Oscar-Nominee Aaron Sorkin on his Directorial Debut Molly’s Game
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin is nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay) alongside James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name), Scott Neustadter & Michael Weber (The Disaster Artist), Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green (Logan), and Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound).
The Incredible History Lesson That Informed WACO‘s Costume Design
Karyn Wagner has a gift for time travel. Her costume designs have populated the slave era south of Underground, death row during the Great Depression of The Green Mile, and a lush WWII romance in The Notebook. Her latest visit in history lands in 1990s Texas where a charismatic cult leader was building a large following in WACO. The six-part miniseries on the newly branded Paramount Network concludes tonight,
How Pickup Trucks Helped Make Star Wars: The Last Jedi Most Visually Stunning Battle
One of the most stunning visuals in Star Wars: The Last Jedi—and in any Star Wars film we’ve seen—was the final battle between the First Order and the cornered and depleted Resistance on the remote, barren planet of Crait. One of the most arresting things about this small, uninhabited rock in the Outer Rim Territories is what lies beneath the layer of white salt covering the planet—a vast landscape of red soil. Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) has made Crait a Resistance outpost due to it being such an unassuming,
Oscar-Nominated Cinematographer Dan Laustsen on The Shape of Water‘s Fluid Fable
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen is nominated alongside Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049), Bruno Delbonnel (Darkest Hour), Hoyte van Hoytema (Dunkirk) and Rachel Morrison (Mudbound). The full list of the Oscar nominees can be found here.
Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen worked alongside Guillermo del Toro on and off for two decades,
Oscar-Nominee Martin McDonagh on his Dark, Brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Writer/director Martin McDonagh is nominated in the Best Picture and Writing (Original Sreenplay) category. The full list of the nominees can be found here.
How the Oscar-Nominated War for the Planet of the Apes VFX Supervisor Reversed Human Evolution
The Planet of the Apes reboot has been a massive success, and its impact on the film industry is hard to overstate. It began with Rupert Wyatt’s 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes and carried on with Matt Reeves Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014 and his riveting coda, War for the Planet of the Apes, in 2017. The central character,
Phantom Thread’s Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer on Styling Daniel Day-Lewis’s Last Performance
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Costume designer Mark Bridges is nominated alongside Jacqueline Durran (Beauty and the Beast and Darkest Hour), Luis Sequeira (The Shape of Water), and Consolata Boyle (Victoria & Adbul).
On Christmas, Daniel Day-Lewis took his final on-screen bow,
Oscar-Nominee Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Greta Gerwig is nominated in two categories; Directing and Writing (Original Screenplay) for her work on Lady Bird. She joins Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) in the Directing category.
Oscar-Nominated Blade Runner 2049 Sound Mixing Team on the Power of Silence
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re posting our conversation with some of this year’s nominees. Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett are nominated for Sound Mixing, alongside Mac Ruth (Blade Runner:2049); Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin, and Mary Ellis (Baby Driver); Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo, and Mark Weingarten (Dunkirk); Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and glen Gauthier (The Shape of Water); and David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Stuart Wilson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
The Crucial VFX Enhancements That Led to Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s Snoke Finished Look
From a holographic bogeyman in Star Wars: The Force Awakens to a flesh-and-blood supervillain in The Last Jedi, Supreme Leader Snoke required the very best of the visual effects team to get him just right. This year’s crop of Oscar-nominees for visual effects represents some of the best villain-building in recent memory, with The Last Jedi nominated among killer replicants (Blade Runner 2049), monstrous aliens (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
Oscar-Nominated Director Luca Guadagnino on his Lush, Lyrical Call Me By Your Name
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Luca Guadagnino is nominated in the Best Picture category, alongside his producers Peter Spears, Emilie Georges and Marco Morabito. The other Best Picture nominees are Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s lush and luscious love story Call Me By Your Name is an homage to the director’s love for cinema.
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part II
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In Part 2 of an interview with Darkest Hour director Joe Wright and star Gary Oldman, who has been receiving glowing reviews for his portrait of Winston Churchill in the film that opens November 22,
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part I
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In a film career that spans four decades,
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on his Kobe Bryant Collabroation Dear Basketball—Part II
In this second of a two-part interview with veteran Disney animator Glen Keane, creator of such beloved characters such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, discusses what went into his latest solo project – the Annie-winning and Oscar-nominated short Dear Basketball.
Were you into basketball? I read somewhere that you would sometimes sketch your son when he played basketball.
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on Teaming up With Kobe Bryant, his Disney Past & More—Part I
Glen Keane is not just a living legend. He’s a Disney Legend (yes, that is an official title). He worked for the studio that Mickey Mouse built starting in the ‘70s as a character animator on such features as The Rescuers and Pete’s Dragon and played a huge role during the second Golden Age of Disney animated features that spanned the ‘90s. But in 2012, like many a cartoon hero or heroine yearning for new adventures,
How Writer-Director James Mangold Snagged Historic Oscar Nom for R-Rated Logan Script
Logan made Oscar history this year as the first comic book-based screenplay nominated for an Academy Award. The distinction’s due in no small part to director/co-writer James Mangold‘s extreme aversion to superhero clichés, which he wearily recites from his office on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles. “Some new alien arrives with a new power that somehow challenges our heroes; our heroes are fractured among each other so they have to learn how to band together or get over whatever romantic scars they have between them to focus on the fight ahead of them;
Oscar-Nominated Heroin(e) Director on Documenting the National Opioid Crisis
Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a native of West Virginia and saw the consequences of opioid addiction in her own community.
In her short documentary Heroin(e), which is now streaming on Netflix, she takes a closer look at the crisis while focusing on three female leaders who are making a difference on the ground.
The feature is set in Huntington, West Virginia. In the movie’s opening moments, the film notes that Huntington “has been called the overdose capital of America” and “its overdose death rate is 10 times the national average.”
Instead of focusing on the community’s pain,
Berlinale 2018: Storyboard Artist Jay Clarke on Drawing Wes Anderson’s Canine Showstopper Isle of Dogs
On Sunday evening an audience of a couple hundred people, almost all of whom appeared to be under thirty, filed into an auditorium at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer. It was the third day of the Berlinale, but the crowd wasn’t here for a premiere or a Sundance leftover (the big complaint at this year’s festival), but to hear a talk given by the lead storyboard artist from the Berlinale’s opener, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation feature Isle of Dogs.
Oscar-Nominated Doc Maker Steve James on his Gripping Immigrant’s Story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Chicago filmmaker Steve James has a fraught history with the Oscars dating back to 1994, when his critically acclaimed box office hit Hoop Dreams failed to get nominated for an Academy Award. The snub outraged late movie critic Roger Ebert, prompted an Entertainment Weekly expose and inspired changes in Academy voting procedures. Cut to 2011, when James made The Interrupters, a gritty group portrait of reformed gang members fighting to stop murders on the streets of Chicago.
Black Panther Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Creating the Iconic Panther Suit
Part of Black Panther costume designer Ruth E. Carter‘s many responsibilities included steeping the characters of the fictional world of Wakanda in a wardrobe that spoke to the real Africa, while retaining the mythic quality that the reclusive, technologically advanced nation required. We saw this in her work on the bald, beautiful and bad ass Dora Milaje, the elite, all-female fighting force at the heart of the film. In part two of our interview,
