Bridge of Spies

Stretching back as far as 1890, the British monarchy has made a habit of releasing a New Years Honors List every December 31, naming outstanding Britons who will receive new orders of chivalry or other official designation. (It’s a type of being knighted, but special in some key way that I don’t fully understand; Britain’s system of honors is awful confusing.) The list singles out British-born figures who have made outstanding contributions to the nation’s “society, business, or culture.” That particular definition comes from Deadline, who noted earlier today that some familiar faces from the cinema of 2016 will soon join the esteemed ranks of the hono(u)red British: actors Mark Rylance and Naomie Harris will be among the class of 2016 inductees, adding a few letters (but what important letters they are) to their names.

One of the biggest questions a director or a screenwriter asks him or herself before starting work on any kind of “true story” movie is: how much of the truth do I keep, how much do I toss, and how much do I tweak a little bit? Real life, as you may know, isn’t like the movies, and sometimes stuff just… happens. While it may be full of good stories, life isn’t subject to neat plot arcs, which can be pretty irritating when you’re trying to fit it into a two-hour movie. Which is why, sometimes, moviemakers like to fudge things a little bit. Have you ever been to the movies and asked yourself, I wonder if it actually happened this way? Now, with a handy new infographic, we can know for sure.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts polished their monocles, twiddled the ends of their impeccably-groomed mustaches, cleared the straggling bits of crumpet from their throats, and announced the nominees for the BAFTA Film Awards late last night. Though the awards program does have a highlight category specifically designating the year’s most Outstanding British Film, this English critical body still favored Hollywood productions in its slate of nominees. Many of the films that have emerged as this season’s usual suspects made their expected appearances — why hello, ‘Carol’ and ‘The Big Short’ and ‘The Revenant’ and ‘Spotlight’ and ‘Bridge of Spies’ — but the unveiling of the BAFTA hopefuls was not without its surprises, both pleasant and un-pleasant.

There are just too many good movies. That’s my takeaway from this year’s annual exercise in critical masochism selecting the ten best films. My shortlist of 2015’s best movies is anything but short; running well over 30 outstanding entries. It feels like something I say every year, but it’s true; there are more great movies left off my list (like Clouds of Sils Maria and Experimenter and Brooklyn and Heaven Knows What and While We’re Young and about 20 others) than are actually on it. I actively agonized over the last couple slots for hours. (Yes, actual hours. I’m sorry, It Follows.)

The success of Hotel Transylvania 2 proved that family-friendly horror-themed movies stand to make a whole bunch of cash when released in the vicinity of Halloween. Now, Goosebumps is here to ensure that we’ll be getting slightly scary kids’ movies every October for the foreseeable future. The adaptation of the popular book series opened at number one, riding a wave of nostalgia and family appeal to a very strong start, beating out some pretty serious competition.

With Bridge of Spies, Steven Spielberg continues the project he started with Lincoln: Using history to illuminate his vision of modern American values. But where Lincoln was about a “great man,” Bridge of Spies is about an ordinary one — an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn named James B. Donovan. In the late 1950s, Donovan was chosen by his peers to represent a captured Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel. But while most of Donovan’s colleagues (and even the presiding judge on the case) want him involved purely to give Abel’s trial the appearance of due process, Donovan actually mounts a rigorous defense of his client, at considerable risk to his reputation and even his personal safety.

After three years, here’s Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to Lincoln: Another historical drama about freedom and law and essential American values.

A new trailer for Steven Spielberg’s Cold War spy thriller Bridge of Spies has arrived online, featuring some new footage not previously seen in the first trailer — that footage includes the training of a U-2 pilot who was shot down during his espionage mission, as well as more dramatic sequences involving Tom Hanks and his endeavor to negotiate a highly classified, potentially dangerous trade with Soviet Russia.

When Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg last made a war film, they produced Saving Private Ryan, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and features what’s widely considered one of the greatest battle scenes ever captured on film. They’ve worked together since, including on Catch Me If You Can, one of the best movies of either man’s career, but Bridge of Spies might be considered a kind of spiritual sequel to Ryan. That was Hanks and Spielberg’s World War II picture. This is their Cold War one.

John Williams has composed the score for every single live-action Star Wars movie to date (and every Star Wars film period, except the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars that came out in 2008.) That will change with Star Wars: Rogue One, Disney’s first standalone spinoff from director Gareth Evans. Making Star Wars spotted a recent interview from Evans’ composer, Alexandre Desplat, claiming that he’ll be the one scoring the film, which stars Felicity Jones.