There’s a lot to love about Tina Romero‘s Queens of the Dead. In fact, the list is almost as long as the receipt for the sequins and shoes purchased by the costume department. That’s written in playful jest, but the number of topics that present themselves in her feature length debut deserve a round of applause for boldness, cohesion, conviction, and execution (in story and in zombie kills). What sounds like a ludicrous idea on paper turns out to have a lot of heart, and the relationships in Tina‘s film are just as strong as those in her legendary father’s work nearly sixty years ago. The set up is unconventional,…
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Interview…Brandi Burkhardt on Singing, Dreaming and Summertime Fun
We had a lot of fun on the show today with Brandi Burkhardt. This seasoned song siren has done it all – from stage to screen to voice overs and more. She’s had a memorable role as ‘Crickett Watts’ on Hart of Dixie and in films like Confessions of a Shopaholic and A24’s Friendship (which is in theaters now). Burkhardt has also done many guest spots on hit television shows such as Mad Men, How I Met Your Mother, Boston Legal, Numb3rs, Brothers & Sisters, The Defenders, NCIS and others. Performing is in her blood, and when she’s not acting, she’s turning heads with her sensational voice that is suited…
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Interview…Molly Rogers on Violin, Vocals and Melodic Brilliance
They say that “practice makes perfect.” Yet, in any profession, practice really just makes you better. The pursuit of excellence and precision is constant for many musicians. They may second guess themselves along the way, but as an audience member, seeing what they do is almost like watching magic. Today we feature one such individual who is so accomplished and proficient, we’re not even sure she’s human. Violinist and vocalist Molly Rogers has incomparable skills, an otherworldly sound, and she works hard at her craft. Like really hard. After all, you don’t get this good overnight. But that last one is important because as a contractor, you never know if…
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Interview…Composer Carlos Rafael Rivera on Piano, Guitar, Teaching and the Sounds of ‘Dept. Q’
Over the years, we’ve become increasingly fond of TV shows for a few reasons. One of which is pretty obvious: we get more time with characters we love. Their arc can be spaced out as the story tops and tails. But another more satisfying reason is that the music can get the same amount of space. Many times, it can find room to evolve and change with the narrative. So let’s look at one such property where the music played an incredibly important role in the production. The Queen’s Gambit was a captivating series whereby the lush musical score captured our imagination, got the heart racing and made chess pretty…
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Interview…Nina Conti and Shenoah Allen on the Monkey Business of ‘Sunlight’
After delighting audiences on stage and on screen for more than twenty years, acclaimed British actress, comedian, and ventriloquist Nina Conti gives the world her feature film debut. Presented by Christopher Guest, Sunlight re-imagines “Monkey” – Conti’s most iconic character – as the human-sized alter ego of a woman on the run from a toxic relationship. Conti stars alongside her longtime creative collaborator Shenoah Allen, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Allen, a Barry Award-winning comedian and one half of the cult comedy duo Pajama Men, plays Roy, a suicidal radio host who becomes Jane’s unlikely companion. Conti, who began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company before becoming an inventive comedy…
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Interview…Scary Good Fun Talking with Brett Simmons
When film fans get to talking about what we like, time can quickly get away from us. As such, we had a fun-filled chat catching up with our good buddy, filmmaker Brett Simmons. And isn’t that a cool name? If he wasn’t making films, he could very well be a pro wrestler or something else in show business. Anyway, we spent about an hour talking about new projects on his plate and things he’s trying to get off the ground. Right now, he’s writing another fun slasher movie – his cult hit You Might Be the Killer is evidence he knows what he’s doing. Brett also has an awesome…
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Interview…Ernesto Dìaz Espinoza On Directing Fights and Delights in ‘Diablo’
Genre filmmakers speak to us on a level like no other storytellers. They, most times with a shoe-string budget, show that art through adversity is a cinematic technique that will always gain fans. One such filmmaker is Chilean-born Ernesto Dìaz Espinoza. We first came to know the work of Espinoza while covering Fantastic Fest. It was there in Austin where we were treated to the passion and the precision he brought to Bring Me the Head of Machine Gun Woman (yes, that is a real title). We were hooked and, since then, have followed his career with great interest. This year, he gives us another vigilante-esqe story led by regular…
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G-S-T Review…Scott Adkins Dances With the Devil in ‘Diablo’
Although we’re a couple weeks away from F1: The Movie screaming into theaters, if you want white-knuckle excitement, we’re gonna highly recommend Diablo as one of the best films of the year. It sure is tops in our book. From Chilean director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza comes another gritty action-packed feature full of flying fists and high kicks. Herein, he re-teams with martial arts master and genre phenomenon Marko Zaror (marking their sixth picture together). But when you throw in the absolute adrenaline machine that is Scott Adkins, you get nothing short of fireworks. Whether seen as a genre film or not, Diablo is just an incredible picture. It’s trope heavy,…
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Podcast Review: ‘Black Mirror’ Season Seven
Charlie Brooker is a social critic and storytelling dynamo who, time and again, has given us harrowing visions of the near-future, and glimpses into multiple worlds where we are overcome by the trials and terrors of technology. Whew, that sentence was almost as exhausting as any of his episodes of Black Mirror. In his phenomenally prophetic and sensationally bleak show, he takes society to the brink of madness and/or destruction in small-scale stories about how the tech in our lives ultimately becomes our undoing. The series is impossibly grim, however, Brooker is our modern-day Paul Revere. His message is jaw-dropping, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining as it sports stylized and inventive…
