A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential. (SONY PICTURES CLASSICS)
Miles Teller has also starred in the “Divergent” series of films and the coming-of-age, teen, romance drama “The Spectacular Now” with Shailene Woodley (“The Descendants”, “The Fault in Our Stars”). J.K. Simmons is the well-known Farmers Insurance TV pitchman and actor of such films as “Spider-Man 2” and “Juno”. Damien Chazelle is the young writer and director of “Whiplash”, which was originally a short film that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival (starring Simmons). “Whiplash” is a fast-paced, fierce and highly energetic look at the teacher and student relationship, along with how far someone will go to achieve great success.
Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic in 2006 at the age of 7. To date, Jackson has written nearly 1,000 reviews of new releases and, in total, has seen more than 1,500 films. In 2010, Jackson became the youngest person to win a NY Emmy Award, for his on-air movie reviews on Time Warner TV station, Capital News 9. And in 2011, Jackson was inducted into the Broadcast Film Critics Association as their youngest member. The BFCA’s annual Critics Choice Awards is one of the industry’s most recognized and prestigious awards shows. Jackson is also a member of SAG-AFTRA and votes annually for the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Currently, Jackson can be heard every Friday morning on WGNA-FM and his reviews are also posted on his website, YouTube channel and Cultjer.com. He is also a contributor to AnimationScoop.com, run by animation historian Jerry Beck. And Jackson hosts the weekly internet pop culture news show “LCJ LIVE”, along with “The LCJ Q&A Podcast”, on which he interviews celebrities and filmmakers.