Movies In Focus

#21. Director Andrew Baird Discusses The Thriller ONE WAY & Working With Colson ’Machine Gun Kelly’ Baker

This time around Irish filmmaker Andrew Baird joins Niall Browne to talk about his new film One Way. 

A character based thriller which stars Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), Kevin Bacon and Travis Fimmel, One Way is a piece which mainly takes place in one location - onboard a bus.

Considering its limited scope, One Way is a film which is directed with a tremendous amount of flair and energy - and it must be given credit for featuring a strong performance by rapper-turned actor Coulson Baker. 

During the course of the conversation, Baird talks about how the thriller came together, its various location changes, the difficulties of making a low budget film  - as well as what it was like working with his leading man.

#20. Lorne Balfe Talks About Composing The Music For TOP GUN: MAVERICK

Actors, writers, directors and producers all have key roles in production - but one of the most important aspects in a film is the musical score - a score can literally make or break a film.

Composer Lorne Balfe joins the Movies In Focus podcast about his work on the hugely acclaimed and massively successful Tom Cruise blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick. Balfe worked on the film’s music alongside the masterful Hans Zimmer and the legendary Harold Faltermeyer.

Balfe started his career as Zimmer’s assistant and over the last decade has become one of the most influential composers working in the film industry - delivering a variety of memorable scores in films such as Michael Bay’s 13 Hours, 6 Underground and Ambulance, Marvel’s Black Widow and many others

He has also become an important composer when it comes to taking established film franchises and breathing new life into iconic scores like Balfe did with Terminator Genysis, Mission: Impossible - Fallout and Bad Boys For Life.

It was his work with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible and Jerry Bruckheimer on Bad Boys which made him the perfect candidate to create new music - and update old themes - for Top Gun: Maverick.

Lorne Balfe talks about the film scoring process and what it was like composing music for the follow-up to one of the most iconic soundtracks of the 1980s.

#19: Horror Filmmaker Sonny Mallhi On His Career As A Writer/Director/Producer

At the tail end of 2021 Movies In Focus watched and reviewed Sonny Mallhi’s excellent horror, Hurt. On The surface it appeared that Hurt was just another film in the slasher genre - but it turned out to be much more than that,

Yes, it was a horror film but it had rich characterisation and dealt with a lot of interesting themes such as fear, death, violence, loss, love, family, isolation and yes, hurt.

Sonny got in touch, thanking me for my review and I invited him onto the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about the film and his career. He started off producing films such as the Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock romance The Lake House before moving on to darker material such as The Strangers, House At The End Of The Street, Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy and the brilliant The Dark And The Wicked.

Mallhi is also a writer, having penned five films - including the aforementioned Hurt - a film which he also directed. Passionate about film, my conversation with Sonny Mallhi covered a vast array of fascinating topics in this hour-long episode.

#18: James Kenney On Finding The Lost Director’s Cut Of Peter Bogdanovich’s SQUIRRELS TO THE NUTS

Premiering at the Venice Festival in 2014, She’s Funny That Way was the final narrative feature from the late Peter Bogdanovich. Starring Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Aniston, the film was a screwball comedy which, while enjoyable, never truly felt like a cohesive vision from the master writer-director. And that’s because it wasn’t.

Originally filmed as Squirrels To The Nuts Bogdanovich’s vision was compromised during post-production and after he finished his edit, he conducted reshoots and removed a lot of the film’s multi-strand plot . It was believed that the director’s original cut was lost all together - and that’s where James Kenney comes in.

A life-long fan of Peter Bogdanovich, Kenney is a teacher and film writer at Tremble Sigh Wonder with an eye for collecting scripts and other film materials. One evening he was trawling through eBay when he noticed a HD tape for sale, titled Squirrels To The Nuts. The label on the tape stated a running time much longer than that of the final film - and It transpired that Kenney had discovered what is likely the only remaining copy of Bogdanovich’s true vision.

Ultimately Kenney ended-up connecting with Bogdanovich, who began working to get his version of Squirrels To The Nuts released. Sadly, Bogdanovich died in January 2022, before he could achieve this, but now Squirrels To The Nuts is getting a limited run at New York’s Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA) and it looks like the film will also get a full release at a later date.

James Kenney joined the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about discovering the director’s cut of Squirrels To The Nutsand how he worked with Peter Bogdanovich to get the film released. We also discussed Bogdanovich’s career and a host of other film related topics in this podcast episode.

#17. Batman On Film Founder Bill Ramey Talks About BATMAN On The Big Screen

Since 1998, Bill Ramey’s Batman On Film has been the go-to website for the best news for Batman on the big screen.  It was founded in the wake of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin as a way of ‘lobbying for the long-term continuation of the Batman film franchise and the production of quality Bat-Movies’.

