Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation – Part II
Last week we shared videos of the insights of but a few of the incredibly talented ‘The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ acting nominees, created by Movies OnDemand. Today we flip to those behind the camera. 2015 Oscar nominated directors Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman, discuss their their approach on bringing their vision to the screen.
Miller and Iñárritu couldn’t have delivered two more disparate films than Foxcatcher and Birdman,
Short Stuff: Animation and Live Action Oscar Nominees
One of the delicious joys of Oscar season — beyond dissecting the nominations and speculating on who will win, of course — is the opportunity to catch up on the short form nominees all in one sitting. This year marks the tenth anniversary that the shorts in each category — animation, live action, and documentary — will each be grouped together and have their own theatrical release courtesy of ShortsHD.
There’s nothing like watching the films together to get a sense of perspective and better understand the filmmakers’
Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation
With the 2015 awards season in full swing, yesterday was a big day for creators and makers, both in front of and behind the camera. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominees for the 2015 Oscars – to be held on February 22nd.
It has been an amazing year in film, with some of the truly finest cinematic offerings ever. ‘Movies OnDemand’ sat down with a number of this year’s nominees to discuss how they got ready for their roles,
Playing Politics With Red Army Documentary Director Gabe Polsky
On the surface, Gabe Polsky’s superb new documentary is about the legendary Red Army hockey team, one of the most dominant collection of athletes ever assembled — in any sport. At the height of the Cold War, in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, the team swept away opponents with ease. They won eight world championships and three Olympic gold medals, in 1976, 1984, and 1988. Only the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. team denied them a complete sweep.
Novel Approach: 5 Films Based on Books Premiering at Sundance
Who will break out big at Sundance this year? Which film, which director, which star will get the major viral boost from word of mouth or jury prize?
The 2014 iteration of the Park City, Utah, festival opens on January 22. As usual, there is an abundance of riches to consider beyond the big screen. There are the excellent panel discussions, for instance, which this year features a first-ever appearance by director George Lucas.
A Q&A with James Dever, Military Advisor on American Sniper
James Dever was just following orders. In 1986, Clint Eastwood arrived at Camp Pendleton, the Southern California Marine Corps base, to direct, and star in, Heartbreak Ridge. Dever, a gunnery sergeant with more than 13 years in the Corps under his belt at the time, was assigned by his Colonel to work with Eastwood — whose character, Thomas Highway, is also a gunnery sergeant.
The experience proved intoxicating. “I said to myself,
Women on the Big Screen: Eight Movies to Watch for in 2015 (Including Tina & Amy)
So we bid adieu to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as perhaps the most charming, witty Golden Globe hosts of all time. The longtime friends and charismatic collaborators finished their three-year run last at last night’s 72nd annual Golden Globes ceremony just as they began it: sharp, topical, irreverent, and so comfortable together on stage they make everyone else comfortable (even those at the butt of their jokes). It was a great run,
A Glimpse at the 72nd Annual Golden Globes
The 72nd Annual Golden Globes air this Sunday night at 8 pm EST, with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returning for a third consecutive time. You know these two are going to keep it fresh.
Let’s take a look at a few of the nominees and see what we know going in.
Best Motion Picture, Drama
On the one hand, you have Richard Linklater’s Boyhood,
Taken 3 & Liam Neeson’s Long History of Bringing the Pain
Poor Bryan Mills. He's had a rough couple of years. This CIA operative had put in his time for his country and just wanted to enjoy his retirement. The Sunday paper. Slippers. Maybe a little light gardening. But then, his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) gets Taken (2008) in France. So that was bad. But then it got worse; she was taken by human sex traffickers. Oof. The thing is, if these monsters had made a list of all the people whose daughter it would be inadvisable to kidnap,
Invisibly Invaluable: Birdman Editors Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione – PART II
Yesterday we posted Part I of our interview with Birdman editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise. As you know by now, Birdman was shot in a such an ingenious way that it made you feel like you were watching a single, 119-minute continuous shot. Watch it and try to find a single cut, a single break in the action or a clear transition that would alert you to the work of an editor.
