Saturday, November 29, 2014

Trailer: Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

After numerous fake trailers were "leaked," Disney has finally released an official trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, their first Star Wars film since buying the franchise from George Lucas. You can tell it's a real trailer because it has obviously new shots, unlike the fake trailers that were all clearly comprised solely of clips from the previous movies.

The film will be directed by J. J. Abrams, with apparently little to no involvement by Lucas himself. It is scheduled for release in December of 2015.




Thursday, November 20, 2014

In Memoriam: Mike Nichols (1931-2014)

Mike Nichols
November 6, 1931 - November 19, 2014
Legendary director Mike Nichols died yesterday of cardiac arrest, according to USA Today. He was 83.

The director was a rare EGOT winner, winning an Oscar, a Grammy, four Emmys, and nine Tonys, as well as a Golden Globe.

His Oscar and Golden Globe were for The Graduate (1964), but he also received nominations for both for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1967), Silkwood (1984), and Working Girl (1989), plus another Oscar nomination for The Remains of the Day (1993) and another Golden Globe nomination for Closer (2004).

He received his sole Cosmique Movie Awards nomination for Closer in 2004, losing to Martin Scorsese for The Aviator. Closer won one of its eight nominations. Silkwood also received a Cosmo nod for Cher, and Virginia Woolf received three, but none were for Nichols.

He won both Director and Producer Emmy Awards for Wit (2001) and Angels in America (2004). His Tony awards were for Barefoot in the Park (1964), The Odd Couple (1965), Plaza Suite (1968), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1972), Annie (1977), The Real Thing (1984, for which he won two), Spamalot (2005), and Death of a Salesman (2012).

He was born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany in 1931 to parents of Russian Jewish descent. He and his brother were sent to the United States in 1938 to join their father, who had fled the Nazis a few months earlier. Their mother was able to join them in 1940.

At the time of his death, he was married to television anchor Diane Sawyer, his fourth wife, whom he married in 1988.