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.
With NASA’s Help, The Martian Plumbs Real Science for Thrills
As a genre, science fiction tends to lean more heavily on the fiction side of things than the science. Think Star Wars, The Matrix, and Blade Runner. Ridley Scott’s latest movie The Martian, on the other hand, is an ode to the compelling nature of actual science, with both a plausible plot and realistic aesthetics.
New Truth Trailer Recalls the Scandal That Rocked Washington
“Why did you get into journalism?” young reporter Mike Smith (Topher Grace) asks Dan Rather (Robert Redford). “Curiosity” he replies, the trait that would serve him well on a remarkable career that would end, abruptly, in disgrace.
Truth is based on the book “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power” by his producer Mary Mapes (played by Cate Blanchett). It delves into the drama surrounding CBS’s handling of a incendiary investigative report in 2004 detailing George W.
The Brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates Will Write “Black Panther” Comic Series
National correspondent for The Atlantic, author of "Between the World and Me," a nominee for the National Book Award's nonfiction prize and arguably one of the most important books of the year, and unabashed Marvel Comics geek. These all describe Ta-Nehisi Coates, and they're all reasons to find the news that Marvel has asked him to write the new "Black Panther" comic series very exciting indeed.
The series is set to be published next spring,
The Peanuts Movie has a Trailer
They've had Christmas specials galore, but Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Woodstock and Linus have never had a big theatrical film before. Finally, after 65 years and countless adventures (and misadventures—sorry, Charlie Brown), the gang's got a film. The whole bunch is here—along with our aforementioned favorites, there’s Peppermint Patty, Pig Pen, Sally, Schroeder and Lucy van Pelt, to name a few.
Director Steve Martino, writers Bryan and Craig Schulz and Cornelius Uliano look to have crafted a film that’s of our time (a dance interlude starring eternal klutz Charlie Brown set to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win”
Amanda Seyfried & Balthazar Getty Join Twin Peaks
We're patiently, quietly growing very excited about Showtime's upcoming Twin Peaks revival. Written by the creators of the original series, David Lynch and Mark Frost, with every episode directed by Lynch, Twin Peaks will be one of the most exciting shows in television when it premieres sometime in 2017. When we went and listened to Lynch speak at Brooklyn's Academy of Music way back in May of 2014,
