I Am Love is a bold film full of bravado and cinematic homage that contains some rather complex themes and metaphors (read my review here). Many of the films subtleties can be missed on the first viewing. Thankfully I sat down with director Luca Guadagnino and his partner in crime, producer/actress/muse Tilda Swinton to better understand the intricate weave of  the Italian family and the themes they represent. Both talented individuals cast light on their unique project, how it came to be and discuss some of the artful design elements that went into both characters and the film overall.

Check out the video below for hidden insights into I Am Love.

Holofcener directing perennial muse Catherine Keener on the set of Please Give

Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener burst onto the independent film scene in the mid 90′s with her critically acclaimed dramedy Walking and Talking. The film garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Catherin Keener and was the first in a long line of collaborations between herself and Holofcener. Their next film together, 2001′s Lovely and Amazing, solidified their status as indie darlings.

Now on her fourth feature, Please Give, the director is one again working with Keener and examining the notion of doing the ‘right’ thing with this comedic tale of a family who, for better or worse, aspire to be ‘good’ people. Holofcener shares with us at The Film Stage her inspiration for her quirky and complicated characters, her role as a woman filmmaker in the independent film industry and her collaborative relationship with Keener that has lasted for 15 years. Read the full story

Alex Gibney’s new documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money opens this weekend in limited release and is definitely a film worth checking out. As detailed in my review, the film centers around Jack Abramoff, a super lobbyist in Washington, who becomes the center of one of our countries most perplexing white-collar crimes. It’s an engrossing film filled with greed, power and money and serves as a sobering reminder that things in our government need to change. Read the full story

Talking to director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal about their war film The Hurt Locker was more than an honor. Bigelow is  responsible for some of the most fast-paced films such as Strange Days and Point Break. She is terrific director and this is her best film yet. It isn’t the run-of-the-mill preachy Iraq war film that we have seen so many times over, but rather a character-driven war film. Make sure you see this film in theaters and don’t wait to rent it – this needs to be seen on the big screen. With that said, it was quite an experience to talk to the duo behind this truly great film. It’s initial release date is June 26th, exapnding in the weeks following.

Since just about everyone thinks the film is great, how happy have you guys been with the film’s reception?

Kathryn Bigelow: Pretty happy! Its a pretty extraordinary reaction.

Mark, how much research did you do for the script?

Mark Boal: Uh, well a lot. I went to Iraq and I hung out with bomb squad soldiers. I watched them disarm bombs and I went out on missions with them. I lived their life for a while so that was the beginning of the research. I talked to a bunch of other soldiers when they came back from the war. Yeah, so at the end of the day I had many notebooks filled with information. We looked at videos, photographs, and listened to more stories from soldiers. Then we went to Kuwait and I talked to soldiers there and we also went to some bases around the U.S. So quite a lot of research went into the movie.

How accurately did you portrayal the average life of a soldier?

Mark Boal: Well look, it’s a movie and it’s meant to be entertaining. It’s meant to be engaging, artful and all of that. Uh, but in that context I think it’s pretty faithful to the kind of situations that men face in Baghdad.

Check out the rest of this interview >>

Last week I attended the Night at The Museum: Battle of The Smithsonian premiere, I’ve already posted some of my interviews which you can check out in our back log. Now here’s another one of the quick interviews I got to do with the Hank Azaria.

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A few weeks back I was lucky enough to participate in a webcam (which is apparent by the scattered structure) interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel for their upcoming film 500 Days of Summer. The films debuted at the Sundance film festival this year and was met with stellar reviews, 500 Days Of Summer opens on July 17th.

Tell us what it was like to work on independent films such as this.

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Uh-huh.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: I mean, I would say it was like probably 60% improvised…

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah.

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: …would you say?

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a really good script so–

ZOOEY DESCHANEL: It was a great script, great script.

Read the rest of the interview >>

While I did get to interview with 20th Century FOX CEO Tom Rothman, he was of course very vague about some of the studio’s upcoming films, but the details he gave me were rather interesting.

Read the interview >>