Invisibly Invaluable: Birdman Editors Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione – Part I
Yesterday we published our interview with Birdman writer/director Alejandor G. Iñárritu, and late last year, we spoke to the film’s composer, drummer Antonio Sanchez. Birdman was sufficiently strange and wonderful that it’s made us want to know as much as we possibly can about how it was made. The first and most obvious question one asks after seeing the film is how in the world they made it look like a single,
Talking Risks & Rewards With Birdman Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's first crack at directing was 2000’s Amores Perros, a complexly woven narrative surrounding three separate stories all connected by a single car accident. The film earned wide acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, and the Ariel Award for Best Picture from the Mexican Academy of Film. It put the former composer and first time director on the map.
It also was the first film in his “Trilogy of Death,”
2014 in Review: Lensers, Designers, Makeup Artists & More – PART II
The end of the year brings a few reliable reactions; promises to do x, y and z more consistently in the new year, reflection on all that you accomplished (and failed at, and regretted) this past year, and 'Year in Review' lists. Yesterday we published Part I of our look back at some of the filmmakers we interviewed in 2014. On Monday, we published an interview with cinematographer Robert Yeoman, looking back on his work in Wes Anderson's
2014 in Review: Portrait Artists, Sound Designers & More – Part I
As a wild year in film draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of the talented filmmakers we’ve had a chance to speak with, and all the ways they schooled on us how films really get made. Sound designers, construction crew managers, creature supervisors, production designers, a portrait artist (for Wes Anderson, naturally) and more (our first group of filmmakers are, admittedly, a bit more well known). Although these folks don’t really care how much attention they get,
2014 in Review: DP Robert Yeoman on The Grand Budapest Hotel
When people think of Wes Anderson’s films, often the first thing that comes to mind is their singular look. Here is a director with a signature style, whose films look like nobody else’s. As the year draws to a close, we’re looking back on some of our favorite films and chatting with the people who helped bring them to life. Today, that means cinematographer Bob Yeoman, the man who has helped Anderson achieve his look since Anderson’s breakout 1996 debut,
Into the Woods‘s Creative Team on Adapting Sondheim’s Hit
Witches. Heroes. Giants. Magic. Enchantments. Curses. Love. Loss. These are familiar to any Disney movie fan. But when Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Tony Award®-winning stage musical Into the Woods hits movie theaters on December 25, all of these concepts and worlds come together in unusual ways inside one Disney film – turning expectations on their head in the process.
For those unfamiliar with the musical, Into the Woods takes the traditional tales of Cinderella,
A Most Violent Year Composer Alex Ebert
Singer-songwriter and composer Alex Ebert might still be best known as the front man for the band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, but his skill as a film composer is becoming more evident with each new J.C. Chandor movie. The director and the composer recently worked on their second film together, A Most Violent Year, which has already earned rave reviews and looks poised to cement Chandor’s status as one of the most ambitious young directors of his generation.
Six New Films Offer Six Distinct Viewing Experiences
A hobbit, Teddy Roosevelt reanimated from wax, a bumbling dad, a brilliant, irascible painter, a indefatigable child, and an inveterate gambler walk into a bar. The bartender goes, oh hey, you're all starring in films this weekend.
Terrible jokes aside, we are heading into the home stretch of the holiday season, with a slew of big films set to land on Christmas Day (Unbroken, American Sniper, Selma),
Building the Sets of Middle-Earth for The Battle of the Five Armies
Peter Jackson and his crew shot The Hobbit trilogy concurrently over 266 days (the same total number of days it took to shoot The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Another 10 weeks was needed for cast and crew for pickup shooting for The Battle of the Five Armies on the performance capture stage, which ends the Middle-earth saga that Jackson and his team have been working on since last century.
Cinematographer Dion Beebe Takes us Into the Woods
Academy Award winning cinematographer Dion Beebe is now on his fourth film with Rob Marshall. He won an Oscar for his work on Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha in 2005. He was nominated for lensing Marshall’s Chicago in 2002. He was nominated for an ASC Award (American Society of Cinematographers) for another Marshall film, Nine, in 2009. And for their fourth collaboration, Into the Woods, Beebee has helped translate Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Broadway musical into a lush,
