Tag: Steven Spielberg (21-30 of 45)

Sep 21 2011 01:04 PM ET

Producers Guild to honor Steven Spielberg: But what took so long?

by
Tags: , ,
Steven-Spielberg

Image Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Steven Spielberg will receive the 2012 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures from the Producers Guild of America next January. And while the Guild is falling all over itself to congratulate the filmmaker, calling him “one of the most prolific filmmakers of all time,” whose “continued genius, imagination and fearlessness in the world of feature film entertainment is unmatched in this industry,” you have to wonder why it’s taken the PGA so long.

Spielberg made Jaws nearly four decades ago. READ FULL STORY »

Sep 20 2011 06:50 PM ET

Steven Spielberg says Lincoln biopic will cover final months of his life -- so what will we miss?

by
Tags: , , , Movies
Steven-Spielberg

Image Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

A few years, a couple stars and a lot of rumors later, the long-awaited Abraham Lincoln biopic looks to be making its first steps toward theaters.

Director Steven Spielberg told the Orlando Sentinel that although Lincoln will be based on Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, it will focus on the last four months of Lincoln’s life — meaning the film would cover roughly the time from Dec., 1864 until his death on April 15, 1865.

Obviously, a lot happened during those four months, but a good deal happened outside of them as well. READ FULL STORY »

Aug 2 2011 05:55 PM ET

Steven Spielberg 'movie list' is bogus, but it's still a great idea

by
Tags: , , , Movies
Steven-Spielberg

Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The American Film Institute famously updates a list of the 100 greatest films of all-time every 10 years or so, but can you trust anything determined by a committee? Wouldn’t you rather just know the films a true cinematic master reveres? What if, say, Steven Spielberg handed you a list of movies, and said, “Go now. Watch these films. Study them. Watch them with the sound off. Listen with your eyes closed. And you will be a filmmaker, my son.”

Just such a list created some buzz on the Internet recently. An interesting collection of 206 masterpieces and underrated gems, from Adam’s Rib to The Young Lions, was advertised online as Spielberg’s Curriculum. The collection skewed old-school, with not one work from the last 20 years, but included many classic films from directors Spielberg has long admired publicly, like Frank Capra and David Lean. It seemed like a list Spielberg would recommend. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 29 2011 09:35 AM ET

Why my 'Lincoln' casting obsession rivals 'The Hunger Games'

by
Tags: , , , , , Movies
day_lewis_Strathairn_320.jpg

Image Credit: Getty Images (2)

When a best-selling book is turned into a motion picture, the casting of beloved characters becomes an Internet blood-sport. It’s never enough for the filmmakers just to announce who will play the hero; invested fans want to know who will play every minor character, especially the obscure guy who died on page 11. The studios know this, of course, so they tantalize us with the slow drip-drip-drip of casting news, and there’s nothing we can do about it but rant and rage on Internet comment boards. You might feel this way about The Hunger Games, but it’s how I feel about Lincoln, the long-awaited Steven Spielberg film based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s heralded biography, Team of Rivals. Ever since Daniel Day-Lewis was tabbed to play Honest Abe last November, I’ve been mentally filling up Lincoln’s cabinet with some famous faces lined with 19th-century character. Since then, DreamWorks has added Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln), Joseph Gordon Levitt (the president’s eldest son, Robert), Tommy Lee Jones (abolitionist senator Thaddeus Stevens), and David Strathairn (Secretary of State William Seward).

Great, but not nearly good enough for this history nerd. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 20 2011 11:59 PM ET

Michael Bay on Megan Fox's Hitler remark: Spielberg said, 'Fire her right now'

by
Tags: , , , , ,
Transformers-Megan-Fox

Image Credit: Jaimie Trueblood

You don’t have to be Dale Carnegie to know that you shouldn’t compare your boss, who can fire you, to Adolf Hitler. So when Transformers vixen Megan Fox told Wonderland magazine in 2009 that her director was like the infamous Nazi mass murderer, well, she was inevitably replaced for the franchise’s upcoming third film. Now, Bay is admitting the obvious, telling GQ that Fox’s departure had everything to do with the führer furor:  “She was in a different world, on her BlackBerry. You gotta stay focused. And you know, the Hitler thing. Steven [Spielberg] said, ‘Fire her right now.’ ” READ FULL STORY »

Jun 13 2011 06:30 PM ET

Can you spy Bruce Greenwood in 'Super 8'?

