John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum Director on the Film’s Epic Stunts & Real Dogs
Chad Stahelski started out as a kick-boxer, served as Keanu Reeve‘s stunt double in The Matrix and rose through the ranks as a stunt choreographer with his own 87eleven Action Design before co-launching the John Wick franchise in 2014. Directing Reeves as an indomitable assassin, Stahelski has staged most of the 54-year-old actor’s action sequences “in camera,” minimizing digital effects in favor of physical performance. The old school approach has wowed fans to the tune of $261 million in world wide box office,
Composer Herdis Stefansdottir on her Intimate score for The Sun is Also a Star
Herdis Stefansdottir, scoring artist for the new release The Sun is Also a Star, is a rare example of a female composer working on a major studio film. She was hired when she was 7 months pregnant, and says that had a major impact on the creation of her emotional, often intimate score.
The film follows the college-bound romantic Daniel (Charles Melton) and a Jamaica-born pragmatist Natasha (Yara Shahidi) who meet—and fall in love—over one momentous day in New York City.
Trial by Fire Director Edward Zwick on Revisiting a Heartbreaking Story
Cameron Todd Willingham, who’s played by British actor Jack O’Connell in director Edward Zwick‘s Trial by Fire, was not an exemplary character. But he almost certainly didn’t set the 1991 blaze that killed his three young daughters, an alleged crime for which he was executed by the state of Texas in 2004. The fire was likely accidental, as was demonstrated by the evidence presented in David Grann’s 2009 New Yorker piece and Incendiary: The Willingham Case,
How Avengers: Endgame‘s Editor Handled Time Traveling Twists & Turns
SPOILER ALERT: This story reveals plot points seen in Avengers: Endgame and other Marvel films.
Even before Avengers: Infinity War was completed editors Jeffrey Ford and Matthew Schmidt were already working on what they were calling Avengers 4 in April of last year. The project, shrouded in secrecy, was to be a culmination of 10+ years and 22 films in the making cleverly dubbed Avengers: Endgame.
Avengers: Endgame Visual Effects Supervisor on Happy Hulk, Lebowski Thor & More
Spoiler alert for those of you who still haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame.
The Marvel universe’s supersized super-villain Thanos (Josh Brolin, plus CG) last year dealt a heavy hand to overpopulation in Avengers: Infinity War, wiping out half of humanity with a snap of his fingers warmed by his Infinity Stone encrusted gauntlet. Five years onward the Avengers are looking stuck, with those remaining still in mourning and low on solutions.
Costume Designer Jennifer Rogien on Outfitting Netflix’s Brilliant Russian Doll
As Nadia, Russian Doll’s wise-cracking heroine who dies repeatedly only to be reborn in the bathroom of her birthday party, Natasha Lyonne looks the part of the quintessential New York woman (which, in real life, she is), her all-black ensemble from boots to blouse easily complementing the withering energy with which she confronts her friends, ex, the homeless guy on the corner, and assorted other compatriots. In contrast, the only other soul in the world who understands her plight because he,
The Bespoke Technology That Made Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Possible
Sugar puffs or frosties? Yell at dad or pour tea all over a keyboard? By now, the audience choices and subsequent on-screen fallout possibilities in Netflix’s first interactive film for adults, Bandersnatch, have been well documented across the web. Home-made flow charts painstakingly illustrate the complexity of 19-year-old video game creator Stefan’s journey as he tries to develop an interactive computer game in 1984, navigating relationships with his irritating father,
Finding the Funny With Long Shot Director Jonathan Levine & Actress June Diane Raphael
Long Shot stars Charlize Theron as Charlotte, an elegant, poised, hyper-competent Secretary of State who wants to run for President and Seth Rogen as Fred, an awkward, shlumpy, but principled journalist. Charlotte hires Fred to help write speeches that will reveal her warmer, more accessible side. It is romantic, it is funny, and it is surprisingly sweet. In an interview with The Credits, director Jonathan Levine and June Diane Raphael,
Star Michael Ealy on Household Horror in his new Thriller The Intruder
New thriller The Intruder stars Michael Ealy and Meagan Good as Scott and Annie Russell, a newly married couple who have bought what they hope is their dream home from longtime owner Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid). They slowly discover Charlie is not only having a hard time letting go, but he’s also getting obsessive. Michael Ealy talked to The Credits about his good guy role, the joy of working opposite Dennis Quaid,
Dr. Ruth Westheimer Talks Life, Sex, & Ask Dr. Ruth
As a follow-up to The Keepers, documentary director Ryan White found a very different, very inspiring story in Ask Dr. Ruth, which is releasing in theaters on May 3rd. The film examines the fascinating life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became the country’s most widely known and celebrated sex therapist. In following this famously straightforward woman as she enters her 90s, audiences will see she is as energetic and enthusiastic as she’s ever been.
