Me and Earl and The Dying Girl Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon has faced rejection before in the movie business. In 2014, his horror film The Town that Dreaded Sundown was only released in a few theaters nationwide and then went straight to video on demand. He wanted a chance for that film to build an audience but never had the opportunity. The Texas born filmmaker had steadily worked his way up through the ranks, starting as a personal assistant for some of Hollywood's biggest stars (Nora Ephron,...
Listen to the Work of American Horror Story: Freak Show‘s Composer
It’s not like composer Mac Quayle got into this line of work exclusively to score seriously demented moments, but the Grammy® nominated musician has done just that for one of TV’s most wild shows. Quayle has written music for more than 30 films and television shows, and has made a name for himself as a dance re-mixer and multi-instrumentalist, but you might have encountered his work most recently on FX’s hit series American Horror Story: Freak Show...
Is Tom Cruise’s Plane Stunt in the new Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation his Craziest?
Tom Cruise’s stunt exploits are legendary, and in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, he might of completed his most insane stunt ever. Cruise hung off the side of a an Airbus A400M as it rose 5,000 feet in the air above the British countryside. Is this Cruise’s stunt masterpiece, and can it ever be topped?
Previously, in Mission: Impossible 2 (in which he tore a shoulder muscle jumping between rocks), and with the help of some wires and upper body strength,...
Melissa McCarthy Continues Tradition of Screwball Spy Comedies in Grand Fashion
In writer-director Paul Feig’s Spy, Melissa McCarthy takes the reins as the latest bumbling protagonist in that tried and tested movie genre: the spy comedy. McCarthy plays CIA desk-jockey Susan Cooper who is unexpectedly called up to go undercover in the field. (See our interview with stunt coordinator J.J. Perry here about turning McCarthy into a proper, butt-kicking spy.)
Unlike the slick, womanizing James Bond, who navigates his way through each world-saving assignment improbably unruffled,...
Suffragette: “We Don’t Want to be Lawbreakers, We Want to be Lawmakers”
"All my life I've been doing what men told me. Well, I can't have that anymore."
So says Maud (Carey Mulligan), a laundress who joins an activist group bravely agitating for women's right to vote. The recently released trailer has action, violence, bombs, politics, power, and a thumping score…the stuff of female focused movie trailers? Yes; director (Sarah Gavron Brick Lane) and writer (Abi Morgan, The Iron Lady) are bucking convention in the trailer for their historical drama ...
Down the Rabbit Hole: Why Inside Out is Unlike Any Other Pixar Film
Their story creation process at Pixar is notoriously labor intensive and exacting. The men and women behind these films craft their narratives for years (and years), until they are satisfied they are telling the best version of that story possible.
Pete Docter, the director of Pixar’s latest, Inside Out, knows better than anyone what it takes to pass Pixar muster. Docter was the co-writer of the original treatment of Toy Story, along with Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter,...
Summer is Here, so are the Hot, New Flicks
The official start of summer may be June 21st (summer solstice), but we've already had our engines revved and our worlds destroyed at the cinema recently. This past weekend we were treated to the release of two very disparate but entertaining films, Warner Bros. San Andreas, starring perhaps Dwayne Johnson, our reigning action king (it was only this past April Johnson co-starred in the critical and commercial darling, Universal Pictures' Furious 7) and Sony Pictures' ...
Revelations, Winter & the new Power Couple: Inside Game of Thrones “Hardhome”
Last night’s episode “Hardhome” might not have been the season's penultimate episode, but it played like one. Like those penultimate mindblowers Blackwater, The Red Wedding and The Battle of Castle Black before it, this third-to-last episode in season five had one extended, terrifically shot set piece that was as satisfying as it was intense. Yet before the thrilling last fifteen minutes of "Hardhome," there was plenty to enjoy.
The Queen Bey & Jay-Z of Westeros
Finally...
Spy’s Stunt Coordinator on Melissa McCarthy’s Butt Kicking
A chance introduction to Jean-Claude Van Damme in the late ‘80s led to Spy’s stunt coordinator J.J. Perry’s long career in the movies. Perry, who was on the Atlanta set of Ang Lee’s latest film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk when we spoke, has worked on countless films, including Divergent, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Warrior. He tells The Credits about how he battled to make sure he sent Spy’s star Melissa McCarthy,...
5 Ideas on Andy Serkis’s Stars Wars: The Force Awakens Character
The internet was aflame with fresh news about Star Wars: The Force Awakens—the reveal of Andy Serkis’s character, one Supreme Leader Snoke, and the Vanity Fair photo by Annie Leibovitz of Serkis in his performance capture gear.
