Modern Family, Mad Men and HBO were among the major winners at last night's 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards. The ABC series snagged awards for supporting actor Eric Stonestreet, Christopher Lloyd’s writing and Outstanding Comedy Series, while Mad Men was named Outstanding Drama Series and won for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. HBO’s Temple Grandin, You Don’t Know Jack and The Pacific also all received at least one award. Other series that received Primetime Emmys included FOX’s high school musical, Glee, AMC’s Breaking Bad, CBS’s superior legal drama, The Good Wife and one of yours truly's favorites, Big Bang Theory. Bazinga!The CBS sitcom was named in the category Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the performances of Jim Parsons. Parsons plays uber-geek, antisocialite and self-confessed physics genius Sheldon Cooper. You can see Parson's acceptance speech by clicking the Trailer tab above.The full list of primetime winners is below:OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIESERIC STONESTREET as Cameron Tucker ABCModern FamilyOUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIESSTEVEN LEVITAN, Writer ABCCHRISTOPHER LLOYD, WriterModern FamilyPilotOUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIESJANE LYNCH as Sue Sylvester FOXGleeOUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIESRYAN MURPHY, Director FOXGleePilot – Director’s CutOUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIESJIM PARSONS as Sheldon Cooper CBSThe Big Bang TheoryOUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIESEDIE FALCO as Jackie Peyton SHOWTIMENurse JackieOUTSTANDING REALITY – COMPETITION PROGRAMTOP CHEF BRAVODan Cutforth, Executive ProducerJane Lipsitz, Executive ProducerLiz Cook, Executive ProducerCasey Kriley, Executive ProducerAndrew Cohen, Executive ProducerDave Serwatka, Executive ProducerRich Buhrman, Co-Executive ProducerGayle Gawlowski, Co-Executive ProducerFred Pichel, Co-Executive ProducerTom Colicchio, Co-Executive ProducerNan Strait, Co-Executive ProducerErica Ross, Supervising ProducerJulia Cassidy, Senior ProducerOUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIESMATTHEW WEINER, Writer AMCERIN LEVY, WriterMad Men'Shut The Door. Have A Seat.'OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIESAARON PAUL as Jesse Pinkman AMCBreaking BadOUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIESARCHIE PANJABI as Kalinda Sharma CBSThe Good WifeOUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIESBRYAN CRANSTON as Walter White AMCBreaking BadOUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIESSTEVE SHILL, Director SHOWTIMEDexter'The Getaway'OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIESKYRA SEDGWICK as Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson TNTThe CloserOUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIALDAVE BOONE, Writer CBSPAUL GREENBERG, Special Material Written By63rd Annual Tony AwardsOUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIALBUCKY GUNTS, Director NBCVancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games Opening CeremonyOUTSTANDING VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SERIESTHE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART COMEDY CENTRALJon Stewart, Executive Producer/HostRory Albanese, Executive ProducerJosh Lieb, Executive ProducerKahane Cooperman, Co-Executive ProducerSteve Bodow, Supervising ProducerJennifer Flanz, Supervising ProducerHillary Kun, Supervising ProducerAdam Lowitt, Supervising ProducerJim Margolis, Supervising ProducerJill Katz, ProducerOUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIEJULIA ORMOND as Eustacia (Temple's Mom) HBOTemple GrandinOUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIEDAVID STRATHAIRN as Dr. Carlock HBOTemple GrandinOUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A DRAMATIC SPECIALADAM MAZER, Writer HBOYou Don't Know JackOUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIECLAIRE DANES as Temple Grandin HBOTemple GrandinOUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A MINISERIES, MOVIE OR A DRAMATIC SPECIALMICK JACKSON, Director HBOTemple GrandinOUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIEAL PACINO as Dr. Jack Kevorkian HBOYou Don't Know JackOUTSTANDING MINISERIESTHE PACIFIC HBOTom Hanks, Executive ProducerSteven Spielberg, Executive ProducerGary Goetzman, Executive ProducerTony To, Co-Executive ProducerGraham Yost, Co-Executive ProducerEugene Kelly, Co-Executive ProducerBruce C. McKenna, Co-Executive ProducerCherylanne Martin, ProducerTodd London, ProducerSteven Shareshian, ProducerTim Van Patten, Supervising ProducerOUTSTANDING MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIETEMPLE GRANDIN HBOAlison Owen, Executive ProducerPaul Lister, Executive ProducerAnthony Edwards, Executive ProducerDante Di Loreto, Executive ProducerEmily Gerson Saines, Executive ProducerGil Bellows, Executive ProducerScott Ferguson, Produced ByOUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIESMAD MEN AMCMatthew Weiner, Executive ProducerScott Hornbacher, Executive ProducerLisa Albert, Supervising ProducerBlake McCormick, ProducerDwayne Shattuck, ProducerOUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIESMODERN FAMILY ABCSteven Levitan, Executive ProducerChristopher Lloyd, Executive ProducerJason Winer, Co-Executive ProducerDanny Zuker, Co-Executive ProducerDan O'Shannon, Co-Executive ProducerBill Wrubel, Co-Executive ProducerPaul Corrigan, Co-Executive ProducerBrad Walsh, Co-Executive ProducerJeff Morton, Producer

