Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
Fans of Greta Gerwig know her as the go-to muse of indie filmdom’s mumblecore movement and for her collaborations with such notable directors as Joe Swanberg (LOL, Nights and Weekends) and Noah Baumbach (Greenberg,
Writer/Director Margaret Betts on her new Film Novitiate
What happens when a Manhattan socialite turned filmmaker (The Carrier, a 2011 doc about the AIDS pandemic in Africa) makes an impulse pre-flight purchase of a biography about Mother Teresa that contains revealing letters about her passionate relationship with God?
If you are Margaret Betts,
Writer/Director Rebecca Daly on Exploring a Community on the Edge in Good Favour
For her third feature Good Favour director Rebecca Daly, working with co-writer Glenn Montgomery, left her native Ireland, where her first two films were set, for Belgium. She also centered her story more on an ensemble, in this case a remote religious community that’s upended when a young, mysterious man appears out of nowhere and joins them, rather than the more intimate stories anchored by female heroines of her first two films.
Daly’s debut feature was the thriller The Other Side of Sleep,
Emmy-Nominated Veep Writers Master Insult-Driven Satire in the Age of Trump
On the face of it, few things sound less intrinsically funny than “presidential library.” And yet for ten wickedly hilarious episodes this spring, HBO comedy Veep packed in more jokes per minute than any of its competition by tracking the self-glorifying quests of a narcissistic politician, expert in the art of personal attacks, who’s willing to say anything and betray anybody if it means holding onto power. Portrayed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Selina Meyer spends most of the season on a quest to memorialize her eight-month “legacy”
Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton on Adapting Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle
Writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton re-teamed with his Short Term 12 star Brie Larson for The Glass Castle, based on Jeannette Walls’ best-selling memoir about her chaotic childhood. Walls’ parents struggled with substance abuse and mental illness, and their four children were often hungry and neglected. Larson plays Walls as a young adult, professionally successful as a gossip columnist in New York. As the film opens, we see her leave an elegant restaurant after dinner with her Wall Street fiancé and his prospective client. From her taxi,
Taylor Sheridan Talks his Chilling Directorial Debut Wind River
From actor (lawman David Hale on FX’s Sons of Anarchy) to acclaimed screenwriter (2015’s Mexican drug-war thriller Sicario, 2016’s Texas-set neo-Western Hell or High Water) to writer-director (Wind River, opening today), Taylor Sheridan has had quite a career trajectory since he first popped up on the Hollywood scene in the mid-90s as a TV acting staple. The 47-year-old Lone Star native considers his three feature films so far to be part of a trilogy that examines the state of the American frontier,
Talking to Landline Writer/Director Gillian Robespierre & Producer Elisabeth Holm
The year is 1995. Bill Clinton is president, Natalie Merchant sings about the weather, Mad About You is must-see TV, Lorena Bobbitt jokes are all the rage, floppy discs are a clunky necessity – and cellphones are nowhere to be seen.
Director-writer Gillian Robespierre and producer Elisabeth Holm’s first film together, the 2014 art-house circuit darling Obvious Child, was a moving contemporary comedy that focused on a stand-up comic (Jenny Slate) who deals with an unexpected pregnancy after a one-night stand.
Writer/Director Edgar Wright Talks his Brilliant new Film Baby Driver
*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.
It’s is odd that British auteur and fan-boy fave Edgar Wright, 43, known for spoofing horror flicks (2004’s Shaun of the Dead), buddy-cop procedurals (2007’s Hot Fuzz) and sci-fi thrillers (2013’s The World’s End) has produced his most mature and satisfying spin on a popular genre – this time,
John Waters Interviews Sofia Coppola at the Provincetown Film Festival
Sofia Coppola is Hollywood royalty, an Oscar winner for Lost in Translation, and she has a highly-anticipated new film, The Beguiled, ready to hit theaters. But the soft-spoken director is known for being reticent in interviews.
So it’s no wonder that the Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) paired Coppola with renowned raconteur John Waters for a one-on-one conversation when Coppola was honored recently as the PIFF’s 2017 Filmmaker on the Edge.
Dear White People Creator Justin Simien Talks Race and Comedy
In Netflix series Dear White People, sarcastic black radio host Samantha (Logan Browning), worn out after a long day of anti-racist activism at fictional Ivy League Winchester College, asks her best friend Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson) to "Say something funny and specific." Joelle obliges with a snappy one liner involving Drake and his ancient sitcom Degrassi High, propelling the show into its next scene on a buoyant comedic note.
