Building the Bizarre, Beautiful World of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

In The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Disney’s live-action re-creation of the E.T.A. Hoffmann story and subsequent classical children’s ballet, Morgan Freeman plays Drosselmeyer, giver of enchanted gifts and leader of a star-studded cast that kicks off in picture-perfect Victorian London, giving way to the magical realms where Clara (Mackenzie Foy) hunts for a key to open a final bequest from her late mother: a filigree silver egg that obviously possesses significance beyond knickknackery and sentiment.

Writer/Director Sandi Tan on the Incredible True Story Behind her Netflix Film Shirkers

Sandi Tan was supposed to be the next big teen sensation—not just in the indie film scene, but in the almost non-existent Singapore film scene of the early 1990s. Tan was just 18 years old when she started making the original version of Shirkers, a beautiful, mysterious film, with the help of her friends Jasmin Ng and Sophie Siddique and her film teacher, Georges Cardona. It would have been a revolutionary addition to the indie canon.

Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Production Designer on Re-Constructing the World of Queen

As Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, actor Rami Malek is incredible, an on-stage writhing echo of the groundbreaking rocker’s performances with the band Queen. Surrounding Malek in this uplifting rock biopic are exacting recreations of the bands’ 1970s and 80s-era haunts, from stadium concerts to a youthful Freddie’s London flat with his girlfriend Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). Bookended by Queen’s seminal performance at Wembley Stadium in 1985 for the Live Aid benefit,

How Bohemian Rhapsody‘s Cinematographer Recreated Queen’s Most Iconic Performances

Queen’s 1985 Live Aid performance was the rock event of the century that almost didn’t happen. It was an iconic display of untethered talent and vitality in the darkest days of the AIDS crisis. An estimated 1.5 billion people watched the unforgettable performance all around the world. Freddie Mercury left a lasting impression as a music legend that day. Bohemian Rhapsody cinematographer Tom Sigel studied the broadcast to bring audiences on stage.

SCAD Savannah Film Fest: Jitters Writer, Director & Star Otoja Abit

Actor Otoja Abit had an idea for a short. It was a simple idea that concealed a depth of feeling; what if we got to see a young man, moments before his wedding ceremony, question whether or not he was making the right choice. Abit, who has acted on TV (The Defenders, The Night Of), film (Stonewall), and in theater in New York, wanted to take what he’d learned and make something himself. 

The Haunting of Hill House Costume Designer Explains Why Those Ghosts Give You Nightmares

TV’s Halloween hit of the year is undoubtedly The Haunting of Hill House. There are some major chills and surprises, but the addicting aspects of the series are the harrowing revelations that unravel among the Crain family. The unknown horrors that plague them across the years are terrifying but they grow even scarier when the truth is revealed. Not to mention you won’t be able to close your eyes at night without checking for the Tall Man around every corner.

Malek Becomes Mercury Thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody Movement Coach

It took a village to transform Rami Malek from hoodie-clad Mr. Robot hacker introvert into Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant Queen frontman he portrays with astonishing verisimilitude in Bohemian Rhapsody. Hair and makeup designer Jan Sewell. outfitted Malek with prosthetic “buck teeth.” Dialect coach William Conacher re-shaped the actor’s inflections into a smooth British accent. Music supervisor Becky Bentham and production sound mixer John Casali blended master tape Queen recordings with performances from Malek and Mercury impersonator Marc Martel to communicate the singer’s four-octave vocal power on screen.

Writer/Director Peter Hedges on Re-Finding his Voice With Ben is Back

Writer/director Peter Hedges was in attendance at the Middleburg Film Festival to promote and talk about his new film Ben is Back, which stars Julia Roberts and Hedges’ son Lucas, as a mother and her drug-addicted son, who returns from rehab for a 24-hour visit on Christmas Eve. Holly Burns (Roberts) loves her son, even as it is clear he’s having difficulty getting his life back together. Ben seems genuinely committed to sobriety,

Writer Garrard Conely on Watching His Memoir Become Boy Erased

Writer Garrard Conley turned his experience with conversion therapy as a young gay man in Arkansas into his 2016 memoir, Boy Erased. The book was quickly snapped up as a film project with actor Joel Edgerton adapting it for the screen and directing, as well as co-starring in a supporting role.

Conley, who now lives with his husband in New York City, at first was wary about a big screen depiction of his memoir.

Roma Actress Yalitza Aparicio on Carrying Alfonso Cuarón’s Astonishing Film

Roma, the opening night film at Middleburg Film Festival, played to a sold-out crowd of film lovers. As the end credits rolled, it was greeted with rapturous applause.

