Movie City News Archive for October, 2011

“Is Indie Premium VOD Getting A Pass?”

“Is Indie Premium VOD Getting A Pass?”

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Bankruptcy Judge Refuses Dueling TribCo Bankruptcy Reorg Plans

Bankruptcy Judge Refuses Dueling TribCo Bankruptcy Reorg Plans

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Stream David Lynch’s Entire “Crazy Clown Time” Album

Stream David Lynch’s Entire “Crazy Clown Time” Album

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Walter Hill, The Warriors And The Driver, Oh My

Walter Hill, The Warriors And The Driver, Oh My

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Julie Andrews, Target And Disney Christen “National Princess Week”

Julie Andrews, Target And Disney Christen “National Princess Week”

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Julie Andrews, Target and Disney Announce First Annual National Princess Week

Celebration will take place April 22-April 28, 2012 MINNEAPOLIS (Oct. 31, 2011) — World renowned actress, singer and best-selling children’s author, Julie Andrews, in collaboration with Target and The Walt Disney Company is announcing the creation and inaugural launch of National Princess Week beginning April 22, 2012. This unprecedented collaboration highlights Julie Andrews’ longtime dedication…

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DP/30: A Dangerous Method, director David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg, once known as a genre director, has become one of the great directors for adults. His latest film follows the evolution of “The Talking Cure” as bounced between Freud & Jung and a patient who becomes much more than a patient, Sabina Spielrein. We talk about the film, the remarkable actors in it, and why his romance with film is still a work-in-progress.

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NewsBeast Channels My Week With Marilyn, With Brigitte Lacombe Glam Shots

NewsBeast Channels My Week With Marilyn, With Brigitte Lacombe Glam Shots

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Chair Begins At Home: The Design That Gave Like Crazy Its Name

Chair Begins At Home: The Design That Gave Like Crazy Its Name

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Getting Inside Sigur Rós’ Inni Concert Film

Getting Inside Sigur Rós’ Inni Concert Film

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The Struggle For “The World’s Most Dangerous Film Festival” In Chicago’s Englewood

The Struggle For “The World’s Most Dangerous Film Festival” In Chicago’s Englewood

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NetCoalition, CEA, and CCIA Respond To Members Of Congress On “Stop Online Piracy Act”

“This is not a bill that targets ‘rogue foreign sites.’ Rather, it allows patent and copyright trolls, and any holder of any intellectual property right to target lawful U.S. websites and technology companies.” NetCoalition, CEA, and CCIA Respond To Members Of Congress On “Stop Online Piracy Act”

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NetCoalition, CEA, and CCIA Respond to Members of Congress On Stop Online Piracy Act

Letter to Members of the House of Representatives October 31, 2011 Dear Member of Congress: Last week, Representatives Lamar Smith, Bob Goodlatte, John Conyers, Howard Berman and eight others introduced H.R. 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (“SOPA”). This legislation has been framed by its sponsors as a vehicle to protect U.S. trademarks and copyrights…

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A History Of Horror In Australian Cinema

A History Of Horror In Australian Cinema

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Rights Activists Question A Studio’s Chinese Locations For Buddy Comedy

Rights Activists Question A Studio’s Chinese Locations For Buddy Comedy

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From The Paris Review: “William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211”

From The Paris Review: “William Gibson, The Art of Fiction No. 211”

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Sundance 2012 Announces New Frontiers Projects

Sundance 2012 Announces New Frontiers Projects

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SUNDANCE INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES ARTISTS AND PROJECTS FOR NEW FRONTIER AT 2012 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

For Immediate Release October 31, 2011 Program Explores Concept of “Future Normal,” Features Work by: Paul Abacus / Early Morning Opera / Lars Jan Jeremy Mendes & Leanne Allison Marco Brambilla Molleindustria Nonny de la Peña Gingger Shankar, Mridu Chandra & David Liang Brent Green Hank Willis Thomas & Chris Johnson Eva & Franco Mattes…

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Wilmington on Movies: Puss in Boots

    Puss in Boots (Four Stars) U.S.: Chris Miller, 2011 This review is dedicated to my friend Pica. Another Shrek movie, or, more accurately, a series spin-off? Another super-spectacular feature cartoon? Another big studio lollapalooza, this time from DreamWorks? In 3D yet? Didn’t sound artistically promising, even when the receipts started pouring in. But…

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Olsen Ponders Actresses’ Nudity In Shame And Martha Marcy May Marlene

Olsen Ponders Actresses’ Nudity In Shame And Martha Marcy May Marlene

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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