Inside how The Final Year Looks Back on President Obama’s Swan Song

There once was a time, not long ago, when the sum of US foreign policy goals couldn’t be distilled to an acronym that fit on a hat. Simply stating such a thing might inspire yearning for eighteen months past — or stoke the fires of long-burning vitriol. The Final Year, director Greg Barker’s evenhanded front-row look at a swath of the last Presidential administration’s policies being enacted, or at least striven for,

Director Paul McGuigan on Nabbing the Perfect Actress to Play Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

Scottish director Paul McGuigan, whose credits include Lucky Number Slevin and Victor Frankenstein, says he tries not to watch his own films too often “because you start to go nuts.” But his latest, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, was different.  “I’ve watched it more than any of them because I still find it moving myself, the pairing of Annette [Bening] and Jamie [Bell]. I find it moving and touching because they were real people.”

Those real people are Hollywood icon Gloria Grahame (Bening) who starred in numerous films in the 40s and 50s and won an Oscar in 1952 for The Bad and the Beautiful and Peter Turner,

Hostiles Actor Wes Studi on Capturing an Audience Without Speaking Their Language

The stars of writer-director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles are Christian Bale, playing U.S. Army Capt. Joseph Blocker, and Rosamund Pike, as Rosalie Quaid, the lone survivor of a Comanche massacre. But this stark Western relies just as much on Wes Studi, whose dying Chief Yellow Hawk is released from prison to be escorted to Montana by a very reluctant Blocker. The movie, which opened wide on Jan. 26, charts both a geographical journey and an inner one: the reconciliation of Yellow Hawk and Blocker,

The Title Sequence Isn’t Disappearing – It’s Headed Back To The Big Screen

It appeared quietly, in the right corner of your Netflix screen a few months ago: the “skip intro” button. A translucent shortcut customized by the streaming service built to work both with any series, cold open or no, meant to allow binge-watchers to expedite their viewing experience. In the past, new features and redesigns have come and gone on the site without a word, but the button almost immediately created quite a stir. Most notably,

Costume Designer Lou Eyrich Outfits Iconic Designer in Style for The Assassination of Gianni Versace

Costume designer Lou Eyrich‘s handiwork dominates the opening of Ryan Murphy’s new series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (Wednesdays on FX) when the titular fashion designer begins his last day on earth swaddled in the lap of luxury. Versace (Edgar Ramirez), in silk pajamas, dresses for breakfast by slipping on a pink robe and, of course, Versace-branded slippers. Without a word of dialogue, Eyrich and creator-producer-director-writer Ryan Murphy establish Versace’s luxurious life in Miami shortly before he’s murdered by Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss).

Sundance 2018: A Conversation with the Director and Cast of Daring Heist Film American Animals

Whether it’s the reluctant exploitation of a super skill in Baby Driver or the stylish and sophisticated execution of Ocean’s Eleven, heist movies are an American cinematic staple. The masterminded plans, daring escapes, and thrilling shootouts look easy on screen, but what would happen in a real life do-it-yourself caper? Enter Sundance selection, American Animals.

In 2004, Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, Chas Allen, and Eric Borsuk fell headlong into a reckless amateur effort to break out of the mundanity of their lives.

Screenwriter Michael Golamco on Please Stand By’s Heroine on the Spectrum

Wendy, the blonde heroine of Please Stand By, lives in northern California and writes Star Trek fan fiction. Played by Dakota Fanning, she’s hardly the only pretty, Trekkie protagonist in film history, but she is likely the first one dealing with autism and living in a group therapy home. Ben Lewin directs this Magnolia Pictures film, out tomorrow, which co-stars Toni Colette as Scottie, Wendy’s no-nonsense therapist, and Alice Eve as Audrey,

Writer Ed Solomon Puts the Pieces Together for HBO Thriller Mosaic

As the guy who broke rules to mesh comedy and sci-fi with his now-classic Men in Black script, Ed Solomon knows how to pull off experiments in entertainment. Still, when he and Steven Soderbergh co-created Mosaic, Solomon had to wrap his head around a lot of unknown variables. The murder mystery debuted this past Monday on HBO for five consecutive nights in tandem with a free app that re-structures the same whodunit in interactive flow chart form for smart phones.

Sundance 2018: American Animals Composer Captures Four Students’ Wild Alter Egos

A tribal orchestration sprinkled with sounds of the wild opens American Animals to the contrasting sight of establishing shots of Lexington, Kentucky. Composer Anne Nikitin immediately sets the tone for the rambunctious docudrama about a daydream gone too far. A group of college aged men concoct a movie style plan to steal valuables from a university, to initially hilarious result. As the events grow more sobering, Nikitin dials up the drama and brings us back to reality where the scheme collides with consequences.

