Movies

NEW YORK -- First-time documentary filmmakers Tina Brown and Dyana Winkler lugged their cameras to Central Park in New York one day to capture the last few people still passionate about roller skating. Rinks across the country were gone. The activity seemed dead. "We were shooting a piece about what we thought was the end of the era of skating with what we thought were the last men standing," said Winkler. "We thought, 'Who roller skates anymore?'" They may have come for a funeral but they found something else entirely. Two young African-American skaters approached them and asked them what they were doing. "They said, 'Skating's not dead. It just went underground,'" Winkler recalled.Winkler and Brown decided to go find it. Five years and 500 hours of footage later, they've emerged with the HBO film "United Skates," premiering at 7 p.m. Monday, a fascinating look at the rich African-American subculture of roller skating, which is under threat."We hope that our viewers will learn … [Read more...] about Rolling in the deep: HBO’s ‘United Skates’ looks at roller skate culture

By Jen Yamato Los Angeles Times Mon., Feb. 18, 2019 The timing was uncanny: days apart, on the weekend marking the 30th anniversary of the execution of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost trilogy, Some Kind of Monster) premiered his Zac Efron-starring Bundy film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile at the Sundance Film Festival and unveiled the four-part docuseries The Ted Bundy Tapes to voracious true-crime fanatics on Netflix. “It’s a little bizarre,” Berlinger admitted. “I’d love to take credit for this master plan … but the fact that I even did both is somewhat coincidental.” It was nearly two years ago that Berlinger was contacted by author Stephen Michaud with a tantalizing offer to dive into hours and hours of taped conversations with Bundy that Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth wrote into the nonfiction book Conversations With a Killer. “He said, … [Read more...] about Q&A: Why Joe Berlinger doubled down on Ted Bundy with The Ted Bundy Tapes and Shockingly Evil

By Jen Yamato Los Angeles Times Sat., Feb. 16, 2019 MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIF.—The steely gaze of Na’vi warrioress Neytiri welcomes visitors at the entrance to some of Hollywood’s most fantastical worlds. Towering in the corner of a hangar, an “Aliens” xenomorph menaces, frozen in place. Upstairs sits the Heart of the Ocean, daring passersby to never let go. No, you’re not in Kansas anymore. You’re at Lightstorm Entertainment, the solar-powered, eco-friendly Manhattan Beach headquarters of Oscar-winning “Avatar” filmmakers James Cameron and Jon Landau. Just a skip away on a massive soundstage, visual effects crews piece together top-secret scenes straight out of Pandora for “Avatar 2.” Oscar-winning VFX artist Richard Baneham tinkers with a “virtual camera,” constructing impossible shots by sending data back and forth to technicians seated at a NASA-like brain trust of computers. Next door in … [Read more...] about How Alita paves the way for Avatar sequels

By Josh Rottenberg Los Angeles Times Fri., Feb. 15, 2019 LOS ANGELES—Bowing to fierce blowback — and throwing yet another wrench into an already tumultuous Oscar season — the motion picture academy has announced that it is shelving a controversial plan to move the presentation of four key awards to commercial breaks during this year’s telecast. The decision follows several days of controversy that pitted the academy’s leadership against some of the organization’s most distinguished members, as hundreds of Hollywood luminaries rallied against a proposal that, while intended to help limit the notoriously lengthy telecast to three hours, was widely regarded as representing a slight against some of filmmaking’s most vital crafts. In an official statement, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences leadership said: “The Academy has heard the feedback from its membership regarding the Oscar presentation of four awards … [Read more...] about Oscars backtrack, restoring four dropped categories to live telecast

By Scott Chitwood ON February 15, 2019 Star Wars news for the week of February 15, 2019 The purpose of this roundup is to put all the Star Wars‚Ćnews from the week of February 15, 2019 in one location. If you read this each week, you should be able to converse fluently with any Star Wars‚Ćfan on everything from the latest Star Wars developments to the latest toys. And maybe you’ll even share with them something that they might have missed. Let’s get to it! Episode IX News and Rumors Hello, what have we here? New items from across the #StarWars universe are coming to your galaxy for #TripleForceFriday, available 10/4: https://t.co/wL4x7UrVde pic.twitter.com/MbUTfT0BXF — Star Wars (@starwars) February 15, 2019 #EpisodeIX: Costume rumors, Daisy Ridley sighting. https://t.co/TXKpinUfE4 pic.twitter.com/kFipClASkw — Dunc (@clubjade) February 8, 2019 Star Wars Episode IX: New Character Concept Art Leaks Out! – … [Read more...] about The Star Wars News Roundup for February 15, 2019