Composer Terence Blanchard on Scoring Spike Lee’s Must-See New Epic Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee’s films’ timeliness speaks to his prescience, and to his fearless, decades-long willingness to examine the continued and persistent injustice experienced by Black Americans. His new film Da 5 Bloods lands in the midst of a pandemic disproportionately affecting Black, Hispanic, Latino and Indigenous communities, and a wave of demonstrations protesting police brutality and systemic racism against Black people by those who are sworn to protect all Americans following the murder of George Floyd.

Director Daniel Karslake on the Shifting Battle for LGBTQ Equality in For They Know Not What They Do

Documenting the contemporary gay and transgender experience of young Americans and their families through the lens of religion isn’t easy. First, there’s the matter of finding interview subjects. For the follow-up to his Oscar-shortlisted documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, which focused on the homophobia of the religious right, filmmaker Daniel Karslake met with about thirty different families before matching with the four subjects and their parents at the center of For They Know Not What They Do,

The Many Lives of Indonesian Director Kamila Andini

Talking with multi-award-winning Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini might lead one to believe that she either possesses the power of time travel or that she’s in some way leading parallel lives, such is her unbelievably heavy workload.

When Indonesia imposed stay at home restrictions, Andini had just arrived back from Melbourne, Australia, where she had staged a theatrical performance, rich in local Indonesian traditional dance, of her 2017 film The Seen and Unseen (Sekala Niskala).

How Makeup Artist Louise McCarthy Helped Tattoo The King of Staten Island

As the makeup department head for The King of Staten Island, Louise McCarthy faced a unique challenge that she had never encountered before — creating laughs with tattoos.

Directed by Judd Apatow, the film stars Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson as Scott Carlin, a twenty-something slacker who has been struggling emotionally with the death of his father — a firefighter who lost his life in the line of duty when Scott was a child.

Arielle Kilker On Assembling a Largely Female Crew to Create Her Netflix Series Cheer

Arielle Kilker brings pretty much everything she’s learned in her career to bear in her Netflix‘s Cheer, the series she co-created, co-directed, edited, and produced. That includes the Emmy-nominated work she put in as editor on Chef’s Table and a supervising editor on the Peabody nominated Last Chance U. She’s also edited and written crime docuseries on projects for MSNBC, A&E, and PBS. For Cheer, 

Director Josephine Decker on Capturing American Gothic Writer Shirley Jackson’s Complex World

Layers of creative output communicate the enthrallingly choleric New England household and inner world belonging to mid-century American gothic and horror writer Shirley Jackson in Shirley, which screened at Sundance and the Berlinale prior to its streaming release on June 5. Working with Sarah Gubbins’ script based on Susan Scarf Merrell’s novel of the same name, the filmmaker Josephine Decker (Madeline’s Madeline, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely) catapults her audience into the dark Vermont home shared by Shirley (Elisabeth Moss) and her philandering professor husband Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and two young lodgers,

How Space Force Production Designer Susie Mancini Channeled Stanley Kubrick

Steve Carell is at the center of the new 10-episode Netflix series Space Force, which he co-created with Greg Daniels (The Office) and is streaming now. The inspiration for the show is the real US Space Force that was formed last year to ensure American military supremacy in space and was the brainchild of Donald Trump. The series, which also stars John Malkovich, Lisa Kudrow,

Judy & Punch Writer/Director Mirrah Foulkes Turns the Tables on Her Infamous Puppets

Judy & Punch kicks off with a male marionette thrashing a female doll-on-strings as a crowd of 17th-century tavern goers roars with delight. The camera soon shifts to witches, hangings, infanticide, beatings, magic brews, and lies as filmmaker Mirrah Foulkes bloodily re-imagines how the western world’s most famous pair of hand puppets got their start.

Set in and around an English village shortly after the Bubonic Plague, Judy & Punch (June 5,

Josh Gad & Kristen Bell on Their New Animated Musical Series Central Park

Before he was an adorable singing snowman named Olaf, Josh Gad was a Tony-nominated Broadway star (“The Book of Mormon”) and before that, he was a devoted fan of old-fashioned Broadway musicals, you know, the kind that begin with a big “I wish” song and use the music to reveal character and move the story along. He was also a fan of New York’s Central Park. And the animated TV series Bob’s Burgers.

Joe Bob Briggs Declares This the Summer of the Drive-In

Two summers before a nightmarish virus began sweeping across the globe and altering our reality like a horror B movie, Joe Bob Briggs revived his long-running campaign to keep the drive-in alive. The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs premiered in July of 2018 on AMC’s horror streaming service Shudder. The special was so popular, it crashed the site. Briggs said he was initially skeptical and envisioned the show airing once “for nostalgia sake.” Yet,

The High Note Director Nisha Ganatra on the Importance of a Diverse Cast & Crew

As a worthy follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2019 comedy Late Night, director Nisha Ganatra brings us The High Note, which was released this past May 29 for digital download. The film stars Dakota Johnson as aspiring producer Maggie Sherwoode, who works as personal assistant to iconic performer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross). It’s a dramedy about women supporting each other as they reach for their highest goals and dreams.

