A Q&A With Girl Rising Director Richard E. Robbins About the Nine Incredible Young Women in his Groundbreaking Documentary
Academy Award nominated director Richard E. Robbins will be screening a portion of his latest project, the crucial documentary Girl Rising, at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday, January 21st. The film focuses on the story of nine girls from nine different countries born into unforgiving circumstances, with each girl’s story framed and written by a renowned author from her native country.
The film includes the story of Ruksana,
A Conversation With Broken City Director Allen Hughes
Allen Hughes has been making films with his twin brother, Albert, since they were 12-year- olds running around their house in Pomona, east of Los Angeles, with a video camera their mom had given them. The Hughes Brothers (as they are often credited) co-wrote and co-directed their first major feature, Menace II Society, when they were 20 years old.
Since then, the twins have made a number of gritty,
Amour’s Michael Haneke and International Directors Spotlighted at 10th Annual Golden Globes Foreign Film Symposium
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The much-anticipated 2013 awards season has finally arrived. As the world celebrates one of the most exciting years for film in recent memory, it’s clear 2012 gifted us some truly wondrous works of cinema. Among the standouts: Ben Affleck’s heralded Argo, the dreamy indie smash hit Beasts of the Southern Wild, the heart-warming Silver Linings Playbook, Spielberg’s historical biopic Lincoln with a predictably astounding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis,
Golden Globes Co-Hosts Tina Fey & Amy Poehler’s Best Live TV Moments
Even though the show hasn’t happened yet (and all due respect to the "most feared man in Hollywood," Ricky Gervais), we’re gonna go out on a limb and say that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were the best Golden Globes hosts in the show’s 70-year history (airing Sunday, 8ET/5PT on NBC). Not only did the dynamic duo display the hilarity, inventiveness, and chemistry of longtime friends who also happen to be comedic geniuses,
A Q&A With Greig Fraser, Cinematographer on Zero Dark Thirty
With Kathryn Bigelow’s extraordinary action thriller Zero Dark Thirty opening wide tomorrow across the country, viewers will have a chance to see this picture’s tale of the CIA’s decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. One of the most talked about scenes of the year (arguably, of the new decade) is the spectacular, harrowing final raid on Bin Laden’s compound, all shot using night vision technology. Bigelow spoke about her “tremendous” cinematographer’s handling of that crucial set piece in a recent New York Times interview.
The Human Insurance Policies: Sit in for a Master Class With Veteran Stunt Professional Hugh O’Brien
Imagine getting punched, stabbed, crushed, drowned, set on fire, thrown out of buildings, run over, blown up, and electrocuted—and imagine getting paid for it. Meet Hugh O’Brien, a man who makes his living dying (while making sure no one on set actually does). “We’re human insurance policies,” O'Brien says. O'Brien is our second professional stuntman in our two-part series on the subject of men and women who make their living putting their bodies on the line for the films we love.
Nine Films, Two Documentaries and Two Websites to Enliven Your Weekend
The first weekend in January is often a good time to recuperate after the Thanksgiving-to-New Year's Eve carnival of consumption. So, while you’re starting your new workout regimen (yup, pushups and sit-ups are still as agonizing as last January), finally cracking open Moby Dick (Call you Ishmael? Call me intimidated), and deciding if you can really eat a heaping helping of quinoa every day (you probably can’t), we’ve got you covered for when you want a break from your resolutions.
Remorse and Paradise: Miguel Gomes’ Tabu Compels Beyond The Screen
Tabu—the new feature film by Portuguese director, Miguel Gomes—ruminates on themes of crime and guilt. What the viewer is left to question is what sort of crimes are we talking about? There are crimes of passion, crimes of love, war crimes, crimes for monetary gain, and so on. Yet, the film’s characters seem to speak and act on crimes of the soul, when one’s desires and urges become a crime in and of themselves–where the mere thought of them can bring along a culpability whose punishment is already wrought before the first illicit touch.
“I’m Kind of a Big Deal”: A Helpful Film Gift Guide for The Overzealous Film Quoter
Everyone’s got one. That friend who just can’t resist dropping a legendary movie quote at the most serendipitous of times. We’re talking about that charming (and ok, at times needling) buddy whose eyes glaze for an unexpected moment of, uh, possession, only to bark in a feigned scruffy voice, “Hey. You looking at me?” Yes, we are looking at you, Overzealous Film Quoter. And we’ve got just the film gift guide to satiate your movie-dialogue parroting obsession.
I Love You, Mom: Dan Fogelman’s The Guilt Trip Is A Love Letter To His Late Mother
Screenwriter Dan Fogelman’s story is a true life Hollywood fairy tale: New Jersey native comes to Tinseltown looking for work in the entertainment industry, lands a gig writing for TV, then writes for a little animation company by the name of Pixar (Cars), while writing his own scripts on the side, one of which becomes the hit Crazy, Stupid, Love starring Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling.