Tonight sees the summer finale of USA Network's Burn Notice on USA at 9/8C. The action-packed espionage series debuted on the channel (a division of NBC Universal) in 2007. It was part of the network's shift away from sci-fi shows that included The Dead Zone and The 4400 (I still haven't forgiven them for canceling that). Since then Burn Notice has grown in popularity and scope and earlier this year it was renewed for a fifth and a sixth season.Like several of USA's shows, Burn Notice has won over critics and audiences with its mix of thrills, drama and offbeat humor. That is the sort of thing that scriptwriters, directors and cast are usually credited with, and rightly so. Invariably, though, there is at least one person in the film crew who is not going to get the recognition they deserve for contributing to a show's successful vibe. This member of the crew does as much as anyone to create the mood and their work would certainly be missed if it wasn't there. That's the composer. In the case of Burn Notice that person is John Dickson. The Texas-born composer's work on the series has won him an ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Award and led to him being chosen to write the music for Burn Notice creator Matt Nix's new comedy drama, The Good Guys (airing on FOX). Dickson has also composed the score for several Syfy (then SCI FI Channel) movies and indie productions.Dickson formed his first band (called Oasis, but don't tell the Gallaghers) at the age of thirteen. Later, as an independent musician, he went on to play with such renowned artists as Ray Charles, Burt Bacharach, Andy Williams, Dionne Warwick, Chick Corea, Alanis Morissette, Harry Connick, Barbra Streisand, Elton John and Billy Joel. CinemaSpy recently chatted with Dickson about his work on Burn Notice and other productions. In the, first of a two-part transcription of that conversation, Dickson discusses the origins of his composing career and the challenges he faces in helping to give Burn Notice its successful blend of rhythms.CinemaSpy: Did you always want to be a musician and a composer?John Dickson: I always wanted to be a musician. I started playing piano as soon as I could sit upright on a bench, from what I was told [laughs]. I started studying at eight and focused on music all through school. Concert piano for the longest time, classical piano and French horn and conducting and things like that. I probably wanted to add composition by the time I got into late high school. And I was a movie nut from day one, so I never really entertained the idea of doing concert composition, certainly not for a living. It's not a great way to make a living anyway. So, probably early teens I started thinking it would be awfully fun to not only play music but create my own. I kind of always figured I would tie it to movies because I was such a fan of movies and the music that was written for them. And I'd studied a lot of it. It's not like I studied physics and then turned around and went back to music [laughs]. I always did music.CinemaSpy: You already knew Burn Notice creator Matt Nix before you got involved in the show. Is that how you got to be the principal composer?John Dickson: It was certainly a good start. TV almost always starts with a high level producer suggesting somebody either that they'd like to have or that they already know. I've known Matt a long time. I've done every film that he's done since 1998. Matt is one of those guys who was a really great writer. He was making a very nice living doing book treatments and writing screenplays for various movie studios and production companies and they just were not getting green lit. They weren't going all the way to film status. But he was doing really well. He always made these short films and I think I've scored six or seven of them for him over the years.When the TV thing came up he called me and he said, "I can't guarantee you this gig because this is my first shot at this, my first TV gig, so there's a lot of people just watching how things go. But you certainly have my vote and you're in the mix. So pitch for it." I actually ended up doing several scenes from the pilot and I got it. It's great because we've just got a great shorthand. We've been working together for so long [that] we don't have to sit and hash over music for hours and hours and hours to figure out what's going on. He can tell me a few things stylistically or a few things about the attitude of the show.CinemaSpy: It's beneficial, then, to work with somebody you are already very familiar with?John Dickson: Oh, it's great. I just speeds the process up. Also it's a big show and it's got bigger and bigger as it's stayed on the air; more and more complex in terms of production. Matt is still really involved in writing storylines, he directed some episodes and is still very involved with production. So he needs to know that I get it so that he doesn't have to worry about music. That helps a lot, to have dealt with somebody for a while. Even one of his executive producers is a guy I did two films for back in the day, so I even know the Number Two guy pretty well.CinemaSpy: Where did you seek the inspiration to compose the main theme for the show?John Dickson: [Laughs] It was a funny process. They weren't sure how they were going to open the show. In contemporary television the word theme gets used...is not the way I kind of interpret it. There aren't many actual themes on television in terms of tunes that you come away with. Thirty years from now nobody is going to remember what the main theme of Burn Notice was because it isn't very tuneful. I think it's got a cool vibe and it's got a definite identity to it but it's not like the theme to M*A*S*H, you know. It's not a theme song. I considered a theme song for a while and I think the feeling was ultimately that wasn't a good fit for this show. They ended up with this thing in front of the show. Instead of a traditional title sequence they have sort of a 40-second in-case-you've-never-seen-it-this-is-what-Burn-Notice-is-about kind of a thing. It's the same piece of music every time and it's the same piece of video every season but they change it a little bit each season. It's just a way to let people know, if you don't know anything about Burn Notice, here it is in a nutshell. Then you're on your own after that if you haven't seen it yet [laughs]. And it kind of grew out of the attitude of the pilot.I did the opening theme and I'd had a chance to live with the pilot for a while and sort of get the musical identity there, which has a little bit of a Latin flavor because of the Miami setting. [It's become] definitely a more aggressive, action-oriented thing. It's gotten much more action oriented since the first season, but with sort of a funkiness and a bit of a lightness to it because it's a comedy as well. The show wear's a lot of hats. It's got some pretty heavy subject matter but at its core the characters have a very humorous sort of relationship with each other, especially if you're going to put Bruce Campbell in there. It's definitely not a dour-faced cop show. And then there's the end title, which is actually more thematic than the main title. It felt like I've got to mash