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,
Moira Walley-Beckett: Emmy-Winning Writer of Breaking Bad‘s Best Episode
After the 14th episode in Breaking Bad’s final season aired, creator and showrunner Vince Gilligan called it “the best episode we ever had or ever will have.” Titled "Ozymandias" after Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, it was the third-to-last episode in the series, and it was the one that, more so than any other in the show’s incredible run, crushed viewers. Death, betrayal and, at long last, the removal of any lingering hope that Walter White might somehow keep his family.
Love & Struggle in the City in Love is Strange
Writer/director Ira Sachs and painter Boris Torres were married in New York City in 2011. They joined the many couples who exchanged vows after the state legislature legalized same sex marriage in 2011. Their twin children were born a week after their marriage. It was around this time that Sachs was thinking about his fifth feature film. “I wanted to make a film about love from the very particular perspective of my own age and experience—as someone who’s not either very old or very young,
Fall Films Show Family Affairs Gone Bad (and Beyond)
As we look ahead to fall, we see several intriguing films coming out that focus, in one way or another, on family. While every year brings plenty of movies that focus on family matters, this year boasts what might be the single most astonishing film about a family ever created—Richard Linklater's masterpiece Boyhood. This gorgeous, meditative dance with time exposed the beauty, love, hardship and turmoil of one single family over 12-years, a feat of filmmaking that is all the more breathtaking for being in the service of a film that actually moves you. This fall’s family-centered films are a touch darker,
Comic-Con 2014: A Snapshot of Films, Panels & Events
Comic-Con and its overflowing abundance is upon us once again. We’ll help guide you through the costumed chaos with a selection of offerings from top movie studios, the “only at Comic-Con” events, and our own wish list of events.
Major Studio Showings:
Thursday, July 24
11:15am Toy Story That Time Forgot (Disney)
If the words “you’ve got a friend in me” set your heart aflutter,
Richard Linklater on his Masterful, Moving Family Epic Boyhood
It's hard not to be a Richard Linklater fan. Before Boyhood came out, we got the chance to sit down with him, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy to discuss their incredible 18-year odyssey making the Before trilogy. They were, unsurprisingly, passionate about what it was they'd accomplished—they captured a single relationship and covered it, in nine year increments, over 18-years. In Before Sunset, Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) are young,
Exec Producer & Writer on FX’s Tyrant Talks About Groundbreaking Show
FX's new show Tyrant is unlike anything currently on television. Showcasing Arab characters and cultures, set in the Middle East, the 10-episode first season is a bold step towards showing American audiences people and situations rarely depicted. While Netflix's Orange is the New Black is deservedly lauded for filling the frame with three dimensional female characters who are black, brown, gay and transgendered, Tyrant will put faces on our screen who have too often been portrayed as villains or marginal characters at best.
Taiwan, Paris & the Presidio: A Global Village Creates Lucy
Filmmaker Luc Besson has a thing for dangerous women. In 1990 Besson gave us Nikita, a felon-turned-assassin in La Feme Nikita. Four years later he came back with The Professional, in which a young girl named Mathilda (Natalie Portman) is trained by professional assassin Léon (Jean Reno) after her family is killed in a police raid. And three short years after that, Besson created his most powerful woman to date, Leeloo (Milla Jovovich),
Writer/Director David Cronenberg on Technology, Transformation & Money
David Cronenberg has a new short film , The Nest, that was recently commissioned by the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. The film is a single shot, 9-minute take in which a woman (Evelyne Brochu) is undergoing a surgery consultation with an unseen doctor (voiced by Cronenberg). The short doesn’t have any of Cronenberg’s trademark visual potency—nothing molts, explodes, or mutates—but what it does deliver, in spades, is his fascination with technology,
Filmmaking on the Edge at the 2014 Provincetown Film Festival
The Credits is back at the Provincetown Film Festival, and we'd be lying if we said we weren't just a little bit thrilled. Last year, our first in Provincetown, was the type of introduction that will marry you to a place, and a festival, for life. We had the great fortune to spend some time with legendary filmmaker, writer, visual artist, wit and unofficial (but sort of official) Provincetown mayor John Waters.
From Stage to Screen: Adapting Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys is the story of the rise and fall of The Four Seasons, the “clean-cut,” all-American rock band that actually had two ex-cons and enough mob connections to satisfy a Scorsese film. Yet in the early 1960s the band sold themselves as the (Jersey) boys next door, and created some deathless tunes in the process.
Jersey Boys began it’s life, of course, as the Tony Award-winning juggernaut that became the 13th longest-running show in Broadway history when it played its 3,487th performance this past April 9th.
Watch How to Train Your Dragon 2‘s Dean DeBlois Take Kids’ Questions
We learned a lot from talking to writer/director Dean DeBlois. One is, he must be one of the most calm, even tempered and laid back individuals helming a major film franchise in the business. Two, a lot of work, and risk, went into making How to Train Your Dragon 2, a sequel that is being heralded as one of the best in animated history. And three, the man is committed to creating an animated trilogy that’ll live on and inspire kids and adults alike for years to come.