The fairy tale continues today (fitting,
Talking Apocalypse Now, Philadelphia and More With Legendary Film Producer Mike Medavoy
Mike Medavoy's film credits read like an American Film Institute (AFI) 'Top 100' list; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Network, Coming Home, Platoon, The Terminator, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Zodiac and Black Swan, to name a few.
Medavoy was a co-founder of Orion Pictures, a former chairman of TriStar Pictures, the former head of production of United Artists,
The Many Lives Of a Hollywood Stunt Performer: A Conversation With Oliver Keller
Oliver Keller grew up in a small town in Switzerland dreaming of becoming a stuntman in Hollywood. His appetite for excitement led him to Super G Downhill skiing and an eventual apprenticeship with a German stunt professional, but he had his sights set on bigger things.
Today, Oliver is a rising star in Hollywood’s stunt community, and has worked on mega-blockbusters from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to Master &
Emmy Award-Winning Actor Tony Shalhoub On Craft
Tony Shalhoub is a prolific actor whose illustrious career has spanned television shows, theater productions, and major Hollywood films. His performances have earned him three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for his work on the television show Monk, and a Tony nomination for his work on Broadway.
The characters he's portrayed have become cultural legends–from his award-winning performance of the endearing OCD-plagued criminal detective Adrian Monk of the hit television show Monk,
Visionary Filmmaker & Inventor Douglas Trumbull Talks The Hobbit and his Latest Incredible Invention
The frame rate for a film refers to the frequency (or rate) at which a camera creates unique consecutive images (frames). Almost every film you have ever seen has been shot and projected at 24 frames-per-second (FPS). We have become so accustomed to seeing films this way that shooting at any other rate can be potentially jarring. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit was shot in 3D at 48fps, twice the normal rate. It will be projected at 48fps on 400 of the 10,000 theaters when it opens on tomorrow,
The Criterion Collection Releases Christopher Nolan’s Following on Blu-Ray
While some directors begin with a bang—Godard’s Breathless (1960) comes to mind—others begin with a whisper, only to be heard later on as the greatest archivists in cinema amplify its nascence. Today, The Criterion Collection shines its light, for the first time, on Christopher Nolan with the Blu-Ray release of Following (1998). Now known for the latest Batman trilogy, originally recognized for the temporally rearranged suspense film Memento (2000),
Exec Producer and Writer Mark Goffman of White Collar Talks Aaron Sorkin, President Obama, and Patrick Swayze’s Final Show
Mark Goffman, a veteran TV writer and producer, has worked on a wide range of shows and films, including mega-hits like The West Wing and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He’s currently a writer and executive producer on USA Network’s White Collar (the new season starts on January 22 at 10/9 central), about a criminal who agrees to help the FBI catch his brothers-in-crime using his expertise as an art and securities thief.
A Holiday Gift Guide for the Budding Filmmaker in Your Life
Do you have someone in your life who dreams of making movies? Or perhaps someone who just loves knowing how they’re made? Well, we've got some book and film titles that will satiate the hopeful screenwriters, directors, and producers in your life. No list like this could ever be totally comprehensive, so tweet at us if you’ve got some recommendations to add to this list.
Books on Screenwriting
For screenwriters,
First Film School, Then The World: Three NYU Students On Movies, Ambitions, and The Future of Film
"I believe that while it may not be possible to train people to make films, it is possible to create a climate in which people can learn to make films, where aspiring artists can absorb, in a relatively short, intensive period, insight that others have wrested from the experience of an entire career."
– George Stevens, Jr., founding director of the American Film Institute
With innovation and technology forging ahead at unprecedented rates in the film and television industry,
“The Funniest People I Know Are Women”: Director Paul Feig on The Heat, Bridesmaids and Freaks and Geeks
As one of the most respected comedy writers in Hollywood, Paul Feig’s professional trajectory has become something of an industry legend. The comedian turned actor-writer-director-producer has been relentless in his quest to leave an indelible mark on the state of comedy television and cinema. And his ambitions are infectious. Along the way, Feig’s helped launch the careers of many talented actors; James Franco, Jason Segel, and Seth Rogen all became household names thanks to Feig's instant television classic,
Meet the Team That Gave Tim Burton’s Labor of Love, Frankenweenie, a Third Dimension
Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, a likely nominee for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, is a marvel of filmmaking. It finds Burton at the top of his game, helming a film that clearly was a labor of love. The question we were interested in was: how did Burton get his black-and-white, stop motion comedy horror from 2D to 3D?
So we inquired about the collaboration between Walt Disney Pictures,
