Movie City News Archive for June, 2011

Iranian Filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi Remanded To Evin Prison

Iranian Filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi Remanded To Evin Prison

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Columbia Journalism Review Plumps The Depths Of Hollywood Elsewhere

“The stories about bad WiFi service, split pants, and appropriate modulation may turn some off…” Columbia Journalism Review Plumps The Depths Of Hollywood Elsewhere

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Gray Lady Swaddles New York Asian Film Festival

Gray Lady Swaddles New York Asian Film Festival And – Co-Founder Majordomo Grady Hendrix On Its Origins

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Direct Brands Book Club Parent Co. Sets $435 Million “Stalking Horse” Deal For Borders

Direct Brands Book Club Parent Co. Sets $435 Million “Stalking Horse” Deal For Borders

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Claim-Jumping All-You-Can-Screen Moviepass Puts Their Beta Off

Claim-Jumping All-You-Can-Screen Moviepass Puts Their Beta Off

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Bill Simmons On Why There Is Only One Movie Star Standing And His Name Is…

Bill Simmons On Why There Is Only One Movie Star Standing And His Name Is…

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Jimmy Roselli, 85; Italian-American Singer’s “Mala Femmina” Was Featured In Mean Streets

Jimmy Roselli, 85; Italian-American Singer’s  “Mala Femmina” Was Featured In Mean Streets

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AMC Joins Landmark, Camera Cinemas In Stopping All-You-Can-Screen Monthly Passes

AMC Joins Landmark, Camera Cinemas In Stopping All-You-Can-Screen Monthly Passes

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Spike On Why He Hasn’t Made A Feature Film In 3 Years

Spike On Why He Hasn’t Made A Feature Film In 3 Years

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ChiTrib Maps The $8 Billion In Imaginary Damage Michael Bay Visited On A Few Square Blocks Of Chicago

“Anticipating this, we brought a commercial real estate appraiser to the press screening.” ChiTrib Maps The $8 Billion In Imaginary Damage Michael Bay Visited On A Few Square Blocks Of Chicago “We’re the gateway? Well, I guess then I should go on the record as stating that we do not condone any evil robots.” With…

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Times Tallies Nationwide Walkouts On Tree Of Life, Some From Twitter, Some By Commenters

Times Tallies Nationwide Walkouts On Tree Of Life, Some From Twitter, Some By Commenters

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“The Zooey Deschanels of the world will dump your contrived, quirky ass if you try to pull that whimsical s—.”

“The Zooey Deschanels of the world will dump your contrived, quirky ass if you try to pull that whimsical s—.”

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Stock Analysts Keen On Friday AMC Stock Spinoff?

Stock Analysts Keen On Friday AMC Stock Spinoff?

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Yahoo Study Shows Online Video-Watching Shift To Primetime

Yahoo Study Shows Online Video-Watching Shift To Primetime

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NEW FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA FILM CONFIRMED FOR PANEL PRESENTATION AT 2011 COMIC-CON

Iconic filmmaker will make his first trip back to San Diego since 1991 Coppola will show portions of his upcoming film TWIXT and demonstrate the unique way he plans to present it. NEW YORK, NY (June 30, 2011) – Francis Ford Coppola will be presenting portions of his upcoming film TWIXT at a panel discussion…

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Retrospecting Jeff Bridges And Cutter’s Way At The BFI

Retrospecting Jeff Bridges And Cutter’s Way At The BFI

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The Big Gamble Of Larry Crowne: 1990s Stars In Warm Milk

The Big Gamble Of Larry Crowne: 1990s Stars In Warm Milk

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Stuart Staples On Tindersticks’ Music For Claire Denis’ Films

Stuart Staples On Tindersticks’ Music For Claire Denis’ Films

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SOCIAL NETWORK BIG WINNER AT 12TH ANNUAL GOLDEN TRAILER AWARDS

GTA12 Jury Friends “The Social Network” With Three Wins AND “Best in Show” June 30, 2011 (Los Angeles, CA)—Last night,“The Social Network” came away from the 12th Annual Golden Trailer Awards with three wins in major categories and the coveted top honor, Best in Show. It is the first time a trailer has accomplished this…

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Coppola Twixting ComicCon

Coppola Twixting Comic-Con

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Movie City News

“I don’t think it’s cruel to say this, because John himself would undoubtedly have turned it into a gleeful anecdote: When he had the stroke that killed him, he was at a local dinner theater. Hell of a review.”

“I am inclined to aver that every activity needs its critics, from narcissists bloviating in Washington to exhibitors of knee holes in their blue jeans by way of following a fad. So, too, tennis players and others wearing their caps backward. There is, to be sure, only fairly innocuous folly in puncturing pants or reversing caps, but for political or artistic or religious twisting of thought or harboring holes in the head there is rather less excuse. I have always inveighed against the bleary journalism practiced by newspaper reviewers, as opposed to the real criticism performed by, well, critics.”

“I often felt a twinge of grief at the idea that John Simon had devoted his life to a method of work that could only make him increasingly unhappy. Here was a man, elegant, articulate, and vastly knowledgeable, fluent in at least half a dozen languages, whose gifts of mind gave nothing back to the arts he wrote about except a few unkind remarks that made fun of someone’s performance, ethnicity, physical attributes, or, with a pun, on his target’s name. (“If this is Norman Wisdom, I’ll take Saxon folly.”) Other theatre critics keep such darts in their rucksacks for occasional use; John lived by them.”

“One person’s critic is another person’s crackpot. That they are not united in their opinions is ascribable to the Latin saying: quot homines, tot sententiae. I myself prefer being considered a creep, but that is what you get for having what Vladimir Nabokov called ‘Strong Opinions.’ It is odd that in a country so wallowing in negativity, starting with mass shootings and climaxing with Trump, such an unimportant matter as theater criticism should generate so much hostility. The only target patently more important is lead in the drinking water.”

Review: Little Women (no spoilers)

The DVD Wrapup: Cold War, Betty Blue, Official Secrets, Demons, Olivia, American Dreamer, Land of Yik Yak

20 Weeks To Oscar: Cinema, Trump, and Oscar

E. Scott Weinberg On Youthful Fangoria Encounters

Rome Bookstore Closes

With a Grauniad-Alleged $300 Million Budget, Could The Yet-Unseen But Surely Weird Cats Pass A Billion Dollars at The Box Office?

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon