Writer/Director Michael J. Larnell on Cronies, His Inspirations & More

The NYU Production Lab helps finance a handful of student and alumni films every year. This past year, one of those films was the Spike Lee executive produced Cronies, which was a 2015 Sundance hit, and a first feature from NYU graduate Michael J. Larnell, who was one of Spike's students. Larnell wrote, directed, produced and edited it while earning his MFA at Tisch. Not too shabby a start for the young man.

Cronies is set in Larnell's hometown of St.

Composer Keegan DeWitt on Blythe Danner’s Magic in I’ll See You in My Dreams

We spoke with composer Keegan DeWitt, whose work has influenced a slew of very well respected films in recent years, including two very fine features by writer/director Alex Ross Perry; Listen Up, Phillip (one of 2014's surprise comedies) and Queen of Earth. DeWitt's latest work was on Brett Haley's I'll See You In My Dreams, a critically acclaimed film centered on a widow and former songstress (a great Blythe Danner) who re-embraces the world,

Deadpool Teaser, Revisiting David Bowie’s Underappreciated Roles & More

Here's what we're reading on Tuesday, January 12, 2016:

The world continues to mourn the passing of David Bowie. We suggest listening to his last album, "Blackstar," all the way through. It's devastating. Here's Variety's Steven Gaydos deconstructing Bowie's filmography. One of those films is Labyrinth, a collaboration between three singular talents; The Muppets creator Jim Henson, George Lucas, and Bowie.

Speaking of Bowie's filmography,

Marvel Nabs Ryan Coogler to Direct Black Panther

The Motion Picture Association of American hosted an evening with director Ryan Coogler after his breakout directorial debut, Fruitvale Station. Coogler was still fresh out of film school, and Fruitvale Station, which he wrote and directed, had recently won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature and Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and, a few months later,

David Bowie, the Golden Globes, Aziz Ansari’s Incredible Gag & More

Here’s what we’re reading (and weeping about) on Monday, January 11, 2016.

As we wrote earlier, the world is reacting to the death of legendary shape shifter and artist nonpareil David Bowie. Read his New York Times obit, revel in this incredible animated illustration by a young illustrator named Helen Green that honors the greatest chameleon of the modern era, and check out this video for his last release,

David Bowie, 1947 – 2016

The world is responding to the news that legendary musician, performer, and unclassifiable chameleon David Bowie has died. Bowie passed away two days after his 69th birthday from complications from cancer. A Facebook ad on his page read; “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family.” 

Bowie had just released an album on his birthday this past Friday, "Blackstar," which is a collaboration with a jazz quintet, very much in keeping with his relentless push towards new sounds,

Your Golden Globes Video Highlights

Tales of revenge and survival were your two big best picture winners, while an old favorite, 40-years his past his prime (in boxing terms, that is) won for best supporting actor. It was a night filled with some genuinely earnest (and wonderful) acceptance speeches, sprinkled amid the usual louche behavior of an irreverent host and some tippled guests. Let's take a look at the highlights.

The night began with host Ricky Gervais opening the show by thanking the Hollywood Foreign Press for the opportunity to host again,

Your Full List of Golden Globe Winners

That's a wrap for the Golden Globes. We'll be taking a look at the highlights from the show, but for now, here's a list of every winner in every category. 

Best Motion Picture, Drama

Winner: The Revenant

Carol

Mad Max: Fury Road

Room

Spotlight

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Winner: The Martian

The Big Short

Joy

Spy

Trainwreck

Best Director,

Get to Know Your Golden Globes Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Animated

Yesterday we delighted and thrilled you with two Golden Globe primers to make you the toast/scourge of your friends and/or family. Our primer for the Best Motion Picture, Drama and Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy categories were designed to give you the tools (in the form of interviews we've done with the below-the-line artists who helped make those films great) to sound like a cinematic savant. "Harold, did you know Carol 

The Mechanics Behind the Magic of Anomalisa

Watching Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman’s first theatrical effort since Synecdoche, New York seven years ago, it’s hard to shake the impression that you’re watching something wholly unique. Built around a simple enough concept: the exploration of a man’s midlife crisis and extra-marital affair, Anomalisa’s stop-motion puppet animation and meticulously built approach makes the film far more astonishing than it might look on paper. The world of the film is surprisingly banal: a plush but generally pedestrian hotel serves as the center for the majority of the film’s action,

Disney’s The Jungle Book Triptych Poster

Walt Disney Pictures all-new live-action/CGI remake of their classic, The Jungle Book will be swinging into theaters in RealD 3D and IMAX® 3D on April 15, 2016. 

