10 Incredible Hidden Details in Star Wars: The Force Awakens Revealed
Even if people weren't going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens multiple times (and they are), it would have gone on to become a record-shattering box office smash regardless. Yet what many of those folks who keep going back are doing is scrutinizing every last little detail, able to concentrate on things going on in the far reaches of the screen without worrying about following a plot they already know so well. It's during these repeat viewing experiences that
Spotlight Wins SAG Award, Shaking up Oscars Race
You can consider the Oscars race officially shaken up. The Screen Actors Guild handed out their awards to their fellow members, and your big award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture went to Spotlight, bucking the recent rise of The Revenant, the big winner at the Globes, and The Big Short, the big winner at the Producers Guild Awards. All of these are considered key awards on the long,
Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation Sweeps Top Two Prizes at Sundance
Nate Parker is, officially now, your king of Sundance, 2016.
The festival's a wrap, and this past Saturday night, the awards for feature filmmaking were given, including the two biggest, The Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. As was evident from the standing ovation writer, director, producer and star Parker received before his The Birth of a Nation even played, he and his film were the odds on favorites to be the big winners once the festival ended—the jury didn't disappoint.
In the Near Future, Star Wars Will be Told in Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is becoming a creative practicality for filmmakers and studios, as the technology is finally catching up to the ideas storytellers have had (for years) about how they would use the medium to give viewers an unprecedented cinematic experience. The Sundance Film Festival has included VR films in their New Frontiers lineup, with this year’s crop including American Bison, Kiya and Waves of Grace.
With this in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that Lucasfilm and Disney are planning on taking Star Wars into the VR realm.
The Real Effects Used to Simulate the Raging Sea in The Finest Hours
The Finest Hours tells the incredible true story of a daring rescue mission conducted by a handful of men from the Chatham, Massachusetts, Coast Guard when a huge storm struck New England on February 8, 1952. The storm ripped two 500-foot oil tankers in half, leaving their crews stranded at sea. Despite hurricane-force winds and 60-foot waves Bernie Webber (played by Chris Pine) successfully skippers a 36-foot wooden lifeboat, with a destroyed compass,
Zack Snyder’s Candid Talk With Christopher Nolan About Making Batman Bad
In their upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice issue, Empire has some intriguing insights from director Zack Snyder, specifically about seeking Christopher Nolan's blessing about his plans for Batman. Nolan was an executive producer on Man of Steel, which is when Snyder approached him about his intentions to turn Batman against Superman in a battle royale—one in which, Empire's John Nugent writes,
Sundance 2016: Review Roundup, Part IV
Welcome back. You’ve already read parts I, II and III of our Sundance film review roundup.
Let's begin with Whit Stillman's Jane Austen adaptation, Love & Friendship. While you might be thinking, another Austen adaptation, keep in mind Stillman is the man who brought you Metropolitan and Last Days of Disco, and is uniquely suited to bring out Austen's biting humor,
Another Absurd Cameo Revealed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
As we wrote on Tuesday, there has been an endless cascade of reveals of secret cameos in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Perhaps the best is Daniel Craig's turn as the initially petulant Stormtrooper keeping an eye on a captured Rey. You remember that scene, right? The one where Rey tries out her Obi-Wan Kenobi skills? Obi-Wan famously told a Stormtrooper in the first Star Wars,
Sundance 2016: Review Roundup, Part III
We’re back with part III of our Sundance film review roundup. You can read parts I and II to catch up on all the films we've looked at thus far.
“Meet the She-Wolves of Wall Street,” writes Variety’s Guy Lodge about Meera Menon’s sophomore feature, Equity. Menon’s “refreshingly female-skewed financial thriller proves that the women of Wall Street can be just as cold-heartedly corrupt as the boys.”
Watch The Birth of a Nation‘s Nate Parker’s Potent Short Film
This is the power of the Sundance Film Festival, it can turn a talented artist like Nate Parker into a sensation over night. As the undisputed King of Sundance this year with The Birth of a Nation, a film Parker wrote, directed, and starred in—after nurturing the project for 7 years and using $100,000 of his own money to find financing—the man has earned this moment. And as it happens when a filmmaker suddenly becomes an object of fascination,
Sundance 2016: Nate Parker’s Huge Night & More
We wrote yesterday about the rapturous response to Nate Parker’s Sundance-shaking Nat Turner biopic, The Birth of a Nation. Today, reports are flooding in that the whopping, festival record-setting $17.5 million offer the film got from Fox Searchlight was actually less than what Netflix was willing to part with.
