BB-8: From Napkin Sketch to Starring Role in The Force Awakens
We're just hours away from the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and here's a great, spoiler free way to pass the time until you see it—a featurette on the new droid BB-8.
BB-8 is perhaps the most emblematic creation in all of The Force Awakens because this adorable "soccer ball" droid represents a return to the practical effects that director and co-writer J.J. Abrams was insistent upon.
Director László Nemes & Actor Géza Röhrig on Their Heartbreaking Son of Saul
Director and co-writer Laszlo Nemes's Son of Saul, an astonishingly accomplished first feature, follows a Hungarian Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau for about 36 hours. Saul, played by Geza Rohrig, is a member of the Sonderkommando, the group that led people into the gas chambers and then disposed of their bodies. Saul identifies a new arrival as his son, and after the youth's murder attempts to arrange a proper burial for him.
Talking to Stacey Sher, Producer of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight
Producer Stacey Sher first worked with director Quentin Tarantino on his 1994 film Pulp Fiction, in which she was executive producer. Twenty-one years later she’s working with him again on his 70mm widescreen extravaganza The Hateful Eight, their third film together (after 2012’s Django Unchained on which she was a producer). In between those films, even a partial list of her credits reads like a best-of list from the last two decades: Get Shorty (1995);
J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Debuts Trailer
As select journalists left a screening for Star Wars: The Force Awakens last night (they're not allowed to say a peep about the film until it opens), they were greeted with the news that Warner Bros. had slipped in a brand new trailer for their most anticipated film of 2016, the J.K. Rowling scripted Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Star Wars Countdown, 1st Star Trek Beyond Trailer & More
Slashfilm’s Peter Sciretta sat down with Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams to discuss the future of the Star Wars saga. While Lucasfilm and Disney are clearly focused on this week’s premiere of The Force Awakens, they’re also deep into planning the remainder of the planned sequel trilogy. Check out the piece to find out what’s been planned thus far.
The Critics’
Talking to Mark Ulano, Production Sound Mixer on The Hateful Eight
Production Sound Mixer Mark Ulano has been recording and mixing location sound for Quentin Tarantino’s films since 1997’s Jackie Brown. Entrusted by the director with obtaining the best possible recording of his legendary character dialogues, along with the rest of the location sound work, Ulano takes understandable pride in the fact that not a single word of dialogue has ever been replaced [looped] in post-production on their films together. Beginning his production sound mixing career in the late 1970s working on a slew of low budget films produced by Roger Corman and also Canon Films,
How They Made the White Whale in Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea
“There she blows! There she blows! A hump like a snow hill! It is Moby Dick!”
This is the moment in Herman Melville's iconic "Moby-Dick" that the titular white whale is spotted, the demon that mad Captain Ahab has made the Pequod's suicidal mission. It's one of the most breathtaking moments in American literature, coming on page 624 (in the Barnes & Noble Classics edition, at least), on chapter 133. For the final three chapters of arguably the greatest piece of literature in the American canon,
Brooklyn’s Production Designer Francois Seguin’s Period Perfection
Though the romance film is about as out of vogue as ever before, it’s a testament to the work behind director John Crowley’s Brooklyn that the quiet Saoirse Ronan-starring love story has become an Oscar favorite since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. A respectful return to the traditions of melodrama, Brooklyn is stuffed with astonishing performances and masterful design, causing many critics to take note not just of the affecting emotional qualities,
Your Golden Globes Nominees Announcements LIVE
You can still catch the live broadcast of the Golden Globe nominations here. Below's the list thus far.
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Series, Limited Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television
Idris Elba, Luther
Oscar Isaac, Show Me a Hero
David Oyelowo, Nightingale
Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall
Patrick Wilson,
Talking to Casting Director Fiona Weir About Brooklyn, Room & More
It remains a baffling omission that casting directors don't have their own Academy Award category. There is hardly a more important aspect of pre-production, and few decisions can make or break a film like those charged to the casting director. From Selma's Aisha Coley to the legendary Bonnie Timmerman (The Karate Kid, Bull Durham, Black Hawk Down) and Pat Moran (The Wire,
Mark Hamill to Host Lightsaber Duel on ESPN, SAG Nominees Announced & More
Happy hump day, folks. Here's some of what we're reading about film and TV on this Wednesday, December 9th:
Did you know that the Screen Actors Guild is the largest nominating body within the Academy Awards? Well it is! And today they’ve doled out their 2016 Screen Actor Guilds Awards nominations (the ceremony will be simulcast live on Saturday, January 30, on TNT & TBS at 8 p.m. ET), with some wonderful surprises to boot.