Sundance 2018: The Tale Composer Delicately Threads a Fragile Story of Adolescent Abuse

For decades, documentarian Jennifer Fox had convinced herself that the sexual abuse she’d suffered as a child was consensual. In revisiting her memories and the events under the light of adulthood, Fox had a reckoning with the true nature of the events. Her memoir, starring Laura Dern as Jennifer, is laid bare in Sundance premiere The Tale. After decades of employing coping mechanisms to avoid the atrocities of sexual abuse she experienced as a child,

Watch How They Made an Amphibious Creature a Credible Romantic Lead in Awesome The Shape of Water Video

You don’t get 13 Oscar nominations for nothing, folks. Guillermo del Toro’s lovingly made, gorgeously realized The Shape of Water is that rare film—both a technical and emotional triumph. You don’t have much time to marvel at the technical stuff because you’re pretty much immediately swept away by the emotions of the story, by the radiant performance of Sally Hawkins, as the mute heroine, Elisa Esposito, and her utterly believable, ultimately incandescent love for the Asset,

Sundance 2018: Writer/Director Babis Makridis on Exploring an Addiction to Sadness in his Surprisingly Funny Pity

Chatting with Greek filmmaker Babis Makridis is a little like being in one of his films. He’s dry, soft spoken, casually funny, and very smart. In his latest film, Pity, about a man who can only experience happiness by being unhappy, Makridis has delivered that rare treat—a story that doesn’t flinch at life’s paradoxes, absurdities and miseries, yet still manages to get a theater full of people laughing. No small feat there.

Makridis has the distinction of having his last feature, 

Sundance 2018: Cinematographer Ashley Connor on Lensing Madeline’s Madline & The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Cinematographer Ashley Connor has had an incredible run since graduating from Ithaca College’s film program. You know your work is special when the New Yorker‘s film critic, the brilliant Richard Brody, singles out your technique in a review.  Connor has already built an impressive relationship with writer/director Josephine Decker, lensing both Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (the film that got Brody’s attention),

Trudie Styler on Directing Her First Feature Film Freak Show About a Cross-Dressing Teenager

Trudie Styler is an actress, a documentarian, a producer and, now, a feature film director. Her debut, Freak Show, tells the story of gender-bending, cross-dressing teenager Billy Bloom, who must navigate the unwelcoming waters of his new ultra-conservative high school. Determined to stay true to himself, despite the belles and bullies who taunt him, he decides to challenge the status quo by running for homecoming queen. Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game,

Sundance 2018: This Close Director on Shoshannah Stern & Josh Feldman’s Groundbreaking Series, the First by two Deaf Creators

Director Andrew Ahn made at splash at Sundance in 2016 with his feature Spa Night, which focused on a closeted Korean-American teenager who takes a job at a Korean spa to help his struggling family, and ends up discovering a underground world of gay sex that terrifies and thrills him. Ahn was back at Sundance this year for another intriguing project, This Close, a groundbreaking new series on Sundance Now created by Josh Feldman and Shoshannah Stern,

Real Life Special Forces Heroes Helped Keep 12 Strong True To Life

Star Chris Hemsworth got some guidance from the man he portrays in the movie 12 Strong (released Jan. 19). Hemsworth plays Capt. Mitch Nelson in the film about a team of Green Berets on a strategic mission in Afghanistan in the days immediately following 9/11. The real-life Special Forces officer he represents is Mark Nutsch, who asked that his name be fictionalized in the movie.

Nutsch and one of his Green Beret teammates visited the production on location in Albuquerque,

Oscar Watch: Baby Driver’s Supervising Sound Editor Dissects the Movie’s Unique Syncopated Style

As a contingency for speaking with me about his work on Baby Driver, supervising sound editor, sound designer, and re-recording mixer, Julian Slater, made me promise two things: watch it on a really good system and turn up the volume. After running a check on my speakers and ensuring my neighbors were out for the day, I cranked it up and was blown away. It would take dozens of viewings to begin to appreciate the layers of audio that Slater has choreographed for Baby Driver,

Sundance 2018: Trans Filmmaker Luis De Filippis on Their Bracing Directorial Debut For Nonna Anna

Toronto-based filmmaker Luis De Filippis’ short film For Nonna Anna focuses on the intergenerational relationship between a trans grandchild and their aging, ailing grandmother.  Selected for Sundance’s Shorts Program, For Nonna Anna is a tender, achingly wrought stunner in miniature, one told by a filmmaker of remarkable skill and compassion.

“It is imperative as Trans people that we tell our own stories on screen,” De Filippis explained in For Nonna Anna‘s press materials.

Director Greg Barker & Obama Advisor Ben Rhodes on the President Obama Documentary The Final Year

Well into Barack Obama’s second term, filmmaker Greg Barker began chronicling the actions of the president’s foreign policy team. The result is The Final Year, which spotlights Secretary of State John Kerry, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and speechwriter and adviser Ben Rhodes, along with a few powerhouse cameos by Obama himself. The documentary observes policy discussions, but turns more on poignant moments. These include an election night in which the Obama camp’s hopes for its legacy are dashed.

How The Commuter DP Replicated a New York Train on a UK Soundstage

When cinematographer Paul Cameron got the call from Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra to film The Commuter with Liam Neesom, the Los Angeles-based director of photography faced a daunting question: How do you spend an hour of screen time in the cramped confines of a train and make it look exciting? The answer came to Cameron in the middle of the night, he says. “I envisioned this rig, drew it out and sent it to pre production saying ‘Here’s what I think we should do.”