THR reports that writer, director and star Parker, who had put $100,000 of his own money into the film to fly around the country in an attempt to find financiers (he eventually had a dozen investor groups,
Actor Alex Jennings On The Lady in the Van, his New Netflix Show & More
Alex Jennings is no stranger to playing real-life characters on stage or on screen. He was Prince Charles in Stephen Frears’s 2006 movie The Queen with Helen Mirren and is playing The Duke of Windsor in Peter Morgan’s upcoming 10-episode series The Crown for Netflix — a role that just might make this longtime star of the British stage better known to audiences stateside.
The Duke of Windsor became King Edward VIII
Sundance 2016: A Roundup of Reviews, Part II
Let’s take a look at what the critics are saying about some of the films that have premiered at Sundance.
Nate Parker and Tony Espinosa in 'The Birth of a Nation.' Photo by Elliot Davis. Courtesy Sundance Film Festival.
Earlier today, we took a look at Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation,
Sundance 2016: Fox Searchlight Nabs Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker, writer, director, and star of The Birth of a Nation's seven year commitment to his labor of love has paid off in a distribution deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures, The Wrap reports. Parker's epic is currently the talk of Sundance. The Hollywood Reporter Rebecca Ford writes that Parker’s film earned a rapturous standing ovation at its' premiere in Eccles theater in Park City,
Sundance 2016: A Film Review Roundup
Earlier we looked at some of the films that have premiered at Sundance that have found homes in a variety of studios, from IFC to Amazon. Now let's take a look at some of the films reviews coming out of the festival this year, perhaps gleaning what will be next on the bidding block.
Vulture's Bilge Ebiri has written that Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea,
Sundance 2016: Complete Unknown, Morris From America & More are Sold
As the first major film festival of the year, and arguably one of the most important on the ever expanding festival circuit, the Sundance Film Festival is something of a taste maker. Studios small and large vie for the distribution rights of a number of films, while unknown talents can, in a single Park City night, become hot commodities. Here's a look at the news coming out of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Before we get into what films have sold thus far,
Talking to the Writer/Director of the Epic Balkan Western Aferim!
It’s a safe bet that you’ve never seen a movie quite like Aferim!
An epic Balkan Western shot in 35mm black-and-white, Romanian director Radu Jude’s third feature earned a Silver Bear for best director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival and was the Official Selection at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
Aferim! (an Ottoman Turkish expression that apparently translates as “bravo!” and is used ironically in the film) is set in the barren landscape of mid-19th-century Wallachia.
10 Episodes to Get Caught up on the X-Files Before Sunday’s Premiere
Thanks to its hefty publicity campaign, you’re probably aware that Fox has announced an official revival of the beloved science fiction show X-Files. And while reboots might strike fear in the hearts of many, this ground-breaking, well-reviewed and highly-rated show seems fitting, considering it changed the landscape of television before the cable explosion and putting the network on the map. It premieres this Sunday, January 24, at 10ET/7PT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1SmJUBT5q0
Most importantly,
Not Just For Kids: Best Animated Feature Nominees
Though it wasn’t added to the Oscars slate until 2001 (when Shrek took home the statue), the Best Animated Feature category is more interesting than ever this year, pitting Inside Out, Pixar’s most astonishing and well-reviewed film in quite a few years, against the equally beloved but decidedly adult Anomalisa. Outside of the two front runners, the category remains a refreshing combination of stop motion,
Watch Key & Peele’s Hilarious, NSFW First Trailer for Keanu
Plug in your headphones so you can enjoy this trailer at work, because this is Key & Peele in Red Band mode for the first trailer for their film Keanu. It's fitting the title of the trailer includes "from the minds of Key & Peele," because Keanu looks like a feature-length skit from their hit Comedy Central show, and that, my friends, is a good thing. Key &
