Movie City News Archive for November, 2011

Australia: The Human Centipede II (full sequence) classified RC upon review

28 November 2011 MEDIA RELEASE A three member panel of the Classification Review Board (the Review Board) has by unanimous decision determined that the film The Human Centipede II (full sequence) is classified RC (Refused Classification). In the Review Board’s opinion, The Human Centipede II (full sequence) could not be accommodated within the R 18+…

Read the full article »

JEFERY LEVY TO LAUNCH PRODUCTION COMPANY, XMARKSTHEEARTH, IN 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Company is fully funded to produce three films a year for the next five years Los Angeles, CA (November 30, 2011) – The critically acclaimed and award-winning writer, director, and producer Jefery Levy and his partners will launch a new production company, XMarksTheEarth, in early 2012, Levy today announced. XMarksTheEarth has been…

Read the full article »

On “Scorsese On Scorsese” And News Of A British Cinema Doc

On “Scorsese On Scorsese” And News Of A British Cinema Doc

Read the full article »

How Changing Media Landscape Could Topple FCC Indecency Rules

How Changing Media Landscape Could Topple FCC Indecency Rules

Read the full article »

Facebook Makes Privacy Settlement With FTC; Involves “Opting-In” And Rare, Intermittent Check-Ups

Facebook Makes Privacy Settlement With FTC; Involves “Opting-In” And Rare, Intermittent Check-Ups

Read the full article »

How Shame Makes Gavin Polone Feel Good

How Shame Makes Gavin Polone Feel Good

Read the full article »

“In Defense Of Shameless Oscar Campaigns”

“In Defense Of Shameless Oscar Campaigns”

Read the full article »

Marty Says: Don’t Take The Ride

“We have to react against the theme park film, as well made as they are, and as enjoyable as some of them are.” Marty Says: Don’t Take The Ride

Read the full article »

VanAirsdale Goes To The Dogs For The Artist

VanAirsdale Goes To The Dogs For The Artist

Read the full article »

Phillip Noyce Nearly Bowls A Googly In India

Phillip Noyce Nearly Bowls A Googly In India

Read the full article »

Attorney General Holder Asks America To Report Neighbors Who Download Or Buy Canadian Drugs

Attorney General Holder Asks America To Report Neighbors Who Download, Or Buy Canadian Drugs

Read the full article »

Mark Harris Calculates Some Oscarmetrics

Mark Harris Calculates Some Oscarmetrics

Read the full article »

Comedian Patrice O’Neal Was 41; Appeared In Scary Movie 4; Roasted Charlie Sheen

Comedian Patrice O’Neal Was 41; Appeared In Scary Movie 4; Roasted Charlie Sheen

Read the full article »

British Playwright Michael Hastings, 73, Wrote Tom & Viv, The Nightcomers

British Playwright Michael Hastings, 73, Wrote Tom & Viv, The Nightcomers

Read the full article »

“Let us now praise professional book reviewers, like them or not.”

“Let us now praise professional book reviewers, like them or not.”

Read the full article »

How Did First!-In-America New York Film Critics Circle Announce Silent Film The Artist As Best Of The Year? Twitter.

How Did First!-In-America New York Film Critics Circle Announce Silent Film The Artist As Best Of The Year? Twitter.

Read the full article »

NYFCC Announces The Early Winners

Early Voters Give Out Only One Award For A Film Not Seen Or Released By October 1 NYFCC Announces The Early Winners

Read the full article »

NY Film Critics Circle Winners

Best Picture The Artist Best Cinematography Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life Best Screenplay Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball Best Director Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist Best Foreign Language Film A Separation Best Actor Brad Pitt, Moneyball & The Tree of Life Best Actress Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady Best Supporting Actor Albert Brooks, Drive…

Read the full article » 2 Comments »

Report: “VOD Rides To The Rescue Of Indie Film”

Report: “VOD Rides To The Rescue Of Indie Film”

Read the full article »

Indies Spirit Noms Announced

The Artist vs The Descendants is the story in another year of all big indies duking it out Indies Spirit Noms Announced

Read the full article »

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?

Quote Unquotesee all »

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