Silent Sunday Nights Host Jacqueline Stewart’s Easy Going Film Expertise

Jacqueline Stewart is a film scholar, researcher, author and archivist. But when she gets before the cameras as the host of Silent Sunday Nights on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), she’s once again a kid watching movies late into the night with her aunt Constance.

“I was obsessed with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies as a kid. They always seemed to be on TV the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve,

How Costume Designer Jeriana San Juan Helped Shape HBO’s The Plot Against America

These are trying times. When The Wire creator David Simon and his longtime collaborator Ed Burns set out to adapt the late, legendary novelist Philip Roth’s terrifyingly prescient 2005 novel “The Plot Against America,” they were doing so in a pre-pandemic world. At first, Simon and his team were “merely” adapting a novel that seemed, with eerie clairvoyance, to peer around the bend of time into our present day. The book envisions a truculent presidential candidate rising to power on an America First platform,

DP Kira Kelly on Lensing Netflix’s Self Made Followed by a Sudden COVID-19 Furlough

Self Made, Netflix’s four-episode biopic on Madam C.J. Walker (Octavia Spencer), the businesswoman, philanthropist, and first female American self-made millionaire, traces Madam C.J.’s late 19th-century rise from washerwoman to the successful founder of a haircare empire staffed by and made for African-American women. The production contrasts vibrant, colorful historic sets and costumes with a contemporary soundtrack, for an immersively satisfying period series that feels completely modern.

“Even before I got the job,

An Easy Girl Director Rebecca Zlotowski on Her Version of French Feminism

Lush and sun-kissed, An Easy Girl, the latest feature from French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski, is a Cannes-set summer vacation coming-of-age centered on a teenager named Naïma (Mina Farid) and her visiting older cousin, Sofia (Zahia Dehar). A screen descendant of Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, Dehar is enviably confident and sexy; however, many French audiences have struggled to separate Dehar’s character from her real-life persona, the one who was involved in an underage prostitution scandal in 2009.

Westworld Cinematographer & Director Paul Cameron on Season 3’s Big Time Ambitions

“As a DP,” says director of photography Paul Cameron, ASC, “you tend to walk into a location and visualize it and pitch it to a director.” But what happens if you are the director? Well, he allows, “I may have been a little stronger in pitching my ideas” back to the cinematographer.

Cameron had a chance to pitch in both directions, in quick succession, on HBO’s currently unfurling third season of Westworld.

Stunt Coordinator Kathy Jarvis Drives the Action in Paramount’s TV Series 68 Whiskey

A television series set on a military base during the height of the Afghan war is where you’ll find one of the best stunt coordinators currently working on television—Kathy Jarvis. Creating the stunts for 68 Whiskey, the Paramount Network comedy/drama about a team of medics battling to save lives while keeping their sanity in the midst of constant carnage and danger, is giving her an opportunity to use the range of skills she’s developed over her long career.

Swallow Production Designer Erin Magill Builds a House of Horrors

Handsome husband, rich in-laws, and a stunning house might seem to provide a comfortable perch for the newly pregnant housewife at the center of Swallow. And yet, Hunter (Haley Bennett) suffers privately from a disturbing disorder hinted at in the film’s title. For the psychological thriller (now playing), production designer Erin Magill joined writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis in setting up a seemingly perfect milieu riddled with dark secrets.

Magill,

Styling Teenage Romance With To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You Costume Designer Lorraine Carson

Costume designer Lorraine Carson has helped steer the look of the romantic comedy franchise To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (based on Jenny Han’s novel series) for the second and third films. As the franchise’s ensemble has grown up, so too has their wardrobe. With the second film currently available on Netflix (with the third film in post-production), we spoke to Carson about realizing character growth through costume,

Universal Archivist Jeff Pirtle on the Legacy of Noble Johnson, Harriet & More

When we interviewed Jeff Pirtle, Director, Archives & Collections at NBCUniversal last October, we learned, among other things, about Universal’s gleefully ghoulish collection of assets that touch upon the studio’s rich history of monsters. From the original set design from Jaws to gorgeous black-and-white photos of Bela Lugosi from 1931’s Dracula, Pirtle helps maintain some of the most coveted assets in the film world, as well as keep his eye on upcoming productions and fresh opportunities to extend the collection.

Onward’s Story Supervisor on Crafting Another Poignant Pixar Tale

As fans have come to expect, Pixar will be hitting us all in the feels with their new release Onward today. The movie follows the adventures of elven teen Ian (Tom Holland), and his big brother Barley (Chris Pratt). They miss their dad, who died before Ian was even born. For Ian’s 16th birthday present, their missing father left a spell that would bring him back for 24 hours, so the family patriarch and his sons could spend some precious time together.

