Talking to Little Men Director & Co-Writer Ira Sachs
Like his 2014 film Love is Strange, director/co-writer Ira Sachs’ new film Little Men is a touchingly realistic examination of the relationships between people thrown together by circumstance. In Love is Strange, the economics of life in New York force a recently wed gay couple (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) to live separately after Molina’s character loses his job. In Little Men, a struggling actor (Greg Kinnear) inherits a Brooklyn building from his father and moves his own family there.
Chatting With Writer/Director Patricia Rozema About Into the Forest
From her 1987 debut feature I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing to Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), writer-director Patricia Rozema makes films with women characters that drive the action. But what’s unusual is how sanguine Rozema is about the always-looming issue of the dearth of central women’s roles and the financing obstacles most female-led films face, if they are not about Ghostbusters.
“You just never know what’s plain old getting-a-film-together difficultness and what’s because-it’s-girls difficultness.
Comic-Con: The Big Bang Theory Writer’s Panel
No group is happier to appear at Comic-Con than The Big Bang Theory writers. “This is our Coachella,” Tara Hernandez told the audience filling one of Comic-Con’s biggest venues. The writers and producers appeared on a panel with their real-life science consultant, David Saltzberg, moderated by actress Melissa Rauch, who plays Bernadette.
The characters in The Big Bang Theory are passionate fans of the same comic books, movies, television series,
How Lights Out Writer Stretched Fear of Dark Premise to Feature Length Hit
The 2014 short version of Lights Out teased a primal horror hook grounded in universal fear: people freak out in total darkness. After director David F. Sandberg uploaded his YouTube mini-thriller about a monster who pops up when the lights go out, the clip attracted 3.2 million views and caught the notice of Hollywood producers. When they enlisted screenplay writer Eric Heisserer to expand the short, he faced a daunting question: how do you stretch a two-minute,
Chatting With Legendary Filmmaker James Schamus at the Provincetown Film Festival
James Schamus has been responsible for some of the best films of the last 20 years. The award-winning screenwriter, producer and CEO of quality film juggernaut Focus Features has put his stamp on modern cinema with a slew of stylish, intelligent independent films, which has included producing some of the most respected filmmakers in the industry. These filmmakers have included Todd Haynes, Nicole Holofcener, Michel Gondry, Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola, and the Coen Brothers. His creative partnership with Ang Lee has been a quiet,
Husband & Wife Filmmakers on GMO Thriller Consumed
Husband and wife filmmaking team Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, who also collaborated on 2012’s Lola Versus, have joined forces again to tackle the murky world of GMOs to create the thriller Consumed. The film is directed by Wein and stars Lister-Jones as a mother with a sick child who is propelled into a dangerous world when she believes GMOs might be the cause of his mysterious illness.
Building a Ghost City in the Desert for Tom Hanks’ A Hologram for the King
In A Hologram for the King, Tom Hanks' American businessman Alan Clay visits an eerily deserted "city of the future" eager to firm up his appointment with the King of Saudi Arabia. Instead, he learns only that a meeting might happen at some vague point in the future. "It's a very strong image to see Tom in his black suit standing there in the middle of the desert,"
Writer/Director Ben Falcone on The Boss, Working With Wife Melissa McCarthy & More
In The Boss Melissa McCarthy stars as Michelle Darnell, a megalomaniacal businesswoman who has to rebuild her life with the help of her long-suffering former assistant (Kristen Bell) after a stint in federal prison. We speak to director, co-writer, co-producer, and McCarthy’s husband Ben Falcone, about working with his wife again- he also directed and co-wrote the 2014 McCarthy vehicle Tammy– how they resolve problems and geeking out over Peter Dinklage.
Demolition Screenwriter Bryan Sipe Pours Himself Into Jake Gyllenhaal Character
Bryan Sipe is the screenwriter of two films released in 2016 that could hardly be more different in tone and subject matter. He adapted Nicholas Sparks’ novel The Choice, a romance set on the shore of North Carolina, and, he wrote an original screenplay for Demolition, a provocative drama about a man named Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) who literally and metaphorically takes his life apart after his wife is killed in a car accident.
Don Cheadle on Co-Writing, Directing & Starring in Miles Ahead
Don Cheadle co-wrote, directed, and stars in Miles Ahead, an impressionistic riff on the life of iconic musician Miles Davis. Cheadle was determined not to make a traditional, chronological story. “I wanted to make a movie that Miles Davis would want to star in. Much more than something that you could just read in an autobiography or you could read or see in a documentary that made sure to check all the important boxes.
