Steph Green Living on the Short Circuit by Jay S. Jacobs It’s not like film directors just appear working feature films with no prior experience. Most great directors have gotten their feet wet working on short films: including Steven Spielberg (“Amblin’”), Martin Scorsese (“What’s A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?”), … Continue reading
ALEX GIBNEY RIDES THE TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE by Brad Balfour Having previously made The Trials of Henry Kissinger and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, documentary director Alex Gibney has become an expert on people corrupted by and abusing their power. A prize–winner at last spring’s Tribeca Film Festival, few films resonate like Taxi to the … Continue reading
Emile Hirsch Takes Some Severe Steps Into the Wild by Brad Balfour When youthful 22-year-old actor Emile Hirsch got cast for Into The Wild, it was great career move for him, not just because he got to work with the actor’s actor Sean Penn (in a directorial turn), but also because he was considerably challenged as … Continue reading
Christopher Hampton Adapting Atonement by Jay S. Jacobs When adapting a complex novel like Ian McEwan’s best-seller Atonement, it was important to find a screenwriter who could do justice to the epic scope and passions on the pages of the book. It made sense to give the job to a writer who has specialized in adaptations, … Continue reading
Once Around Dublin’s Streets with Glen Hansard & John Carney by Brad Balfour Fashioning a hybrid from two cinematic genres can either pay off or be a profound failure. In the case of John Carney’s debut feature, Once, he succeeds handily. Maybe that’s because he enlisted his longtime pal and former band member, Glen Hansard, lead … Continue reading
Paul Greengrass The Director Flies UNITED 93 by Brad Balfour If you have seen director Paul Greengrass’s earlier docu-fiction feature, Bloody Sunday – which captures that fateful day in Derry, Northern Ireland, when thirteen unarmed protestors were gunned down by British troops sparking “The Troubles” there – you would know that he can handle this assignment. So despite all the … Continue reading
LUC JACQUET A DIRECTOR DOCUMENTS A NEW GENERATION OF EMPERORS By Brad Balfour For French documentary director Luc Jacquet, making The March of the Penguins, might have been success enough, but to see his tale of an emperor penguin colony under some of the harshest conditions on earth, become a summer sleeper family hit and one … Continue reading
Philip Seymour Hoffman Channels Capote by Brad Balfour Though the actor is almost a head taller than the late author and social figure Truman Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman brilliantly recreates the writer for the film about his life during the creation of his literary masterpiece, In Cold Blood – the story of two killers who massacre a … Continue reading
Jamie Foxx What’d He Say? By Brad Balfour With the incredible buzz about the Ray Charles bio pic, Ray, comedian Jamie Foxx’s work has been hailed as a Best Actor Oscar shoo-in even though he’s also nominated for his work in Collateral). And that’s no joke; this former Texan has made the transition from TV funny man (In Living Color/The … Continue reading
PopEntertainmentblog.com 