All Eyez on Me Writers Show All Sides of Tupac Shakur
When Tupac Shakur got beaten by a couple of Oakland cops for jaywalking, Eddie Gonzalez, co-writer of the late rapper's All Eyez on Me bio-pic (opening Friday) could relate. Growing up poor in and around L.A.'s tough Compton neighborhood, Gonzalez says "I know about being harassed by police officers. You feel like don't have a voice but you want to say something, do something. That's why people connected with Tupac, and that's why I connected with him.
Zoe Lister-Jones on her Directorial Debut Band Aid
Zoe Lister-Jones has a robust career as a comic and dramatic actress. She’s a regular on the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces and had a featured role as then-Senator Joe Biden’s assistant in HBO’s 2016 drama Confirmation about the Clarence Thomas hearings famous for the testimony from Anita Hill.
But in the indie film world, Lister-Jones has thrived by creating her own roles and wearing many production hats.
Black Mirror‘s Charlie Brooker & Annabel Jones on TV’s Most Twisted Show
British sci-fi series Black Mirror reflects with chilling plausibility myriad ways in which technology brings out the worst in human behavior — one freestanding episode at a time. Creator Charlie Brooker and producer Annabel Jones, in Los Angeles on a break from shooting the fourth season of their Netflix limited series, say they hate repeating themselves and love the anthology format. "It's lunacy but by doing each episode as a one-off 50-minute film,
Talking to Writer/Director/Star Demetri Martin About his new Film Dean—Part II
In part I of our interview with the comedian-turned-filmmaker, Demetri Martin explained how he came to make his first semi-autobiographical feature, Dean. The second part begins with Martin’s discussion of the way he incorporated aspects of his own experiences into supporting characters in his script.
"They're not based on anybody, and the story didn't happen to me. My mom sold our house years ago. I was happy about that.
Talking to Writer/Director/Star Demetri Martin About his new Film Dean—Part I
Although best known from TV, beginning with The Daily Show in 2005, actor-comedian Demetri Martin has acted in such movies as Contagion, Taking Woodstock, and In A World…. Now he adds a few more hyphens to his resume as the writer-director-star of Dean, a comedy about a New York-based illustrator who flees to Los Angeles after his mother dies.
Talking to Writer/Director Robin Swicord About Wakefield
It’s been a decade since screenwriter Robin Swicord’s directorial debut, The Jane Austen Book Club, opened in theaters and managed to gross slightly more than its $6 million budget in worldwide ticket sales. Since that time, she has struggled to find backers for a sophomore effort – despite being Oscar-nominated for her contributions to the adapted screenplay for 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
It’s a situation that many females in the industry know all too well.
Actor Tracy Letts & Writer/Director Azazel Jacobs Talk The Lovers
Writer-director Azazel Jacobs' rueful new drama began with Debra Winger's interest in its 2011 predecessor, Terri. The actress told Jacobs she liked that movie, so he consulted with her as he wrote what eventually emerged as The Lovers. In it, Winger and actor-playwright Tracy Letts are Mary and Michael, a suburban couple whose marriage has gone dormant. Each is dallying with another — Richard (Aiden Gillen) and Lucy (Melora Walters),
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story Doc Writer/Director on Unsung Film Heroes
The work of storyboard artist Harold Michelson and researcher Lillian Michelson was integral to some of the most iconic films in Hollywood history: The Ten Commandments, The Apartment, The Birds, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate and Rosemary’s Baby, to name just a few.
But you won’t find their names in most of the credits.
The couple,
John Ridley on his Post-Rodney King Verdict Riots Doc Let It Fall
He wrote 12 Years a Slave and tackled anti-Muslim prejudice, homophobia and immigration in his American Crime TV series. Now, 25 years after the Rodney King "not guilty" verdict sparked riots in Los Angeles, Oscar-winning writer-director-producer John Ridley takes another deep dive into American dysfunction with Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992. Opening theatrically April 21 and airing on ABC April 28, the documentary examines a decade's worth of catastrophic decisions culminating in the six-day uprising that cost 55 lives and more than a billion dollars in property damage.
Soldier Tells His Tale in Iraq War Drama Sand Castle
Screenwriter Chris Roessner's strange but rewarding career began the summer after he graduated from high school, when he sold air humidifiers door to door in his home town of Temple, Texas. Three years later, he found himself in Saddam Hussein’s abandoned palace working the night shift for U.S. Army occupation forces. Inspired by his deployment in Iraq, Roessner wrote Sand Castle (April 21), which stars Nicholas Hoult and Henry Cavill as soldiers working to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi civilians.