together some of these things I'm doing in the show and make something that will tie it up.CinemaSpy: We tend to remember some of the classic TV themes but, like you say, in 20 years time people aren't generally going to remember the themes of today's shows, except perhaps reality shows like American Idol...John Dickson: Even so, American Idol is just sort of a two note badum-badum-badum-badum-badum-badum-badum. That's hardly a theme in the traditional sense. It's very, very recognizable but there's a difference between... I think the Burn Notice main title, especially the last groove, is something that makes people go, "Oh, sure, OK, I know what that is." But it isn't the theme to M*A*S*H. It's not Family Ties. It's not Hawaii Five-O. Those were very strong, very cinematic tunes and now it's kind of all about vibe. Give us a good vibe, give us a good groove. Like the theme to House. The theme to House is the intro to a song, but it's the intro before the song starts.I think it will probably swing around again one of these days to shows that actually have a more cinematic kind of approach. Part of this started a few years ago when they cut main title sequences down from as long as a minute to 40 seconds to 30 to 15 to sometimes five and them some shows don't have one at all. There's that whole channel flipping thing where we don't want to let people flip away to another show because they don't want to see an opening title. I think it's a mistake because it takes some of the identity of the show, it's longevity for the future, away. But I guess maybe it stops channel flipping. I don't know [laughs]. I have 500 channels [and I don't] do a lot of flipping anyway; there's just no time [laughs].CinemaSpy: What is your favorite television theme?John Dickson: Oh my gosh. I couldn't possibly pick a favorite, although I've got an era that's probably my favorite: the themes in, I guess it was the 70s. Mary Tyler Moore, her original show. Not Dick Van Dyke, although that was a great theme, too. The Mary Tyler Moore theme. The Bob Newhart theme. Those are very much the kind of slick New York jazz big band type of things . I think Pat Williams might have written one of them. Such great music. The theme to Hawaii Five-O. All of that era, sort of early 70s, I guess. The theme to M*A*S*H [by] Johnny Mandel. They had some of the great composers of the day writing these killer big band tunes for main titles. Those are the ones that didn't have lyrics. I guess M*A*S*H had lyrics sort of buried down in there somewhere. I think Bob Newhart may be one of my favorites, though. His first show [mimics music], it was just an amazing piece of music.CinemaSpy: They were big compositions back then.John Dickson: Yeah, you'd get a minute sequence usually to start off, sometimes maybe even longer. That was a great era for really smart, really well crafted television music. And good shows, too ... Hawaii Five-O was great. I don't remember who pointed it out the first time but I'm sure a lot of people have noticed that it seems to be 'Surfin' U.S.A.' but in a minor key, which, if that was the intent, is brilliant [laughs].CinemaSpy: Going back to Burn Notice, there's a great variety of music in the show. How much additional work is generally required by you for each episode?John Dickson: They've sort of changed their approach to that a little bit. The first season there was really an enormous amount. I was shocked by the amount of time that had to go into each show because there's so much music as well. They really use a lot of music. By the second season they'll usually take care of anything that plays in a club or bar or disco, something like that. They'll use source music for that. I kind of drew a line in the sand and said I didn't have any intention of doing that kind of music for the show because they can always get more legit salsa if they just go to a salsa band [or] just go to a library or someone place where they can get source music. If they want a hip hop tune they should just go get a hip hop tune. Occasionally they'll throw in something that goes under a car chase or an action scene. Some kind of a thrash metal tune or something. I've done a fair amount of heavy metal for the show as well. That was not so much the sound of the first season but the show has become more action oriented so it's gotten a little thicker.It's not so much extra work now because now I know what to expect. There's going to be 25 [or] 26 pieces of music in every episode and you realize that even with a substantial — I've got a substantial library of cues at this point — I still have to write new stuff every week. The huge percentage is still new stuff because the library doesn't quite fit. Sooner or later all shows begin to borrow from themselves but I haven't been able to do a lot of that yet on this show because it's evolving. Season 3 felt a lot different from Season 2 which was really different from Season 1 because there's just a lot more action than there used to be.That first season was tough because a network TV show was a new work pace for me. I had worked on other shows with other writers and I had been doing indie films and SCI FI Channel movies and things like that. To have seven days, eight days, five days or something to turn one of these scores around was a bit of a shock to the system. And to finally just get a routine. You have very little time. I've got to write the show in two days, three days tops. No matter how much music there is, that's all the time I'll have to write it because it's got to be performed and it's got to be tracked and then I've got to bring in musicians, whoever I need to play it. And I've got to have two solid days to mix it. We're usually on about a seven or eight day total turnaround, which is fairly luxurious from what I understand. Some shows are on five and that's crazy [laughs].CinemaSpy: Is there a particular process that you go through for each episode?John Dickson: Yeah. Denial, anger… Oh, no, that's not…wrong stages [laughs]. Yeah, we've pretty much got it down over here now. I've got a template, a very large template, I use on Digital Performer to sequence everything. Not much goes on paper; there's just no time and not a whole lot of reason for it. So, each season I'll take a look at what the requirements were the season before. We've got a lot more guitar or we need a lot more of this synth textural stuff... There's a lot more sort of synthy, driving arpeggiated techno kind of stuff this season because we've just gone to an edgier sort of feel and a little more contemporary feel. So I build in a lot of that stuff. I'll preset a ton of instruments in Performer and get a very large palette of stuff that's ready to go all the time. And we've got a recording platform [called] Pro Tools.We have an enormous template set up for the show that never changes once we're rolling. Everything tracks into that. We've got a really good routine. I've got a music editor, named Kevin Bassinson, [who will] prepare all the styling notes of how many cues there are, when they start, when they end, any kind of notes that went by in the styling session where someone said, "We'd really like the emotion in the middle of this scene to play this turn or play against this emotional turn;” all those types of things from whichever producer is supervising that episode. And of course there's always a temp score just because this is how things are. So they may say, "We don't like the tempo here. That doesn't work but that one spot, that works. We like it when the music does that. So make sure and have something that gives us that emotional beat." I usually do it in order. Sometimes I'll get into the show and do the big tent pole scenes first but usually I'll start in order and just start carving away. I spend a lot of the writing process [on] sound selection; going through mountains and mountains and thousands and thousands of textures and this sound and this combination of sounds and what if I put this effect and this delay? You're building a lot of stuff ... If it were just a rock-and-roll show it would be so easy [laughs]. You'd just write some tunes and be done with it. But because it's taken on a more kind of a modern sound, I find myself spending a lot of time knowing what I want to write but I can't do it until I've found the right sound. Luckily there are some amazing, amazing tools out there now that help. Then you look at how does that sound play against dialogue, and there's a lot of dialogue in this show. And there's a voiceover in this show. So the first two hours other than just getting the template set up will just be kind of listening to the pace of the dialogue and finding the peaks and valleys in the scenes or if I've got to play under the dialogue. I always have the dialogue up so I know what's going on. And all that has to be done really fast [laughs]. There's no time for writer's block.CinemaSpy: Are there any particular kinds of scenes in Burn Notice, or anything else that you've worked on, that are particularly difficult to write for?John Dickson: Yes. Difficult may be not quite the right word but the action stuff is easy. Action is easy and there's tonnes of it. That just comes down to [the question] do they want this heavy metal kind of grungy sound [or] are they just going to buy a song to put under it, which they do sometimes? What's the intent? Sometimes the villain will drive the sound of an action scene. The tougher scenes are the ones where people are talking quietly. They're also the more fun to do; where the plot is going to take its big turn during the course of a two-minute polite conversation. We recently did a show where that happens; where they've got some story points and some series points. Some of the big arc points change dramatically in the course of a conversation and I never just want to play wallpaper under those or just want to play a pad. You could get away with that, but I really like seeing just how subtly you can change the underscore to just support... If the intent is just to support the conversation, how you can do it, or if the intent is to play somehow against it, how you can do it? And how simply can you do it? Is it the introduction of one more instrument or do you take an instrument out? I look for ways that aren't the kind of cliché low note tools that might be the easiest to go to.Because the show is riding the fence between drama and comedy, some of the time and a lot of scenes have got both. There was a scene in Episode 10 of Season 2 where Bruce Campbell has got two guys he's interrogating and he's got them both blindfolded and then strapped to chairs in front of windows in a high rise. And it's a really intense scene. If the scene were in Collateral it would be absolutely terrifying because he's about to kick one of them out the window if he doesn't get the answer he wants. But its Bruce Campbell and its Burn Notice and so there's a humorous undertone there because he isn't really going to kill the guy. He's got him strapped to the building but these guys in the chairs don't know that. So it's playing the subtleties rather than just putting wallpaper under everything. Those are the most fun scenes and those are the trickiest because you don't ever want to get soapy with the writing. You don't want to get too saccharine in a nice scene because that's not these characters, although they have a very rich emotional life. Especially Fi [played by Gabrielle Anwar] and Michael [Jeffrey Donovan] who have this sort of undercurrent of this romantic thing going on. But you can't play it like a soap, so you have to go kind of lighthanded with it. I worked for a guy years and years ago who really stressed the point to never ignore the dialogue even when it seems like you could just play wallpaper. Make sure you know exactly what's going on because the slightest little change might help the score [to] really help the scene without overstating it or getting in the way. CinemaSpy: It has got to be a difficult balance to strike with a show like Burn Notice where it is part drama and part comedy and the comedy can be subtle.John Dickson: It's a sophisticated palette that Matt put together for the show, but that's the kind of writer he is. Everything I've ever read of Matt's is very layered. It's fun to play. It's a lot more fun to play than just plain old action scene, weepy scene, happy scene [laughs]. There's a lot more to it than that.Keep checking back at CinemaSpy for Part Two of this interview, which will be published shortly. In it, John Dickson discusses his work on sci-fi movies and what it would take for today's composers to get the recognition afforded to the likes of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner back in the 1980s. Samples of John's music can be heard on his website here.

To those who have a passing knowledge of Australia, the city of Melbourne conjures up images of ornate Victorian-era architecture and soaring skyscrapers, lumbering trams, as well as art, ballet and green cricket grounds. But to Melburnians, their hometown is also a city steeped in crime. So when director David Michôd moved from Sydney to Melbourne at the age of 18, he discovered a lot about his new home by reading a lot of Australian true crime writing. “Melbourne is quite famous for crime,” Michôd notes. “It has a long and rich history with it, a fascination with the criminal underworld. It is the city that turns its criminals into celebrities. —It is the home of Chopper. What for me was interesting about crime in Melbourne — compared to my loose observations of crime in other places — was that, unlike many other cities where crime is almost confined to specific neighborhoods or ‘bad’ areas of town, in Melbourne it’s a very suburban phenomenon, and it happens everywhere. It happens in the middle-class suburbs, the upper-class suburbs and the outer working class suburbs. It is spread loosely all over the city. There has been a long-running gangland war in Melbourne for about ten years now. It has kind of come to an end but it is a long endless series of people being killed in retribution-type circumstances. And whenever one of the murders would happen, they would almost invariably happen in a very public and seemingly normal neighborhood. Someone would be shot dead in an Italian restaurant in a very regular part of town.”Now the former film industry magazine editor has written and directed a gritty Aussie drama set in Melbourne’s suburban crime underworld. The film, Animal Kingdom, made a splashy debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where it picked up the jury drama prize in the World Cinema category. When his mother dies of a heroin overdose, ‘J’, played by newcomer James Frecheville, is sent to live with relatives he barely knows, his maternal grandmother Smurf Cody (Jacki Weaver) and her three sons. Pop Cody (Ben Mendelsohn) is an armed robber on the run from a gang of renegade detectives and is in hiding. His friends and family rally around in support, including younger brothers Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), a successful drug dealer who enjoys sampling his own wares, and Darren (Luke Ford), a criminal in the making who has known no other world and expects to be mentored into the family’s criminal activities.  Soon tensions between the family and the police reach a bloody boiling point, and "J" will need to choose between family loyalties or collaborating with the cops. It is up to detective Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce) to win ‘J’ over through kindness and empathy. ‘J’ is just a kid looking for a place to belong. CinemaSpy: The film premiered at Sundance. I guess it has been a juggernaut ever since.David Michôd: Kind of, yes. You would like to believe that when the movie ends, it ends when you’ve finished making it, but it keeps rolling on. there is always some tiny little thing that I feel I can control but that’s just isn’t happening.CinemaSpy: There is a quote in the film: “The bush is a place where not everything survives not because it is strong, but because it is protected.” I thought that conceptualized the story very succinctly. Did you come up with that analogy right off the bat? Or was that something that developed through the writing of the script?David Michôd: I think it’s developed through the script because I knew that character that Guy Pearce plays was actually quite a difficult one to write because I always knew that I didn’t want the film to be a police procedural which means we weren’t going to see much in the way of the machinations of the police are doing their job.  We were going to experience the police the way that J might. Cops, certainly in Australia, and am not sure necessarily what it is like here, have a very deliberate almost robotic way of conducting themselves, especially when they are talking to persons of interest. Very often, these senior detectives are from working class backgrounds and from backgrounds not that dissimilar to the criminals that they are investigating.  But they wear a suit almost like a disguise, and they wear their language like a disguise as well, or as a way of not revealing their life to the people they are talking to.  But then the challenge that presents is being able to see behind that disguise.CinemaSpy: So do you see that disguise as having an analogy in the animal kingdom? I love the title but I was wondering whether it came from.David Michôd: I knew that Guy’s character was not going to be giving the kid much in the way of an emotional tapestry, that there needed to be some point in which he cut through to the kid, where he gave the kid something that he would carry for the rest of the film. And out of that came a very basic metaphor.  It is in many ways true because it is so basic, that sense of working out where you fit in this world.CinemaSpy: The arc of James’ character involves trying to work out where he belongs. He doesn’t really fit with his mother and he doesn’t really fit with his extended family that he has been thrown in with. The thing that really struck me is that his character is this quiet, lumbering guy and he has an almost naive and gullible attitude about him but which towards the end is exploded.  Was that self evident in the script or did it come through in the casting?David Michôd: It was self-evident in a way. James who plays J’s character is not what I had originally imagined the character to be. I had initially imagined the character to be was someone who looked and felt far more like a kid. James is big.  He’s a man-child.  He is 6 foot-something. But more than anything else I was looking for an authentic teenager who has  a certain emotional blankness — which isn’t to suggest that they don’t have an emotional inner life: it’s just that they haven’t worked out how to express it. So often teenage boys are shuffling, mumbling and not very expressive. I kind of liked the idea that the character might almost appear to some people as borderline autistic — which is not what James is like at all.  He is a very bright kid. I liked the sense that the audience might not be clear as to the extent that he is absorbing the world around him.CinemaSpy: I know that you cast James out of 500 hopefuls. So what were the qualities that you saw in him that made you chose him since he had never acted before. David Michôd: I knew that the kid would be an unknown because, in my experience, teenage boys who want to be actors are not really the kind of kid that I was looking for. Teenage boys who want to be actors are usually musical theatre guys. James just struck me straight off the bat because of the level of detail in his audition pieces. There are a couple of big scenes he does in the film. There is one scene with just him and Guy Pearce in a room. It is probably somewhere in the vicinity of four or five pages of dialogue and James was one of the only kids who was able to infuse every beat in the scene with its own thought. Every line was a new thought and a new reaction is something that had been said to him. It is a skill that actors can take years to learn. He just seemed to be able to do it instinctively. And I liked the idea of a movie with a character played by an actor who is a young man-child of his size because you want that sense of authenticity, feeling like that kid might be able to mix it with his uncles. He looks like he belongs in some way and yet you are regularly reminded that he is totally out of his depth.CinemaSpy: It’s a given in a crime movie that there will be violence but there is a pervasive sexuality throughout the film.  Smurf, the mother figure, is — strangely — a sexual being. And then there is also that scene between Nicky and Po where you think he is about to rape her. How did you approach that aspect?David Michôd: Not just with regard to the boys but with Smurf as well, you are looking at a coterie of quite emotionally damaged characters and that emotional damage, for me, always manifests it was some kind of psychosexual way, even if it does not explode in a sexual way there is some level of pathology that exists on a sexual level as well. I made a short before I made Animal Kingdom called Crossbow which functions on the same level, how a warped psychosexual development can manifest and quite strange and even dangerous ways.CinemaSpy: Did you base any of the characters on people that you knew will or have met? You have a series of characters with individual traits that play off one another.  Po is a guy out of his time and then you have the crazy middle brother and then one bridging the gap between them. Did you look to the dynamics in families?David Michôd: There weren’t any particular real criminals that I based the characters on but certainly the characters are very much a part of my observation of families.  Especially when I was younger, [I observed] families that had initially seemed to me to be very tight knit and very together somehow. And yet the more I watched them, the more I started to see that that closeness as being somehow unhealthy. They were so involved in each other’s lives that it produced its own kind of toxicity.CinemaSpy: You realize at the end of the film that the real powerbase is controlled by Smurf — that she is the arch manipulator. I wondered where you came up with that Godmother figure. Did you look to Ma Baker or any other historical figures like her?David Michôd: No. I didn’t actually. The name Ma Baker has come up a lot over the last couple of years [while making the film.] And I still don’t even know what the name of the film is that was made about her. I imagined her as a grizzled, hardened matriarch but I knew I wanted Smurf to be a much more disarmingly delightful character than that and not necessarily outwardly controlling. The way that Smurf functions in the world with her family is coolly pragmatic. She has been living in this kind of world and she just does what she feels she needs to do. I knew that I wanted to have three very dangerous boys who were held together in a way by a seemingly delightful and loving mother who is the glue that holds the family together. If Smurf weren’t there, I don’t thing these boys would be hanging together. CinemaSpy: You wanted to steer away from the Tarantino-eque or Guy Ritchie-like tongue-in-cheek, send-up genre of crime films.David Michôd: I love Tarantino’s films. But I had an idea in my head of something that took itself more seriously. I knew that on some level, I wanted Animal Kingdom to be a frightening film, if not terrifying at times and I think that is much easier to do when you are taking yourself seriously. It is very difficult to make a film that exists in a heightened, almost comic book world, and yet is very terrifying, which isn’t to say there isn’t any light in the film. I wanted the characters to be very real. It is one of the problems I have with cops and robbers on television — how relentlessly humorless they are, which to me is just inauthentic. CinemaSpy: But there is this argument that the crime genre is being better produced and better directed on television than in film with series like The Wire, Dexter, The Shield. Movies like Brooklyn’s Finest and We Own The Night have failed of late to grab audiences at the box office, despite huge stars. Any thoughts on why TV is drawing a bigger audience?David Michôd: No, I have no idea. All I watch is the news and total crap on television. I find it hard to commit to a television drama series. I was aware of a kind of crime film that feels relatively common these days which can be good but just feels small and easy to ignore. It was always very important to me that Animal Kingdom be something of scale, that it aspire to a lineage of crime film that existed on a grand, if not operatic, scale. The extent to which I have pulled it off, I don’t know.

Lionsgate has dug up a new poster for its upcoming thriller Buried and we've got it for you below. Buried stars Ryan Reynolds and also features Robert Paterson (Sahara), Stephen Tobolowsky (Glee) and Samantha Mathis (Harsh Realm, Grey's Anatomy). It is released in select theaters on September 24th before going nationwide on October 8th.The new poster makes the most of high praise the film has been receiving from various outlets, including Access Hollywood, comingsoon.net, USA Today and The Times newspaper in the UK. The official synopsis, which we give you below, suggests the potential for Hitchcockian suspense thanks to a story that exploits common fears of confined spaces and being buried alive.Here is that synopsis:Paul Conroy is not ready to die. But when he wakes up 6 feet underground with no idea of who put him there or why, life for the truck driver and family man instantly becomes a hellish struggle for survival. Buried with only a cell phone and a lighter, his contact with the outside world and ability to piece together clues that could help him discover his location are maddeningly limited. Poor reception, a rapidly draining battery, and a dwindling oxygen supply become his worst enemies in a tightly confined race against time- fighting panic, despair and delirium, Paul has only 90 minutes to be rescued before his worst nightmare comes true. Buried was directed by Rodrigo Cortés from a script by Chris Sparling. Adrián Guerra and Peter Safran are credited as producers.

A few days ago we brought you the latest poster for Lionsgate's upcoming horror-thriller The Last Exorcism (read Eric Chu's review here). Courtesy of Lionsgate, we can now also show you some new clips and TV spots from the film. To view them, click each of the Video tabs and the Trailer tab above. Be warned, though, the TV spots in particular are not for those of a nervous disposition.The Last Exorcism is an Arcade Pictures production in association with Strike Entertainment and STUDIOCANAL. It was directed by Daniel Stamm from a script by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland. The cast includes Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones, Tony Bentley and Justin Shafer.Fabian plays the Reverend Cotton Marcus, who comes to the rural Louisiana farm of Louis Sweetzer (Herthum) claiming to be able to exorcise the demons possessing the farmer's daughter, Nell (Bell). The official synopsis of the film doesn't explicitly state that Marcus is planning to make this his last such ritual, but it sounds as if it might turn out to be so anyway.[U]pon arriving at the already blood drenched family farm, it is soon clear that nothing could have prepared him for the true evil he encounters there. Now, too late to turn back, Reverend Marcus’ own beliefs are shaken to the core when he and his crew must find a way to save Nell – and themselves – before it is too late.It sounds like maybe they should have called in Supernatural's Winchester brothers instead.The Last Exorcism opens in theaters on August 27.

The screeners having been coming so thick and fast here at CinemaSpy that we can't find the time to write them all up and sip margaritas on the beach. Hence, we've cheated and written a bunch in what journalists call a 'short and snappy' form. That way, you get to read our recommendations of what to watch and what to avoid and still have time to read the millions of Twitter messages you've got with a link to that video of the British weather forecaster flicking the bird at a news reader.Do tell us what you think (of the reviews, not the forecaster). We will continue to bring you long-form reviews of selected releases (the upcoming Alien Anthology, for instance), but expect to see more like these...Diary of a Wimpy KidGenre: Family ComedyStarring: Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve ZahnDirector: Thor FreudenthalScreenwriters: Jackie Filgo, Jeff Filgo, Gabe SachsProducer: Nina JacobsonDistributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home EntertainmentReleased: Available nowRuntime: 94 minsSynopsis: Pre-teen Greg Heffley (Gordon) guides us via voiceover and cute cartoons through his introduction to middle school. Among his fellow inmates are the usual suspects: even wimpier spotty kid with glasses, token East Indian dweeb, weird kid with larger than average waistline, bully big brother and a slightly odd gym teacher. Middle school is made out to be a madhouse filled with wedgies, swirlies, bullies and potential pratfalls (avoid the cheese touch at all costs). Nonetheless, Heffley survives everything and passes along some pearls of wisdom in his journal (he insists that it is not a diary).Verdict: Despite its clichés Diary of a Wimpy Kid passes the charm test because it avoids being over-the-top and doesn't try too hard to be hip. Parents will relate to some of the observations and not others. Hence, if you are one, you might get bored after a while. That's more a legacy of being twenty years too old to really remember what middle school was like than a fault of the script, though. The cast is charming and director Freudenthal manages to wring humor out of situations without resorting to fart jokes or facial gurning. Where there is exaggeration, it's childlike rather than childish. This is safe and entertaining viewing for younglings.DVD Extras: The Single-Disc DVD edition reviewed here has several 'Deleted Diary Pages' from Greg's 'journal.. There is also a commentary track featuring director