Sep 27, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Robert Reich

In conceptualizing a documentary about today’s widening income inequality among U.S. citizens, filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth, who was born in the early 1970s, reflected on his own upbringing and how his mother raised a family of four, on her own, with less than $15,000 a year—in some years, much less than that. Kornbluth, knowing that the topic of his film, Inequality for All, was abstract and that viewers would be hit with a barrage of facts and figures, understood that its narrative needed personalizing, so he brought in a central character: political economist and professor Robert Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor during Bill Clinton’s first presidential term.

Aug 02, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

When we last spoke with writer/director Andrew Bujalksi four years ago, in conjunction with the theatrical release of his third feature film, Beeswax, the Austin-based filmmaker said that he didn’t have a strong sense of what his next project would be. But, as it turns out, the idea for his fourth feature, Computer Chess, had been floating around in his head at the time. The film is set circa 1980 and revolves around a group of chess software programmers who have converged on a hotel for a weekend computer chess tournament.

Jul 19, 2013 By John Oursler Joshua Oppenheimer

Joshua Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking documentary The Act of Killing has been making the rounds on the festival circuit for nearly a year, and it is finally getting its long-awaited theatrical release on July 19. Executive produced by pioneering documentarians Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, The Act of Killing is a game-changer for the documentary genre.

Jul 08, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Liana Liberato

Seventeen-year-old Galveston, Texas native Liana Liberato began acting professionally when she was a child, appearing in TV dramas such as Cold Case and CSI: Miami. She even graced the cover of The New York Times Magazine in 2006 as part of its in-depth look into the challenges and competition facing child actors trying to secure work in Hollywood. In 2010, Liberato won the Best Actress award at the Chicago International Film Festival for her performance in Trust, in which she played Annie, a teenage victim of an online predator.

Jul 02, 2013 By John Oursler Pedro Almodóvar

The most internationally renowned Spanish director of his generation, Pedro Almodóvar burst onto the scene 30 years ago with films of frank sexual discourse steeped in the tradition of some of his favorite directors, such as Douglas Sirk, Luchino Visconti, and John Cassavetes.

Jun 19, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

For a scene in the romantic road-trip comedy, Forev, Noël Wells re-enacted her second audition ever as an actress, one that she jokingly describes as traumatizing. The audition was for a Hebrew National franks commercial and called for an “all-American” girl to take a bite of a hot dog and savor it. “I was struggling to act like I was really enjoying this hot dog,” Wells remembers. “It lasted for 30 seconds. It was the longest 30 seconds of my life. And when they said, “OK cut, you can spit it out in the trash can,” when I went to spit it out, it was filled with hot-chewed hot dog buns and people’s dreams just in the trash.”

Jun 17, 2013 By Chris Tinkham James Leffler

There’s a scene early in the romantic road-trip comedy, Forev, where Sophie (Noël Wells), an aspiring L.A. actress, invites herself into the apartment of her neighbor, Pete (Matt Mider), and plops down in the middle of the floor to ponder the status of her life. She’s just returned from a humiliating audition for a hot dog commercial, on the heels of an even worse date night out with a guy. The apartment scene stems from a time when Forev‘s co-writer/co-director Molly Green was going through a rough period and would come over to co-writer/co-director James Leffler’s place to do the same.

Jun 14, 2013 By John Everhart Michael Shannon

Michael Shannon‘s been acting since the early ‘90s: he cut his teeth in Chicago’s theater community and showed up in a small scene in 1993’s Groundhog Day, as the enthusiastic recipient of WrestleMania tickets as a wedding gift from Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors.

Jun 07, 2013 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

With three films in U.S. movie theaters this spring, English actress Andrea Riseborough suddenly is seeing her visibility gain ground on her reputation as one of the U.K.‘s finest and most versatile actresses. In the futuristic sci-fi adventure, Oblivion, she appears opposite Tom Cruise as the navigator of his character’s drone-repair mission. She plays an ambitious television reporter in the Internet-focused cautionary tale, Disconnect. And for Shadow Dancer, director James Marsh cast her as Collette McVeigh, a single mother who is an accomplice to an IRA bombing plot.