Steven Spielberg’s The BFG Releases First Teaser
"Never get out of bed. Never go to the window. Never look behind the curtain." But, of course, this is exactly what Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) does, earning her first sight of the BFG (the Big Friendly Giant, played by the great Mark Rylance, who nearly stole Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg‘s last film, right out from under Tom Hanks). This first teaser of Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl‘s children’s classic looks very promising.
Barnhill is a newcomer,
Watch the new Captain America: Civil War Featurette
Curious why directors Anthony and Joe Russo and Marvel honcho Kevin Feige decided to bring the Black Panther into Captain America: Civil War? Or how about why all the turmoil started between former friends Cap (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.)? And how does the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) factor into all of this? In this new featurette, originally reported and created by Entertainment Weekly and now released by Marvel Entertainment,
Around the Web: George Lucas Has Seen The Force Awakens & More
Here’s some of what we’re reading today.
Vulture caught up with George Lucas after hearing the news that he’d finally seen The Force Awakens. His verdict? “I think the fans are going to love it. It’s very much the kind of movie they’ve been looking for.” Hmm…as Vulture notes, he didn’t say he loved it. Then again, as the Washington Post reported in their profile of Lucas,
Watch the “Secret” Star Wars: The Force Awaknes TV Spot
Gang, the film comes out next Friday, so at this point there can only be so many more of these TV spots and teasers, right? It's been said that a full six minutes of the film has been released when you add up all the bits from every trailer, teaser, and TV spot thus far. The below teaser has just enough new stuff to keep you primed and ready to go for the release on December 18,
The Big Short & the Frenzy of Must-See Films in December
As the year comes to a close, there's a frenzy of films coming out in the next few weeks that are required viewing. I caught a screening last week of Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant (we'll be discussing the film in more detail soon), a brutal, simultaneously gorgeous film that I haven't been able to totally shake since. In a way, the outrageous commitment the film required (you can read all about the production process here) reminded me of what it took for director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer to pull off
Jennifer Lawrence Brings the Joy, Natalie Portman Brings the Jane
Two distinctinly different clips to share with you this morning. The first, is a short Joy teaser released by 20th Century Fox, the Jennifer Lawrence starring, David O. Russell directed film based on the life of Joy Mangano, the inventor of the Miracle Mop. This is the first time Russell has focused his film solely on a female protagonist (he's had strong women in nearly all his film, however), and Lawrence's performance is already earning raves.
Watch the New Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny Trailer
Netflix just dropped a trailer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny trailer and, the followup to Ang Lee’s luscious 2000 Academy Award-winning film. Sword of Destiny (formerly subtitled The Green Legend) is set to hit both IMAX theaters and on Netflix worldwide on February 26, 2016. Following in the film's visually breathtaking style, Sword of Destiny focuses on a fight to keep a legendary warrior's sword from an evil warlord.
Around the Web: C-3PO Unmasked, Momentum Continues for Spotlight & Mad Max: Fury Road & More
A quick glance at what we're reading around the web.
In a must read for Star Wars fans, Vulture’s Boris Kachka chats with “Star Wars’ most special effect of all,” Anthony Daniels, the man in the golden droid suit.
Speaking of The Force Awakens, Slashfilm’s Peter Sciretta attended the film’s press conference this past weekend (in which there was no footage shown,
Making Mountains With Everest VFX Supervisor Dadi Einarsson
Everest tells the true story of two groups of climbers who were hit with a deadly blizzard during their 1996 expeditions to scale the world’s highest mountain. We talk to visual effects supervisor Dadi Einarsson about the responsibility of recreating real events and why, being from Iceland, he may just have the edge when it comes to working with snow.
As Everest is shown in 3-D and on IMAX screens,
