Our In-House Former Movie Critic Submits An Epic Watch List for Trying Times

For reasons entirely to do with this crazy life we’re all living right now, I find myself revisiting the final scene of the great Three Days of the Condor. You know, the Robert Redford thriller that came out, like, before electricity. In the movie, Redford’s a CIA analyst who knows too much, and the CIA is hunting him down. In this climactic scene, he informs an adversary, played by Cliff Robertson, that he has a gun in his coat pocket and that he needs to walk with him for a little bit.

By Desson Thomson  |  March 23, 2020

Interview

Screenwriter

Best of 2019: Craig Mazin on Getting the Details Right for the Shocking Chernobyl

*We’re reposting some of our favorite interviews of 2019. Happy Holidays!

In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded, sending radiation into the atmosphere and ultimately causing many radiation-related deaths. While the disastrous accident, attributed to faulty reactor design and insufficiently trained operators, is widely known, the details of its aftermath are less so. Screenwriter Craig Mazin looks to change this and up the knowledge base with Chernobyl,

By Julie Jacobs  |  December 20, 2019

Interview

Director

Chernobyl’s Emmy-Nominated Director on Capturing Catastrophe

Within the first few minutes of Chernobyl, director Johan Renck plunges the viewer into a riveting recreation of the infamous nuclear power plant meltdown and its aftermath. Since completing its run this summer, the HBO mini-series has earned 16 Emmy nominations for dramatizing the horrendous impact on victims of the accident while tracking the efforts of scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) as he takes on the Soviet establishment to uncover the truth about why the reactor blew up.

By Hugh Hart  |  September 11, 2019

Interview

Actor

Best of Summer 2019: Jared Harris on Creating Valery Legasov, Chernobyl’s Reluctant Hero

*As summer draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of our favorite interviews and stories.

It’s the lies told throughout Craig Mazin’s five-episode series Chernobyl that get you. After all, most anybody watching the HBO program set in today’s northern Ukraine will already know that the Soviet nuclear plant exploded in 1986, the area was eventually evacuated, and the adjacent newly-built town of Pripyat transformed into a ghost city,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  August 29, 2019

Interview

Actor

Jared Harris on Creating Valery Legasov, Chernobyl’s Reluctant Hero

It’s the lies told throughout Craig Mazin’s five-episode series Chernobyl that get you. After all, most anybody watching the HBO program set in today’s northern Ukraine will already know that the Soviet nuclear plant exploded in 1986, the area was eventually evacuated, and the adjacent newly-built town of Pripyat transformed into a ghost city, as did 1,000 square miles of other towns and villages in what’s now known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  June 17, 2019

Interview

Screenwriter

Craig Mazin on Getting the Details Right for the Shocking Chernobyl

In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded, sending radiation into the atmosphere and ultimately causing many radiation-related deaths. While the disastrous accident, attributed to faulty reactor design and insufficiently trained operators, is widely known, the details of its aftermath are less so. Screenwriter Craig Mazin looks to change this and up the knowledge base with Chernobyl, a five-part miniseries starting May 6 on HBO that is directed by Johan Renck and stars Jared Harris,

By Julie Jacobs  |  May 2, 2019