10 Years (and Possibly More) Worth of Star Wars Films Being Planned
For those of you who might have been worried that J.J. Abrams’ Episode IX, due in theaters in December of 2019, would be the last new film in the Star Wars franchise for a while, rest assured that the galaxy’s expanding, not contracting, after the new trilogy wraps up. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy went on the Star Wars show to discuss the upcoming The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson,
1922 Costume Designer on Bringing Stephen King’s Characters Off the Page
The ‘Roaring 20s’ are often glamourized in entertainment, but there was a more pragmatic lifestyle on farmland in the Midwest. Costume designer Claudia da Ponte gets that tone just right in the Stephen King thriller 1922, setting farmer Wilfred James and his family off on a long and gruesome descent into madness. What the characters want, and the conflict it causes with what they have, drives the course of their lives. The most visual cue of their yearning comes from their clothing,
Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
Fans of Greta Gerwig know her as the go-to muse of indie filmdom’s mumblecore movement and for her collaborations with such notable directors as Joe Swanberg (LOL, Nights and Weekends) and Noah Baumbach (Greenberg,
How The Ritual‘s Cinematographer Immerses You in Fear
In The Ritual, a group of friends lose one of their own in a robbery gone bad, but that’s just the beginning of the horrors in store. The atmospheric thriller pulls you deeper into the woods where they encounter sinister things they can’t explain that begin to tear their bond apart. Once they begin to turn on one another, none of them are safe. Cinematographer Andrew Shulkind’s filming style immerses you in the terror in a unique way.
Writer/Director Margaret Betts on her new Film Novitiate
What happens when a Manhattan socialite turned filmmaker (The Carrier, a 2011 doc about the AIDS pandemic in Africa) makes an impulse pre-flight purchase of a biography about Mother Teresa that contains revealing letters about her passionate relationship with God?
If you are Margaret Betts,
Director Rob Reiner Talks Upcoming Biopic LBJ
Rob Reiner’s long list of directing credits includes An American President (1995), about the romance between a fictional widowed U.S. President (Micheal Douglas) and a lobbyist (Annette Bening) that was, in many ways, a precursor to the landmark TV series The West Wing (Aaron Sorkin wrote both).
Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt on Shooting David Fincher’s Serial Killer Series Mindhunter
David Fincher does not like the color red. Cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt knows this because he shot much of the new Netflix series Mindhunter, executive produced and partially directed by the famously meticulous master of suspense. “Fincher and I both have an aversion to magenta so with Mindhunter we always erred on the side of green/yellow in our color choices,” says Messerschmidt, who met Fincher on the set of his 2014 thriller Gone Girl.
Composer Carter Burwell Orchestrates Emotions for Music-Filled Wonderstruck
Carter Burwell scored 15 movies for the Coen Brothers, composed music for three Spike Jonze films and picked up an Oscar nomination for the lush score he wrote for Todd Hayne’s fifties-era melodrama Carol. But in terms of sheer magnitude, Wonderstruck marks Burwell’s biggest film scoring achievement to date. Describing his latest collaboration with Haynes on the kid-friendly adventure, Burwell says, “It’s 80 minutes of music, much more than I’ve written for a film before.”
How Battle of the Sexes Composer Nicholas Britell Uses ’70s Technology to Make Modern Score Feel Retro
Over the past five years, composer Nicholas Britell has built a name working on some of the most impressive and artful Best Picture nominees in recent memory: Twelve Years a Slave, Whiplash, The Big Short and, most recently, the stunning (and Oscar-winning) Moonlight. This year, Britell entered the Oscar race once again with Battle of the Sexes, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ charmingly vivid retelling of the historic tennis match and rivalry between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Jigsaw Composer Dissects Why Music Scares Us
Former Nine Inch Nails band member Charlie Clouser knows how to give you a good scare. He’s composed the music for Wayward Pines, that creepy American Horror Story theme, The Stepfather, and The Neighbor, but it all began with Saw. His music is the subverbal terror you can’t name lurking in every one of Jigsaw’s torture rooms. Ever since the first Saw was released in 2004,
Happy Death Day Cinematographer on Resurrecting the Teen Slasher Genre
There’s nothing quite as horrifying as waking up in a strange dorm room after a night out in college. Except maybe being murdered in your sorority house and reliving your death over again until you identify your masked killer. Such is life for Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) in the most playful slasher film of the year, Happy Death Day. Cinematographer Toby Oliver set the tone for the coed killer movie where the scares are satisfyingly spooky.
