Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns & Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Jake Bernstein on The Laundromat
Steven Soderbergh’s new film The Laundromat boasts a stellar cast. Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, and Gary Oldman are all part of Soderbergh’s latest, which is currently streaming on Netflix. Though shown through a decidedly absurdist lens, the film is based on some very serious and true stories about how the rich and powerful of the world manipulate and perpetuate a corrupt financial system. Longtime Soderbergh collaborator and screenwriter Scott Z.
Edward Norton on Redefining Heroism in Motherless Brooklyn
Edward Norton brought Motherless Brooklyn, his long-gestating passion project, to the Motion Picture Association’s brand new theater last night for a special screening and Q&A moderated by professor Yanick Lamb, Director of Media Studies at Howard University. Norton’s film, which explores institutional racism built into the very foundations of New York City, was inspired as much by Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of “master builder” Robert Moses, “The Power Broker,”
Raising Dion Showrunner Carol Barbee on Netflix’s Singular Superhero Show
On film or television, there has never been a superhero origin story with a focus on the superhero’s mom. That changes with the new Netflix show Raising Dion, which is based on a 2015 comic book of the same name by Dennis Liu. The show features Alisha Wainwright as Nicole Reese, a young widow raising 8-year-old Dion (Ja’Siah Young), who begins to exhibit superhuman abilities. Michael B. Jordan plays her late husband Mark,
Joker Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir on Creating a “Wordless Dialogue”
A female composer being hired for a studio film is a rarity, with 94 percent of the 250 films released in the US in 2018 scored by men. It is to his credit that director Todd Philips hired Icelandic cellist and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir to create the score for Joker. It offers a welcome challenge to the statistics, and also has proven to be a brilliant move on his part. Guðnadóttir just won an Emmy for Chernobyl,
How Joker Costume Designer Mark Bridges dressed The Clown Prince of Crime
The wait is over. Todd Phillips’ Joker dominated the box office with a record-breaking $93.5 million opening weekend.
The fresh origin story is set circa 1980s Gotham where Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) lives a mundane life working as a clown to scrounge up enough cash to take care of his ailing mother Penny (Frances Conroy). It’s only after a few avoidable mistakes that turn Arthur into who he truly feels he’s meant to be – Joker.
Joker’s Makeup Designer on Creating the Clown Prince of Chaos
It’s hard to think of a more iconic look from the world of comic books than the Joker — Batman’s most nefarious adversary. Nicki Ledermann was all too aware of this when she was approached to design the makeup for Joker, director Todd Phillips’ new feature that offers up the origin as to how Arthur Fleck, a failed comedian, came to be this ominous creature.
“To be honest,
Renée Zellweger on Becoming Judy
Despite numerous screen classics over decades, Judy Garland famously never won an Oscar. She was favored to win for her major career comeback in 1954 for A Star is Born but lost to fresh-faced Grace Kelly. So it would be a fitting, full-circle tribute if Renée Zellweger, in her own major comeback role as Judy Garland, took home the Oscar for Judy, as many expect she will after the film’s recent triumphant festival reception including a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival that brought Zellweger to tears.
Writer/Director Jill Culton on her Animated Feature Abominable
At the beginning of the new animated feature Abominable, tomboy Yi (Chloe Bennett) is grieving for her dad, who has passed away. When she finds a wounded Yeti hiding on the roof of her apartment building, she names him Everest, after where he’s from, and determines he needs help getting back to the famed mountain. She and her friends Peng (Albert Tsai) and Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), travel all the way across China to get him back home.
Breaking Down Three Key Scenes With Ad Astra’s Editors
On Tuesday we published the first part of our conversation with Ad Astra editors John Axelrad and Lee Haugen. Director James Gray’s film (which he co-wrote with Ethan Gross) is the rare intimate epic. It involves some of the most breathtaking sequences in any film this year, as well as a very personal father/son story in which our hero, Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride, travels all the way to Neptune to face dear old dad Cliff (Tommy Lee Jones).
Ad Astra’s Editors Talk Space Pirates, Murderous Monkeys & More
James Gray’s Ad Astra travels as far as the icy colossus Neptune, an achingly gorgeous planet, as blue as our own, but, alas, utterly lifeless. Only that’s not entirely true in Gray’s space epic, which finds Brad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride traveling to the distant giant planet to find his father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones). It seems Cliff’s been out there, hovering just above Neptune, for years. The reason he’s become something of an interstellar Colonel Kurtz and what he’s been up to in deep space are of grave importance to both Roy,
How Ad Astra’s Sound Team “Weirded Things Up”
When the aural landscape of a film or television series aims to heighten the story the effort is usually dialed in subliminally. The audience doesn’t even realize what’s happening they’re just captivated by what’s in front of them. In Ad Astra, a 20th Century Fox film directed by James Gray (The Lost City of Z), sound looked to do this very thing with an added hook.
