Talking to Stacey Sher, Producer of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight
Producer Stacey Sher first worked with director Quentin Tarantino on his 1994 film Pulp Fiction, in which she was executive producer. Twenty-one years later she’s working with him again on his 70mm widescreen extravaganza The Hateful Eight, their third film together (after 2012’s Django Unchained on which she was a producer). In between those films, even a partial list of her credits reads like a best-of list from the last two decades: Get Shorty (1995);
Talking to Carol’s Producers About Their 11-Year Labor of Love
The most lusciously romantic film of the year is Carol, directed by Todd Haynes. It is based on a semiautobiographical novel by Patricia Highsmith, also author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train. She wrote Carol under a pseudonym because it was the story of a lesbian romance. Nearly 40 years after its 1952 publication, she revealed that she was the author.
In an interview,
How Macbeth‘s Producer Brought the Rogue Adaptation to the Screen
Though Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth isn’t necessarily the kind of adaptation that promises to satisfy strict Bard purists, it may be one of the more accessible and artful adaptations committed to the screen. A measured melodrama, graphic western and disturbing horror film wrapped in a neat Shakespearean package, this Macbeth for a new age stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as the titular Lord and Lady. Treading the well-worn story of greed and loss with newly thoughtful footsteps,
Around the Web: It’s General Leia, Not Princess, Mad Max: Fury Road & More
Entertainment Weekly’s big Star Wars: The Force Awakens feature, with four separate covers, includes this tiny but not insignificant detail—in the film, Princess Leia is now General Leia. Director J.J. Abrams told EW this: “She’s referred to as General, But … there’s a moment in the movie where a character sort of slips and calls her ‘Princess.’”
Ever wondered why she was referred to as a Princess in the first place?
Around the Web: News on Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse & More
Collider spoke to Simon Kinberg, writer/producoer on X-Men: Apocalypse and producer on Deadpool, about Fox's two highly anticipated superhero films in 2016. We suggest you read the full interview, as it's rich in detail about both films. One thing we'd like to highlight here is, for X-Men, how the breakout from Days of Future Past,
X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer Attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Collider reports that the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse will be attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Apocalypse joins Captain America: Civil War as two of the big 2016 films wisely attaching their trailers to what could be the largest opening in film history. What is already guaranteed about The Force Awakens is it'll open
Watch This New Girls Teaser and Get Excited About Season 5
The trials, tribulations and humiliations of Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) and her closest friends will continue in season five of Dunham's brilliant Girls. In 25 seconds, the new teaser packs a lot of funny into a small package—the package in this case being Hannah's body, as she dances 'as if no one's watching' in a class that includes at least one person she knows very well.
Girls returns for season five on February 21, and Dunham has said that the series will likely end after the sixth season.
Third Annual Middleburg Film Festival Draws Deep Roster of Talent
In it's third year, the Middleburg Film Festival is becoming a vibrant late festival season stop for filmmakers and film enthusiasts alike. Middleburg is in Virginia's horse country, and its beauty can hardly be improved upon in late October, but as much as a draw as the setting is, the festival itself, created by BET co-founder and Sundance Institute member Sheila Johnson and ably directed by Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Susan Koch, is drawing people for it's discerning slate and roster of talent.
The Incredible Link Between Helena Bonham Carter & Suffragette Villain
In Sarah Gavron’s film Suffragette, about the fight to gain votes for women in Edwardian England, the Prime Minister, Lord Herbert Asquith, opposes women’s suffrage and, on this issue, falls squarely on the wrong side of history. When it came time to cast the film, which stars Carey Mulligan, Gavron had Helena Bonham Carter at the top of her wish list to play one of the Suffragettes.
Showrunners From Power, Veep, Louie & More at NYTF’s Creative Keynote Panel
Last night at the New York Television Festival creative keynote panel "Running the Show: A Big Picture Conversation on Creating for the Small Screen," Power showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh expressed her frustration with gender politics in the entertainment industry.
