Alexandre Desplat will no longer be the first non-John Williams composer to be scoring that galaxy far, far away. Following extended reshoots on the upcoming (and first) Star Wars anthology blockbuster Rogue One, post-production scheduling has had to shift. One of the ripple effects is that Desplat can no longer work the project into his schedule. [...]
Making them like they used to, and it's glorious. In the age of digitized everything, it's refreshing to see a movie that so boldly stages real-life spectacle. Director George Miller did exactly that in Mad Max: Fury Road, as this behind-the-scenes 4-minute video "Crash & Smash" reveals. Sure, Fury Road had its share of digital enhancements, particularly [...]
Bow down, Pixar. Disney animated movies rule once again. In a pretty cool irony, the Disney renaissance has occurred under the leadership of Pixar guru John Lasseter. While the brand he founded gravitates toward safe sequels, Lasseter has allowed the Disney slate to forge ahead with fresh takes on fairy tales with no built-in audience, or brand new tales that are entirely [...]
For as great a stylist as director Zack Snyder can be, he's occasionally been tagged with pejorative of being derivative. Now, it seems, he's coping himself. Snyder tweeted out the first-look image of Batman in his "Tactical Batsuit", which will make its debut in the upcoming DC film Justice League. For anyone familiar with Snyder's adaptation of The [...]
God bless the YouTube channel "Every Frame a Painting", because they have just articulated one of my long-suffering soapboxes so perfectly well. In their 13-minute-plus video essay "The Marvel Symphonic Universe" (below), EFAP breaks down why - despite eight years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe dominating the movie industry - not one actual music cue has penetrated [...]
Moana, Disney's original folk tale of an adventurous young Hawaiian woman who sets out on an epic journey, has reunited two of the studio's legendary directors for their first 3D animated effort. Ron Clements & John Musker, the co-directors of such classics as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, bring their tried-and-true 2D sensibilities into the 3D animated form. To [...]
***1/2 out of **** Rated R (for strong language and some drug use) Released: July 22, 2016 Runtime: 92 minutes Director: Mike Birbiglia Starring: Mike Birbiglia, Gillian Jacobs, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate Micucci, Chris Gethard, Tami Sagher If your goal is to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live someday, then this will be your life. Sure, there’ll be laughs along the [...]
This looks really good. Not sure if Ben Affleck does, though. His first film behind the camera since his Best Picture winning Argo, Affleck gets back into the multi-hyphenate chair as actor / writer / producer / director with Live By Night, a 1920s Prohibition era crime drama based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. [...]
*** out of **** Rated PG-13 (for thematic material and some sexual content) Released: September 2, 2016 Runtime: 132 minutes Director: Derek Cianfrance Starring: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown My review of The Light Between Oceans, for The Tulsa Voice, an emotional rollercoaster period piece about a couple struggling to start a family, the moral compromises they make, and [...]
*** out of **** Rated PG-13 (for some peril and brief strong language) Released: September 9, 2016 Runtime: 96 minutes Director: Clint Eastwood Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O’Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan With passenger airlines being the safest way to travel, statistically speaking, it’s easy to take for granted the people who [...]
I Can't Unsee That Movie: film news and reviews by Jeff Huston 