Writer/Director Musa Syeed on his Quiet, Moving A Stray
For Musa Syeed, a sense of place, past and culture are indelible parts of his work. A son of immigrant parents, the filmmaker has never failed to create compelling, quietly interesting narratives whether in documentary or fiction film that are uniquely grounded in the communities in which they are set. Previously, the filmmaker made the international Valley of Saints, (which he spoke to The Credits about in 2013) a complex love story teeming with the culture and lush setting of Kashmir.
Melissa and Winston Rauch’s Golden Script for The Bronze
In Bryan Buckley's The Bronze, co-written by star Melissa Rauch and her husband Winston, a small town girl who was once America's sweetheart has gone to seed in the most American way possible; by milking her minor celebrity for freebies and handouts. Rauch plays Hope Ann Greggory, a former gymnast whose gusty performance on a ruptured Achilles heel at the world’s most prestigious gymnastics tournament earned an unlikely bronze medal for the U.S.
SXSW 2016: Writer/Director Sophie Goodhart on her Hilarious My Blind Brother
In the opening sequence of My Blind Brother, you meet Robbie (Adam Scott), physically fit save for the dark shades and the sweaty, anguished man he's pulling along via a tether that suggests his titular affliction. That man is his brother Bill (Nick Kroll), who Robbie has just dragged through an entire Marathon. And although he needs Bill, once they cross the finish line Robbie all but forgets Bill exists, thanking the person who was with him "every step of the way,"…God.
SXSW 2016: Writer/Director Joey Klein, Tatiana Maslany & Tom Cullen on The Other Half
Joey Klein’s The Other Half manages to be both a beautifully shot tone poem about grief and loss, and a deftly written drama about two people at loose ends who find in each other a glimmer of hope. The lead performances from Tom Cullen and Tatiana Maslany are outstanding, and writer/director Klein allows them plenty of room to experiment with the varieties of grief, hope and regret that each character struggles with throughout.
Writer/Director Emmanuelle Bercot on Standing Tall
French actress and director Emmanuelle Bercot took the Cannes Film Festival by storm in 2015. She starred in Maiwenn’s Mon roi (My King) which garnered Bercot the festival’s Best Actress prize. Meanwhile, La Tete haute (Standing Tall), which Bercot cowrote and directed, kicked off the prestigious festival, making Bercot the first female director to open Cannes since 1987.
Bercot says that as an actress and a viewer,
SXSW 2016: The Duplass Brothers, A Journey that Began in Austin
The Duplass Brothers (Mark and Jay) were back at SXSW on Saturday to discuss their successful careers and provide some words of wisdom to filmmakers who are just starting off. Austin is where is all started for the New Orleans natives; they filmed their first feature film, The Puffy Chair, in Austin.
Their talk had the generous feel of a commencement address—here were two successful alums, grateful and humble, ready to share their hard-earned wisdom.
SXSW 2016: Ilana Glazer & Abbi Jacobson Talk Hillary Clinton, Broad City & More
YAS QUEEN! Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson of Comedy Central’s Broad City brought their special brand of irreverence and humor to SXSW on Saturday. Featured on a panel hosted by Maria Clare’s editor-in-chief, Anne Fulenwider, the friends chatted about their hilarious comedy and so much more.
Starting as a web series, Broad City made its television premiere in January 2014. The third season, which began on February 17, 2016,
SXSW Alumni: Lena Dunham’s Start in Austin
Girls creator Lena Dunham can credibly say that her career officially began at the SXSW Film Festival. It started with the rejection of her short film Creative Nonfiction. Instead of giving up on it, Dunham kept working on it and re-submitted the film. The determination paid off— Creative Nonfiction was accepted. When she came to Austin with the film, she not only had what she called "the best week of her life"
The Hilarious Writer/Director Michael Showalter Discusses Hello, My Name Is Doris
Hello, My Name is Doris, the latest comedy from Wet Hot American Summer co-creator Michael Showalter, stars Sally Field as a woman falling in love for the first time. We talk to the writer/director about creating a new type of comic protagonist, landing Sally Field and having to be the bad guy on set.
Hello, My Name is Doris started as a short film.
SXSW Alumni: Trey Parker & Matt Stone’s Start in Austin
As we settle into Austin and prepare for SXSW 2016, we're also looking back at some of the great careers that were launched here. We begin with longtime creative partners Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who brought their animated short, The Spirit of X-Mas and its' cadre of soon-to-be-infamous characters—Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny—to South by Southwest in 1997. Yet their road to SXSW began years earlier, in 1992, when Parker and Stone, then students at the University of Colorado,