Mythological Creatures Stand In for a Very Human Story in Pixar’s Onward

In Pixar’s newest feature, Monsters University director Dan Scanlon’s Onward, the studio created a fantasy tale set in present-day suburban sprawl. Magic used to reign, we learn, but it was also difficult, and this world of elves, fairies, and centaurs long ago adopted and then adapted to technological comforts. Now, unicorns snack from trash cans in a whimsical simulation of Los Angeles, and the fatherless teenaged elf brothers at the center of the story,

Director Brett Haley on His Compelling Adaptation of All the Bright Places

Although he has just a handful of feature-length films to his credit, Brett Haley has become a master in creating character-driven worlds that resonate with audiences. The stories he tells are simple on the surface, but ultimately layered — from the septuagenarian romance in I’ll See You in My Dreams, to the legacy of an aging actor in The Hero, to the father-daughter bond in Hearts Beat Loud.

The Cast of Gentefied on Netflix’s Glorious New Series

Season 1 of Gentefied is now streaming on Netflix, which is cause for all fans of great content to celebrate. The show, which has been in the new “top ten in the US today” category on the site since its launch date on February 21st, focuses on an extended Latinx family in LA’s Boyle Heights. It follows them as they confront the gentrification of their neighborhood, and what it means to them as individuals,

Simon Frederick on the History of Black Cinema in his Doc They’ve Gotta Have Us

In They’ve Gotta Have Us now streaming on Netflix, British photographer-turned filmmaker Simon Frederick chronicles the history of Black Cinema by sitting down with some of the people who made that history. Produced by BBC Two and Ava DuVernay‘s ARRAY company, the three-part documentary series blends archival footage with dozens of interviews to survey eight decades of American filmmaking.

“I wanted to hear about the struggles and the successes,

Future Man’s Cinematographer Sylvaine Dufaux on Hulu’s Hilarious Time Tripper

In Hulu‘s Future Man, a gent by the unimprovable name of Josh Futturman (The Hunger Games‘ Josh Hutcherson) finds himself in a fairly extreme circumstance. Josh is a janitor by day and a bigtime gamer by night, and his life is reasonable and normal until it’s suddenly very unreasonable and abnormal. He’s recruited by a pair of time travelers (played by Derek Wilson and Eliza Coupe) and tasked with traveling through time himself to save humanity.

Writer/Director Rashaad Ernesto Green on his Bracing Love Story Premature

When Rashaad Ernesto Green and Zora Howard sat down to write a feature that Howard would star in and Green would direct, the pair already knew it would be a love story. No, Howard and Green are not a couple; they worked together on Green’s debut feature Gun Hill Road (2011) and on his 2008 short Premature. The two artists simply wanted to create “what we felt was missing in the current cinematic climate especially with relation to black stories,” says Green.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire Writer/Director Celine Sciamma on her Masterpiece

French writer-director Céline Sciamma, whose first three features, Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014), established her unique voice with visually compelling depictions of coming of age, gender identity and the intimacy of girls’ relationships, has created a masterpiece with her fourth film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire. A sumptuous lesbian romance set in France in 1760, Portrait of a Lady on Fire won the best screenplay award and the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and a host of year-end critics’ accolades.

Writer/Director Brenda Chapman on her Beguiling new Feature Come Away

Oscar-winning animation artist, writer, and director Brenda Chapman had never considered doing live-action before she read the script for Come Away, which came from first-time screenwriter Marissa Kate Goodhill. She was taken by the story, which is a “what if” tale, suggesting the origins for both Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland come from Victorian brother and sister Peter and Alice (Jordan Nash and Keira Chansa) who use their imaginations,

The Photograph Writer/Director Stella Meghie on Making Movies About Black Love

Director Stella Meghie has been on an accelerated rise in just these past few years. After an impressive feature debut with her 2016 indie comedy-drama Jean of the Joneses, the filmmaker followed up the next year with a studio picture, the YA adaptation Everything, Everything. After a return to indie filmmaking with 2018’s The Weekend, Meghie is once again working in the studio sphere—The Photograph is a Universal release (it premieres on February 14,

Little America’s Production Designer Amy Williams on Apple TV+’s Beautiful New Series

Apple TV+‘s Little America is the rare show that you could argue really and truly needs to be seen right now. The anthology series from executive producers Alan Yang (Parks and Recreation, Master of None) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick, Silicon Valley) focuses on the lives of largely working-class immigrants in America. Each episode focuses on the experience of a different character,