0” and slender. The other is a goliath, standing at 6’3” and weighing 290lbs. They’re all alone in a creaky cabin on a distant, desolate protein farm, and they know they are about to have at it. The slender replicant, Officer K (Ryan Gosling), is there to “retire” Sapper (Dave Bautista, most well known as the lovable brute Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise),
Cinematographer Sam Levy’s Shot List Pictured Lady Bird a Year in Advance
In the beginning, there was the shot list. When Greta Gerwig organized her directorial debut, she left nothing to chance. A full year before production began on her coming-of-age story Lady Bird, the actress-turned-filmmaker sat down in New York with director of photography Sam Levy and together they planned out every shot of the movie. Levy, who got to know Gerwig when they worked on Frances Ha and Mistress America,
Mudbound Composer on the History of African-American Persistence That Inspired the Score
A man’s worth was once tied to his land, and whether they liked it or not, the families who lived and worked on that land were bound to one another. Dee Rees’ Mudbound tells the story of two such families, one black and one white, whose fates are intertwined on a Mississippi farm in the 1940s. With Mudbound, Bessie, and Pariah, Rees has picked away at painful moments in American history and found beautiful,
Set Decorator Rena DeAngelo Recreates a 1970s Newsroom in Steven Spielberg’s The Post
The Post, Steven Spielberg’s latest film opening December 22nd, recounts the Washington Post’s part in bringing the Pentagon Papers to light, on the heels of the New York Times. For the first time, Spielberg is working together with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, playing the newspaper’s first woman publisher, Katharine Graham, and its editor, Ben Bradlee. Set in the early 1970s, with much of the action taking place in the paper’s colorless newsroom,
Wonder Woman‘s Cinematographer on Capturing the Dynamic Essence of Diana Prince
Wonder Woman was exactly who we needed, exactly when we needed her, and she reframed the landscape among a crowded superhero genre. Director Patty Jenkins and her team brought to life a leading character who could feel love, fury, compassion and power in equal parts. Diana Prince and Steve Trevor’s relationship was a romance of equals (well, sort of—Diana was willing to treat him as an equal) that was charming, tender, passionate and heartbreaking.
Phantom Thread’s Costume Designer Mark Bridges on Styling Daniel Day-Lewis’s Last Performance
On Christmas, Daniel Day-Lewis takes his final on-screen bow, having declared his intention to retire after Phantom Thread, the latest from his longtime collaborator, Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in London high society in 1955, the film sees the British Day-Lewis, who has donned a wide variety of hairstyles, beards, and accents over his career, make something of a return to his own milieu, in muted tweeds, with long, slicked-back hair. He plays couturier Reynolds Woodcock,
The Goldbergs Composer on Bringing Fresh Life to 1980s Nostalgia
The 1980s were an awkward time for us all. No one escaped the fashion nightmares of track suits in bright colors, the huge hair, and an abundance of shoulder pads. Nearly all sins are forgiven with the passing of time, and The Goldbergs, now in season 5, proves there has been enough space between then and now for us to laugh at ourselves again.
The decade was, however, a golden age for nerds as cinematic classics like Ghostbusters,
I, Tonya Screenwriter Steven Rogers on the Many Sides to one of the ’90s Most Infamous Antiheroes
Steven Rogers remembers watching Tonya Harding at the televised 1994 Olympics when she complained to judges about a broken shoe lace a few weeks after being accused of ordering an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan. “I thought, ‘Oh, she just wants attention, anything for attention,’ because that’s what I was being fed,” says Rogers. “That’s what we were all being fed.”
