Oscar Watch: Shortlisted Docs Stretch Non-Fiction Format

Gun violence. Poverty. Disease. Racism. As expected, documentary topics explored by this year's shortlist of Oscar contenders skew dark. The big surprise comes from the way some filmmakers have chosen to tell their stories. While movies like front runner 13th artfully blend talking head interviews and archival material in the grand PBS tradition, low-budget, high-concept documentaries Tower, Gleason and Cameraperson experiment with non-fiction formats in fresh ways.

This Video Shows the Easter Eggs That Link Every Pixar Movie

You've heard the theory. Everyone's heard the theory. It's a great theory. The one that states that every single Pixar film, from the original Toy Story through Ratatouille and Wall-E to Finding Dory (and all the films in between) exist in the same universe. Folks call it The Pixar Theory, built on a huge nest of Easter eggs and some very intriguing details that pop up in each film.

Sundance 2017: Line Producer Shea Kammer on Breaking Into the Industry

A line producer on a film is one of the most crucial jobs on the crew. Often the first person hired by the producer, a line producer's responsibilities are daunting, to say the least. We spoke to Shea Kammer, a line producer extraordinaire, about what the role requires. Kammer is heading to the Sundance Film Festival, where he has two films in competition; the Iraq war drama The Yellow Birds and the medical drama 

Secret History of Rogue One‘s Aliens Revealed

One of the many delightful aspects of Rogue One was the films' treatment of the many aliens Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) comes into contact with. Some of the aliens are recognizable to any Star Wars fans—who among us didn’t delight in seeing Admiral Raddus, a member of the Mon Calamari race, supporting Jyn and the rebels' mission to the steal the Death Star plans? You may be forgiven for assuming on first blush that Admiral Raddus was,

Costume Designer Kim Tillman on xXx: Return on Xander Cage‘s Fierce Fashion

Costume designer Kim Tillman knows how to dress active characters. While she’s put her touch on plenty of films that involve attractive actors in pretty clothes (Fools Rush In, Wild Things, 10 Things I Hate About You), she’s also made her name outfitting roles that require a wardrobe befit for movement. From the epic seafaring adventure Battleship to the globe-trotting,

The Space Between Us DP on Capturing Earth’s Beauty in Sci-Fi Thriller

Cinematographer Barry Peterson has been behind the camera on hit comedies like Zoolander, 21 Jump Street, and Central Intelligence, but his latest film may be his most stunning work yet. Peterson was Director of Photography on the visually ambitious sci-fi romance The Space Between Us that boasts incredible imagery of our world. The story follows Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield),

Writer/Director Vincent Perez on his Timely, Devastating new Film Alone in Berlin

A somber, restrained World War II picture, Alone in Berlin, opens this week from director/actor Vincent Perez. Swiss by birth and of Spanish and German ancestry, Perez optioned the rights to Hans Fallada’s 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, two years before an English translation in 2009 became a surprise bestseller in the UK and US. The story of Nazi resistance from a working class Berlin couple,

Oscar Watch: Writer Taylor Sheridan Gets Personal in Hell or High Water

Offering context for his stirring Hell or High Water screenplay, Taylor Sheridan expertly expounds on West Texas cattle farming, the 1930's dust bowl, predatory banking practices, boom or bust oil economy and the isolation engendered by wide open spaces. But Sheridan also invested plenty of his own experience into the story. Nominated for a Writers Guild Award and Golden Globe for best motion picture screenplay, Hell or High Water follows a broke,

Director Chris Wedge on the Joys of Making Monster Trucks

Unlike Scrat, the nutty cartoon rodent who has shared his voice for nearly 15 years, Chris Wedge, 59, has claimed more than a few choice acorns throughout his career. He is the Academy Award-winning director of Bunny, a ground-breaking computer-animated short from 1999.  He co-founded  Blue Sky Studios, whose movies are distributed by 20th Century Fox. He directed the company’s first feature, 2002’s Oscar-nominated Ice Age, as well as 2005’s Robots and 2013’s 

Pixar’s Magic Touch Displayed in This Storyboard-to-Screen Video

There is no film, no final, fluid story, without concept art and storyboards. They are a film's first line of artistic offense, helping imagine the world the rest of the filmmaking team will create on the big screen. Whether it's illustrations that design work that went into imagining what the heptapods in Arrival would look like or the first brushstrokes that helped bring Moana to life,

The Music of A Monster Calls Captures the Hope of Humanity

A Monster Calls is a simultaneously explosive and fragile tale that finds some of its most powerful moments in the quietest scenes. Celebrated composer Fernando Velázquez carefully molded the score to cradle audiences as the tender story unfolds. The film illustrates the imagination of a young boy coping with his mother’s illness, but Velázquez reveals how the story transcends the fairytale. “It’s a movie about why we do movies,” he explains.

