You Couldn't Get Those "Hamilton" Tickets?

by Eric Blume

Good news, as Disney is bringing a filmed version of the Broadway sensation Hamilton to movie theaters October 15, 2021, with the original cast. It will not be a fully-imagined film like this summer's other Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights.  Instead, it will be a "live capture" of the stage performance, shot in the Richard Rodgers Theater before the original cast started to disband.  

I was lucky enough to see this cast in the original incarnation at the Public Theater, and then again when it moved to Broadway with different actors.  No disrespect to the excellent work of the actors from round two, but there is truly nothing like seeing the original cast of a show...

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Fourth Timers: Brad, Kathy, Saoirse, Joaquin, and the Zeéeeee

Four days till Oscar.

This season brings us multiple four-timers. It's round quatro for a full 25% of our acting nominees: Brad Pitt, Renée Zellweger, Saoirse Ronan, Joaquin Phoenix, and Kathy Bates. They're all on their fourth nomination for acting (though Brad has additional nominations for producing).

Let’s rank their 20 nominated performances for fun after the jump, shall we? Yes, let's...

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Murtada's Sundance Notes & Favorite Performances

by Murtada Elfadl

My second straight year at Sundance was even better than my first. I knew my way around a little bit more and managed not to over schedule myself. The movies remain for the most part fantastic and the conversations in the many lines and at the different spaces on Main Street illuminating. Here are a few observations about this year's festival:

the Zola team

Diversity of Voices and Stories Can Be Accomplished

I saw 30 movies in 8 days. Half of them were directed by women and half were cast with pre dominantently actors of color. Some of the best movies I saw came from outside the US...

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Soundtracking: Chicago

by Chris Feil

With Renée Zellweger likely taking home another Oscar for her performance of Judy Garland this Sunday, it feels like a full circle moment for the actress’s career and Oscar’s relationship with musicals in the modern era. Rob Marshall’s take on the Kander and Ebb masterpiece Chicago was a platonic ideal between Academy voters (and the public) who sneered at the genre and its fans that were reinvigorated by the audacity of Moulin Rouge! just a year prior. Chicago injected new life into a previously dead genre, reigniting Oscar’s love as well, from all-out musicals to especially musical biopics like Zellweger’s Judy.

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Interview: Joker's Costume Designer Mark Bridges

by Nathaniel R

Mark Bridges with Joker costumes

Mark Bridges film career began, as so many have, rather inauspicously. His debut was a now forgotten horror film called Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) but there's no keeping talent like his down... though it never hurts to attach yourself straight away to a future god-level auteur like Paul Thomas Anderson. Bridges was on board for Anderson's feature debut Hard Eight (1996) and the celebrated auteur wisely never let go of him thereafter. Inbetween Anderson films (and on them in point of fact) Bridges established himself as a world class costume designer of tremendous versatility, with a gift for not just memorable clothing but character-building.

His latest film, Joker, became his most widely viewed work and then an Academy favourite. We had a chance to talk to the two-time Oscar winner (Phantom Thread, The Artist) this past week about his design process, his favourites from his own filmography, and why he loves his job so much...

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