Talking to Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part II
In Part 2 of an interview with Darkest Hour director Joe Wright and star Gary Oldman, who has been receiving glowing reviews for his portrait of Winston Churchill in the film that opens November 22, they discuss the physical part of his performance, a few noteworthy props and why the actor who brought to life everyone from Sid Viscious to Beethoven on the big screen has only been nominated once for an Oscar.
Talking to Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part I
In a film career that spans four decades, actor Gary Oldman, 59, has displayed a chameleon-like ability to play a multitude of far-ranging roles. That includes punk pioneer Sid Vicious, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Count Dracula, classical composer Beethoven, Harry Potter wizard Sirius Black and John le Carre’s spy guy George Smiley.
This new Deadpool 2 Teaser is Gloriously Bonkers
What other film franchise would drop a teaser that was a meticulously crafted, utterly NSFW parody of those old Bob Ross painting tutorials that aired on public access television back in the ‘80s?
Guillermo del Toro Shares Looks at Latest Revelatory Creature from The Shape of Water
There are few filmmakers working today who have delivered more revelatory creatures than Guillermo del Toro. The auteur behind Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, and Pacific Rim has proven time and time again he’s the king of complicated monsters. In his upcoming film, The Shape of Water, del Toro has taken a career’s worth of know-how and poured it into a creature,
Writer/Director Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
With his thrillingly raw new film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri just released, writer/director Martin McDonagh is happy to chat about the movie, which has received critical acclaim and film-fest accolades, including Best Screenplay at Venice and People’s Choice at Toronto.
Taika Waititi Imagines a Hilarious Opening Scene Spin-off for a Potential Thor 4
Fresh off of Thor: Ragnarok’s hugely successful box-office weekend, director Taika Waititi has already begun dreaming of opening scene ideas for a potential fourth film (which we anxiously hope they do!).
Caution Spoilers Ahead!
Although the film is full of hilarious scenes, unarguably one the funniest moments happens at the start of the movie, when actors Luke Hemsworth (yup, Chris’s brother, currently on HBO Westworld),
Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne Creates Sinful Style in Murder on the Orient Express
The lavish train ride of Murder on the Orient Express, the 1934 Agatha Christie mystery that ranks among the writer’s most culturally iconic novels,
Some Actual Good News: Rian Johnson is Creating an Entirely new Star Wars Trilogy
In the midst of a storm of insane news yesterday, none of it any good, a burst of pure light was released by Lucasfilm, courtesy of StarWars.com; The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson will be creating a brand-new Star Wars trilogy. Let that sink in for a moment. Johnson will be writing and directing the first film in the trilogy, and will be overseeing all of them with his longtime producer Ram Bergman.
R.I.P. Mjolnir: Say Goodbye to Thor’s Hammer With These 2 Video Memorials
Mjolnir is to Thor what the vibranium shield is to Captain America. It’s more than just a weapon, it’s a symbol, and in Thor’s case, he believed his hammer was the source of his power. Marvel made it clear from the very first teasers for Thor: Ragnarok that Mjolnir wasn’t going to survive the film.
A Presidential Makeover: How Woody Harrelson Became LBJ
Woody Harrelson hated Lyndon Johnson when he was a kid, but couldn’t resist the dramatic challenge when director Rob Reiner invited him to portray the 36th president in the tumultuous months following John F. Kennedy’s assassination. LBJ required Harrelson to acquire a new accent, new mindset, new teeth, new ears, plus jowls. To aid in his transformation, the actor insisted on one key collaborator: Oscar-winning makeup designer Ve Neill. She recalls, “Woody called me and said ‘I really can’t do ‘LBJ’
How Blade Runner 2049 Used Miniatures to Build the Future
Blade Runner 2049 depicts a dark, ecologically devastated future (San Diego has been leveled and is now just a massive trash dump, for example), but the city of Los Angeles, long the center of Blade Runner mythology, is a glowing, holographic-choked megatropolis teeming with skyscrapers.
Writer/Director Richard Linklater on his Timely, Devastating Last Flag Flying
Richard Linklater originally tried to get war veterans’ drama Last Flag Flying off the ground 12 years ago, shortly after reading Daryl Ponsican’s novel of the same. “The timing wasn’t right,” he says. But the timing for the now-completed movie, which opened this past Friday, couldn’t be much more attuned to national concerns. Shot last fall, the film gained unexpected resonance two weeks ago when White House chief of staff John Kelly described the exact same process dramatized in Last Flag Flying,
Meet the Blade Runner 2049 Concept Artists Who Helped Create the Year’s Most Visually Stunning Film
Director Denis Villeneuve, cinematographer Roger Deakins, production designer Dennis Gassner, costume designer Renée April, the entire art department (really, the list is long) are all responsible for the neo-noir landscape of Blade Runner 2049 that managed to echo Ridley Scott’s dystopian vision in the original while taking it in their own,
Man Goes Ape in Director Ruben Östlund’s Surreal Satire The Square
Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund probed a family man’s ethical quandaries in acclaimed 2014 avalanche drama Force Majeure. In his new satiric drama The Square (opening Friday) the writer-director-moral philosopher critiques “civilized” people running amok in Stockholm’s art scene. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’Or, the movie chronicles everything that can possibly go wrong when museum curator Christian (Claes Bang) commissions a square-shaped public installation as sanctuary for citizens in need of help from passing pedestrians.
Jeff Deutchman Thinks Everyone (Especially Liberals) Should Watch his Election Doc 11/8/16
In the fall of 2008, documentary producer Jeff Deutchman had a last-minute idea: an omnibus movie that would capture election day. He sent requests to his filmmaker friends, all of whom were Obama supporters, and ended up with an account that had a relatively narrow focus. Eight years later, he started planning sooner,
Chatting With Call Me By Your Name‘s Legendary Screenwriter James Ivory
What Mercedes is to cars and Tiffany is to diamonds, Merchant Ivory is to art-house films. The brand whose heyday was in the ‘80s and the ‘90s with such titles as A Room With a View, Howards End and Remains of the Day still is synonymous with tony period pieces, top-of-line acting and a story often adapted from a literary source that engages both the head and the heart.
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,
