Final Tour of Hollywood Costume Exhibit a Must-see
"Nearly every costume designed for a film has a story behind its creation…Martin Scorsese once gave me an entire film to watch just to see the stripe on a collar." -Costume designer Sandy Powell.
When David Fincher was shooting The Social Network, a momentous scene had it that Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) had to sprint back to his dorms at Harvard. Only the crew couldn't secure the Cambridge location that they had used,
Interstellar’s Out of This World Crew
In a little over two weeks, on November 7, Christopher Nolan’s long awaited Interstellar will finally hit screens across the country. Jeff Jensen’s cover story for Entertainment Weekly uncovered a lot of juicy details which add up to what sounds like the director's most personal, and possibly ambitious, film yet. When Jensen was on set in October of 2013, the film's code name was Flora's Letter. As Jessica Chastain told Jensen at the time,
Did You Move it Or did I? Get Creepy With Oujia
The genius of the Ouija board is that it really is hard to tell who moved the piece. Did you? Did I? I think I might have, but why can't I remember? The bizarre fact that this patently ridiculous game, in which two players pretend not to move a planchet around on a board that spells out messages from the spirit world, really did creep you out as a child, and it speaks to its 125-year longevity and our collective wish to maybe,
Stuntmen Turned Directors Light Up Screen With John Wick
So you’ve got a protagonist named John Wick who’s a widower with a puppy. The puppy's named Daisy. Daisy’s pretty much all this guy has and cares about in this world, a gift from his late wife. John Wick’s a retired freelance consultant living quietly and sadly, just he and Daisy all alone.
One day John goes to buy some gas. He’s got a sweet ride, a 1969 Boss Mustang. He’s minding his own business,
The Sundance of Horror: L.A.’s Screamfest is Freakish Fun
L.A.’s Screamfest is assured of two things this year: it will once again be the biggest horror film festival in the United States, and it won’t draw the ire of the Professional Clown Club. There appear to be no murderous clowns in this year’s festival lineup.
If you’ve been following entertainment news over the past few days, you might have noticed the kerfuffle between the Professional Clown Club and FX’s American Horror Story,
The Life of the Mind: Making The Theory of Everything
In an introduction to a first edition of Stephen Hawking’s groundbreaking popular science book A Brief History of Time, Carl Sagan tells a story about how he happened to wander into the ancient ceremony of the investiture of new fellows into the Royal Society. On that day, Sagan noticed in the front row a young man in a wheelchair very slowly signing his name in a book. “A book that bore on its earliest pages the signature of Isaac Newton.
Spirits & Passion Collide in The Book of Life
Animator, painter, writer and director Jorge R. Gutiérrez has won Annies and Emmys for his animated television series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon. His work caught the eye of another Mexican polymath, writer, director, producer and novelist Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), who’s producing Gutiérrez ‘s feature debut The Book of Life, which bows this Friday, October 17. The Book of Life is an enchanting story of friendship,
Paramount Hosts Interstellar Oculus Rift Experience
I went to space. I've seen the stars and the distant worlds that occupy the endless, mysterious vacuum above us. I went where few have gone before, leaving behind everything I knew as "home."
Well, actually, let me clarify. My mind went to space, and not in a way that intends "I've finally gone insane." My physical self sat in a chair (quite comfortable if I may add) at the AMC Lowes in Lincoln Square and strapped on an Oculus Rift to take part in an experience based around Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Interstellar.
The Timely Kill the Messenger Looks at the Price of Truth
On August 18, 1996 Gary Webb, then a San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer, reported that, “For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” That line opened Webb’s three-part series “Dark Alliance,” a report that would ultimately define the rest of his life and spark years of debate.
Composer Steven Price on Scoring Sacrifice in Fury
It’s a rare thing for a composer to begin work on a film before the film has wrapped. Rarer still for that composer to find himself on set, watching the action he will underlay with music unfold before his eyes. Yet very little about the making of David Ayer’s World War II film Fury was typical, and for Oscar-winning composer Steven Price (Gravity), this meant getting a chance to be a part of the filmmaking process as it was happening.
