Heather Graham wrote, directed and stars in the new film Chosen Family, and chosen family is a concept close to her heart: The Boogie Nights and The Hangover star spoke in a career retrospective Saturday at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival about how her conservative parents used to discourage her from taking roles, including one in the iconic dark comedy Heathers. “I got offered it, but that’s when I was living at home with my family… and my parents read the script and told me I couldn’t be in it,” she said. “I was very sad and later regretted that, but they would’ve kicked me o ..read more

San Luis Obispo International Film Festival executive director Skye McClennan opened the festivities Thursday by talking about how films help people hear each other’s stories — and Ghostlight, the opening presentation, perfectly encapsulated that idea. The screening presented an entryway into the 30th anniversary edition of the festival, which will also include appearances by Josh Brolin, Heather Graham and Beau Bridges, as well as a new Community of Skate celebration with a focus on skateboarding, to match SLO’s long-running Surf Night that celebrates surfing onscreen. Guided by Ghostlight Gh ..read more

Cinematographer Robert Humphreys got creative with lighting to recreate the warm glow of fire and gaslight that would have been used in 1865, the year that Apple TV+’s Manhunt takes place. Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Humphreys and the creative team behind the show wanted to make it look as historically accurate as possible. “I did a lot of research into what artificial lighting was available at the time, and 1865 was pre-electricity. It was around, there was a little bit of electrical lighting, but not in everyday use — it was more experimental. So the lighting at ..read more

Hugh Grant went full-send on his homemade audition tape for his Tony the Tiger role in Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted Netflix movie. Seinfeld, who directs and acts in the movie as Bob Cabana, and co-screenwriter Spike Feresten told IndieWire how they scored Grant to play Thurl Ravenscrof, the man behind the Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the Tiger. Even after he had already been given the part, Grant sent them an iPhone audition tape that blew them away. Hugh Grant’s Unfrosted Audition ‘Stunned’ Jerry Seinfeld and Spike Feresten “He had a glass of wine in his hand and he was on the couch,” Feresten sa ..read more

A 1950s dinner party that gets spiked with LSD and characters who decide to flip the script while stuck in a horror movie loop were among the highlights of NMLA’s InFocus: Female Cinema Program. The March monthly film festival celebrated up-and-coming female talent in front of and behind the camera along with a selection of shorts from NFMLA’s ongoing monthly program and Colton Van Til’s feature narrative Meltdown: A Nuclear Family’s Ascension into Madness. The day’s programming opened with March Shorts, a selection of films that explore community, perseverance, inner darkness, isolation, inju ..read more

Zendaya is opening up about the challenges of starring in the new Luca Guadagnino movie Challengers. The actress plays Tashi, a tennis pro-turned-coach who ends up in a love triangle with her husband, played by Mike Faist, and her ex-boyfriend played by Josh O’Connor, when the two men face off in a tennis challenger event. Zendaya Opens Up About Pressure of Leading Challengers “I always am nervous — I wish I was joking,” Zendaya recently told Entertainment Weekly of starring in the film. She’s been an integral part of massive films and television series before — she plays recovering high ..read more

Breathe director Stefon Bristol’s love for sci-fi began with Jurassic Park. As he grew up and thought about how, as a Black man, he fit into society, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing spoke to him and helped him decide to become a filmmaker.  With Breathe and his last sci-fi film, the time travel heartbreaker See You Yesterday, Bristol tries to combine the influences of both Spielberg and Lee — the latter of whom has become a mentor.  “We’ve already seen every sci-fi movie that’s out there so how do you make it fresh and different?” Bristol says. “Through characters and the culture that ..read more

Foundation, the sweeping Apple TV+ series based on the work of Isaac Asimov, has some of the most distinctive cinematography in television, enveloping viewers in scenes that span worlds, centuries, and even dimensions. No other show looks anything like it. But Foundation‘s wholly unique look — which combines a thrumming, glowing energy with a grounded sense of gravity — doesn’t come from a heavy hand. In fact, cinematographers Cathal Watters and Owen McPolin, who each shot four episode of the show’s 10-episode second season, say showrunner David Goyer and their directors allowed them notable c ..read more

“I used to ride motorbikes as a student,” says Furiosa director George Miller. “Until I did my first rotation as a young doctor in a big city hospital, in emergency. And the moment I did that, I just got rid of my motorbike.” It was the 1970s, and the Australian physician was working in Sydney while making films on the side — which led to his creation of 1979’s Mad Max. The bleak, stripped-to-the-bone highway vigilante story kicked off the career of a then-23-year-old Mel Gibson, the first Max Rockatansky, and launched a grotesquely beautiful fantasia of brutality still roaring after 45 years ..read more

Unlocked: A Jail Experiment has been the top show on Netflix almost since its release earlier this month. Normally, the stars of a hit Netflix show might expect to make some decent money. But Unlocked is not a normal show. Almost everyone in the cast is an inmate at the Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. A t the start of the series, Sheriff Eric Higgins, who controls the jail, proposes a radical idea to deal with overcrowding and prepare inmates for eventual release to the outside world — opening cell doors so that inmates can move freely through the jail, a r ..read more