Not even an extinction level event can upset the ruling elite in Don’t Look Up, an apocalyptic sci-fi comedy drama from writer and director Adam McKay. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Meryl Streep, the movie examines how scientists, politicians, journalists, and the public at large react to news of a catastrophe about to strike. This is the third collaboration between McKay and editor Hank Corwin, ACE, after The Big Short and Vice. A BAFTA Award-winner, Corwin has worked with Oliver Stone, Terrence Malick, Robert Redford, and other directors. He spoke with Filmmaker on Zoom. Filmmaker: When did you start […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 22, 2021New York City in the 1970s occupies a special place in the popular imagination; there was a look and feel and, more important, a sound that captured the range of the city from grit to glitz. Barry Jenkins’s new If Beale Street Could Talk is set during this era of New York City, and the look is unmistakable: The backdrop is full of Impala yellow taxis, small shops and cool lofts. Yet the city fades into the background, giving way to the compelling and un-self-consciously presented love story of Tish and Fonny, childhood best friends in Harlem who become lovers […]
by Martin Johnson on Dec 20, 2018Adapted by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay from The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis’s behind-the-scenes book about the 2008 housing market crash, McKay’s star-stuffed The Big Short is a brilliant demystification. Two scenes, hilarious in completely opposite ways, take place in the middle of an otherwise enervating securitization session at the American Securities Forum in Las Vegas. Hold on: hilarious and securitization jammed into the same sentence? Most people don’t even know what the latter word means. When a term completely sidesteps consciousness, it is probably unavailable to the unconscious—site of the split-second manufacture of humor. To […]
by Howard Feinstein on Dec 11, 2015