Noticias

Susan Lacy's documentary Spielberg debuts October 7th on HBO, trots out an all-star team of interviewees – from film critics to famous friends, the Toms (Cruise and Hanks) to God herself, a.k.a. Oprah Winfrey. The voices film buffs will undoubtedly want to hear from the most, however, belong to his fellow "movie brats": Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, who all talk at length about their heady New Hollywood days alongside Spielberg in the early Seventies. All of them partied together, bounced...

It's a TV movie graduated to feature status, with four imagination-challenged tales of terror. The script has lots of variety -- a video game possessed by the devil, a truck possessed by the devil, and lastly, a rat possessed by the devil! But the roster of actors is attractive -- Cristina Raines, Emilio Estevez, Lance Henricksen, Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur. Nightmares Blu-ray Scream Factory 1983 / Color / 1:78 widescreen + 1:33 TV flat / 99 min. / Street Date December 22, 2015 / 29.99 Starring Cristina Raines, Anthony James, Lee Ving; Emilio Estevez, Moon Unit Zappa, Billy Jayne, Gary Carlos Cervantes; Lance Henriksen, Tony Plana, Timothy Scott; Richard Masur, Veronica Cartwright, Bridgette Andersen, Albert Hague. Cinematography Mario DeLeo, Gerald Perry Finnerman Film Editor Michael Brown, Rod Stephens Production Design Dean Edward Mitzner Original Music Craig Safan Written by Christopher Crowe, Jeffrey Bloom Produced by Christopher Crowe Directed by Joseph Sargent

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Nightmares is a low-wattage '...

Here's why I hated writing that "Pixels" review: I really like Chris Columbus. I remember reading about "Gremlins" before it came out, and part of what was so appealing about it was the story of the 19-year-old writer from Nyu who sold his script to Steven Spielberg. I mean, come on… that was the dream narrative for an '80s kid who was crazy about movies. I can't actually tell you where or when I met him for the first time, but every single conversation I've had with him, I have enjoyed enormously. That includes the conversation I had with him last week about "Pixels." This is longer than the typical video interview we run here, and it was conducted one afternoon on the Sony lot in the middle of a big day of press for Columbus. Despite that, from the moment he rolled in, he seemed like he was...

Yesterday, I wrote about my first year in Los Angeles, which was all just a matter of settling in. Remember, when I moved to La, I knew a grand total of zero people who lived or worked here. I was not laden with contacts and strolling into a situation where everything was guaranteed to work out. Scott Swan and I took a huge chance when we packed up and moved out, and I am so horrified by how little money we had saved that I'm almost embarrassed to say the number. I was insanely naive when I arrived in town. I am still haunted by a choice we made in those early days, when we answered an ad in one of the trades that was looking for writers willing to work on a "per sketch" basis. I forget how much the rate was… $100 or so, but definitely not more than that…...

Everybody has to start somewhere.

The best and most successful Hollywood directors might find themselves marshalling $200 million epics, but in their formative years big budgets weren't at their disposal and they had to make do only with a good idea and the drive to make it happen. Many filmmakers use shorts to test-run ideas and explore themes they'd circle back to down the line.

From Christopher Nolan to Steven Spielberg, we look at nine short films that helped kick-start careers behind the camera.

1. Christopher Nolan - Doodlebug (1997)

Even before he hit it big, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan was distorting reality with his film work.

Doodlebug - led by Nolan's Following star Jeremy Theobald - played out an intriguing narrative loop over a brisk three minutes as a man chased a 'bug' around his flat with a shoe. A year after he made this film, Nolan took his feature debut Following...

Following on the success of Steven Spielberg's Amblin' Entertainment, developing and executive producing author Stephen King's "Under The Dome" for CBS, the network has picked up another Spielberg, futuristic sci fi thriller TV series titled "Extant", with the first of 13 episodes to debut later this summer.

The series is based on a script by Mickey Fisher, "...leading to events that will ultimately change the course of human history...", following a female astronaut struggling to adapt to life on earth after a year in space. 

She is pregnant with a baby that is part human and part alien, and has a human-like robot for a son. The family intrigue deepens in subsequent episodes and impacts world events.

"'Extant' is a very original concept with layers of humanity, mystery and surprise that reveal itself throughout the script", said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment.

Spielberg, Fisher, Greg Walker, Justin Falvey...

With Steven Spielberg's latest hitting theaters this week — The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse — Spout decided to spotlight the director's early works for their Short Starts column in anticipation of the new releases. Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment takes its name from the filmmaker's calling card — a 26-minute, 35mm road movie that turned 43-years-old this past weekend. The movie won him several festival awards, and eventually a 7-year contract with Universal where he grew his career. Described as a love story, Amblin' follows young hitchhikers who meet on the road and end up in California. (Apparently the beach house featured in the 1968 short belongs to the much-missed Jack Palance.) Spielberg didn't feel Amblin' was his...

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Born in the early '70s (and deeply obsessed with movies by 1980), I am the textbook example of a "Spielberg Baby." From catching Jaws, 1941, and Close Encounters on TV with my family -- to waiting in supremely massive box office lines for Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, I was there. Usually more than once. By that point I knew that Steven Spielberg was one of us: the movie freaks, the filmmakers who are not only good at what they do ... they're acutely and palpably passionate about it. Once Mr. Spielberg became a cottage industry of his very own, his "Amblin'" stamp appeared on all sorts of colorful genre movies... And that's where...

If you call yourself a movie fan at all, your no doubt familiar with the logo above. It's Amblin Entertainment, the production company started by Steven Spielberg that has produced many of the most successful movies of all time (including Jurassic Park, Back To The Future, Goonies, Men In Black, the Indiana Jones movies, Terminator 2 and E.T.). Well if you ever wondered where the hell Amblin came from, wonder no longer. The company is named after "Amblin'," a 1968 short film...