Julianne Moore on Craft, Coming of Age, & Women in Hollywood
Julianne Moore’s fearless approach to her craft has forged a career that seamlessly mixes commercial blockbusters such as The Hunger Games with independent films. Her signature roles range from a cocaine-fueled porn star and maternal figure in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights to a 1950s housewife suffocated by social convention in Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven.
At a recent onstage interview with me at the Boston’s premiere art house cinema,
Craig Mazin on Getting the Details Right for the Shocking Chernobyl
In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded, sending radiation into the atmosphere and ultimately causing many radiation-related deaths. While the disastrous accident, attributed to faulty reactor design and insufficiently trained operators, is widely known, the details of its aftermath are less so. Screenwriter Craig Mazin looks to change this and up the knowledge base with Chernobyl, a five-part miniseries starting May 6 on HBO that is directed by Johan Renck and stars Jared Harris,
Knock Down the House Director Rachel Lears Captures History in the Making
One of the big success stories of Sundance 2019 has been the documentary Knock Down the House, which was snapped up by Netflix for ten million. The festival screening got a standing ovation and a subsequent Festival Favorite Award. Streaming on Netflix starting May 1st, Knock Down the House, which is directed and co-produced by Rachel Lears, follows four female candidates as they run for office for the first time,
Savannah Knoop on Adapting her Memoir Into the Fascinating J.T. LeRoy
It’s often said that truth is stranger than fiction. No doubt this adage applies to the remarkable story of Savannah Knoop, who as a young woman assumed the persona of J.T. LeRoy, an adolescent author admired for his gut-wrenching semi-autobiographical books with themes of childhood abuse and prostitution. In actuality, LeRoy didn’t exist. He was the creation of Knoop’s sister-in-law and the real writer, Laura Albert. When the public began clamoring for LeRoy, Albert asked Knoop to play the part.
Watching The Orville’s Composer Conduct a Live Orchestra to Scenes From the Show
They look laid back in their shorts, tee shirts, and running shoes, but the Los Angeles musicians gathered in the cavernous Newman Scoring Stage on the Fox Lot snap to attention with astonishing precision once snowy-haired composer John Debney arrives. Debney’s on hand to conduct his music for Seth MacFarlane‘s sci-fi series The Orville. The Fox show, which concludes its second season today, Thursday, April 25, draws inspiration from vintage space dramas like Star Trek Voyager and counts on Debney to enhance the old-school vibe with his brawny brass and string music cues.
How Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s Production Designer Creates the Occult
Based on the “Archie” comic book series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa cast another spell with Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The series takes the source material from the comics and infuses them with equal parts horror and humor. Here Sabrina (played by Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka) struggles with trying to reconcile her two very distinct natures—she is half mortal,
A Visit to Theaterkunst, Germany’s Oldest and Biggest Costume Design House
What do Metropolis, Ben-Hur, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay all have in common? Their actors were outfitted, in full or in part, by a costume house in Berlin. And not just any costume house, but one that survived two world wars and Germany’s partitioning. It is now the country’s largest collection of historic and contemporary garments and accessories.
The Dirt‘s Production Designer on Recreating Mötley Crüe’s Wild Ride
Netflix‘s The Dirt focuses on the wild, often sordid and ultimately stratospheric rise of the seminal heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Directed by Jeff Tremaine, The Dirt is based on the band’s 2001 New York Times best-selling autobiography, which detailed how they managed to go from sharing a truly disgusting apartment and booking gigs on the Sunset Strip to selling out stadiums and becoming one of the most infamous acts in the world.
Robert Pattinson on High Life & Working With Claire Denis
The career arc that took actor Robert Pattinson from teen heartthrob vampire Edward Cullen in five Twilight movies to one of independent cinema’s most adventurous actors has few parallels — except perhaps for his Twilight costar Kristen Stewart.
Like Stewart, Pattinson has reinvented himself since the blockbuster Twilight franchise as a go-to actor for ambitious indie projects, ranging from David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (2012) to the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time (2017).
Fosse/Verdon Hair Designer Perfects Art of the Comb-Over for Sam Rockwell
Director-choreographer Bob Fosse had nearly everything an auteur could desire in 1973. That was the year he became the only person in history to win one Oscar (Cabaret), four Emmys (Liza with a Z), and two Tonys (Pippin) inside of a year. He also had a gifted wife in the person of four-time Tony-winning dancer/muse/collaborator Gwen Verdon. But as portrayed by Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell in Fosse/Verdon (premiering Tuesday,
