Oscar Nominees Discuss Their Preparation – Part III

We’ve heard from nominees like directors Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Bennett Miller and actors Felicity Jones and J.K. Simmons, all discussing their preparation for tackling their subjects. Movies OnDemand put together these fantastic (and very brief) video interviews not just with the nominees, but with many of the serious contenders this year, including director Jon Stewart (Rosewater), composer Atticus Ross (Gone Girl) and actress Katherine Waterson (Inherent Vice).

Novel Approach: 5 Films Based on Books Premiering at Sundance

Who will break out big at Sundance this year? Which film, which director, which star will get the major viral boost from word of mouth or jury prize?

The 2014 iteration of the Park City, Utah, festival opens on January 22. As usual, there is an abundance of riches to consider beyond the big screen. There are the excellent panel discussions, for instance, which this year features a first-ever appearance by director George Lucas.

Women on the Big Screen: Eight Movies to Watch for in 2015 (Including Tina & Amy)

So we bid adieu to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as perhaps the most charming, witty Golden Globe hosts of all time. The longtime friends and charismatic collaborators finished their three-year run last at last night’s 72nd annual Golden Globes ceremony just as they began it: sharp, topical, irreverent, and so comfortable together on stage they make everyone else comfortable (even those at the butt of their jokes). It was a great run,

A Glimpse at the 72nd Annual Golden Globes

The 72nd Annual Golden Globes air this Sunday night at 8 pm EST, with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returning for a third consecutive time. You know these two are going to keep it fresh.

Let’s take a look at a few of the nominees and see what we know going in.

Best Motion Picture, Drama

On the one hand, you have Richard Linklater’s Boyhood,

Taken 3 & Liam Neeson’s Long History of Bringing the Pain

Poor Bryan Mills. He's had a rough couple of years. This CIA operative had put in his time for his country and just wanted to enjoy his retirement. The Sunday paper. Slippers. Maybe a little light gardening. But then, his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) gets Taken (2008) in France. So that was bad. But then it got worse; she was taken by human sex traffickers. Oof. The thing is, if these monsters had made a list of all the people whose daughter it would be inadvisable to kidnap,

Big Eyes Screenwriters Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

It's sometime in the 1950s when Margaret (Amy Adams) quickly packs her things, grabs her daughter Jane, and leaves her husband. In short order she finds herself in San Francisco, applying for a job painting Humpty Dumpty's on cribs for a manufacturer. Margaret's passion is painting, specifically small children, looking straight at you, with very, very big eyes.

The paintings were a touch creepy, on the very fringes of what could be considered real art,

Paul Thomas Anderson & his Team Tweak Los Angeles in Inherent Vice

There can be few novelists more daunting to adapt for the screen than Thomas Pynchon. The worlds he creates, with their sprawling casts and Ouroboros-like narratives, present major problems for any filmmaker looking to keep his or her film coherent and under nine hours. Paul Thomas Anderson, the man who riffed on Upton Sinclair's "Oil" and turned it into the mesmerizing There Will Be Blood, is as good a candidate as you'd likely find to handle such an assignment.

Writer/Director Scott Cohen on Filming Red Knot at Sea

The story of how Red Knot was made is uncannily similar to the film Red Knot itself, a product of writer/director Scott Cohen’s novel approach and the willingness of his cast and crew to join him on this incredible journey.

The film’s premise is deceptively simple; young newlyweds Chloe (Olivia Thirlby) and Peter (Vincent Kartheiser) take a novel approach to their honeymoon by spending it aboard the Red Knot,

Piecing Together The Imitation Game

The only thing more astonishing than Alan Turing’s efforts during World War II was the way his own government treated him after. Turing was, by all measures, a war hero, and his and his team's efforts were partly responsible for saving, by some estimates, 14 million lives.

One of the fathers of computing, he led a group of linguists, scholars, chess champions and intelligence officers in an effort to crack the “unbreakable” codes of Germany’s Enigma machine.

The Sundance of Horror: L.A.’s Screamfest is Freakish Fun

L.A.’s Screamfest is assured of two things this year: it will once again be the biggest horror film festival in the United States, and it won’t draw the ire of the Professional Clown Club. There appear to be no murderous clowns in this year’s festival lineup.

