“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip” Director Marvin Lemus on a Family Adventure Through New Mexico
The title says it all: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is a PG comedy that follows a rambunctious family on an RV trek through New Mexico. Their destination? A very old village in Mexico, home to an ancient stone idol. By returning the haunted talisman to its ancestral home, ...
Reel Returns: Connecticut’s Film Investment Fuels Economic Growth in a Competitive State of Play
The evening before my conversation with Jonathan Black, a co-founder of the Connecticut Film and TV Alliance (CTFTVA), he was attending a hearing in Hartford. The Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee was listening to public testimony on Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s proposed film tax credit cut from 30% to 25%, a move that could strike ...
Inside “The Residence”: Creator Paul William Davies on Crafting a White House Whodunit
The Residence, produced by Shondaland for Netflix, is the much-anticipated whodunnit that is Shonda Rhimes’ second show set in the White House. The first, of course, was another beloved, Kerry Washington-led Scandal, which dealt in the shadowy world of Washington’s Olivia Pope, the queen of fixers. Now Rhimes and her collaborator Paul William Davies return ...
SXSW 2025: Tapping Into Texas’s Vast Potential to Become the Next Cinematic Frontier
This year’s SXSW film festival in Austin blew into town with a considerable tailwind of enthusiasm for the Lone Star state’s film and TV future. Every state in the union can claim unique cultures, geographies, and mythologies, but there’s no disputing that Texas looms very large in our collective cultural imagination. It’s a state that ...
From “Elf” to “Blue Bloods”: Veteran Producer Santiago Quiñones on the Unique Advantages of Filming in New York
Santiago Quiñones was a co-executive producer on Blue Bloods, CBS’s long-running police procedural that followed the Reagan family through their dynastic run within the NYPD. Quiñones, a born and bred New Yorker, joined the show assuming that, like previous projects, he might be moving on after a little while for another opportunity. Instead, he stayed ...
How “One Royal Holiday” Was One Royal Savior for an Inn in Connecticut
The premise of Hallmark Channel’s One Royal Holiday is as cozy as a snowy Christmas morning—Anna (Laura Osnes) helps a mother and son who are stranded in a blizzard, only to discover the pair are actually royalty. Gabriella and James Galant (played by Victoria Clark and Aaron Tveit) are members of the Royal Family of ...
How a Historic House in Connecticut Gave “Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane” the Perfect Location
Christmas may be over, but Christmas movies are a delight anytime. There are plenty of classic Christmas movies for pretty much every taste. The sentimental (or viewers of a certain age) might tell you that there’s no improvement upon Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life or, just a year later, George Seaton’s seminal 1947 ...
Best of 2024: How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City
*This interview was selected by measures having nothing to do with science as one of our standouts from 2024. The creation of Gotham for HBO’s shockingly good series The Penguin fell, in large part, to ace production designer Kalina Ivanov. Here’s how she pulled it off. Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part ...
“The Penguin” Costume Designer Helen Huang on Gotham’s Gritty Glamour
Costume designer Helen Huang bridges reality and comic book storytelling in The Penguin, finding a brilliant balance that gives the series weight and a churlish glamour befitting a story set in Gotham’s criminal underworld. The hit series led by showrunner Lauren LeFranc is familiar—Gotham is our most explored comic version of New York City—yet heightened ...
“Smile 2” Prosthetic Makeup Designer Jeremy Selenfriend on the Sequel’s Gruesome, Grinning Details
Editor’s Note: The story contains spoilers to the movie Smile 2. Prosthetic makeup designer Jeremy Selenfriend is no stranger when it comes to creating blood-curdling horror. He grew up watching Freddy Kruger films and turned an interest of the spooky into a career of conjuring some of the most terrifying dread imaginable. “It’s a weird thing ...
“Smile 2” DP Charlie Sarroff on Lighting a Curse-Afflicted Pop Star in the Big City
Life as a pop star isn’t as great as it looks, if the smiles surrounding global sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) are any indicator. Smile 2, director Parker Finn’s sequel to 2022’s surprise hit Smile, demonstrates the horror of having a public psychological breakdown triggered by the triple threat of hidden trauma, the immense pressures ...
How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City
Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part of the HBO spin-off series The Penguin from creator Lauren LeFranc, which stars Colin Farrell as the title character, Oz Cobb, reprising his role from Matt Reeves’ The Batman and remaining, once again, utterly unrecognizable. “The very first movie I saw in the theater after Covid ...
Benetone Films Co-Founder Kulthep Narula on Taking Thailand’s Film Industry to the Next Level
From Hollywood to Bollywood, Benetone Films has provided production services for over 100 feature films, TV series, and 1,000 TV commercials in over two decades. The Bangkok-based company is also a key provider for foreign productions filmed on location in Thailand. Ten projects have been approved through Thailand’s incentive scheme, including 2020’s The Forgotten Army ...
“Manhunt”: A Visual Journey Through Time with Graphic Designer Gina Alessi
Manhunt graphic designer Gina Alessi had a significant assignment when she was brought on board Apple TV+’s stellar limited series about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s (Hamish Linklater) assassination—among other historical recreations, Alessi was tasked with making sure Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed at the Petersen House next to the Ford ...
Following Its Predecessor’s Successful Path, “Twisters” Touches Down in Oklahoma
When the disaster thriller Twister was released in 1996, the film turned out to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters and the second-highest-grossing movie of the year (the first was Independence Day). Helen Hunt starred as Jo, a meteorologist who was out to revolutionize tornado alert systems through a small, censor-filled device named Dorothy, ...
Reimagining Korea’s Dynamic Film & TV Industry With Wow Point Executive Producer Yoomin Hailey Yang
Wow Point CEO and executive producer Yoomin Hailey Yang is blazing a trail for young female producers in the Korean film and TV industry. After stints working with Korean broadcaster MBC and agency-producer BH Entertainment, she co-founded Wow Point with leading Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho (Train To Busan, Peninsula) in 2021. The Seoul-based company has ...
Lights, Camera, Action! How Tax Breaks and Funding Can Lure Film Productions to Germany
The panelists on stage at the law firm Greenberg Traurig for a discussion held in conjunction with the Motion Picture Association during the 74th Berlin International Film Festival represented a notable list of luminaries from across the film and television industry. Mediated by Greenberg Traurig Partner Laura Zentner, they were largely in agreement regarding the ...
“Dune: Part Two” Set for a Sandworm-Sized Opening Weekend
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is rumbling towards theaters this weekend with the thunderous power of a sandworm. The second part of Villeneuve’s possibly three-part epic (he’s currently working on the script for Part Three, which has yet to be confirmed, and would be based on “Dune Messiah,” Frank Herbert’s sequel to his original book) was delayed ...
“Drive-Away Dolls” Production Designer Yong Ok Lee on Transforming Pittsburgh Into the Whole East Coast
Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut, Drive-Away Dolls, stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, an unhindered Texan attached at the hip to her best friend and human hand-brake, Marian, played by Geraldine Viswanathan. The only trait these two twenty-somethings seemingly share is that they are both lesbians, but when an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee turns into ...
Best of 2023: “Rustin” Screenwriter Julian Breece on Giving a Legend his Due
*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year. There are countless unsung heroes of the civil rights movement who will never get the recognition they deserve, yet it’s hard to imagine an overlooked figure more central to the cause and more courageous and capacious in ...
