MovieMaker

Eli Powers new short Skin & Bone is about a woman who draws troubled people to her farm... and looks deep into their souls. It stars Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried and her husband, The Newsroom star Thomas Sadoski.

Powers alternates between working on films by great directors like Paul Schrader and David O. Russell and making his own films — a strategy that has worked well as he builds strong relationships and buzz at festivals like Tribeca, Aspen Shorts, and Indy Shorts, where Skin & Bone is now playing. You can follow his adventures at HorsegodProductions.

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Todd Flaherty makes his feature directorial debut with Chrissy Judy, in which he also stars. It's the story of drag performers Chrissy (Wyatt Fenner) and Judy (Flaherty) who split up when Chrissy leaves New York City for a new relationship, leaving Judy alone to figure himself out.

Chrissy Judy is a film that is very comfortable with the messiness of love, but makes everything look elegant. Despite a budget of under $20,000, the film has the black-and-white majesty of Woody Allen's Manhattan, thanks in part to Todd Flaherty's cinematographer brother, Brendan.

It premiered at the Provincetown International Film Festival and screens this weekend at Outfest in Los Angeles.

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Still Working 9 to 5 is a new documentary about two things: First, the 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5, starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton as office workers who get revenge on their sexist idiot boss. And second, the serious issues that the film set out to address, that remain shockingly relevant today.

Our guests today are Still Working 9 to 5 moviemakers Camille Hardman and Gary and Larry Lane, as well as Zoe Nicholson, who abandoned dreams of the priesthood to become a feminist icon. She is featured in the documentary and joins us to connect the dots between the film, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the Roe v. Wade decision.

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Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson are here to talk about Severance, their Apple TV+ series about a group of office workers for a mysterious company called Lumen. As part of a bizarre security protocol, they agree to separate their work and home lives completely, so they can't remember home at work, or work at home. They keep things so separate that they can't even recognize co-workers outside of work.

Adam Scott plays Mark, who receives a promotion just as the show starts, and has to onboard a brand-new employee named Helly, played by Britt Lower. The rest of the cast includes frequent Stiller collaborator Patricia Arquette, John Turturro and Christopher Walken.

Erickson wrote Severance as a spec script and a writing sample, hoping to get TV writing jobs after a series of unsatisfying office jobs, some TV work, including at Spike TV, and even delivering for Postmates. When the Severance script reached Stiller's production company, Red Hour Films, Stiller thought that instead of just being a writing sample, it should be a show. It's already been renewed for Season 2.

If you enjoy this interview with Erickson and Stiller, who directs most of the episodes, please share it or review us and visit us on MovieMaker.com.

Photo credits: Ben Stiller by Mark Seliger; Dan Erickson by Frazer Harrison.

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Since I Been Down tells the story of Kimonti Carter, who was sent to prison for a drive-by shooting in 1997, when he was barely 18, for the killing of a college student named Corey Pittman.

The film's director, Dr. Gilda Sheppard, also tells the story of Kimonti's decades-long search for redemption, and of a prison education program he founded in hopes of giving fellow inmates hope behind bars.

Perhaps most powerfully, the film indicts the factors far outside of his control that made his neighborhood a haven for gangs, and put countless men behind bars when they were barely out of childhood.

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Fab 5 Freddy is an icon of art, music and film who has spent much of his life bridging those worlds. We talk with him about the stunning new documentary Hold Your Fire, which he produced.

The film tells the story of a 1973 standoff that began when four young Black men tried to rob a sporting-goods store, and quickly spiraled into a 47-hour hostage situation that has drawn comparisons with the Attica prison takeover and Dog Day Afternoon bank heist. (Freddy, aka Fred Brathwaite, remembers standing outside the bank as police tried to draw out the robbers.)

The 1973 standoff hasn't received as much attention as the others, but Hold Your Fire explains its important place in history — and the world today. Hostage negotiation techniques employed by visionary NYPD psychologist Harvey Schlossberg avoided needless bloodshed, and Freddy points out that they should be more widely used today.

We also talk about the astonishing culture that came out of late 1970s and early '80s New York, from hip-hop to graffiti art to New Wave, and about Freddy's memories of his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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Eskil Vogt is the writer-director of The Innocents, and an Oscar nominee for co-writing The Worst Person in the World. His films transcend genre, but value both realism and surprise.

In this episode, Vogt talks with MovieMaker's Tim Molloy about good vs. evil and why neither really exists, why screenwriters sometimes have to harm children and animals (only cinematically, of course) and a 1977 Swiss-French film he loves. We also discuss the promise of the X-Men films and how they often fall apart.

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Bruce McCulloch and Vance Banzo are two guys from Edmonton, Alberta guys, united by comedy. McCulloch is a member of the legendary Kids in the Hall who has used his clout to boost Banzo's hilarious, multicultural comedy team, TallBoyz.

The new Kids and the Hall is airing on Amazon Prime just as TallBoyz make its U.S. debut on Fuse TV and Fuse+. We talked with them about who gets to make what joke, if comedy is really harder because of our more sensitive times, and dealing with notes from higher-ups.

Your host Tim Molloy also revisits an upsetting moment watching McCullock get pounded with questions over one of his many divisive (but lovable!) characters.

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The first time Justin Kawika Young met Maile Stant, she told him her brother Shane was her hero: a protector at a time when both were struggling to cope with their father's abuse.

Then Maile mentioned something else about Shane: He was the guy who, in 1994, attacked figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.

Soon Young found himself meeting with both Maile and Shane Stant to tell the story of a man who made the worst mistake of his life at age 22, and has spent nearly three decades trying to rebuild. My Hero the Hitman is the story of how even an infamous criminal can become a force for good.

Pictured: Justin Kawika Young, by Gregory Metcalf Photography.

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Nadine Crocker made her film Continue in the hopes that people considering suicide will instead live long enough to overcome their pain. She knows that day will come, because she's lived to see it herself.

Today she's the writer, director, producer and star of a feature film that's earning love on the festival circuit, building a passionate following and encouraging people to talk openly about the most difficult subjects. But a few years ago, at 23, she attempted suicide herself.

She knows things that can change.

"I've seen those transformations," she says. "I am that transformation."

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