One of New Zealand cinematographer Nigel Bluck’s first breaks as a young DP came shooting 2nd unit on the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. He had one feature film under his belt and little visual effects experience, but Bluck learned on the job and persevered through nine months of bluescreen-draped soundstage work. Two decades later, the now-seasoned Bluck faced another new challenge with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. “I’m not a comedy guy, normally,” said Bluck. “This is the warmest and funniest movie I’ve ever shot.” It’s definitely the Nicolas Cage-iest movie anyone has ever shot. The Oscar winner plays […]

Anamaria Vartolomei is the French-Romanian star of Audrey Diwan’s film Happening, about a young college student in desperate need of an illegal abortion in 1960s France. The camera follows Vartolomei’s character so closely, both literally and figuratively, that you begin to feel like you are experiencing the movie from inside her. On this episode, Vartolomei talks about why the closeness of the camera actually made her feel protected; how curiosity rather than competition helped her in the audition; how feeling safe leads to fearlessness in action; and the importance of breathing, surprises, and, most importantly, anger. Back To One can […]

The pilot of a series is typically its true north, the aesthetic guiding light of all that follows. However, in the new Apple TV+ series Pachinko, two very different director/cinematographer teams have both been given their own creative compass. Based on the 2017 bestseller, the familial epic unfolds over 70 years, tracing the story of four generations of a Korean immigrant family that settles in Japan following an oppressive occupation. The season’s eight episodes were split evenly between directors Kogonada (Columbus, After Yang) and Justin Chon (Blue Bayou). The filmmakers shared the same crew, camera, sets, costumes and locations, yet […]

The legendary theater director, actor, shaman André Gregory has been producing ground-breaking work for over half a century. He’s perhaps best known for the projects he did with Wallace Shawn—My Dinner With André (which is celebrating its 40th anniversary), Vanya on 42nd Street and A Master Builder. His recent book This Is Not My Memoir details, with refreshing honesty, his extraordinary life through incredible stories about, for instance, learning from the great Jerzy Grotowski, getting punched by Gregory Peck, buried alive in Richard Avedon’s backyard, to name just a few. On this episode, Gregory answers some questions about his unique […]

After designing animatronics for franchises like Star Wars and Jurassic World, Gustav Hoegen and his team scaled back and happily returned to traditional design and puppetry methods for Hanna Bergholm’s indie creature-feature Hatching–the first feature film Hoegen’s Biomimic Studio worked on from start to finish. 12-year old Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) nurses an egg she brought in from the woods—a welcome distraction from her helicopter mother (Sophia Heikkilä), who obsessively micromanages the family to maintain her perfect social media presence. Then the egg grows at least as large as Tinja and a slimy and straggly bird bursts fist first through the top […]

After four seasons of financial and familial duplicity, the winding saga of Missouri drug launderers Wendy and Marty Byrde comes to an end tomorrow as Netflix releases the final half of its 14-episode swan song. I have no idea yet whether the karmic scales will finally tilt towards a comeuppance for the couple but  am certain that whatever awaits the Byrdes will unfold in the murky depths of low-key interiors and the cool cyan of perpetually overcast exteriors. It’s a well-defined aesthetic that has earned three Emmy nominations for the show’s cinematographers. For the climactic season, a new team of […]

Wunmi Mosaku won a BAFTA award for Damilola, Our Loved Boy. She was only the second Black actress to win one in 62 years. You might know her from her incredible work as Ruby in Lovecraft Country, Rial in His House, or B-15 in the Marvel series Loki. Her latest is We Own This City, from the makers of The Wire, which premiered Monday on HBO Max. On this episode, she talks about her early days of learning the ropes of screen acting, how rehearsal makes a big difference in her process, why connecting to people is so important to […]

“The story can’t just change midway through,” exclaims a pretentious adult film director incredulously in X.  It certainly can in a Ti West horror film, where one of the joys is often the shift from the methodical pace of the opening to the blood-drenched mania of the finale. Set in 1979, X finds a group of ambitious but inexperienced filmmakers heading to a remote Texas farm with dreams of making the next Debbie Does Dallas. However, the troupe fails to inform their hosts – an elderly couple who rent the crew their bunkhouse – about the purpose of their visit, […]

In the new HBO Max series Julia, talented Irish actor Fiona Glascott plays Judith Jones, the real life editor who pulled Julia Child’s book Mastering the Art of French Cooking from the reject pile and turned it into a bestseller. In this episode, Glascott talks about the joy of inhabiting that trailblazer and playing opposite the great Judith Light in a pivotal scene. She also details the unique preparation process she employs when she takes on the young Professor McGonagall in the Fantastic Beasts films, shares an inspiring reason why she doesn’t obsess over landing some ideal role, and much […]

Beyond the cartoonish mania of the multiverse action-comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once is a story about a mother and daughter, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and Joy (Stephanie Hu). Their family laundromat is on the brink of falling out, though  not for want of trying–both strive to get along, but the air between them remains tense and unpleasant. Under a scrupulous audit by a five-time award-winning IRS agent Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis), the laundromat may be taken away from the family too, and Evelyn’s sweetheart husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), has secretly prepared divorce papers. Eventually, Joy decides it might […]