Lying about your grandma’s mortality seems like a bad idea, except when the bad idea ends up forming the basis of a really good movie. Continue reading
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Filed under Interviews …
“One Of The Biggest Horror Movie Scares Of The Year Happens During A Game Of ‘Never Have I Ever'”
Good, patiently executed scares are a gift from the movie gods, and so’re opportunities to hash it out with the people responsible for putting those scares together. Continue reading
“Diving Deep into Distraction with John Darnielle”
One easily distracted ADD person + one other easily distracted ADD person = a very good conversation about the endless intersections between the act of creation. Continue reading
“Penny Lane Explores the Questioning Behind the Question Mark in Hail Satan?”
Not the Kiernan Shipka version of “hail Satan!”, but a kinder, gentler, more politically conscious version. Continue reading
“Race-Car Driver Hurley Haywood and Patrick Dempsey Talk About Their New Documentary, Hurley”
Andy becomes an authority on race car driving in the blink of an eye just by talking to Hurley Haywood and Patrick Dempsey. (Note: Andy is not by any means an authority on race car driving.) Continue reading
“S. Craig Zahler On ‘Dragged Across Concrete,’ Casting Mel Gibson, His Writing Process And More”
Andy tries to get an honest answer out of a filmmaker about the perils of casting a controversial figure in their movie, and he is sort of embarrassed for it. Continue reading
“Gaspar Noe On Climax, Accidental Allegories, Catastrophe Movies And More”
Andy interviews an Argentine-born French filmmaker whose work he’s followed since 2002, and ends up looking kinda foolish but it all works out in the end. Continue reading
“André Holland Talks Netflix’s ‘High Flying Bird’ And The Racial Politics of Sports”
A chat with one of the best actors out there about process, trust, and one of the most pervasive social and political issues of our day, that of America’s original sin. Continue reading
“A Japanese Cousin To The Giallo Movie: Nicolas Pesce On Piercing”
Not “gelato.” “Giallo.” You know, that most famous of Italian sub-genres where a killer goes around killing people? Nicolas Pesce’s new movie, “Piercing,” is all about the giallo. And apparently a bunch of other genres, too. Continue reading
“Producer Chris Morgan On ‘Bird Box’ And The Rock’s ‘Fast & Furious’ Future”
Should fate ever afford you chance to speak with Chris Morgan, do, and make sure you’ve more than 20 minutes to talk to him: He’s a talker! And a good talker! I say this a lot, but I honestly could have talked all day with Morgan about movies and storytelling, which probably explains his vocation … Continue reading
“Trevante Rhodes Does His Most Important Work Before 8 a.m.”
No better way to preamble this piece than by saying that speaking with Trevante Rhodes was a humbling experience; he’s a gracious man, to say nothing of his talents as an actor or his Herculean physique, and while we did do some press about his new movie (Susanne Bier’s Bird Box), we talked more about male identity … Continue reading
“‘The Purge’ Creator James DeMonaco On Predicting The Future With Movie Sequels And TV Seasons”
Today’s recommendation for a good life: Talk to James DeMonaco. Doesn’t really matter the context or the topic. Just, if you ever get a chance to chat with him, do. He’s a blast to confab with. I know I had a good time as we dug into 2018, the year of The Purge franchise, from The First … Continue reading
“The Director of ‘Bisbee ’17’ on Making the Year’s Most Daring, Revelatory Documentary”
I like a good, standardized talking head doc that’s lean, simple, but knows how to tell a nonfiction story through primary sources and such as that. But I like creative, nonstandard docs that feel more like art than journalism, and that’d be Robert Greene‘s Bisbee ’17, which you may recall I wrote about last month. Bisbee ’17 … Continue reading
“Sharing a Beer with Esther Tetreault a.k.a. Mrs. Trillium”
Continuing my side career as a major Trillium Brewing Company booster: My interview with Esther Tetreault, one of the most joyful interviews I’ve conducted all year (aided in no small part by drinks*), about Trillium’s past, present, and future, including a discussion of “beer therapy” and a back and forth on the company’s apparent evolution … Continue reading
“Bruce Campbell Sends ‘Evil Dead’ Off With a Bloody, Bingeworthy Bang”
…oh, come the heck on, of course I set up a talk with Bruce Campbell about the end of Ash vs Evil Dead, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here. This is my second chat with Bruce, following my first, which orbited the show’s second season, while this one is all about the third, … Continue reading
“Director Crystal Moselle’s Inspiration for ‘Skate Kitchen’ Was the Real, Shredding Teen Girl Crew”
Second time’s the charm! A few years back I spoke with Crystal Moselle about her debut film, The Wolfpack, and half-assed prepared for it. A week or so back, I spoke with her again about her new film, Skate Kitchen, and prepared much less half-assedly for it – you could say I full-assed it – and the whole thing went … Continue reading
“How the Director of The Spy Who Dumped Me Made a Graphic, Funny, Feminist Action Film”
Upfront, I didn’t have high expectations for The Spy Who Dumped Me; I don’t have faith in studio comedies, and I especially don’t have faith in studio action comedies, because they tend to treat the action with indifference and just joke through fight scenes where characters reasonably should be taking matters seriously. But Susanna Fogel isn’t fucking … Continue reading
“Sobering And Funny, ‘Blindspotting’ Wants To Return Feeling To Our Collective Consciousness”
Revisiting my audio recording of the interview I conducted with Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal at this year’s Independent Film Festival Boston, I finally figured out what I would have really liked to have said about the film at the time but didn’t: Racism’s really hard to talk about, even couched in a piece of art like Blindspotting. It’s … Continue reading