Batman-On-Film was there for the first rumblings of new Batman movie and the lead-up to what would become Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. The site then gained a huge following throughout the production of Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and the creation of Zack Snyder’s Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Justice League and beyond.

Bill Ramey joined the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about all things Batman related - including Matt Reeves’ The Batman starring Robert Pattinson, Ben Affleck’s tenure as The Dark Knight and Michael Keaton’s Batman return in The Flash and Batgirl.

 

#16. Australian Director Phillip Noyce Talks About His Thriller The Desperate Hour

Over the last five decades, Australian director Phillip Noyce has shown that he really knows how to handle the thriller genre. Noyce first captured international attention with the acclaimed 1989 film Dead Calm. Starring Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane, the film is a close quarters thriller which still works incredibly well more than 30 years after it was first released.

The success of Dead Calm brought Noyce to Hollywood, where he directed Rutger Hauer in the fun action film Blind Fury, a film which helped Noyce land the directing gig on Patriot Games, the Tom Clancy adaptation which saw Harrison Ford replace Alec Baldwin in the role of Jack Ryan. Noyce followed the film up with the Sharon Stone thriller, Sliverbefore once again returning to the world of political intrigue in Clear and Present Danger - finest film in the Jack Ryanseries.

Noyce would go on to helm a slew of other key films starring a variety of big stars. These included The Saint with Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue, The Bone Collector with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, The Quiet American starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser and The Giver with Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep.

Phillip Noyce’s latest film is the tense real-time thriller, The Desperate Hour starring Naomi Watts. It’s an expertly handled thriller, tense and well executed with an impressive performance from Watts - who pretty much shoulders the majority of the film’s running time on her own. Watts plays a mother attempting to save her son in the wake of a high school shooting and the film unfolds in unexpected ways as the tension gets ratcheted -up towards the finale.

Phillip Noyce joined the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss The Desperate Hour and the logistics of making a film which essentially features Naomi Watts and her trusty iPhone. Noyce covers all the questions that you’d have about the film and we even touch on his next directorial effort, Fast Charlie starring Pierce Brosnan.

#15. Head Of Irish Film London Gerry Maguire Discusses The Irish Film Festival London

Founded in 2010, the main aim of Irish Film London and the Irish Film Festival London is to champion Irish film and animation around the UK community. With patrons including Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell and Fiona Shaw, the organisation is not just a major force for Irish film in the UK, but it now has a strong global reach.

In this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast, Niall Browne talks with Gerry Maguire, the Head of Irish Film London to discuss what it’s like running the organisation. In a chat which covers everything from the selection of films to the technicalities of arranging venues this is a hugely informative look at the 2021 Irish Film Festival London.

#14. Adam Nelson On Low Budget Filmmaking & The Mire

Adam Nelson has had an interesting career as a filmmaker. A life long film fan, Adam did a degree in film before moving into teaching the subject.

His first short film as writer and director was The House Near Apple Park and he then went on to make first feature length film Little Pieces. Critically acclaimed, Little Pieces won the Best Independent Feature Film award at the Dorking Film Festival 2015 and was nominated for a National Film Award in the Best Drama category in 2016.

Adam’s next film is The Mire, a self-contained thriller which has raised some of its finance through crowdfunding. Adam joined the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about his career as a filmmaker, raising finance for independent films and what he has planned for The Mire.

 

#13. Filmmaker Filip Jan Rymsza On His Psychological Thriller Mosquito State

Filip Jan Rymsza is a Polish filmmaker who has had a varied career in the business. In 2018 he helped spearhead the completion of The Other Side Of The Wind, the final film from Orson Welles, as well as producing Morgan Neville’s They'll Love Me When I'm Dead, a documentary which detailed the making of Welles’ film. Filip’s latest release is Mosquito State, a thriller which he produced, directed and co-wrote.

A clinically precise piece of filmmaking, Mosquito State is a psychological thriller that verges towards Cronenbergian body horror. Rymsza’s film is more than that though, it uses the 2007 financial crisis as a stepping-off point and manages to create a piece which takes place in the recent past but feels like it could be set a hundred years in the future.

Filip Jan Rymsza joined the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about Mosquito State, discussing the inception, casting and production of this mesmerising piece of cinema.

#12. Fractured Visions Founder Phillip Escott On Running A Boutique Film Distribution Label

Phillip Escott, the founder of Fractured Visions joins this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast. Fractured Visions is a UK distribution company and film festival which has a keen focus on genre cinema. 

Phil discussed his boutique DVD and blu-ray label and talked about his film selection process as well as how he goes about sourcing elements like negatives and the work that goes into creating a wide selection of wonderful extras.

It’s a fascinating - and little talked about - aspect of the film distribution process.