Two decades later, Rogers burrowed beneath the scandalous surface and wrote I,
VFX Supervisor Swaps Man For Primate in Oscar-Shortlisted War For the Planet of the Apes
“I’ve pretty much spent my last decade doing almost nothing but monkeys and apes.” That’s Oscar-winning visual effects artist Dan Lemmon talking about his adventures in motion capture on behalf of the re-booted Planet of the Apes trilogy and Peter Jackson’s 2005 gorilla spectacle King Kong. “Between that and The Jungle Book I’ve been pretty busy,” says Lemmon during a recent visit to Los Angeles. New York born,
The Last Jedi, Blade Runner 2049 & Wonder Woman Among Oscar’s Visual Effects Shortlist
The Oscar race for Best Visual Effects this year might be the stiffest in recent memory. The Academy has released this year’s shortlist, and it stands to reason that this could be the most challenging group of films they’ve had to winnow down in a few years. A few of the reasons include the wide range of genres these effects were deployed in, the culmination of a groundbreaking trilogy (the Apes franchise), and creature features from some of the most creative filmmakers on the planet.
Watch the Making of a Chewbacca Mask Using Stuart Freeborn’s Original, Brilliant Design
The late Stuart Freeborn was a giant in the make-up artist realm, considered by many to the one of the originators of make-up design as we know it today. His long, incredible career touched some of the biggest films in history, including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (he created the incredible “Dawn of Man” sequence, which gave poetic beauty to the transformation of apes into homo sapiens), as well as Kubrick’s Dr.
I, Tonya Director Craig Gillepsie on Revisiting the Second Most Surreal Sports-Related Crime in the ’90s
Back in 1994, when tabloid TV shows such as “Hard Copy” and “Inside Edition” became the rage and CNN fed the public’s hunger for 24-hour news coverage, two crime-related stories revolving around sports figures would provide ample sustenance. One involved the arrest of football hero O.J. Simpson for the lurid murders of wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. The other was a good vs. evil scenario that pitted skating princess Nancy Kerrigan against the less-polished, more athletic Tonya Harding.
Black Mirror Trailer for ‘Metalhead’ is Intense and Mysterious
Tomorrow will mark the long awaited conclusion of the Netflix rollout of the Black Mirror season 4 trailers. What that means we can’t say for sure, but we hope it brings us much closer to the full episode drop. Five of the six announced episodes have now been teased with Black Mirror tweeting out a mysterious trailer for ‘Metalhead’ yesterday.
The plot of this episode is by far the most cryptic of the season’s trailers.
Stranger Things is Officially Coming Back for Season 3
Poor Hawkins, Indiana has been through a lot. Detective Hopper has been doing his best to battle the evils of the Upside Down, but there are more monsters to come. Netflix announced that Stranger Things has secured a third season.
FOR THE LOVE OF STEVE, DUH! So hold tight baby darts — season 3 is officially happening.
— Netflix US (@netflix) December 1, 2017
Netflix posted a poll on Friday asking followers if there should be a season 3.
Daisy Ridley Likely Done With Rey After Star Wars: Episode IX
As we rapidly approach the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi on December 15th, it has been announced that Daisy Ridley is planned to say goodbye to the fierce heroine, Rey, once the trilogy concludes. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the cast (Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver) and director Rian Johnson discussed their experience working on the Star Wars films and what viewers should expect to see in future episodes, Collider reports.
Margot Robbie Reveals the Development of Another Harley Quinn Spinoff
In Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie’s performance as the provocatively twisted, baseball bat swinging supervillain, Harley Quinn, earned high praise for being brilliantly over the top. Although a supervillain, fans immediately fell in love her sweet yet psychotic personality. Thus, it’s no surprise that Warner Bros. plans to feature her character, once again, in four upcoming DC films-one of which includes a Harley Quinn solo movie.
Initially perceived as a sidekick and ‘daddy’s little monster’ to her lunatic boyfriend the Joker in the comic book series,
The Ending of Star Wars: The Force Awakens Changed at the Last Second
With Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiering in just a few short weeks on December 15, we’re being treated to major cover stories, timed to pique interest (as if we really needed it) right before the film takes over the world. These have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Empire and Rolling Stone recently, and while the filmmakers and folks from Lucasfilm were careful not to let any spoilers spill,