by
Tags: , , , , , Movies
Bruce_Greenwood

Image Credit: James Kachan/AP Images for Paramount Home Entertai

There are a lot of spoilers to preserve in J.J. Abrams’ Super 8, but I have no problem telling you that Bruce Greenwood plays the “monster” that escapes the train-wreck and turns an Ohio town upside down. This isn’t exactly a Kaiser Söze breach, since Greenwood, who starred as J.F.K. in Thirteen Days and worked with Abrams on Star Trek, contributed the performance-capture work for the scary creature. The only real trace of his involvement is in the closing credits, which list his name next to a character named Cooper. But as the Montreal Gazette writes, Cooper was what Abrams and the crew named their mysterious critter. (It might be another nod to the Spielberg mythos: recall that the unreliable shark in Jaws had a name too, Bruce.) OKAY, NOW THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD — READ ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL: READ FULL STORY »

Jun 10 2011 12:00 PM ET

Who was the real Indiana Jones? -- EXCLUSIVE

by
Tags: , , , , Movies
Real-Indiana-Jones

Image Credit: Courtesy of National Geographic Society; Lucasfilm Ltd.

Almost from the day Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered 30 years ago on June 12, 1981, fans have speculated about who the real-life model for Indiana Jones had been. While researching his forthcoming book, Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time (June 30; Dutton) journalist Mark Adams (brother of EW editor Jason Adams) investigated the background of one of the prime suspects — a dashing young Yale history professor, Hiram Bingham III, who found the ruins of Machu Picchu nearly 100 years ago. Here is an exclusive excerpt from the book:  READ FULL STORY »

Jun 9 2011 09:00 AM ET

This Week's Cover: J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg talk 'Super 8'

by
Tags: , , , , , Movies

What happens when two of Hollywood’s most creative minds team up to make a movie? The answer is Super 8, written and directed by J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Lost) and produced by Steven Spielberg (credits unnecessary, don’t you think?) opening in theaters on June 10. In the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, the two filmmakers come together at Abrams’ office in Santa Monica for a wide-ranging discussion about their recent collaboration and their surprisingly long history of working with each other. The relationship began nearly 30 years ago when Abrams — then a teenage wannabe filmmaker growing up geeky in Los Angeles, along with his best friend Matt Reeves (who co-created Felicity with Abrams and directed Cloverfield) — were hired to repair the 8mm Spielberg shot during his youth. “I remember working on this one film and getting to the credits where it said: ‘Written and directed by Steve Spielberg.’ Not ‘Steven.’ Steve Spielberg!” recalls Abrams. “I told Matt: I am totally going to cut one of these ‘Steve Spielberg’ frames out of this film and keep it for myself, but Matt talked me out of it.”

“People only called me Steven after my first screen credit,” replies Spielberg. “I prefer Steve, but those days are long gone.”  READ FULL STORY »

Jun 8 2011 06:10 PM ET

Steven Spielberg talks about 'Jaws' -- the greatest summer movie ever made

by
Tags: , , , , , , Movies, Web Surfing
jaws

Image Credit: Everett Collection

When Steven Spielberg’s Jaws hit theaters back on June 20, 1975, the modern-day summer movie was born. One of the first films ever to be widely released on a large number of screens across the country on a single day, Spielberg’s sea-faring saga redefined what it meant to be a blockbuster. On top of all of that, Jaws also happened to be a rollicking, enjoyable, and insanely scary movie, mixing popcorn thrills and the kind of character development you tend to only see in Oscar-bait prestige films. In a new interview about Jaws with Ain’t It Cool News, Spielberg talked about his nerve-wracking months on the fictional Amity Island (actually Martha’s Vineyard), how he gathered his cast, and Robert Shaw’s infamous U.S.S. Indianapolis scene (oh, and a few words for the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom haters out there — hint: blame George Lucas). Here are some of the more excerptable excerpts. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 6 2011 05:38 PM ET

'Saving Private Ryan': Has a movie ever sent you overseas?

by
Tags: , , , , Movies
saving_private_ryan

Image Credit: David James

When Saving Private Ryan came out in the summer of 1998, a few years after the 50th anniversary of the crucial D-Day landings in Normandy, France, the entire culture was soaking in Greatest Generation nostalgia that honored the humble folk who were raised during a Great Depression but answered the call to fight tyranny in order keep the world free.

The film was a paralyzing experience — from the harrowing assault on Omaha Beach to Tom Hanks’ Capt. Miller’s last gasping words to Matt Damon’s titular G.I. When I first saw the film, there were audible sobs from the audience beginning with the initial beach assault, but the film ended in absolute silence. When the lights came on, it became clear that no one had moved from their seat. READ FULL STORY »

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP
Your favorite social platform?