If you’ve been following entertainment news over the past few days, you might have noticed the kerfuffle between the Professional Clown Club and FX’s American Horror Story,

The Life of the Mind: Making The Theory of Everything

In an introduction to a first edition of Stephen Hawking’s groundbreaking popular science book A Brief History of Time, Carl Sagan tells a story about how he happened to wander into the ancient ceremony of the investiture of new fellows into the Royal Society. On that day, Sagan noticed in the front row a young man in a wheelchair very slowly signing his name in a book. “A book that bore on its earliest pages the signature of Isaac Newton.

Spirits & Passion Collide in The Book of Life

Animator, painter, writer and director Jorge R. Gutiérrez has won Annies and Emmys for his animated television series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon. His work caught the eye of another Mexican polymath, writer, director, producer and novelist Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), who’s producing Gutiérrez ‘s feature debut The Book of Life, which bows this Friday, October 17. The Book of Life is an enchanting story of friendship,

World War II Veterans Helped Fuel Fury‘s Realism

The most all encompassing war in history has been depicted on screen countless times. Filmmakers have been portraying the horrors, and heroes, of the "good" war, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge to Pearl Harbor, from every conceivable angle. In just six years, from 1939 to 1945, World War II took the lives of more than sixty million people, some 2.5% of the global population, and filmmakers have been grappling with the immensity of the war ever since.

Erik Parker & One9 Discuss Nas: Time Is Illmatic – Part II

Click here for Part I of our conversation with music journalist/producer Erik Parker and multimedia artist/director One9.

Erik Parker and One9’s Nas: Time is Illmatic clocks in at a brisk 75-minutes, as compact and filled with detail as a Nas song. The documentary manages to examine nearly every credible element in the making of Nas's groundbreaking album, and really, the making of an artist and a man in a little over an hour.

Erik Parker & One9 on Their Doc Nas: Time is Illmatic – Part I

“I’m an eighth grade dropout…I didn’t know what the future was going to hold,” says Nasir Jones at the outset of journalist Erik Parker and multimedia artist One9’s documentary, Nas: Time is Illmatic. For the uninitiated, the future held one of the most groundbreaking hip hop albums of all time (the titular “Illmatic”), a legendary career, and its creator becoming the namesake of a fellowship at Harvard University’s Hip Hop Archive.

The Ambitious, Beguiling The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see your life through someone else’s eyes? In his ambitious feature debut, writer/director Ned Benson gives his characters this unique chance in the emotionally charged tale of love, loss and rediscovery that is The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. The film follows the relationship of estranged couple Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) from first blush to final breath as they try to regain the connection they once had.

The 52nd New York Film Festival

Major film premieres from three of cinema’s most iconoclastic directors, a documentary about one of the most controversial figures in recent American history and some of the best of world cinema highlight the 52nd New York Film Festival, which runs from September 26 to October 12.

As the last major festival of the year, you might think NYFF’s main slate would be filled with films that have already played in any one of the fests that came before,

Jonathan Tropper on Adapting his Novel This Is Where I Leave You

Novelist, screenwriter and television show creator Jonathan Tropper had the odd experience adapting his novel “This is Where I Leave You” for the screen before it was even published. “By the time I was on book tour, I was already writing the screenplay, and I got confused with what parts were only in the book and what were in the script,” he says. Tropper’s writing began attracting film producers since his debut novel "Plan B" was published in 2000.”

Working Through Birdman’s Brilliant Contradictions

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman, out October 17th, marks his first formal foray into the comedy world, but this film only strengthens his reputation for touching, intricately woven narratives. A little too intricate, perhaps, as Iñárritu’s focus on contradiction, validation, and all things meta blend into a swirling mass of crises for both viewers and characters alike. But worry not – Iñárritu has a plan, and Birdman proves to be a film that brings an audience closer to the story than they might expect.

The Bold Adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild for the Screen

There is a moment in Cheryl Strayed’s memoir “Wild” where she has it out with her mother while hiking in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon—only by this point, her mother is dead, and the reckoning is with Strayed's own grief and anger on what would have been her mother's fiftieth birthday. Strayed catalogued some of the worsts things her mother had done, with dying at forty-five being the worst of the worst. These included occasionally smoking pot in front of her and her siblings,