MovieMaker

Brandon Cronenberg looked to real life horror — from data mining to election meddling — to inspire the sci-fi/horror hybrid Possessor. Andrea Riseborough stars as Tasya Vos, a woman who carries out assassinations by taking control of other people's bodies using brain-implant technology.

Cronenberg talks to Eric Steuer about how his team used practical effects because skin and blood are particularly difficult to achieve realistically through CGI. He also talks about the real-life scientist who carried out experiments similar to those in Possessor.

And he explains how at one point Christopher Abbott plays Andrea Riseborough's character playing him.

If you like this episode, please subscribe and review us, and follow @EricSteuer and @MovieMakerMag.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yellow Rose, from director Diane Paragas, is about a Filipina girl who fell in love with country music while growing up in Texas. But her dreams of music stardom come under threat when her mother, who is undocumented, is taken in the night by an ICE raid.

Like her protagonist, Paragas grew up Filipina-American in Texas. To tell the story of Rose Garcia (played by Eva Noblezada), she relied on her firsthand experience and research that included visits to ICE detention facilities.

She shot the film amid the Trump Administration's policy of separating families at the border. And as timely as her film is, she tells host Eric Steuer that she's had the idea for Yellow Rose for 15 years.

Yellow Rose is in theaters now.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Radha Blank is the writer, director and star of The 40-Year-OId version, about a struggling playwright who is determined to make it by age 40 — and does. But as a rapper.

Under the name RadhaMUSprime, she raps bluntly about aging, sexuality, and her back pain. The film is a throwback to the '90s rap videos of Digable Planets, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest, among others, as well as the classic New York black-and-white indie films Blank grew up with. The film, executive produced by Lena Waithe, is now streaming on Netflix.

Here's her article about how and when to write for the new issue of MovieMaker Magazine.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gregory Kallenberg says COVID-19 has forever changed indie filmmaking — in some ways for the better. The founder and executive director of the Louisiana Film Prize, which is in the process of awarding $25,000 to the best short film shot this year in Louisiana, says filmmakers have gotten more personal than ever before.

He also talks about his Austin roots, how a documentary led him to Louisiana, and how the idea for the Louisiana Film Prize is expanding.

You can watch this year's entries — and vote — here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Director Jenny Popplewell made a strong decision for her Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door: She didn't care about the killer. She didn't want to understand how Chris Watts' mind worked, or explain his rationale for the atrocious crime he committed: murdering his wife, Shanann Watts, and their two young daughters, Bella and CeCe.

Eschewing interviews and re-enactments, Popplewell's documentary only uses pre-existing footage, such as police body cams, security cameras, and especially Shanann Watts' own videos. She meticulously recorded her family's life, and her family allowed Popplewell to share footage recovered from her laptop and phone so that she can share her own story through the film.

American Murder: The Family Next Door is about Shanann Watts and the life she fought for, not the man who ended it.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Action Park was a northern New Jersey water park, open from the 1970s through 1990s, where many kids had their first kiss, their first beer, their first taste of adventure. But as Class Action Park directors Chris Scott and Seth Porges tell interviewer Eric Steuer, it was also a place where dangerous, poorly designed rides and waterslides resulted in many kids being injured, and even caused a few deaths.

When people over 40 say kids today could never do the things they did "when we were growing up," one of the reasons for that is places like Action Park—a wonderland of danger that also became a wonderland for personal injury attorneys.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Film critic Glenn Kenny went to see a struggling Martin Scorsese at his New York office around Christmas 1989, and found him working on a new, tabloid TV-inspired gangster movie about a mobster named Henry Hill. The film, of course, became Goodfellas, one of the greatest movies of all time.

To mark its 30th anniversary, Kenney just released the excellent Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas. Treat yourself to it right here.

In this episode, Kenny quickly wins us over with a reference to the classic SNL sketch "The Chris Farley Show," then shares stories of the tough spot Scorsese was in as he made Goodfellas; the gangster who connects Goodfellas, The Godfather and Green Book; and talking with Scorsese again a few days after The Irishman's Oscars shutout. Also, the Tom Cruise and Madonna idea.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, writers and directors Antebellum, left luxury advertising years ago to focus on films that can make a difference. Antebellum, they explain, is intended to move not just audiences, but voters.

The film, starring Janelle Monae, is one of many politically and historically aware projects they have in the works. We can't tell you much of anything about the film without some major spoilers, but as the trailer shows, it merges images of modern life with the horrors of slavery.

They talk this episode about why we still need movies about slavery, and why Antebellum isn't to be confused with Octavia Butler's Kindred.

And I can't tell you how many times I've erased and re-recorded that line because I'm so uncomfortab

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Years ago, filmmaker Alan Bailey's friend Charlotte married an airline pilot. She died, tragically, and Alan thought it would be a good idea to make a documentary about "Christian," the widowed pilot, searching for love on Tinder.

That movie turned into the new documentary DTF. Because Christian had no intention of finding love.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boys State, the compulsively watchable new documentary from Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, follows four boys who run for governor in a mock-government program sponsored by the American Legion.

Their competition comes to resemble a real political race thanks to sometimes disingenuous candidates, dubious internet memes, and even impeachment talk.

Guest host Eric Steuer talks with McBaine and Moss about how the conservative Texas boys surprised them, and how a new generation of boys is coming to change the white, Republican 1950s look of Boys State. Among the surprises they discovered: The boys of Boys State often reject political parties outright, and win power through empathy, not alpha-male strong-arm tactics.

Boys State is now streaming on Apple TV+.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.