The Big Short & the Frenzy of Must-See Films in December
As the year comes to a close, there's a frenzy of films coming out in the next few weeks that are required viewing. I caught a screening last week of Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant (we'll be discussing the film in more detail soon), a brutal, simultaneously gorgeous film that I haven't been able to totally shake since. In a way, the outrageous commitment the film required (you can read all about the production process here) reminded me of what it took for director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer to pull off
Rocky: From his Humble Beginnings to Creed
It’s been nearly forty years since Rocky Balboa faced his first opponent in the ring. Now after five sequels, three Oscar wins and an onscreen legacy that would be difficult to match, the former champion returns to the big screen as a trainer in the new drama Creed. The reviews have already started pouring in—the critics love this film. To appreciate what director Ryan Coogler and
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
Sicario Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan on Writing Great Dialogue
In Sicario Emily Blunt stars alongside Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro as an FBI agent who is struggling to maintain her principles when she is recruited into the war on drugs at the border between Mexico and the US. The Credits talks to screenwriter Taylor Sheridan about what attracted him to this world and how being a “not terribly good actor” helped inform his scriptwriting.
What attracted you to this topic?
The Strange, Wild History of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld
With the opening of newest James Bond adventure Spectre, we’re taking a look at that title and seeing both a return of James Bond’s long lost nemesis and a jumping off point for the current Bond franchise to reboot the “what-once-was-old-is-new-again” relationship between Bond and his most nefarious enemy. Much as Skyfall filled in Bond’s early backstory, which was absent from the previous films and author Ian Fleming’s books,
Check out the First Trailer for Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq
Spike Lee's upcoming film Chi-Raq, whose title was born from the report that homicides in Chicago surpassed the death toll of American Special Forces operations in Iraq, looks at the troubling violence through the lens of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata." Written in 411 BC, "Lysistrata" tracked one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Her ingenious plan was to persuade the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their lovers and husbands until they ended the war.
The First Official Trailer for Charlie Kaufman’s Mind-blowing Anomalisa
We got a chance to see Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and Duke Johnson's stop-motion masterpiece Anomalisa at the Middleburg Film Festival, and we were floored. The film centers on Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), a customer service expert whose giving a speech at a convention in Cincinnati. While there, he meets a shy, insecure woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh),
Trouble in Paradise: New Trailer for Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea
Talk about a massive shift from one film to the next—Angelina Jolie's third feature as a director, the experimental By the Sea, follows her adaptation of Lauren Hillenbrand's nonfiction bestseller Unbroken. From the WWII set Unbroken, which followed the incredible true story of Olympian, soldier and eventual POW Louis Zamperini, Jolie's tackled a dark, emotionally volatile story about the dissolution of a marriage between two people who happen to be exceedingly good looking and married in real life.
Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is the Most Heartfelt Horror Film Ever Made
The story of Macbeth is certainly no stranger to adaptation. In fact, the Scottish play belongs to an impressive tradition of auteurist variation, including Orson Welles’ notoriously troubled 1948 production, Roman Polanski’s 1971 film and Kurosawa’s well-loved in 1957.
Any Shakespearean adaptation carries with it piles of textual and philosophical baggage, requiring not only a new spin on a well-worn story but a justification for a new iteration.
Are you Prepared for an Adam Sandler Western? Watch The Ridiculous Six Trailer
You've got Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight due in December, and a remake of John Sturges’ iconic 1960 western The Magnificent Seven (itself based on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai), directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt due out next September. And in case you weren't aware, you've also got Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous Six,
Trailer for Pride + Prejudice + Zombies, Oh My
“A woman must have a thorough knowledge of singing, dancing and the art of war.”
When you think of Jane Austen you think of the landed English gentry of the 19th century, women dancing in long Empire-waisted dresses gossiping and plotting, and English class. If we were to play a word association game what would you say if we said “Pride and Prejudice” – you might say Mr. Darcy, Laurence Olivier, Colin Firth,
Fall Read/Watch List: Read These Books, Then See Their Film Adaptations
This year, we’ve been treated to a variety of great cinematic adaptations. From Paper Towns this summer (read our interview with the screenwriters here), to more recent films like The Martian and Black Mass, Hollywood, once again, has been looking to the page for cinematic inspiration. Many of the films this fall are no different with at least ten more book adaptations hitting the big screen in 2015.
Back to the Future Day & Films That Got the Future Right
As we’re sure you’re aware, today, Wednesday October 21, 2015, is the very day in the future that Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to in Back to the Future Part II. At the time of filming, 2015 was more than a quarter-century away, yet the vision of the future writer/director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob Gale envisioned hasn’t turned out to be total bunk, despite Zemeckis’s misgivings.
"I always hated —
Emma Donoghue on Adapting Her Novel Room for the Big Screen
It’s still pretty rare — and usually unadvisable — for a novelist to adapt his/her book for the movie version. Sure, there have been notable exceptions over the years: Carrie Fisher did it for Postcards from the Edge and John Irving won an Oscar for The Cider House Rules, his first and only screenplay. But lately more novelists are defying convention and tackling the screen versions of their hit books.
Writer/Director James Vanderbilt on Turning Recent History Into Truth
In Truth, opening Friday, writer and first time director James Vanderbilt, who wrote, among other scripts, the screenplay for Zodiac, has taken a tough, hard, look at the behind-the-scenes story of the CBS 60 Minutes II news staff that reported on President George W. Bush’s late 60’s and early 70’s National Guard duty in the run up to his re-election in 2004. It’s a compelling procedural which dramatizes the personal and professional costs of news reporting in the already fast paced TV news cycle at the historical moment when Internet blogging entered the political and cultural arena.
The Coen Brothers Return to Comedy With Hail, Caesar!
Joel and Ethan Coen are probably best known for their dark, twisting crime dramas like the impeccable western No Country For Old Men and their brilliant, snowbound Fargo. But as many fans know, and as the enduring legacies of The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou? attests, they excel at comedy, too. Particularly comedy with a bit of screwball menace baked in,
Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin & Walter Isaacson Talk Steve Jobs at NYFF
This past weekend we attended a panel discussion of Steve Jobs at the 53rd New York Film Festival (NYFF). Steve Jobs, like The Social Network (about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), is a masterfully crafted story of one of the most influential men of the last fifty years. The film, directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, written by Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote the The
Here’s How They Created the Ingenious Structure of Steve Jobs
One of the difficulties of making a film about historical figures or events can be deciding how to remain faithful to the subject but still tell a good story. Real life doesn’t always follow a neat narrative arc. In fact it almost never does. Danny Boyle’s latest film Steve Jobs is an interesting example of a way to approach that predicament.
One way the film avoids the dangers of becoming a plodding account of history is that it’s only loosely based on real events: “We’re deeply indebted to Walter Isaacson’s [biography of Jobs] and the depth of his research,
A Game of Thrones Movie? Rumors, Rumors…
Editor's note: we were excited by the news reported by The Daily Star that George R. R. Martin had confirmed a Game of Thrones movie was in the works—alas, it looks like that might not be the case. Variety reported this morning that Martin to took his Livejournal to debunk this rather juicy rumor. Below is the initial story, which got our hopes up a tad too much.
