Focus Features
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Trailer Watch: Todd Field’s TÁR
Todd Field makes his long-awaited return with TÁR, the writer/director’s third narrative feature. The film stars Cate Blanchett as the titular (though fictitious) Lydia Tár, a world-renowned composer who becomes the first female chief conductor of a major German orchestra. TÁR comes 16 years after Field’s previous film, the 2006 psychological drama Little Children, and 21 years after his 2001 debut In the Bedroom (read our interview with Field from the Fall 2001 print issue). Though both films received several Oscar nominations (including Best Picture for In the Bedroom) and overwhelming critical acclaim, none of Field’s subsequent projects have materialized until […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 25, 2022 -
Trailer Watch: Robert Eggers’s The Northman
The spectacular first trailer for the anticipated third feature of Robert Eggers, The Northman, just dropped. About a Viking prince avenging his father’s murder, the film reunites the director with Anya Taylor-Joy, the star of his debut, The Witch, and Willem Dafoe, the star of his sophomore film, The Lighthouse. (And that’s in addition to Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke and Bjork). In a Filmmaker interview on the film’s production, DP Jarin Blaschke promised that the film will be “accurate as hell”: Well, at least as accurate as 1,000 years ago can be. I don’t want to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 20, 2021 -
“Someone Needs to Shed Light On This Issue”: Justin Chon on His Adoptee Deportation Melodrama, Blue Bayou
Justin Chon first came to the world’s attention playing Eric Yorkie, a supporting character in the Twilight movies. The global success of that young-vampires-in-love franchise helped Chon land lead roles in films such as 21 & Over, Revenge of the Green Dragons, and Seoul Searching, but all the while, the freshly minted movie star was honing his craft as a writer and director. First came 2015’s little-seen Man Up (“That was my film school”), then the breakthrough of Gook, which won the NEXT Audience Award at Sundance in 2017. A bracing look at the 1992 Rodney King riots from a […]
by Nelson Kim on Sep 16, 2021 -
The Gotham, Focus Features, Jet Blue and Westridge Foundation Premiere Student Shorts Online and In the Air
Four winners of the 2020-21 Student Short Film Showcase award, a collaboration between The Gotham, Focus Features, Jet Blue and the Westridge Foundation, are now streaming on Focus Features’s digital platforms as well as in the air on JetBlue’s inflight entertainment systems. The films were chosen from the submissions of 16 film schools and represent a real diversity of subject matter and storytelling styles. In Edward Hancox’s (University of Texas, Austin) cleverly conceived and sharply acted Things That Happen in the Bathroom, a bathroom, typically a place of privacy and solitude, becomes the site of complicated relationship dynamics between a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2021 -
Trailer Watch: Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die
Jim Jarmusch seems to be in full-on comedic mode with this take on the zombie-thriller, The Dead Don’t Die. Starring Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, RZA, Selena Gomez, Carol Kane, Austin Butler, Luka Sabbat and Tom Waits, it’s in theaters on June 14. See the just-released first trailer above.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2019 -
When It Comes to Raw, Focus World Sees Red: On Red Band vs. Green Band Trailers
“Aberrant behavior, bloody and grisly images, strong sexuality, nudity, language and drug use/partying.” So reads the information box on the R rating for Raw, Julia Ducournau’s tasty little horror film about a vegan who becomes a cannibal. Explicit films (gross-out horror flicks, bawdy comedies, sexy dramas) always face the same marketing challenge: how do you show the best parts of a movie when those moments might be too graphic? In the case of Raw, Focus World gave the movie two trailers: a mainstream gothic green-band trailer and a frenetically disturbing red-band trailer. Ironically, the two share a lot of the […]
by Stephen Garrett on Feb 15, 2017 -
“We’re Doing All the President’s Men, and Then We’re Doing The Parallax View“: Michael Cuesta on Kill the Messenger
Although it is a ’90s-set story dealing with an ‘80s political cover-up, Michael Cuesta’s Kill the Messenger, the true story of journalist Gary Webb, couldn’t be more of the moment. When filmmaker Laura Poitras is documenting the work of a new breed of crusading journalists, it’s enlightening to revisit the work of a writer like Webb and to remember the opposition he faced from not only the U.S. government but his fellow scribes in the mainstream press. In Kill the Messenger, Jeremy Renner delivers a quietly gripping turn as the San Jose Mercury News reporter who comes across information revealing […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 15, 2014 -
Creatures and Class Politics: Travis Knight, Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable on The Boxtrolls
The latest animated feature from Laika, the Portland-based studio that delivered Coraline and ParaNorman, is a surprisingly idiosyncratic blend of children’s adventure and political satire. Based on Alan Snow’s novel, Here Be Monsters, Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable’s The Boxtrolls is set in the steampunk-inspired British town of Cheesebridge, a ruthlessly classist society where, you guessed it, cheese is the unifying luxury good. The boxtrolls — little creatures who live in cardboard boxes — are the literal lower class. (They live underground.) The story kicks into gear as a human boy, Eggs, raised by the boxtrolls ventures above ground, meets […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 26, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: The Theory of Everything
The life of Steven Hawking is given what looks like a gauzy, romantic approach in this trailer for The Theory of Everything, directed by Man on Wire‘s James Marsh. Eddie Redmayne stars as Hawking and Felicity Jones as his love, Jane Wilde. The film premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival and is in theaters November 7 from Focus Features.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 7, 2014 -
Dallas Buyers Club Giveaway: Win a Focus Features Blu-ray Pack
The real-life story of good ol’ boy Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), a homophobic Texan electrician who discovered he was dying of Aids and decided to fight the system as he fought for his life, Dallas Buyers Club comes out on November 1 through Focus Features. To celebrate the film’s release, Focus is offering a prize pack of some of the finest films from its back catalogue. Dallas Buyers Club is a strong Oscar contender for its performances by McConaughey and Jared Leto (as transgender drug addict Rayon), so fittingly the Blu-rays up for grabs are also Focus titles that were […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 24, 2013