“I’d like for it not to be a thing when there are a bunch of women showrunners,“ she said. “And also not for it to be pointed out all the time,
Talking to Julianne Moore & Ellen Page About Freeheld
Part love story, part evolution of reluctant activists, Freeheld represents a personal and professional turning point for producer/actress Ellen Page.
“It is pretty mind-blowing how much my internal journey went along with getting this movie made. I wasn’t out when I signed on to produce the film and play Stacie. I remember thinking, ‘there is no way you can make this movie and not be out. There’s just no way,’”
Watch Kathleen Kennedy Promise Female Director for Star Wars
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, one of the driving forces behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, recently spoke at Fortune Magazine’s Powerful Women Summit. Among the topics she touched upon was how the majority of the people on her Star Wars executive team and in her story group are women. She also pointed out that of the two films already cast,
Kathleen Kennedy Reveals Star Wars: The Force Awakens Continues Skywalker Saga
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy dropped a few very interesting tidbits in a recent interview with Costco Connection magazine about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When George Lucas handpicked Kennedy to succeed him after the sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company in 2012, Kennedy was stunned. “When George asked me I was completely unprepared and surprised because we had just gone out to have lunch together, I thought,”
“The Truth IS Still Out There” in this new The X-Files Trailer
The first 24-seconds of the trailer begins with a man’s voice in a low staccato rhythm, “It will probably start on a Friday. What will seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia, driven by a well oiled, well armed and multinational group of elites, using alien technology the government’s been hiding for seventy years.” If we heard nothing else but this, punctuated by a single base note, we could guess which dynamic duo is returning after an almost fourteen year absence –
Female Directors Shone at the Toronto International Film Festival
One of the surprises and highlights of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was the number of films about women and the number directed by women. Sure, most were small indies. But in an industry where only 1.9 percent of the 100 top-grossing fictional films distributed in the United States from 2007 to 2014 were directed by women, according to a report released in August by the University of Southern California, the news at TIFF was encouraging.
The Martian, Spotlight, Sicario, & Room Wow at TIFF
The Toronto International Film Festival is celebrating its 40th year with one of its most diverse and adventurous programming slates, from blockbusters to high-prestige, likely awards contenders to small films from directors from all parts of the globe.
Generating early buzz among the much-anticipated Hollywood films was The Martian, Ridley Scott’s adventure in space that had its world premiere at TIFF. Starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars while a dedicated ground crew (played by a cast including Jessica Chastain,
Post Apocalyptic Animated Comedy Cassius and Clay Will be Awesome
Have you ever watched Archer? If the answer is no, rectify this situation immediately. Comedy Central’s genius animated comedy, created by Adam Reed, is consistently hilarious. This animated spy thriller follows Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) and his often bloody, absurd exploits with his fellow operatives (which includes Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler and Jessica Walter, the latter best known as Lucielle Bluth on Arrested Development).
Now Archer creator Adam Reed is teaming up with writer and executive producer Megan Ganz,
HBO Teases Westworld & Amy Schumer Live at the Apollo
It almost looks like a conventional western, which wouldn’t be a bad thing for HBO considering the last time they tackled the genre they gave us Deadwood. Only Westworld is hardly a proper western, as many of those cowboys and cowgirls aren’t actually human.
HBO dropped the teaser right before the True Detective finale last night, and it’s a creepy little number. Loosely based on the 1973 film written and directed by Michael Crichton,
Actress/Producer Miranda Bailey on The Diary of a Teenage Girl
As CEO of Cold Iron Pictures, Miranda Bailey believed strongly in Marielle Heller’s directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, itself an adaptation of the critically acclaimed graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. As a producer, Bailey had already proven herself to have a keen eye—she executive produced Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and more recently, Time out of Mind,
Comic-Con 2015: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Panel
There were a ton of major moments for film and TV fans at Comic-Con, but it's inarguable which panel was the most hotly anticipated. So fans got to properly freak out in Hall H when Star Wars:The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, producer and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and writer Lawrence Kasdan sat down to dish some dirt on the film, bringing the cast up on stage—Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson,