[This interview contains spoilers for the Monday, Sept. 10 episode of Better Call Saul.] The director of this week's assured Better Call Saul boasts only two previous episodes of live-action television on his resume, not that Andrew Stanton is exactly a neophyte. The longtime Pixar veteran and helmer of Oscar winners WALL-E and Finding Nemo made his TV directing debut in 2017 with a strong pair of second-season episodes of Netflix's Stranger Things before moving to Saul, one of TV's most visually distinctive shows. "Piñata," Stanton's Saul debut, is full of memorable moments, including the fleeting return of Michael McKean's Chuck, a terrifyingly dark monologue from Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) to his hospitalized nemesis and yet another step in the decaying morals that are transforming Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman. Stanton got on the phone with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss how John Carter inspired his recent push into television, the differences between animation … [Read more...] about ‘Finding Nemo’ Director Andrew Stanton’s ‘Better Call Saul’ Debut Goes Dark (Literally)
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Alan Trammell was Detroit Tigers’ heartbeat for 20 years: Here’s how
Jeff Seidel Detroit Free Press Published 4:11 p.m. UTC Jul 29, 2018 Alan Trammell sat in a plane, scribbling notes, working on the most important speech of his life — the one he will give Sunday at his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. How do you capture an entire career? An entire life in baseball, all 20 years with the Detroit Tigers? His on-field partnership with Lou Whitaker — the longest running double-play combination in history. His reverence for Sparky Anderson, who molded him with tough love and became like a second father. The deep friendships and bonds he shared with his teammates on the 1984 World Series championship team. They grew up together in the Tigers’ minor-league system. They became champions together. Trammell wrote the speech longhand on a yellow pad of paper. Old school. “That’s vanilla,” he said. “That’s what my wife would say. She would just shake her head and say, ‘That’s … [Read more...] about Alan Trammell was Detroit Tigers’ heartbeat for 20 years: Here’s how
“What’s the Ripple Effect?… It Was the Most Complicated Script I’ve Ever Shot”: David Barrett on Directing the Time Loop Episode of
A couple years ago, I was in a hotel room flipping channels when I came across an episode of the popular CBS series Blue Bloods, an ensemble family drama in the form of a procedural anchored by Tom Selleck. I was struck almost immediately by how stylistically expressive the episode was; it was clear that the director had thought through a precise means of conveying each character’s perspective in a distinctive way, assigning specific focal lengths, camera moves, and color and lighting strategies to each protagonist. It was the kind of subtle but dynamic approach to visual design one finds in the classical Hollywood cinema of directors like Michael Curtiz and Victor Fleming, and I was stunned to find it on TV while casually channel surfing. I made a note of the director, David Barrett, and began looking up his other credits. I quickly discovered that the Blue Bloods episode was not an outlier; Barrett’s work on shows as diverse as Arrow, Under the Dome and The Mentalist were … [Read more...] about “What’s the Ripple Effect?… It Was the Most Complicated Script I’ve Ever Shot”: David Barrett on Directing the Time Loop Episode of
“Maybe When We’re Performing We Feel More like Ourselves than We Do in the ‘Real World’”: Josephine Decker on her Sundance Hit,
Three fascinating but very different actresses star in Josephine Decker’s exhilarating Sundance feature, Madeline’s Madeline. There’s Molly Parker, the exceptional film and television actress currently seen in Wormwood, who plays Evangeline, an experimental theater director who develops her work out of immersive performance workshops, challenging her company to mine their own feelings and experiences while creating new ones through the sometimes cringe-inducing exercises that can be the stuff of the improvisatory creation. Miranda July, an artist, writer, director and one of the most significant performance artists of the last 20 years, plays Regina, the frazzled single mother of a teenage daughter whose adolescent rebellions, mental illness (possibly bipolar — she’s on some form of meds), and overflowing creative spirit tax her own fragile coping mechanisms. And, certainly not least, there’s newcomer Helena Howard, who plays that daughter, Madeline. … [Read more...] about “Maybe When We’re Performing We Feel More like Ourselves than We Do in the ‘Real World’”: Josephine Decker on her Sundance Hit,
Working Through Fear: An Interview with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum
Driving down Beverly, you head opposite Hollywood, away from Studio City, toward the nondescript, single-level, brown-bricked building that’s the literal Blumhouse — the offices of horror movie maestro Jason Blum. Since founding the company, Blum has produced dozens of films that have made varying degrees of impact on the zeitgeist: the found-footage scares of the Paranormal Activity films, the reinvented haunted house of the Insidious pictures, the social violence of The Purge series. And then, of course, there’s megahit Get Out, Jordan Peele’s ferociously intelligent satire on racism that, despite its share of lobotomies and knifings and violently applied white privilege, was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes and is now a Best Picture Oscar nominee. Added to the above are more components of a burgeoning empire, from a television division (Hellevator, Cold Case Files, Sharp Objects) to live events to nongenre titles like Whiplash.What … [Read more...] about Working Through Fear: An Interview with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum