Film

Last summer, before an inch of film was ever shot on the set in Mississippi, the actor who played Jackie Robinson in 42 met up with the director of The Help in Atlanta, they rented a car and road tripped it together to Augusta. Getting the most minute details of James Brown’s life right was a top priority for Get on Up director Tate Taylor and actor Chadwick Boseman, who plays The Godfather of Soul in the new biopic opening in theaters today. With the tsunami of lawsuits and arguments that swirled after the soul pioneer’s 2006 Christmas Day death in Atlanta, it probably didn’t hurt to have the support of the Brown estate either.

"Contagion," the nation's new number one movie, will have you reconsidering that nasty habit of dragging your paws through those communal bowls of snacks at the airport lounge. Or ever again accepting a glass of wine from a bartender. Or perhaps ever again leaving your home. The highly effective thriller, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Gwyneth Paltrow, focuses on Atlanta's Centers For Disease Control and Prevention as its disease detectives attempt to stop a swift-moving global pandemic from snuffing the earth's population. How swift-moving you ask? Spoiler alert! Just 25 minutes into the movie, Coldplay singer Chris Martin's missus is being autopsied.

Revisit cinematic classics and enjoy family favorites with these summer films. It’s not quite the same as going to a drive-in, but it beats sitting on the couch, glued to Netflix.

Perennial interviewee Jane Fonda will be the one asking the questions at tonight’s annual Empower Party benefit for Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential. In front of a sold-out crowd in the Georgia Aquarium ballroom, G-CAPP’s founder will interview CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta as the nonprofit advances its teen pregnancy prevention mission to include adolescent health and well being. In an exclusive interview with Atlanta magazine, the 75-year-old two-time Oscar winner discusses what’s on her notepad for Dr. Gupta, what’s next for G-CAPP, shooting that Twitter trending “You will resign when I fire you out of petty malice and not before!” Newsroom scene and how ex-hubby Ted Turner introduced her to the stupid joys of Dumb and Dumber.

As the worst moments of his life played out on screen in the final minutes of Bridegroom inside a theater at Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema Thursday night, outside in the hall, Shane Bitney Crone took a moment to recharge. Leaning against a lobby wall, the documentary’s producer and star allowed himself a breather, his cellphone charging in the outlet below him as audience members wept in the next room. When you’re communicating with 18,985 Twitter followers and more than four million people have watched your YouTube video and continue to post heartfelt comments hourly, you need a fully charged phone.

Two years ago, Atlanta filmmakers Tyson, Byron and Ryon Horne approached Atlanta's True Colors Theatre founder and Broadway director Kenny Leon with a humble request: "Can we follow you around?" Tonight at 7:30 at the Landmark Theatre in Midtown as part of the Atlanta Film Festival, The Horne Brothers will premiere "The Start of Dreams," the riveting result of that request.

Q: For movie fans, debate still rages over the screenwriting credit for Citizen Kane. Your father ended up sharing the credit with director Orson Welles. Is this still an internal debate within the family too?

During his 70-minute "A John Waters Christmas" show at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points Thursday evening, the 66-year-old Baltimore director of "Pink Flamingos" and "Hairspray" offered fans a guide to surviving the holidays. Literally. Case in point: Invitees to Waters' annual Christmas party next week in Baltimore should not ring the host in advance to inquire about who's catering the party and then disclose an allergy to wheat. "Please don't tell me about your food allergies," Waters told the crowd. "If you do, I may use them to kill you."

It's not even 11 a.m. on the set of Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz's living room in Midtown Atlanta and already Lawrence Carter-Long has the movie buff, along with director Sean Cameron and the crew completely charmed. Carter-Long, the public affairs specialist for the National Council on Disability, has flown in from Washington D.C. to co-host TCM's month-long film festival "The Projected Image: A History of Disability in Film." Carter-Long curated the 21 films in the series and they range from 1946's post-World War II drama "The Best Years of Our Lives" to Jack Nicholson's Oscar-winning performance in 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as a psychiatric patient who rebels against the institution's dire conditions. Nattily attired in a gray formal jacket, Carter-Long is artfully making a case for tonight's airing of "Charly," the now-dusty 1968 drama that won Cliff Robertson an Oscar playing an intellectually disabled man who undergoes experimental (and highly questionable by today's standards) surgery to raise his IQ.