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Jumper's Doug Liman: Things I've Learned
He made indie film history with the classic Swingers, showed the real life of players on the Los Angeles rave scene in Go, made action movies cool again with The Bourne Identity and introduced Brad to Angelina on Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Now Doug Liman is sitting pretty atop the box office with the teleportation tale, Jumper, starring Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson. Here, Liman shares a few of the lessons he's learned in Hollywood.
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Double Indemnity to Along Came Polly: The Greatest Insurance Films
As the world continues its discussion of this year's Oscar winners and losers, the Insurance Information Institute has put together its own list of movies worth celebrating—those film in which insurance plays a starring role (a couple of them have even garnered Oscars of their own). Over the past 65 years, these films have featured Hollywood legends including Edward G. Robinson, Cary Grant and Faye Dunaway and in more recent years, popular actors such Jack Nicholson and Jennifer Aniston.
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Deconstructing Penelope
Mark Palansky's philosophy of film
Blockbuster moviemaking would be the expected career path of one of Michael Bay's former employees, but Mark Palansky has never been one for doing the "expected" thing. In facting, spending the early part of his career on the sets of such big-budget projects as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and The Island, helped this Toronto native make the most of a $12 million budget on the quirky Penelope.
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Oscar’s Biggest Winners
On Oscar night, it's when the telecast ends that the real fun begins. MM catches a glimpse of some of the night's biggest winners—Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Diablo Cody and Joel Coen—at Oscar night's biggest event, the Governors Ball.
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Juno Storms the Spirit Awards
Juno cleaned up at Film Independent's Spirit Awards last night, taking home awards for Best Feature, Best First Screenplay for Diablo Cody and Best Female Lead for Ellen Page. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Male Lead award for Tamara Jenkins' The Savages, with Jenkins herself taking the Best Screenplay Award. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly claimed two of the night's top honors, including Best Director for Julian Schnabel and Best Cinematography for Janusz Kaminski. Irishman John Carney's Once won for Best Foreign Film and Cate Blanchett matched director Todd Haynes' Robert Altman Award with her own for Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There.
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MovieMaker Goes for the Gold
Academy members may have the final say on who will walk away with the gold at this Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. But that doesn’t mean that we here at MM can’t have a little fun getting in on the action, too. Here, five editors and longtime contributing writers weigh in on Oscar’s hits, misses and most egregious snubs!
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Oscar-Winning Perspectives on Producing
A century and a half of advice from some of the most respected names in the business
When a movie achieves critical success, the credit usually goes to the director, writer and/or actors. But what about the force of nature whose passion, dedication and vision see the project through from concept to distribution?
What about the ultimate multi-tasker, the backbone of the picture—the producer? The fact is that even the most successful Hollywood producers are usually not household names. And most moviegoers have only the vaguest notion of what a producer really does.<
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The Signal: A Collaboration in Three Parts
Three young directors who took Sundance by storm with their experiment in cinematic collaboration share the spotlight once again with an essay on the process
A hit at Sundance, The Signal offers a new chapter in the world of cinematic collaboration as three directors each take a turn in the director's chair.
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Arthur Max Sets the Scene in American Gangster
It took many years and several college degrees before Arthur Max began his work in film. Fortunately, audiences didn’t know what they were missing. Originally a lighting designer for the stage, Max turned his sights to the screen after experimenting with varied forms of theater production. Commercial work shortly led to his first feature film, Se7en, directed by David Fincher. The gritty city streets and the gruesome crimes of the biblically-inspired killer were the bones of this thriller—a genre Max has since become family with, subsequently working on Panic Room and American Gangster. It is this latest movie which brought the art director his second Academy Award nomination.
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Alan Menken is Enchanted by Oscar
Eighteen-time Academy Award nominee goes for gold once more in 2008.
For years Alan Menken has been charming children and adults alike with songs and scores for some of cinema’s most beloved movies. His work, often synonymous with Disney animation, has led to eighteen Academy Award nominations, eight of which he won. From the catchy tunes of Little Shop of Horrors to the cult numbers of Newsies, Menken continually eases himself into the lexicon of movie music. This season he was at it again. With the animation/live action hybrid Enchanted, Menken has earned three of the five original song nominations the Academy bestows each year.
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BAFTA Award Winners Announced
This year’s British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award winners are official. In addition to the results that have become commonplace this awards season (Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively), there were a few surprises, namely Atonement’s win for Best Picture. The British romance certainly benefited from a little home field advantage, beating out consistent frontrunners No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood to reclaim some of its post-Golden Globes momentum, right in time for the Oscars.