A gorgeous new triptych poster for The Jungle Book has been released by IGN. The first two panels were revealed individually on Tuesday and Wednesday, but now we get to see the complete poster in all its' detailed glory.

Get to Know Your Golden Globe Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Earlier we published a primer for the Golden Globe nominees for Best Motion Picture, Drama. The idea here is while you probably haven't had the time to see all these films, we have, and we've also interviewed a ton of people from them, thus offering you a chance to give these interviews a glance and bolster your film IQ going into the big night. You can do with this info what you want—we suggest you use it to casually mention minute details of the filmmaking process to whoever you might be watching with.

Get to Know Your Golden Globe Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Drama

With the Golden Globes airing this Sunday night, we figured we'd put together a little hyperlinked primer for you. Unless your job it is to know how these films are actually made, chances are you've seen some, missed others, and know who the bold faced names are. With that in mind, and to shed a little light on the folks behind the stars you'll be watching during the broadcast, we've rounded up the interviews we've done over the past year with the below-the-liners who helped make these movies.

Spotlight’s Editor Tom McArdle Helps Make Journalism Look Thrilling

People pour over files, excel spreadsheets, and names in a directory. There's phone calls, and more phone calls, and some face-to-face meetings. There's a late hour knock on a nervous journalist's door, and it reveals…a colleague bearing a pizza. These are some of the things editor Tom McArdle was cutting when he worked on Spotlight, and in each instance, the scenes are thrilling. The film, centered on a team of Boston Globe investigative reporters who uncover a massive coverup of sexual abuse at the Catholic archdiocese of Boston in the early aughts,

The Hateful Eight‘s Makeup Dept. Head on Making Pretty People Ugly

Makeup department head Heba Thorisdottir has been working with Quentin Tarantino since Kill Bill: Vol 1, and hasn't missed one of his movies since. With The Hateful Eight, she might have just put in her most impressive work yet, tending to the grizzled faces of characters living hard lives in the late 19th century, none more so than Jennifer Jason Leigh's sociopathic, bloody-faced Daisy Domergue. We spoke with the Icelandic makeup maestro about what it was like working on Tarantino's claustrophobic,

I Like the Way You Die, Boy: Tarantino’s 8 Best Villains

It’s no secret that professional provocateur Quentin Tarantino has one of the most twisted minds in the business, spawning some of the most vile (and violent) characters to ever exist on screen, with quirks and sadism aplenty. 

Perhaps more unsettling is the knowledge that Tarantino’s cinematic worlds intersect, which means that Reservoir Dogs’ psychotic Mr. Blonde has ties to the menacing pawn shop owners Maynard and Zed of Pulp Fiction,

The Martian’s Screenwriter Drew Goddard on Adapting What he Loves

The Martian began its life with a cult following on the internet, then became a bestseller and ended up as one of the biggest movies of the 2015, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Screenwriter Drew Goddard (World War Z) talks to The Credits about adapting Andy Weir’s page turner about surviving being stranded on Mars, handing over the directing reins to Scott and telling Weir it was time to quit his day job.

Check out The Force Awakens Cinematographer Dan Mindel’s Amazing Photos

Cinematographer Dan Mindel worked with J.J. Abrams on the reboot for Star Trek, and again on Star Trek: Into Darkness, and even as eagerly anticipated as those films were to Trekkies the world over, his work on The Force Awakens was going to be scrutinized to a degree an order of magnitude higher. Now that the film has been a critical and commercial smash, Mindel's released a few photos from behind-the-scenes of the shoot.

Chatting With Joy‘s Production Designer Judy Becker

Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and writer/director David O. Russell join forces again to tell the rags to riches story of Joy, a woman who built an empire on a clever design for a mop. We talk to production designer Judy Becker, who, like Lawrence and Cooper, also worked on Russell’s films Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, about being part of the Russell filmmaking family, how she was inspired by the Wizard of Oz and why she relished the chance to go full Dynasty when she was creating the set of the soap opera. 

Learn from Leo: Bear Safety Tips, per The Revenant

The award for the biggest and baddest Christmas Day opening this year will likely go to Alejandro Iñárritu’s doomy, Leonardo DiCaprio-led, frontier Western, The Revenant. Based loosely on events that befell Hugh Glass, an early 20th century explorer and trapper, the film depicts in realistically gritty detail Glass’s South Dakota excursion in which he was mauled by a grizzly bear, left for dead by his men, and dragged himself around 80 miles (which,