MovieMaker

Vera Drew is the creator of The People's Joker, which evolved from an attempt to re-edit Todd Phillip's 2019 into its own completely original work of art — a very affectionate parody of Batman mythology and all the ideas it takes for granted.

Combining comedy, animation, and Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's flair for cartoonish drama, it's a punkish, dreamy dismantling and rebuilding of Gotham as we know it, made with verve and daring.

We talk with Drew about making a microbudget masterpiece, dealing with some legal issues, and scoring a cameo by Robert Wuhl.

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Some people think of virtual reality as an escape from actual reality. But helping you escape reality is the opposite of what Felix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël hope to do through their immersive virtual reality company, Felix & Paul Studios.

The Emmy-winning Montreal-based studio takes audiences to places they might otherwise never go — to the International Space Station, inside the Oval Office, even back in time.

You can watch Inside Felix & Paul Studios here.

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Coss Marte created a prison-based workout program in solitary confinement, then turned it into a thriving business called Conbody that employs ex-inmates. Their recidivism rate is zero.

Debra Granik, the brilliant Oscar-nominated director of films including Winter's Bone and Leave No Trace, tells the story in Conbody vs Everybody, premiering today at Sundance.

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Documentary podcast Actual Facts is back on the MovieMaker feed to talk docs! Eric and Jason discuss "American Pain," a documentary that tells the story of twin brothers and bodybuilders Chris and Jeff George, who operated a franchise of pain clinics in Florida where they made millions of dollars handing out pills like candy. The film's director, Darren Foster, stops by to chat.

Actual Facts is hosted by Eric Steuer and Jason Betrue

Music by Yalls: https://www.dancasey.me/

"American Pain": https://www.americanpainfilm.com/

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Cory Choy's Esme, My Love is a mother-daughter thriller, set in the wilds of upstate New York and powered by visual and auditory experimentation. Choy relied not just on his extensive experience as a sound designer (he runs NYC's Silver Sound) but also on his own life experiences, from recording music with his friends in his early teens to being a parent to listening to supernatural stories.

Esme, My Love is now available on your favorite VOD platform.

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Brian Helgeland has won an Oscar for the screenplay of L.A. Confidential and was nominated again for Mystic River. He wrote and directed films including Payback, A Knights Tale and 42.

But the film he always wanted to make is Finestkind, inspired by his experience on a fishing boat off the coast of his Massachusetts hometown. It's now out on Paramount+.

Photo by Maarten De Boer.

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Filmmaker Sharon "Rocky" Roggio is a lesbian filmmaker who hopes to someday change her Christian pastor father's mind about homosexuality.

Like many Christians, he believes that the Bible condemns it. But her new documentary, 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, argues that mistranslations at a 1946 gathering led to widespread misunderstandings used to justify bigotry and violence.

It's a scholarly, fascinating film, but also an achingly personal one. Roggio takes a love-your-enemies approach to trying to end the weaponization of the Bible against LGBTQ people — starting in her own family.

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John Carney and Gary Clark tell stories of scrappy amateurs trying to break into the music industry — because they've both been there.

Flora and Son is about a working-class young Irish woman (Eve Hewson, magnetic) who picks up a guitar for her son, and ends up learning to play it herself with help from an American teaching lessons online (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Because Carney is also the writer-director of the gorgeous Once and Sing Street, you can be assured that Flora and Son will make your heart soar and get some incredibly catchy songs stuck in your head.

Clark and Carney discuss the art of writing a great song — versus writing an OK one, on purpose, our current weird version of nostalgia, and how they hope their work will get you to start making your own songs.

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Cinematographer Steven Holleran doesn't do anything the easy way. For A Boy. A Girl. A Dream: Love on Election Night, he shot one continuous 90-minute film while racing down Sunset Boulevard. For Missing, he handed off cameras to the actors. And for his latest project, Sympathy for the Devil, he found ways to make a car ride with Nicholas Cage and Joel Kinnaman freakishly compelling.

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Extraction 2 director Sam Hargrave thought long and hard about how to top the 12-minute nonstop action sequence in the first Extraction, and thought of one way to do it when he saw a weather forecast calling for snow: "What if we light Chris Hemsworth on fire?"

Here's our full talk with Hargrave about stunts, Oscars, the writer's strike, and yes, fire. And also the insane prison break sequence.

If you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out our previous interview with Sam Hargrave about 2020's original Extraction.

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