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Tom DiCillo Recalls Johnny Suede
Before Brad Pitt was a star he was Johnny Suede, the title character of indie writer-director Tom DiCillo's (Living in Oblivion) directorial debut. More than 15 years after its original release, the film has been newly released on DVD by Anchor Bay. As a new audience discovers this hidden gem, DiCillo recounts the highs and lows of the making of the movie—and the frustration of having the film taken away from him and reedited. Lucky for him—and audiences everywhere—this DVD is a director's cut.
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Julian Schnabel Paints The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
In his latest picture, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, artist-moviemaker Julian Schnabel returns to familiar terrain while managing to explore a new landscape. Like his previous outings, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, the film is a biopic—the story of an artist living on the margins of life, searching for his voice. The true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of Elle France, The Diving Bell brings us deep into the inner life of its main character, a man who, flush with all the trappings of worldly success, is suddenly felled by a debilitating stroke.
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Top 10 Movie Cities 2008
MM’s eighth annual countdown of the best places to live, work and make movies
From Austin to Albuquerque and plenty of places in between, MovieMaker's eighth annual countdown of the 10 best places to live, work and make movies in the U.S.
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Matt Reeves Comes to Cloverfield
Cloverfield opens up a whole new world for Reeves
Even before there was a script—or a cast, location or story, really—audiences have been waiting the release of Cloverfield with baited breath. And the box office numbers did not disappoint when the film was finally released last week (bringing in more than $55 million so far). A monster movie in the most classic sense of the genre, the film is a collaboration between childhood friends Matt Reeves, JJ Abrams and Bryan Burk. And while it sounds like the type of movie these guys have probably dreamed about for years, the whole film came together rather quickly—less than a year from pitch to release. In the midst of a grueling press tour, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves spoke with MM about his first venture into the world of visual effects and how the film turned out to be a "terrific challenge."
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Marjane Satrapi’s Comic Relief
Persepolis gives awards season an animated jolt
Paris-based cartoonist Marjane Satrapi says she never set out to make movies. Satrapi is the author and illustrator of the beloved graphic novels Persepolis I and II, which, together comprise a funny, moving memoir chronicling Satrapi’s life growing up in Tehran and Vienna during the rise of the Islamic revolution. The books offer a glimpse into “Marji’s” experiences as a curious, outspoken girl who suddenly finds herself living in a fundamentalist society where she has to wear a veil and punk rock music is verboten.
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Rawson Marshall Thurber Unravels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Sophomore writer-director goes from Dodgeball to Sundance
Four years after proving his comedic chops—and box office potential—with the comedy Dodgeball, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber is going in a completely different direction. With Michael Chabon's blessing, he's adapted the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, into a feature film starring Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard and Nick Nolte.
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Johan Renck Juggles Downloading Nancy
Madonna, Beyoncé, New Order. Nike, Mercedes, Dom Perignon. As a music video and commerical director, Swedish auteur Johan Renck has worked with the biggest names in the world. So it's not surprising that he's gathered up an all-star cast of players for Downloading Nancy, his feature directorial debut. Aided by the talents of Maria Bello, Jason Patric, Rufus Sewell and Amy Brenneman, Renck is bringing the story of a lonely wife whose life changes when she meets a new man on the Internet to the big screen. His first stop? The Sundance Film Festival, where the film will make its premiere on January 21st.
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David E. Talbert Makes First Sunday
Playwright. Author. Producer. David E. Talbert has spent the last two decades making a name for himself as one of the world’s most prolific forces in a variety of creative disciplines. From the NBC special he was hand-picked to write and produce for Jamie Foxx to his best-selling literary collaboration with Snoop Dogg, Talbert is one of the highest-grossing and most recognizable brands in urban inspirational comedies and musicals. His 12 plays have been performed all over the world and earned him an amazing 24 NAACP Award nominations (with five wins). Now, Talbert’s taking his talents to the silver screen for his feature directorial debut, First Sunday. The church-set caper comedy, starring Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan and Katt Williams, may seem a bit of a departure for Talbert, but this preacher’s son feels right at home in the director’s chair.
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Jay Russell: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"Do a lot of daydreaming" and other lessons from Hollywood's go-to guy when it comes to family fantasy films.
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Jay Russell Brings The Water Horse to Life
Since 2000’s My Dog Skip, director Jay Russell has been the go-to man for bringing the heartwarming tales of children’s novels to life on the big screen. His latest effort, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, which opens on Christmas Day, used the resources of Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop to bring the mythical hatchling to life and portray the bond between boy and pet.
