If you’re looking at the calendar, we are just four days from Christmas. That might seem like eons to children, but if you’re an Adult Swim fan, then you already got your present courtesy of Casper Kelly and his warped take on the classic yule log starring Andrea Laing and Justin Miles. The acclaimed writer/director dropped his anti-holiday bomb on the world following the Season Six finale of Rick and Morty. Well, that bomb went boooom, and 91 absurdly shocking minutes later Kelly has another hit on his hands, as well as the channel’s first-ever live-action feature. This is just as dense, bizarre and out of left field as his previous…
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Interview…Director Elijah Allan-Blitz on Brie Larson, Ideas and Dreams in ‘Remembering’
Where do ideas come from? And where do they go when they’re forgotten? Well, leave it to Elijah Allan-Blitz to throw his hat in the ring and give us an infinitely charming short called Remembering. This endearing and inspiring effort shows the kind of big-picture concepts running through the Emmy award-winning director’s mind. The short film should leave all viewers clamoring for more – if not for a deeper dive into this captivating concept but just more time in this world. Good news is that in our interview Allan-Blitz told us that, yes, this is a proof of concept exercise that could dive deeper into plenty of trades/professions/creatives. Huzzah! This…
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Back to the Orchestra: The Sound of VCRs, Analog TV, and Flying Cars
Some things have certain smells that have the capacity to transport to a very specific place. Be it your mother’s cooking or the perfume of the one you shared your first kiss with, you can go to a specific memory and relive it over and over. How about the cinema? Can the smell of stale popcorn, artificial butter flavoring and dirty carpets take you some place? The same thing happens with sounds and music. Film scores have been part of cinema ever since sound was incorporated into the reel. Can you imagine Indiana Jones fighting Nazis without John Williams’ score in the background? Or Marty McFly riding his skateboard without Alan…
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Interview…Composer Nathan Johnson on Harpsichords, Travelogues and ‘Glass Onion’
For those of you needing a classically clever whodunnit to add to your cinematic plate this holiday session, look no further than Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion. The next installment in Benoit Blanc mystery series is whip smart, hilarious, exquisite and layered…you know, like an onion. Herein, Johnson and company outdo everything in their last detective yarn. Bigger stakes, bigger laughs, bigger onions – it’s an exceptional outing! Every element just sings, and again Rian enlists his cousin Nathan Johnson to write a fitting score to accompany the masterful story. While subsequent yarns in the series are meant to be stand-alone events, the further adventures of the Kentucky-fried character required Johnson…
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Interview…Fest Friends: Natalie Metzger, Joe Badon, Tiffany Kimmel, Dawn Luebbe and Margaret Miller
Fantastic Fest 2022 was one of the very best – it’s certainly tops in my book for all the years we’ve covered and attended. One take away that is more impactful and enduring than seeing some gonzo foreign film, sitting for a secret screening or getting in on the ground floor for the next big genre spectacle is the people. Whether it’s the fans, the festival staff (including those hard-working volunteers!) or the filmmakers, there is a certain kind of magical haze that only exists on the festival circuit. Moreover, I fondly (and sometimes fuzzily) recall the conversations, chance encounters and unexpected friendships that have emerged from being in the…
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Interview…Director Cyrus Neshvad on ‘The Red Suitcase’
Director Cyrus Neshvad’s The Red Suitcase is a heartbreaking story of a 16-year-old Iranian girl who is visibly terrified after picking up her red suitcase at the airport. She is seen to be lost in thought and taking her time to leave the departure lounge. What awaits her on the other side of the automatic doors is even more daunting than we thought. In the story, Neshvad uses the narrative as a metaphor for things the main character Ariane (stunningly played by Nawelle Ewad) faces culturally and personally; she does not accept how things are, the life her parents gave her, or the traditions that exist in her own country.…
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Interview…Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead Dig Deep into Sci-Fi with ‘Something In the Dirt’
Filmmaking dynamic duo, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead are scientific anomalies in cinema. Their stories are so uniquely their own and so much so, they find themselves at the forefront of the genre landscape. But they’re also at the forefront of their own cinematic lens. If infamous is when you’re more than famous, then “in cinema” means, they are actually IN the movies. Yet for all the intergalactic yarns that have endeared them to scores of festival crowds, they try to dive into people more than plots. And when they do, even something as seemingly simple as that becomes a huge hot pot of thought-provoking ideas and genres. Sci-fi, comedy,…
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Interview…Composer Theodore Shaprio on ‘The School for Good and Evil’, ‘The Pirates! Band of Misfits’ and Cracking Musical Puzzles
For more than two decades, Shapiro has been solving cinematic puzzles both light and dark. He scored some of Hollywood’s classic comedies—including Idiocracy, Old School, Tropic Thunder, and Dodgeball—with regular collaborators such as Paul Feig, Todd Phillips, and Jay Roach. He’s also cracked the code of political dramas (the Emmy-nominated Game Change, Trumbo), adventures both animated (Spies in Disguise), and unconventional (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), as well as sexy, stylish mysteries (A Simple Favor). Shapiro is like a character actor, putting on different musical costumes and adopting accents to disappear into roles much like Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which he scored with rays of…
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Interview…Composer John Debney on the Wicked and the Whimsical Worlds of ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ and ‘Luck’
One of our very favorite composers out there is John Debney. A great friend of the site, we’ve spoken to Mr. Debney over the years (including an awesome hour-long discussion about his unparalleled 40+ year career) and just love chatting about film, music and more. John has a true knack for scoring and because of his talents, time, and energy he has helped transform the soundscape of modern film music. Whether it’s a tent pole blockbuster or something more quaint and intimate, John digs deep, gives his all and the feature is so much better for his contributions. He’s also a chameleon; there isn’t one composer we can think of…
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Ohhh, Look… ‘Halloween Ends’ The Final Battle Featurette
After 45 years, the most acclaimed, revered horror franchise in film history reaches its epic, terrifying conclusion as Laurie Strode faces off for the last time against the embodiment of evil, Michael Myers, in a final confrontation unlike any captured on-screen before. Only one of them will survive. Icon Jamie Lee Curtis returns for the last time as Laurie Strode, horror’s first “final girl” and the role that launched Curtis’ career. Curtis has portrayed Laurie for more than four decades now, one of the longest actor-character pairings in cinema history. In this unexpected final chapter, set four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter…