World War II Veterans Helped Fuel Fury‘s Realism
The most all encompassing war in history has been depicted on screen countless times. Filmmakers have been portraying the horrors, and heroes, of the "good" war, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge to Pearl Harbor, from every conceivable angle. In just six years, from 1939 to 1945, World War II took the lives of more than sixty million people, some 2.5% of the global population, and filmmakers have been grappling with the immensity of the war ever since.
Drummer Antonio Sanchez Gives Birdman it’s Essential Beat
Comedy relies on timing, as everyone knows. For a comedy film (especially one as soulful as Birdman), the timing comes not just from the actors abilities to land a joke but from the way the film is edited. Skilled editors help create juxtapositions, perfectly timed cuts and unexpected shots that give a particular scene a lot of its comedic punch.
By now you likely know at least a bit about what
Erik Parker & One9 Discuss Nas: Time Is Illmatic – Part II
Click here for Part I of our conversation with music journalist/producer Erik Parker and multimedia artist/director One9.
Erik Parker and One9’s Nas: Time is Illmatic clocks in at a brisk 75-minutes, as compact and filled with detail as a Nas song. The documentary manages to examine nearly every credible element in the making of Nas's groundbreaking album, and really, the making of an artist and a man in a little over an hour.
Erik Parker & One9 on Their Doc Nas: Time is Illmatic – Part I
“I’m an eighth grade dropout…I didn’t know what the future was going to hold,” says Nasir Jones at the outset of journalist Erik Parker and multimedia artist One9’s documentary, Nas: Time is Illmatic. For the uninitiated, the future held one of the most groundbreaking hip hop albums of all time (the titular “Illmatic”), a legendary career, and its creator becoming the namesake of a fellowship at Harvard University’s Hip Hop Archive.
Longtime Collaborators Helped David Fincher Find Gone Girl
The New York Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of David Fincher’s Gone Girl last Friday, and boy, did it deliver. Fincher’s directing chops are never in question, and Gillian Flynn’s novel is perhaps perfectly suited for his particular skill set. Gone Girl combines his instinctual way around pitch-black thrillers (Se7en, Zodiac, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), and offbeat, grimy comedies (Fight Club) and delivers 148 compelling minutes without any evident lull.
Veteran Location Manager S. Todd Christensen
Like so many location managers before him, S. Todd Christensen’s journey began in the fine art world. He was showing his work at his studio when a guy he was acquainted with came in to poke around among his paintings. “He was driving a nice car,” Christensen remembers. He also watched Christensen interact with people at the studio. “He said, ‘You’re good with people and you’re creative, you might like this job I’ve got open.’” This is the highly unusual start to what has become a highly successful career.
Gone Girl at the New York Film Festival
The early reviews have already begun flooding in, and tonight, at 5pm, those of us in the press who haven’t attended a 20th Century Fox screening will be lining up outside Walter Reade Theater at the New York Film Festival for Gone Girl.
Director David Fincher has become one of the most reliably inventive filmmakers of his generation, and perhaps one of the best at adapting novels and short stories for the screen.
Composers Stand Out in Fall’s Most Exciting Films
Whiplash composer Justin Hurwitz recently told us that one his primary influences was legendary French musician Michel Legrand. "The early work he did during the French New Wave period, and on the Jacques Demy musicals, is some of my favorite film music ever. He's one of the most creative and inventive orchestrators alive."
This is coming from a creative and inventive orchestrator himself, who is a huge part of one of the most musically inventive films in recent memory.
The Ambitious, Beguiling The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see your life through someone else’s eyes? In his ambitious feature debut, writer/director Ned Benson gives his characters this unique chance in the emotionally charged tale of love, loss and rediscovery that is The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. The film follows the relationship of estranged couple Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) from first blush to final breath as they try to regain the connection they once had.
Whiplash Composer Justin Hurwitz Settles the Score
Director Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz met at Harvard playing in the same band. By sophomore year they were roommates, and soon enough the two were taking time off from school to create what they thought was just a student film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. “The idea for the film was to do a sixteen millimeter black and white vérité style movie, but juxtaposed with this big,