The film is leaving an indelible impression and gathering accolades from audiences and critics alike. Winning the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, Roma is creating Oscar buzz for auteur writer/director Alfonso Cuarón,

Green Book‘s Viggo Mortensen on the Power of a Great Script

The much-anticipated new release from director and co-screenwriter Peter Farrelly, Green Book, was just given the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film at the Middleburg Film Festival. The film has been received with equal enthusiasm at all its screenings, garnering, among others, the Grolsch People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The story, which is based on the experiences of the real people portrayed in the film, is about the development of a lifelong friendship between working-class Italian-American Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) and erudite piano virtuoso and African-American Doctor Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali),

The Vietnam War Sound Designer on Enhancing Emotional Memories of the War

The Vietnam War was a harrowing conflict with ramifications that spread far from the fighting. It was the most divisive war of the 20th century that haunted veterans and civilians alike for decades. Cameras captured the brutal battles with unprecedented access. Piecing together hundreds of hours of archival footage and interviews with survivors, celebrated documentarians Ken Burns and Lynn Novick assembled an intimate portrait of the horror and humanity of the war. The Vietnam War created an illusion of immersion that demanded reconstruction of scenes with no or low-quality sound and gripping witness accounts.

The Mid90s Cast on Skating & Sticking to the Script in Jonah Hill’s Directorial Debut

Sunny Suljic, the young, breakout star of Mid90s, says most audiences don’t even know that he’s a proficient skater in real life. But for Suljic that’s proof that he did a convincing job playing a novice skateboarder in Jonah Hill’s directing debut.

Truth is, the pint-sized Suljic, at just 13, is as adept at extreme skateboarding as the rest of the movie’s young ensemble of non-professionals (Na-kel Smith, Olan Prenatt,

Rupert Everett on Writing, Directing & Starring in his Oscar Wilde Biopic The Happy Prince

Fans of both Rupert Everett and literary great Oscar Wilde have been patiently waiting for the release of the new film The Happy Prince, which has been 10 years in the making. The film Everett wrote, directed, and stars in is an unvarnished look at Wilde’s last few years, following his decline after release from a two-year imprisonment for homosexuality. We spoke to Everett about what inspired him as a first-time director,

Writer/Director Felix van Groeningen on Music, Catharsis, and Crafting Beautiful Boy

Known for his critically-acclaimed film Broken Circle Breakdown, which was the Belgian entry for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, writer/director Felix van Groeningen has been courted for years by Hollywood producers to helm his first English language film. He found the perfect project in Beautiful Boy, based on two bestselling memoirs by writers David and Nic Sheff. David’s book, from which the film gets its title, is about his journey dealing with his crystal meth and drug-addicted son Nic.

Elizabeth Chomko on her Bittersweet & Beautiful Directorial Debut What They Had

Writer and first-time director Elizabeth Chomko’s What They Had is a searingly personal film that still manages to make you laugh (a lot, actually) through your tears. The story centers on the irrevocable slide into dementia of Ruth (Blythe Danner) and her family’s attempts—conflicted, confused, and often at odds with one another—to figure out the best way to handle it.

The film opens with Ruth wandering, as if in a daydream,

Composer Dustin O’Halloran Finds Music to Express The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give premiered at TIFF one day after the first airing of the Colin Kaepernick Nike ad. That the add went viral and became such a controversy only added to the fame and buzz around the composer of the music used in the ad, Dustin O’Halloran, who also provided the score for The Hate U Give. The films follows 16-year old Starr (an outstanding Amandla Stenberg) as she goes back and forth between her working-class Garden Heights neighborhood and the predominantly white Williamson Prep School across town—until a tragedy collapses the siloed world Starr had created.

How The Hate U Give’s Cinematographer Captured an American Tragedy

Fresh out of film school, Romanian cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. jumped into the deep end when Francis Ford Coppola arrived in Bucharest eleven years ago to film his coming of age drama Youth Without Youth. “Francis shot ten days with ten different DP’s because he wanted to see who worked well with him,” Malaimare recalls. “Three of my teachers also auditioned for the job so I figured I didn’t have a chance.

First Man‘s VFX Supervisor on Archival Footage, In-Camera Effects & the Biggest LED Screen Ever

Watching Damien Chazelle’s First Man offers the earthbound viewer the chance to finally realize they don’t have the right stuff. For folks of a certain age, becoming an astronaut used to be one of the coolest possible professions, the kind of thing you said you wanted to be when you were little and didn’t know what engineering was. Or math. Or physics. And, most crucially, you didn’t realize how insanely dangerous it is.

Bad Times at the El Royale’s Production Designer’s Brilliant Build

When Laramie, a vacuum cleaner salesman with an off-sounding drawl (Jon Hamm), steps behind the bar to make a pot of a coffee in the lobby of the El Royale, no attendant to be seen, it’s clear this fancy yet faded, empty hotel isn’t your average roadside motel, no matter how welcoming the vintage neon sign outside. For a traveling salesman, Laramie seems to know an awful lot about the history of his abode for the evening,