Best of 2022: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” Writer/Director Rian Johnson Unpeels His Whodunit
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
When released in 2019, Rian Johnson’s star-studded, deliciously delightful who-done-it Knives Out was met with universal acclaim and became a smash hit. In it, star Daniel Craig shed all remnants of his Bond persona to play the quirky Southern genius detective Benoit Blanc in a performance so winning and a film so enjoyable even a character’s sweater became a sensation.
Best of 2022: How the “Top Gun: Maverick” Sound Team Ingeniously Captured Raw Emotion Mid-Flight
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
Mark Weingarten is no stranger to navigating the challenges of a production sound mixer. Over his accomplished career, Weingarten’s mixed on Christopher Nolan’s WWII epic Dunkirk, traveled to another dimension in Interstellar, captured the spirit of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, and tracked the drama behind The Social Network and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Best of 2022: “The Batman” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Finding Light in the Darkness
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
At a gripping three hours, The Batman isn’t so much an endurance test as it is a lengthy visual puzzle, one that takes place primarily after hours. Director Matt Reeves’s take on Batman (Robert Pattinson) may be the franchise’s most disaffected nocturnal not-so-superhero yet. Working,
Best of 2022: “Winning Time” Writer Rodney Barnes on Scripting HBO’s Fast-Breaking Lakers Series
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
It’s pretty much a slam dunk that Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will appeal to basketball fans. After all, it tells the story of one of the most pivotal moments in NBA history and features some of the game’s most notable figures — Magic Johnson,
Best of 2022: “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Actress Stephanie Hsu on Landing the Role of a Lifetime
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
It’s very difficult to describe Everything Everywhere All At Once, the new genre-busting indie from writer/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels. It’s a multiverse sci-fi brain twister, an action movie with Hong Kong-style fighting, and a moving family drama about a mother and daughter.
Best of 2022: MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu on her Stunning Debut Feature “Nanny”
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
Deploying West African folklore to interrogate the myth of the American dream, writer/director Nikyatu Jusu‘s debut feature Nanny is a remarkably assured genre-melding experience. Nanny also gives viewers something that’s sadly still quite rare—it evocatively places us inside the head, heart, and aching soul of Aisha (Anna Diop),
Best of 2022: “The Woman King” DP Polly Morgan on Lensing Viola Davis in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Thrilling Epic
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
A sweeping historical epic that blends intimacy and adventure is the kind of movie that The Woman King cinematographer Polly Morgan dreamed about making while growing up in West Sussex, England.
“My earliest memories were Close Encounters and Empire of the Sun.
Best of 2022: Getting Sea Sick With “Triangle of Sadness” Production Designer Josefin Åsberg
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
Satirical black comedy Triangle of Sadness, writer/director Ruben Östlund’s first English-language feature, debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. The Swedish auteur is known for 2014’s Force Majeure and The Square, which in 2017 also won the Palme d’Or and was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Best of 2022: How “Nope” Production Designer Ruth De Jong Built & Bloodied the Haywood Ranch
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.
There was a moment when writer/director Jordan Peele and production designer Ruth De Jong realized they were going to shoot Nope practically. Tucked in the Agua Dulce area of California’s Santa Clarita Valley is the Firestone Ranch, which would become the setting for the Haywood home where OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) discover an unexpected visitor living in the sky above them.
How “Avatar: The Way of Water” Visual Effects Wizards Conjured Underwater Magic
How long can you hold your breath underwater? One minute? Two? Maybe three? For James Cameron’s highly-anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water, now in theaters, the cast had to take lessons from free diving expert Kirk Krack in order to fluidly capture the transcendent water scenes. Why so? Bubbles.
