Daniel Eagan

Film Showcase: Filmmaker Francis Lee Talks about Making Ammonite

November 19, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

Underappreciated during her lifetime, Mary Anning made important contributions to paleontology in the late Nineteenth Century. In Ammonite, writer and director Francis Lee imagines her later career, when she struggled with poverty and isolation. The Neon release opened in theaters November 13. In Lee’s script, Anning searches for fossils while scouring the rocky beaches near Lyme Regis. As played by Kate Winslet, she is a perfectionist finding her way in a still-evolving […]

Doc Showcase: Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds

November 16, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

A meteor streaks across the Siberian sky, captured by startled drivers’ dashboard cameras. That eerie sight is one of many you will encounter in Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, a movie that explores how meteorites have shaped life on our planet. It’s part of this season’s slate of Apple Original documentaries, now available on Apple TV+. Fireball is the second collaboration between acclaimed director Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer, a professor […]

Crafts Spotlight: The Queen’s Gambit Editor Michelle Tesoro, ACE

November 2, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

An orphaned chess prodigy struggles with personal issues in The Queen’s Gambit, a seven-episode series currently streaming on Netflix that’s written and directed by Scott Frank (A Walk Among the Tombstones). This is the third time Frank has collaborated with editor Michelle Tesoro, ACE, after the FX pilot, Hoke, and Godless, a 2017 Western that’s also on Netflix. The Queen’s Gambit was adapted from a novel by Walter Tevis, author […]

Composer Steven Price on Making Music for Over the Moon

October 21, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

A young girl sets off on a magical adventure in Over the Moon, an animated musical streaming on Netflix starting October 23. Directed by Academy Award-winning animator Glen Keane, the movie takes its inspiration from Chinese tales about Chang’e, an immortal moon goddess. “It’s like the Chinese version of Father Christmas,” according to Steven Price, the movie’s soundtrack composer. He found out about the project when Editor Edie Ichioka told […]

Filmmaker Mark Williams on the Challenges Making Honest Thief

October 14, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

In Honest Thief, an Open Road release opening in theaters on October 16, Liam Neeson plays Tom Carter, a bank robber trying to make amends. When Carter confesses his crimes to the FBI, it unleashes a desperate chase after $9 million with Carter the prime suspect in a murder. Set in Boston, the movie also stars Kate Walsh, Jeffrey Donovan, Jai Courtney, Anthony Ramos and Robert Patrick. Honest Thief is the […]

Artist Spotlight: Elliot Goldenthal on Scoring The Glorias

September 29, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

Four different performers (Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Lulu Wilson) portray Gloria Steinem in The Glorias, Julie Taymor‘s biopic about the renowned feminist. For composer Elliot Goldenthal, that meant finding musical themes to tie together a narrative that stretches over two continents and several decades. After premiering at Sundance this past January, The Glorias will be available for digital download and streaming via Prime Video on Wednesday, September 30. Goldenthal has written […]

Rising Sun Pictures’ Tim Crosbie on Visual FX for The Eight Hundred

September 2, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

Since it opened in Asia on August 21, The Eight Hundred has earned close to $300 million. On its second weekend, it out-grossed Tenet‘s global opening weekend of $53 million. Directed and co-written by Guan Hu, it is the first Chinese feature shot in digital IMAX. In commanding detail and intensity, the movie plays out the four-day siege of the Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai in October, 1937, the turning point […]

EMMY WATCH 2020: The Handmaid’s Tale Production Designer Elisabeth Williams

August 25, 2020 Daniel Eagan Comments Off

The extent of Gilead’s power is never more apparent than in the transformed Washington, D.C. capital seen in “Household.” An episode from the third season of Hulu‘s A Handmaid’s Tale, it shows in vivid detail the aftermath of the United States’ conversion from democracy to a religion-based dictatorship. It was nominated for Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour Or More), an Emmy which Elisabeth Williams won […]