The Sci-Tech Awards Honor the Industry’s Wizards

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just announced the recipients of its 2017 Scientific and Technical Awards. Among the thirty-four individual winners and five organizations honored are some of the tech brains behind several of our favorite films of the prior year. Having pioneered the CGI Studio renderer at Blue Sky Studios, Carl Ludwig, Eugene Troubetzkoy, and Maurice van Swaaij are included in the Technical Achievement Award winners — Blue Sky, it should be noted,

Oscar Watch: Picking Three Actors for One Role in Moonlight

Yesi Ramirez knew she wanted to pick the actors for Moonlight as soon as she read the script — twice. "The first time I read the script I cried," she says. "The second time, I cried again." The Los Angeles-based casting director had never worked with Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins before, but she liked what she heard when they sat down for breakfasts to discuss the gay-themed Oscar contender that called for three actors to portray the forlorn "Chiron"

Moonlight‘s Editor Joi McMillon on Cutting the Story of a Lifetime

Nominated for six Golden Globes, the stunningly beautiful, brilliantly executed Moonlight was one of the best films of the year. We've spoken to composer Nicholas Brittell, breakout star Janelle Monáe and cinematographer James Laxton about how they helped bring director Barry Jenkins film to life. The story, tracking three periods of time in one young man's life—as a child, a teenager and a grown man—was based on the play by Tarell Alvin McCraney called "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue."

Orange is the New Black Director Lev Spiro Talks Crazy Eyes

Lev Spiro has been behind the camera on some of the most successful shows on television. The impressive list includes Modern Family, Wizards of Waverly Place, Dawson’s Creek, and Arrested Development. In season 4 of Orange is the New Black, he had the high-pressure task of directing the backstory for fan favorite, Crazy Eyes.

Oscar Watch: Editor Expertly Shreds Time in Manchester By the Sea

Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan famously spent years in the editing suite trying to achieve perfection on his previous movie Margaret. He shot the film in 2005, delivered a much debated cut in 2008 and three years later watched the picture open in two theaters. Lonergan's comeback effort Manchester by the Sea represents an astonishing return to form, widely expected to land a Best Picture Oscar nomination on the strength of Casey Affleck's moving performance as a New England man haunted by his past.

Writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve on Things to Come

French actress Isabelle Huppert is reaping awards from critics’ groups for her roles in two films this year:  Elle, from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven, and the quietly poignant Things to Come, from young French writer/directer Mia Hansen-Løve.

While Huppert’s audacious performance in Elle jut might earn the actress her first Oscar nod, it’s the delicate blend of youth and wisdom, melancholy and joy,

Kika Magalhaes on Playing the Final Girl in The Eyes of My Mother

Though not always so kind to the women it relies on, the horror genre has long established a multitude of tropes around its female characters, the most famous of which is an integral part of the stalk-and-slash formula: the Final Girl. Often characterized by her placid “innocence,” the Final Girl is often clear-headed, practically minded, brunette, and (most importantly) virginal. But The Eyes of My Mother, the directorial debut from Nicolas Pesce,

Remembering Carrie Fisher

To a generation that came of age in the ‘70s and ‘80s, she will forever be Princess Leia of the Star Wars films, with her iconic buns-like-headphones hairdo, wielding a blaster as she leads the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. To another, slightly older demographic, Carrie Fisher was synonymous with one of the last great Hollywood scandals. The daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and pop star Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher became tabloid fodder at age three when her father left Reynolds to marry Elizabeth Taylor in 1959 at the height of Taylor’s fame.

Oscar Watch: Love & Friendship Designer’s Delicious Duds for Jane Austen Comedy

Jane Austen's fictional universe takes a turn toward the comedic with Love & Friendship adapted by Whit Stillman from one of her early works. The movie, released in May, is now earning Oscar buzz for Irish costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh and the splendid 18th century gowns she crafted for Kate Beckinsale as gorgeous widower Lady Susan.

Prepping in Dublin for the ten-week production, Mhaoldomhnaigh and her team of seamstresses outfitted Beckinsale/Lady Susan in tightly corseted silk dresses color-coded to reflect her progressive seduction of upper crust society.