The sequel picks up from the 2009 blockbuster exploring the enchanting oceans of Pandora, in particular, the lush island reef village of the Metkayina clan,
“Kindred” Costume Designer Jaclyn Banner on Dressing the First Octavia E. Butler Adaptation
Although Hugo and Nebula-winning novelist Octavia E. Butler was the first science fiction writer to ever receive a MacArthur Fellowship and the first Black woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer, many are unaware of her genius and influence on the genre. That is about to change because now, finally, a number of her works are being adapted for the screen. The first is an FX series based on her 1979 novel Kindred created by showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins,
“George & Tammy” Creator Abe Sylvia on Crafting a Complicated Love Story
It’s a story that’s been on Abe Sylvia’s mind for a while. The screenwriter of The Eyes of Tammy Faye and writer/producer of such television series as Dead to Me and Nurse Jackie has always had a soft spot for country music. Blame it on his Oklahoma upbringing. And that’s why Sylvia found the story of George Jones and Tammy Wynette too good to resist.
How The “Babylon” Sound Team Built a Sonic Bacchanal
The opening sequence to Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (in theaters today) hits you like one of the many lines of powder its characters will ingest. It’s eye-opening, choreographed chaos, leaving you with an intensely euphoric feeling – quite fitting for a story that revisits Hollywood’s infancy of the 1920s and ‘30s when La La Land was a sandbox of drugs, sex, and all night partying.
It’s here we meet Manny Torres (Diego Calva),
“Devotion” Score Mixer Alvin Wee on Letting the Music & Emotion Take Flight
Growing up in Malaysia, Alvin Wee was drawn to “big action movies” such as the Harry Potter series and Transformers. “I liked sensory overload, the loud, visual spectacle. My favorite movie was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It’s also my favorite score, by John Williams,” says Wee, the Score Mixer on Sony’s Devotion, now in theaters. Wee was also the score mixer for Disney’s Encanto,
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Animation Supervisor Brian Leif Hansen Packs Puppets With Emotion
Inside a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Portland, a little boy made of wood galvanized efforts by stop motion filmmakers for three years before emerging now to wow moviegoers in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. This dark stop-motion iteration of Carlo Collodi’s 1882 tale, in theaters and streaming on Netflix, takes place in 1930’s Italy, adding Mussolini and forest witches to the story’s signature evil doers: circus master Volpe (voiced by Christoph Waltz) and the monster whale.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Composer Ludwig Göransson on the Score’s Secret Weapon
One of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler’s closest collaborators throughout his entire Marvel journey has been composer Ludwig Göransson. Beginning with Coogler’s 2018 Black Panther, Göransson has been by his side, helping him breathe life into the music and sounds of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Along with other key collaborators like costume designer Ruth E. Carter and production designer Hannah Beachler,
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks
Both 2018’s Black Panther and this year’s Wakanda Forever have hugely impacted popular culture, not least by expanding the acceptance and expression of Afro-Futurism in everything from fashion and hairstyles to architecture. Both production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter won Oscars for their work on the first film and are in the running for a return to the podium with Wakanda Forever.
“The Whale” Screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter on Hard-Won Hope
In Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Brendan Fraser is transformed so completely he is nearly unrecognizable playing the title character. Fraser has been the frontrunner for Best Actor in the Oscars race since the film received a six-minute standing ovation at its Venice International Film Festival premiere in September.
The film is based on Samuel Hunter’s award-winning 2012 play of the same name, which is inspired by Hunter’s own challenges with eating disorders and growing up gay in the Midwest as part of an evangelical community.
Bringing Stop-Motion Puppets to Life Through Sound in “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
As the Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) grants Geppetto’s (David Bradley) grief-stricken wish to bring forth a son from his wood carving, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio draws life where there are only puppets and sound where there is only silence. The hearty revamp of Carlo Collodi’s classic is so engrossing, you may not recognize the meta miracle the movie accomplishes in an inanimate world. However, there are endless marvels to be seen and heard.
“Bardo” Stars Daniel Giménez Cacho & Ximena Lamadrid on Taking a Trip With Alejandro Iñárritu
As with all films written and directed by Alejandro Iñárritu, the auteur’s new release Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is difficult to define or categorize. He himself has said it is his most personal work, but viewers who love it have felt their own powerful connection to elements of the story. Without question, it is a cinematic experience that goes beyond suspension of disbelief and calls for surrender from its audience.
