Columns
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“There Was an Opportunity to Make the Movie More Romantic and Luckily We Took It”: Your Monster Star Tommy Dewey, Back To One, Episode 323
Tommy Dewey is best known for playing Alex Cole on the Hulu series Casual for five seasons. This year, two movies benefit from his talents—the Jason Reitman ensemble comedy Saturday Night, and Caroline Lindy’s romantic/horror/comedy Your Monster, where he brilliantly plays the titular character. On this episode, he talks about what went into deciding on the proper mixture of absurdity and tenderness for that special role. He explains why, if a comedy script connects with him, he “maybe reads it once and stay the hell away from it.” Plus how writing can help you as an actor, the increased pressure […]
by Peter Rinaldi
in Back to One
on Dec 24, 2024 -
Considerations: The Best Picture Shortlist
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. It’s my last dispatch of the year—I’ll be back with another newsletter the first full week of January—as the Oscar campaigning unofficially pauses for the holidays. The last major awards event of the year will take place on Dec. 17, when the Academy announces the shortlists for 10 categories: documentary feature, international feature, animated short, documentary short, live-action short, original score, original song, makeup/hairstyling, sound and visual effects. Then, the Golden Globes on Jan. 5 […]
by Tyler Coates
in Considerations
on Dec 20, 2024 -
Christmas with Art the Clown: DP George Steuber on Terrifier 3
Movies are a uniquely collaborative art form. A painting, a novel or a song can be created in solitude, but you can’t make a commercial narrative film by yourself. That said, the original Terrifier came about as close as you can get: Writer-director Damien Leone is also credited for producing, editing, special make-up effects, visual effects, sound design and props. In addition to putting up money, producer Phil Falcone served as UPM, AD and stunt driver and also assisted with the effects. As for cinematographer George Steuber, he was the entirety of the camera department. He operated, pulled his own […]
by Matt Mulcahey
in Shutter Angles
on Dec 19, 2024 -
“Another Guy, Another Wig,” Alessandro Nivola Returns to Talk about Almodóvar, The Brutalist, and The Rhino: Back To One, Episode 322
Alessandro Nivola returns to the podcast (Ep. 37 and Ep.170) to discuss three performances he gives in three different films out at the same time this week—Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door, The Brutalist, and Kraven The Hunter. He gifts us with a detailed peek into what it took to build each of these characters. He talks about the interesting way he received a “green light” from Almodóvar in terms of his approach to the role of an Upstate New York policeman, the challenge of balancing adherence to period authenticity with a modern accessibly as Attila in Brady Corbet’s epic, […]
by Peter Rinaldi
in Back to One
on Dec 18, 2024 -
Replicating Images: Submerged, AI and Immersive Cinema
In October, Apple released its first scripted immersive film production, Submerged, on Apple Vision Pro (AVP), its mixed-reality headset. The film follows a submarine crew during World War II who fight for survival after enduring a torpedo attack. The high-end technological production included a submarine set, a proprietary 3D camera by Apple and headsets for the crew to monitor the shots in real time. The production design is impressive, the use of close-ups peculiar and novel—it’s a well-crafted film. However, more than the film itself, the experience of watching Submerged on the headset is what truly shines. A making-of trailer […]
by Deniz Tortum
in Emergence
on Dec 16, 2024 -
Gale Force Cinema: Studying with Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson
On September 26, I flew from Los Angeles to Atlanta, then drove north toward Rabun Gap, eventually turning west on Bettys Creek Road to find the sprawling 600-acre campus of the Hambidge Center in the heavy rain preceding the arrival of Hurricane Helene. I had signed up for a workshop called “Cinema From Scratch: From Camera Obscura to Handmade Film,” with Brooklyn-based artists Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson, and the urge to meet the pair, whose work with the materiality of cinema I’ve loved for two decades, overrode this Angeleno’s terror of foul weather. Carefully tracking what was being called […]
by Holly Willis
in Extra Curricular
on Dec 16, 2024 -
All Protocols are Not the Same: Joanne McNeil on Bluesky
If you are a filmmaker, journalist, artist or someone else who creates work for an audience, most likely you’ve used social media to share it. Self-promotion is never fun, but it’s felt especially inconsistent (if not totally hopeless) ever since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, renamed it X and began throttling views to posts that include links. A number of users have escaped to new broadcast-based social media services that are “decentralized”—but what that word means depends on who you talk to. There are concrete differences between the AT Protocol, underpinning Bluesky, and ActivityPub, the protocol and standard for Mastodon as […]
by Joanne McNeil
in Speculations
on Dec 16, 2024 -
Hits & Misses 2024: Case Studies of Six Sundance 2024 Premieres
In September, Variety declared, “Indie Films Are Staging a Box Office Comeback,” touting the success of the films Longlegs, Thelma and Late Night with the Devil as signs of life for a segment of the industry “crushed by COVID, strikes and streaming,” as reporter Brent Lang wrote. “And while it’s a long way from the arthouse heyday of the 1990s and early aughts, the turnaround is impressive.” Maybe not that impressive. Citing the more than $100 million global gross of Longlegs, a NEON-produced wide-release serial-killer movie, as some kind of indie darling misses the point. Thelma and Late Night are […]
by Anthony Kaufman
in Industry Beat
on Dec 16, 2024 -
Considerations: More Golden Globes Silly Season
Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. We’re now five weeks away from the Jan. 17 Oscar noms, and the last few days have seen which campaigns are working—at least with critics and whoever is voting for the Golden Globes these days. And miraculously, no main frontrunner has emerged in the best picture race, although the sure things are making themselves known. Over the last week, while publications began rolling out their year-end lists, critics in New York and Los Angeles voted […]
by Tyler Coates
in Considerations
on Dec 13, 2024 -
“We Needed Crazier Ideas”: DP Mihai Malaimare Jr. on Megalopolis
During his storied career, Francis Ford Coppola forged relationships with some of film’s most renowned cinematographers: Gordon Willis, Vittorio Storaro, Bill Butler, John Toll and Jordan Cronenweth all shot multiple projects for him. But with Megalopolis, Mihai Malaimare Jr. becomes Coppola’s most frequent collaborator behind the camera. They first met when Coppola came to Malaimare’s native Romania to shoot 2007’s Youth Without Youth, the beginning of a low-budget experimental phase for Coppola that included the Malaimare-shot Tetro and Twixt. Even then, Coppola was already dreaming of his quixotic passion project Megalopolis, showing Malaimare concept art and B-roll of New York […]
by Matt Mulcahey
in Shutter Angles
on Dec 11, 2024