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Adam Rifkin Is Watching You!
In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 30 million surveillance cameras capturing more than four billion hours of footage every week--of you! That's right, ladies and gentleman, embarrassing "captured on video" moments aren't just for the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. And moviemaker Adam Rifkin found that out the hard way—when he received a speeding ticket in the mail, accompanied by a photo of him driving through a traffic light. After further research, Rifkin discovered that he is not alone; the average American is captured on video more than 200 times a day. So rather than just pay his fine and be done with it, Rifkin decided to make a movie, too.
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Chris Weitz, Golden Boy
As a novel, The Golden Compass represents the first third of a juvenile fiction trilogy entitled His Dark Materials, which has captured scores of enthusiastic fans and sold 14 million copies internationally to date. In adapting The Golden Compass for the screen, writer-director Chris Weitz took on a subject that he calls "one of the 20th century’s greatest works of the imagination," a book that awoke his cinematic senses to the possibility of a legendary screenplay.
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Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
Director Julie Taymor shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
From Oscar to Tony, Julie Taymor has found success in Hollywood and on Broadway as a writer, director, producer and costume designer. In 2003, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Frida, which she also directed. Her latest film, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, is on DVD now. Here she shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
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Amy Adams Enchants Kevin Lima
He may be a Hollywood veteran, but director Kevin Lima is still a kid at heart—a kid who has known that he wanted to make movies for Disney since the tender age of five and has been doing so successfully for 20 years. As he sits atop the box office, with more than $50 million in receipts over the Thanksgiving holiday for Enchanted, Lima talks shop with MM.
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Ed Burns and iTunes: A Match Made in Heaven
Indie stalwart makes history (again) with the first feature film premiere on iTunes
Twelve years and seven directorial efforts after storming the indie film scene at Sundance, Ed Burns is making history once again, as he premieres Purple Violets exclusively on iTunes.
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Todd Haynes Takes on Bob Dylan
A moviemaker's long journey to bring the life of legendary musician Bob Dylan to the big screen results in the experimental I'm Not There
After the enormous success of recent biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, it should have been easy for writer-director Todd Haynes to make his Bob Dylan-inspired film, I'm Not There. It wasn't.
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Zach Helm’s World of Wonder
Stranger Than Fiction screenwriter makes his directorial debut
Zach Helm’s life may not be stranger than fiction, but it is sweeter than a fairytale. Plucked out of the playwriting scene in Chicago in 1997 to participate in a writers’ program at Fox 2000, he dreamt up Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium as a writing sample.
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Ed Burns: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"Don't try and compete with the studio films" and other lessons from a true indie moviemaker.
"When sending your screenplay out to a movie star, don’t expect to hear back from them for at least three months" and other lessons from a truly independent moviemaker.
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Kasi Lemmons Finds the Voice to Speak Out in Talk to Me
For writer-director Kasi Lemmons, making movies has never been a question of black or white, but rather varying shades of gray. "The gray area is so much more interesting and so much more realistic and valid to our experiences,” says the 46-year-old multi-hyphenate. “People are not all good or all bad. They’re complicated. Complicated characters are what interest me."
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Moviemaking: The Eternal Balancing Act
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Halloween, Too
Rob Zombie revisits John Carpenter’s horror classic
Given his predilection for stepping behind the lens it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Rob Zombie announced his foray into feature moviemaking with 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses. But Zombie remaking John Carpenter’s hallowed horror classic, Halloween? That announcement did shock some people… including Zombie himself.
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John Carpenter’s Business of Insanity
With five remakes of his work in two years, John Carpenter is happily riding the Halloween gravy train
In Hollywood these days, it sometimes seems easier to find an actor who’ll admit to having had plastic surgery than it is to find an original idea for a movie. Case in point: Legendary horror director John Carpenter.
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Ethan Hawke Grows Up in The Hottest State
Writer-director-actor Ethan Hawke finds meaning in an autobiographical work—15 years later
When I was 21 and under the influence of books like James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans and Larry McMurtry’s All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, I started writing a wildly autobiographical piece of fiction about my experiences upon arriving in New York. I wanted to write about trying to “make it” as an actor and centered the story on a soul-crushing, identity-defining encounter with first love.
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Silent Movies Are Still Creating an Echo
With silent films more available than ever, now is the time to remember the era's most influential directors
From Griffith and Eisenstein to Chaplin and Keaton, MM revisits the 15 greatest directors of the silent era.
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