How the VFX Team Behind Ad Astra Achieved Deep Space
How do you conceptualize a future that feels familiar yet doesn’t exist? For, visual effects supervisor Allen Maris and the entire crew detailing director James Gray’s vision behind Ad Astra, that question became a guiding theme.
The 20th Century Fox sci-fi thriller puts Brad Pitt in a spacesuit and asks him to save mankind. Not from a zombie inducing lethal virus but from a threat deep in our solar system.
Downton Abbey Director Michael Engler on Bringing the Crawleys to the Big Screen
Downton Abbey is a haven. In this starchy refuge, worry whether Tom Branson (Allen Leech) will be able to keep his long out of sight Irish Republicanism in check in front of two guests who have invited themselves to stay the night, King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James), represents the height of concern. Coming in just behind on the worry scale is the question whether Mary (Michelle Dockery) will act on her impetus to give up on Downton,
What We Do In the Shadows Cinematographer DJ Stipsen on the Art of Vampire Stupidity
What We Do in the Shadows, based on the feature film of the same name from Taikia Waititi and Jemaine Clement, is unlike any vampire show on TV. Like the film, the show is staged as a documentary of four vampires who have been living together for centuries. In the series, which airs on FX, our vampires live on Staten Island (in the film they were based in Wellington,
Production Designer Donal Woods on Settings Old and New in Downton Abbey
Picking up a year and a half after the end of the series’ sixth and final season, the crux around which Downton Abbey the movie turns is right there in the trailer: King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) are going to spend a night at Downton during a Yorkshire tour. The news comes in the form of a letter announcing their impending visit — it seems royalty is free to invite themselves to stay in aristocratic homes as necessary — throwing the household into a proportionately starchy frenzy.
Hustlers Cinematographer on Capturing Glamour, Grime, & J. Lo’s Knockout Performance
Writer/director Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, based on a gangbusters piece of reporting from The Cut‘s Jessica Pressler, follows a group of dancers-turned-criminals from New York’s famous strip club Scores. Although “criminals” in the Robin Hood sense—sort of. Sure, the two women at the center of the story don’t give their pilfered riches to the poor, but you’re rooting for them nonetheless. It also helps that they’re embodied by a sensational Jennifer Lopez as Ramona and the rising star Constance Wu as Destiny.
How Mindhunter’s Composer Manipulates Sound to Create an Unexpected Score
What kind of music describes the FBI’s early attempts to understand the mind of a serial killer? According to Mindhunter, the David Fincher-produced Netflix series based on Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, the auditory embodiment of this process swings between a creepily high-pitched yet restrained clamor, and quiet, moody intonations, like the rumbling of an ominous wind.
How Cinematographer Checco Varese Harnessed Darkness in It: Chapter Two
The 2017 remake of Stephen King’s It was box office smash raking in over 700 million worldwide during its release. Pennywise was back and Warner Bros tapped director Andy Muschietti, who shot the remake, to bring the sequel to the silver screen which picks up the horrific events 27 years later. The Credits detailed you in on the hair-raising score from Benjamin Wallfisch. Now let’s step into the shadows with cinematographer Checco Varese and face our Pennywise fears.
TIFF 2019: Harriet Editor Wyatt Smith on Capturing a True American Hero
Based on the iconic life of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman, Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet reveals the story of this American legend’s escape from slavery and her incredible courage after in her quest to free other slaves. Starring a phenomenal Cynthia Erivo in the title role, Harriet looks at a 10-year chapter in Tubman’s extraordinary life and is structured around three distinct phases. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The Creators of Netflix’s Unbelievable on Their Urgent New Series
Buzz for the new true-crime drama Unbelievable, which is now streaming on Netflix, is getting pretty intense, and for good reason. Inspired by real events covered in a Pulitzer Prize-winning article from The Marshall Project and ProPublica called, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” and a This American Life episode called “Anatomy of Doubt,” it tells the story of a teen named Marie (Kaitlyn Dever) who reports a sexual assault,