Freudenthal and writer Sachs. The Blu-ray edition includes all that and...wait for it...a Digital Copy.Rating: ***1/2Date NightGenre: Action ComedyStarring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg,  James Franco,  Mila Kunis,  Common,  Taraji Henson,  Leighton Meester, Ray LiotaDirector: Shawn LevyScreenwriter: Josh KlausnerProducer: Sawn Levy, Tom McNultyDistributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home EntertainmentReleased: Available nowRuntime: 88 minsSynopsis: Boring-by-admission New Jersey couple Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) decide to spice their marriage up with a night in the big city. When they can't get a table at a fancy fish restaurant, they nick the Tripplehorns' only to discover that name is an alias for the targets of a couple of hit men. To get the killers off their backs they need to get hold of a flash drive stolen from local mobster Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta). The drive contains compromising photos of the District Attorney (William Fichtner). To make matters worse, their pursuers are also cops. Things look up for the Fosters (and female members of the audience) when they get help from the well-equipped Mark Wahlberg (and we're not just talking about his surveillance and tracking system).Verdict: This is a daft film at the best of times and could have been a complete disaster without it's all-star cast. Carell and Fey manage to keep their characters sufficiently convincing as the lurching script throws them from one silly setup to the next. They do what they do best: Carell is the dork who bemuses villains with his absurd attempts to talk tough, while Fey is the controlling wife who dominates people around her to conceal her insecurity. It's the kind of old fashioned silliness that Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart were good at but with more explosions, car chases and pole dancing. The latter adds a jarring sense of sleaziness to a film that is generally family friendly. Don't let it put you off, though. There are plenty of LOL moments throughout and William Fichtner has never been weirder.DVD Extras: The gag reel is fun and the audio commentary with director Levy is worth a listen if you like the film enough to feel so inclined. On the single-disc DVD reviewed here there is also an extended version of the car chase, 'Directing Off Camera' and 'Directing 301 with Shawn Levy.' These are not things you aren't likely to watch again and again but they are worth a look if Date Night knocked your socks off. Rating: ***1/2Our Family WeddingGenre: Comedy DramaStarring: Forest Whitaker, Carlos Mencia, Lance Gross, America Ferrera, Regina King, Diana-Maria Riva, Shannyn Sossamon, Charlie MurphyDirector: Rick FamuyiwaScreenwriter: Wayne Conley, Malcolm Spellman     and Rick FamuyiwaProducer: Edward Saxon, Steven J. Wolfe    Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home EntertainmentReleased: Available nowRuntime: 90 minsSynopsis: Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) and Carlos Mencia (Mind of Mencia) star in this clash-of-cultures comedy. They are two overbearing dads who must put aside their differences to plan a wedding for their children, Marcus (not gross Lance Gross of Meet the Browns) and Lucia (not ugly America Ferrera of Ugly Betty fame). As in real life, wedding prep brings out the best and worst in both families. In true Hollywood fashion, it also triggers the inevitable short-lived split between the engaged couple but everyone comes around in the end.Verdict: Our Family Wedding got a mediocre rap at the box office but it's hard to see why. Although there are times when the writers seem unsure how much of a comedy they wanted it to be, it's sweet enough and smart enough to be endearing.  Aside from a unnecessary sequence involving a horny goat, it manages to maintain credibility and largely avoids Hollywood's tendency to make marriage seem like the next best thing to Heaven. As the soon-to-be-happy couple, Ferrera and Gross are well suited and Whittaker is perfectly cast as latter's father, a slightly sleazy DJ with a taste for younger women. The rest of the supporting cast also fit their roles well and are helped by a script that doesn't neglect their characters. The respective fathers' constant needling of each other does become a bit tedious. Their rapprochement, however, is believably brought about through the natural process of growing familiarity rather than a watershed event that convinces each of them that the other guy is not so bad after all.My Big Fat Greek Wedding trod this ground before and like that film Our Family Wedding glosses over some of the more serious issues that affect inter-ethnic marriages (religion being the obvious one). Yet, it seems more mature than Fat because it derives pathos from the contrast between the optimism of young lovers and the unsatisfactory relationships their middle-aged parents are in. If it's a rom-com you're after, you could do much worse than this.DVD Extras: Lots of deleted scenes (most of which were wise cuts), The Director's Cut Ending, a few extended scenes (in other words, cuts that weren't long enough to make it into the 'Deleted Scenes'), a trivial featurettes ('Til Dads Do Us Part') and an entertaining gag reel. The Blu-ray edition apparently has exactly the same special features. Presumably all that extra capacity went towards storing a pristine image for what is clearly not a visually splendid film.Rating: ***1/2