Brendan Hodges

Even the harshest critics of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance“ acknowledge the scene where Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle falls into a self-conscious frenzy before a date is eerily relatable. Watching herself in the mirror, she goes through an anxious fashion show of trying different looks and outfits before she has to leave, her increasingly panicked spiral leaving her exhausted and dejected before she finally smears makeup off her face in defeat. It’s a scene that leaves most viewers with t...

"Welcome to Peeping Toms, New York's newest and grooviest game!"
- Brian De Palma, "Sisters"
"You know your dick was hard the entire time," Quentin Tarantino once accused of Stanley Kubrick. It was in response to how Kubrick maintained that "A Clockwork Orange" was a powerful statement of anti-violence and took no pleasure in its graphic acts of mayhem and assault. For Tarantino–among the most rabid Brian De Palma superfans–that is pure hypocrisy. To him, films are exercises in fetish and kin...

“The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power“ is the most expensive television show of all time and it shows. It’s a massive production with giant battles, set pieces, tons of characters, and every department working at the top of their game to transport audiences to Middle Earth. One of the key people who helped with that level of immersion is composer Bear McCreary,, who has now composed the music for the show’s first two seasons. During the airing of the second season, McCreary was kind enou...

Features
Mounted horses bifurcate the hazy horizon, armed silhouettes in furious charge dash towards a village beneath them; in seconds, we see above and below, the predators and their prey, a telephoto lens collapsing space to signal their invasion.
Take this village too?
Take it! Take it!
Not so fast!
We just took their rice last fall.
They'll have nothing now.
Very well.
We'll return when that barley's ripe!
It’s only a matter of time. They will come back. They must hire samurai — seven.
S...

Just like how George Lucas famously took inspiration from Akira Kurosawa movies like The Hidden Fortress or Yojimbo for his Star Wars movies, Headland proudly pulls from a long heritage of wuxia storytelling to open up new storytelling opportunities for the franchise. (She even cited King Hu and The Shaw Brothers by name when pitching The Acolyte.)
In many ways, wuxia is a natural fit for Star Wars. The genre typically focuses on wronged families seeking revenge or the fraught relationships b...

Richard Linklater may be the most prestigious filmmaker alive to have a visual style so disarmingly simple. Many of his most acclaimed movies, especially “The Before Trilogy” and “Boyhood,” cultivated an elegant, simplified filmmaking approach that promotes a rare kind of naturalism –– Linklater’s movies can feel improvised despite being rigorously rehearsed, and he usually brings a visual approach as easy-going as his characters in “Dazed and Confused” or “Everybody Wants Some!!,” stretching...

“True Detective: Night Country” garnered some of the best reviews from critics and reactions from fans since the HBO show’s acclaimed first season. One of the highlights was the striking, chilling visuals from Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister (“TAR“). Florian was very gracious with his time and went into detail with us on his work for this latest season of the hit miniseries, which you can listen to below. Please be sure to check out the show, which is now available...

Premiering May of 2023, “Silo,” the new sci-fi Apple TV+ series that launched as the highest-rated drama debut on the platform, defies what you think it is. It is cerebral, bold science fiction, excitedly blending elements of murder mystery, western, and dystopian conspiracy with a post-apocalyptic world, and Rebecca Ferguson leads as a reluctant gearhead sheriff with an attitude problem. “Silo” recalls some of the greatest sci-fi shows of the century, with some comparing it (favorably) to “L...

Ever since the furious opening seconds of “Mad Max 2” (or “The Road Warrior” in the U.S.), it’s been apparent George Miller’s central preoccupation is with myth, legend, and folklore, and he’s gone on to study them his entire career. We first hear it through a chaotic montage of apocalypse and voiceover, narration speaking cryptic words from an unknown future, as though whispered by a campfire: “My life fades, my visio...

“Evil Does Not Exist” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where it received positive reviews for its direction and writing from Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, and score by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Eiko Ishibashi. Following their collaboration on the Oscar-winning film, “Drive My Car,” the two intended to make a 30-minute short film accompanied by a live score. But as the production got lengthier and the shoot went along, Hamaguchi decided to turn it into ...

If Alex Garland is to be believed, then “Civil War,” his latest feature that’s proven as polarizing to audiences as the explosive conflict in the smoke-plumed cityscapes of the film, is a love letter to the valor and importance of “objective” journalism. It’s a point he often references in interviews, a film designed to honor journalists’ honest, nonpartisan viewpoint in a time of intense polarization and extremism. As Kirsten Dunst’s veteran war photographer Lee says at one point in the movi...

Few recent filmmakers have risen as a household name quite as rapidly as Denis Villeneuve. Following a run of arty and visually dynamic films made in the Canadian film system that ended with his Oscar-nominated “Incendies,” Villeneuve migrated to Hollywood in 2013, kicking off with a run of cerebral but grim studio thrillers (most big hits) beginning with “Prisoners,” “Enemy,” “Sicario” and “Arrival,” blending art-house instincts with exacting genre storytelling. And by creating improbably gr...

We previously interviewed the Oscar-nominated Production & Costume Designers for Ridley Scott’s epic historical film “Napoleon.” Now, we’re bringing you the final of its three Oscar nominations with Best Visual Effects. The team of Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, Simone Coco, and Neil Corbould are also nominated at the Visual Effects Society for Best Supporting Visual Effects In A Photorealistic Feature and the BAFTA Awards for Best Visual Effects. All four were kind enough to tak...

“Perfect Days” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the festival’s Best Actor prize for Japanese star Kōji Yakusho. It would go on to be selected by Japan as their entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards and would eventually receive the Oscar nomination. As the film expanded to more theaters, Academy Award-nominated director and co-writer Wim Wenders and Yakusho sat with us to discuss their experiences working on the movie. Please ...

“Godzilla Minus One” was one of 2023’s most surprising success stories. The film grossed over $105 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese “Godzilla” film of all time; it crossed over into the U.S., where it received an overwhelmingly positive response from critics and now has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects making it the first film in the 70-year-old franchise to receive an Academy Award nomination. Director, Writer, and Visual Effects Supervisor Takashi...