There is really no more information about Serkis’s character, but of course that hasn’t stopped people, including us, from speculating. Take the featured image above—might that figure on the stage behind the Stormtroopers be Serkis's character?...
From Rolling Stone To Aloha: The Odyssey of Cameron Crowe
The story of Aloha is, to grossly simplify it, about a man torn between a woman he thought he had moved beyond and a woman who might be his future. Military contractor Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) returns to Honolulu, Hawaii, which is the site of his greatest career triumph, and reconnects with a former love (Rachel McAdams). Because he’s at a military site, he’s assigned an Air Force minder (Emma Stone), who he begins to fall for. Because this is a Cameron Crowe movie,...
How’d They Film That? Inside the Fault Lines on San Andreas
When your film is about the San Andreas fault giving way and a magnitude 9-plus earthquake turning California into so many dominoes and sinkholes, decimating cities and their historic landmarks, you’re going to need some serious CGI. Yet you’d be surprised how much of San Andreas was shot in camera, using practical stunts and a lot of old fashioned movie magic (and a whole lot of chutzpah from the stunt professionals). The film may be about a natural disaster,...
10 Deadly Design Flaws in Jurassic World‘s Theme Park
Ever since the first park opened its' gates 22 years ago in Steven Spielberg's classic Jurassic Park, a part of the appeal of the series is predicting how the dinosaurs are going to break out of their enclosures. In the original, it was the hubris of park creator John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), a bad storm, and the treachery of the park's computer coder Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight, Newman!) that sprung the T. Rex and the raptors...
Details on Jurassic World, Questions About Game of Thrones & More
A few things on our minds that we'd love your feedback on, including excitement over Jurassic World, frustration with a certain awful someone on Game of Thrones, and hope for an upcoming comedy. Let us know what we've missed and what you think on the below.
Jurassic World's Indominus Rex is not only a crazy hybrid dinosaur but also a sly jab at our insatiable appetite for the next big thing...
Writer/Director Garrett Bradley is an Artist to Watch
If you haven't heard of director Garrett Bradley, you're probably not alone but you will be if eventually, as this is one young director you want to keep an eye on. Bradley’s very powerful debut, Below Dreams, is a haunting homage to the beauty and spirit of New Orleans’s underside and the passion of those with dreams, both great and small.
Below Dreams is a narrative in the neo-realism style that melds fiction with reality...
Tomorrowland is Today! 11 Cool Facts About the Film
Tomorrowland is TODAY (well the premiere is today), starring George Clooney, Raffey Cassidy and Britt Robertson. This film harkens back to Walt Disney’s vision, represented in his theme parks, of an optimistic and high tech future. The myth goes (and some think it's true) that Walt Disney was part of a secret band of optimistic thinkers, code-named Plus Ultra – the mantra of Spanish explorers. The group is rumored to have begun in 1889 in Gustave Eiffel’s private apartment in the Eiffel Tower with fellow thinkers American Thomas Edison,...
Watch & Listen to Empire Composer Fil Eisler’s Favorite Scenes
Yesterday we published our interview with Empire composer Fil Eisler, and today we're going to take a look at two scenes Eisler chose as his favorite illustrations of what he brings to the show. Thanks to 20th Century Fox, who were kind enough to send us these clips.
Let's go through a few of your favorite scenes that you scored last season.
There’s a couple of scenes that I could use to illustrate the extremes of what the music can do...
Empire‘s Composer Fil Eisler on Scoring TV’s Best Show About Music
Empire was a big part of Fox's recent upfront presentation for reasons that are easy to parse. It was the number one series on TV, a smashing success for the network and invigorated the entire TV landscape. The upcoming season has been expanded to 18 episodes, and Fox announced that Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz and Chris Rock will be among the guest stars.
The appeal of Empire is obvious; the King Lear-like premise,...
Composer Atticus Ross on Brian Wilson Biopic Love & Mercy & More
Atticus Ross is one of the most well respected composers working in film today. He is probably best known for the work he has done with two of his longtime collaborators; fellow musician and composer Trent Reznor and director David Fincher. Ross and Reznor's work on The Social Network earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Score and they grabbed a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won them a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack...
Is Sci-Fi Making a Comeback on Television in 2015?
Is science fiction making a comeback on television? On the big screen, it's never gone away. Even smaller projects, like Alex Garland's clever, surprisingly sexy Ex Machina have drawn great reviews and decent audiences. Then there's the giants, like Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and if you'd allow for the many sci-fi elements that make up the Marvel Universe, then you've got both of the Avengers films (aliens, an evil sentient artificial intelligence) and last summer's rollicking ...