Tickets for Drive-In Movie Theater Near Yankee Stadium on Sale This Sunday

We don’t know when, or even if, the 2020 major league baseball season will happen this year, threatening to leave the beloved Yankee Stadium eerily quiet this summer. Luckily for Bronx residents, MASC Hospitality Group decided to tap into their enterprising New York spirit and bring the borough the block party of a lifetime.

The food-focused event company specializes in food and beverage gatherings like the Bronx Night Market and Bronx Beer Festival.

The Righteous Gemstones Composer Joseph Stephens on Creating Earworm Tune “Misbehavin”

Joseph Stephens is the composer behind Danny McBride’s HBO series The Righteous Gemstones, and he helped craft one of the show’s funniest moments—the song “Misbehavin”—which he co-wrote with McBride and co-star Edi Patterson. In the show, “Misbehavin” is performed by the sibling musical duo of Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) and Aimee-Leigh (Jennifer Nettles). Watching it now feels like a musical blast from an alternate dimension when laughs were easy to come by and the sight of seeing musicians perform shoulder-to-shoulder was commonplace.

Director & Executive Producer Lesli Linka Glatter on Filming Homeland’s Series Finale

Lesli Linka Glatter has spent the last several years being alarmed by what she’s heard in intelligence briefings. This doesn’t just set her apart from many of the current apparatchiks in Washington, but also from many of her fellow directors. Not because her colleagues lack the capacity to be alarmed, but because her work as a director and an executive producer on Showtime’s Homeland would bring her, on an annual basis, to something that series creators Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa would call “Spy Camp,” in the D.C.

Composer Brandon Campbell on Scoring Netflix’s The Letter for the King, Hans Zimmer, & COVID-19

Composer Brandon Campbell remains busy despite the worldwide shutdown of just about every film and TV production due to COVID-19. “I’m doing alright, all things considered, ” he says. Although he can’t give us the names of his current projects, he’s got two he’s still scoring and a third that might follow. Campbell’s relatively full plate makes him one of the lucky ones in the film and TV world at the moment, but it’s still a precarious position.

Devs Production Designer Embellishes Big Tech Aesthetic in Alex Garland’s Gorgeous, Beguiling Series

What if a Silicon Valley behemoth ran a top-secret project that threatened the well-being of unwitting civilians? That’s the not entirely outlandish premise underlying Devs, now streaming on FX on Hulu. Created by Ex Machina and Annihilation director Alex Garland, the sci-fi limited series largely takes place at a sleek big tech “campus” surrounded by woods.

The exteriors evoke Google, Apple,

From Public Health to Film, How Thai Filmmaker Nirattisai Ratphithak Found His Path

Like nearly every other industry, the filmmaking world has undergone an unprecedented global shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been talking to filmmakers all over the world to find out how they’ve been handling the stoppage in work, making the most of their quarantine, and their hopes for the future. Those interviews have included chats with Indian filmmakers Tannishtha Chatterjee and Priyanka Singh, and Filipino filmmaker Keith Sicat.

The Boys Costume Designers Carrie Grace & Laura Jean Shannon – Part II

In part 2 of our interview with the costume designers for Amazon Prime’s anti-hero superhero series The Boys, Laura Jean Shannon and Carrie Grace talked about the mechanics as well as the artistry involved in creating the superhero costumes—and the titular Boys’ more regular-guy clothes—for the hit series. Each super-suit requires a ton of work and enough duplicates that the actors and stunt performers can keep looking good. Season 2 of The Boys will be available later this year.

Dressing The Boys‘ Wholesome Hero Starlight With Costume Designers Carrie Grace & Laura Jean Shannon

A comic book artist has the luxury of creating superhero costumes that have to meet just one standard—looking cool. But when it comes time to translate those looks to screen, the costume designer has challenges that require more than imagination and a pencil.  Superhero costumes worn by actors have to look real, even in hi-def. They have to withstand action scenes and they inevitably have to be cleaned and repaired afterward. But they can’t appear too brand-new;

Director Matt Wolf on His Uncannily Timely Documentary Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Earth tells the fascinating, timely story of eight men and women who, in 1991, stepped into a sealed replica of Earth’s ecosystem to live a fully sustainable life for 24 months. Their world was called Biosphere 2, engineered by inventor/investor John Allen, and the experiment in which they participated, deemed a global media phenomenon. Spaceship Earth is available now on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, FandangoNow, Vudu, DIRECTV, DISH, and longtime NEON partner Hulu.