One main reason I’m such a fan of Joe Johnston is that he makes visually fantastical films while never losing sight of a clear, entertaining story line with characters that ring true. In Part 2 of my exclusive interview with Joe, I talked to him about the combination of VFX and practical effects, the overuse [...]

This Valentine’s Day, I suggest you snuggle close to a warm companion who has soft hair and loves being out in the moonlight, someone who can disembowel you, decapitate you, and tear you limb from limb as quickly as you can say, “Roses are Red.” As sick as it sounds, this is the very loved [...]

An interview with Simon Crane who has choreographed fights and stunts for Angelina Jolie in films like Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Salt, the latest Jolie film about a former CIA agent who is falsely accused of mbeing a Russian sleeper cell. Jolie joined the movie after Tom Cruise backed out.

Daybreakers may have dropped out of the top 10 films in its second weekend, but if you haven’t had a chance to see it, it’s worth it — especially if you are a fan of action films. The film, written and directed by twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig, injects a surge of originality into [...]

Breaking this Friday January 8th is a vampire film that will allow you to come out into the light and be proud of your vampire fandom. (Or, if the whole Twilight phenomenon makes you throw up in your mouth a little, this new film will show you that vampire movies don’t have to be about [...]

In the final installment of our exclusive interview, Avatar Visual Effects Supervisor John Bruno explains how every scrape, cut, and bruise on the lithe body of ten-foot Na’vi warrior princess Neytiri is part of a meticulously compiled physical record of her violent interaction with the invading humans and the Pandoran wilderness.
Jungle Fever Without the Jungle
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I met Willem Dafoe today and, while we spent much of the time talking about his upcoming film, Daybreakers, I’m going to skip right to some quick and dirty information about a film that he’s about to start, John Carter of Mars. Carter is based on a a series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs [...]

News in the Ninja Universe: It became official last night that USA Network greenlit 11 episodes of Covert Affairs, starring the extraordinarily wide-smiling Piper Perabo. (You may remember her bare midriff from Coyote Ugly.) The show is created and co-executive produced by Matt Corman and Chris Ord, and is produced by Hypnotic (the TV and [...]

If you’re lucky enough to live in New York City, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, you’ve got a tailor-made excuse to grab some 40’s with a bunch of friends and head to the movie theater on January 8, because that’s the day that Bitch Slap, a brand-new B-movie exploitation film, opens in your city. While [...]

It’s not easy to impress an Oscar-winning VFX master like John Bruno, but some of the CGI techniques used to create Avatar were so trippily innovative that after Bruno joined the film as one of its visual effects supervisors a year and a half ago, he repeatedly found himself shaking his head in awe.
In Part [...]

An exclusive with John Bruno, James Cameron’s special effects guru. Bruno explain how he shot the Na’vi, how it took him a year to make Neytiri say, “I see you”, and explains the sequence when jake sully meets colonel quaritch in the amp-suit bay. Also, what is the difference between motion-capture technology and CBB shots.

A-list action screenwriter Simon Kinberg gives 30 Ninjas Editor John Freeman Gill the inside story on the physical chess game of Robert Downey Jr.’s wing chun kung fu, how the actor authored his own fight scenes, and how the filmmakers handled the delicate issue of Sherlock’s cocaine addiction.
The Erudite Kung Fu of Robert Downey Jr.
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Spartacus: Blood and Sand is picking up popularity in recent days. At the very least, it is popular enough to be renewed for a second season! Now, have any of you seen Spartacus: Blood and Sand? No, no you haven’t, because the series hasn’t premiered yet. That’s right, Starz resigned a contract for a program [...]

So the week started out on an unusual note for me — I headed out to Staten Island to receive a commendation from the U.S. Coast Guard for the rescue Captain Ludwig and I performed in August. It was really touching and a little embarrassing to be standing in a conference room full of uniformed [...]

A couple of posts ago, I talked about working with my composer, John Powell. Out of all the different people I work with on my films, I’m most consistent with my choice of my music team (aside from my agent, my lawyer, and David Bartis, my business partner). After making Swingers, I started doing commercials, [...]