Immersed in the Scene: Next-Gen Filmmakers Bullish on VR Storytelling
Ever since the first works of film were shown to the public around the turn of the 20th century, the experience has been largely the same. People sit in a darkened theater facing a large screen, where projected two-dimensional, still images flit past their eyes at a rate fast enough to produce the illusion of motion.
But the idea of immersing audiences in the movie’s environment—taking them from spectators peeking through the screen’s 2D window to become surrounded by the film’s three-dimensional world—has been around nearly as long as the industry’s dawn.
Ahead of Glorious Call Me By Your Name, Here are 9 LGBT Coming-of-Age Films From the ’90s
The LGBT coming-of-age film has come a long, long way. In 2016, the world watched in astonishment (and some initial confusion) as Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
How They Pulled Off that Insane Airplane Fight in Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming featured some crazy stunts and effects that made it one of the most exciting films of the year. Last week, VFX Supervisor Theo Bilaik walked us through replicating Tom Holland’s movements to fill the stunt gaps with CGI. Now, Bialik is back with an inside look at that iconic show down between Spider-Man and Vulture on the surface of a speeding jet.
Turns out this battle wasn’t any kind of green screen tussle.
Seeing Double: Meet Jumanji’s Real Ruby Roundhouse—Stunt Performer Jahnel Curfman
The second Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle trailer dropped around a month ago, showcasing an action-packed sequel to the beloved 1995 original. From what we can tell, audiences can expect crazy chases, fight scenes, and impressive visual effects. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle sees four teenagers discover an old video game console (much like how the kids in the original found an old board game) and are literally drawn into the game’s jungle setting becoming the adult avatars they choose.The use of video game avatar characters amplifies the intensity of the action this time around,
Disembodied: From Her to Ghost in the Shell, Scarlett Johansson’s Astonishing Disappearing Act
She’s spent much of her early career playing idealized, beautiful ingenues: from Woody Allen’s neurotic and effortless Nola Rice in Match Point to Joseph Gordon Levitt’s hoop-earringed “dime” in Don Jon, but Scarlett Johansson has never been totally comfortable being typecast as the gorgeous leading lady: “I’ve been able to use [my looks] to my advantage in some ways. In other ways, it can be very frustrating… I’ve always thought of myself as being a character actor,
Creature Feature: The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro is the King of Complicated Monsters
Director Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming film The Shape of Water, his most anticipated work since Pan’s Labyrinth, is a romantic horror fairy tale that won the Golden Lion at the 74th Venice Film Festival earlier this year. The story of lonely, mute janitor Elisa (Sally Hawkins), who befriends and then falls in love with “the Asset,” an amphibious creature-resident of the high-security government laboratory which she cleans by night,
Hellboy Cast Grows with Some Huge Talent
The red-skinned demon investigator, Hellboy, is planned to head back to the big screen in 2018. The much-anticipated reboot of the Guillermo del Toro and Rob Perlman 2003 classic announced the addition of three new members to the Osiris Club, Deadline reports. The Dark comic’s inspired film will feature cast members Sophie Okonedo, Brian Gleeson and Alistair Petrie to star alongside the dark hero and titular character played by Stranger Things actor, David Harbour.
Costume Designer Sandy Powell on her Gorgeous Period Pieces in Wonderstruck
Opening this week is Todd Hayne’s film adaptation of the illustrated novel Wonderstruck, the seemingly separate dual tales of two different children who make their way to New York, each taking refuge in the Museum of Natural History, in 1927 and 1977. The book’s author, Brian Selznick, is regarded as a master of magic in a particular written realm that transcends the border between children and adults’ literature; he first met acclaim for the work “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,”
Director Shapes Long Lost 16 Millimeter Footage to Shed Fresh Light on Jane Goodall
Shortly after documentary maker Brett Morgen finished Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck in 2015, National Geographic sent him half-a-century old footage taken in the wilds of Tanzania along with an invitation to profile chimpanzee-loving naturalist Jane Goodall. Morgen, who previously documented subversive mavericks including movie producer Robert Evans (The Kid Stays in the Picture), hippie radicals (The Chicago Ten) and the early Rolling Stones (Crossfire Hurricane),
