Movie City News Archive for October, 2015

Kim Morgan Introduces Her Filmmaker Cover Interview With Todd Haynes

Kim Morgan Introduces Her Filmmaker Cover Interview With Todd Haynes

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America pays tribute to Sylvie and Maurice Pialat

Two events will soon shine the spotlight on Maurice Pialat in the USA and inCanada : a retrospective held at the MOMI (Museum of the Moving Image) in New York from October 16 through November 1, 2015; and “Love Exists: The Films of Maurice Pialat” at the TIFF Cinematheque in Toronto fromOctober 22 through December 5, held in the presence…

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Carrie Fisher Interviews Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley

Carrie Fisher Interviews Star Wars‘ Daisy Ridley

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Ziggy Kozlowski Receives 2015 Polish Film Festival in America Golden Ciupaga Award

I can hardly imagine more hardworking and humble behind-the-stage PR professional than Ziggy Kozlowski who makes such a colossal difference in introducing foreign language films, including the ones made by Polish directors. His enthusiasm and expertise are simply priceless… Christopher Kamyszew PFFA Founder & Society for Arts/Society Films CEO Ziggy Kozlowski is a partner at…

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Friday Box Office Esitmates

Holdovers enjoyed excellent Friday holds based on a combination of no new competition (unintentionally) at the box office and, perhaps, people going to the movies Friday in anticipation of not going on Saturday (Halloween night) in normal numbers. The last time Halloween fell on a Saturday was 2006, and holdovers had a normal Saturday uptick, while the new film in the market took a Saturday hit and then had an unusual upsurge on Sunday. The last occurrence before that was 1998, so not a lot to work with in direct comparisons. Burnt is toast. And WB continues Hell Year with its smallest wide release (over 400 screens) this year and its second worst opening for a film that it signaled clearly for months was unimportant to the studio. Paramount’s two-week-window stunt continues, with Paranormal 5 dropping 65% Friday-to-Friday and the launch of Scout’s Guide To The Apocalypse to $444 per screen last night. So much for changing the face of distribution.

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A Bouquet Of Accelerating NYT Award Season Coverage

A Bouquet Of Accelerating NYT Award Season Coverage “Ms. Mara, 30, was relaxed and playfully candid on this bright October day, a sylph in black skinny jeans and an outsize sweater with a stripe the same color as the kale salad she nibbled at.” And – “While the reporting process would provide the narrative propulsion,…

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Owen Vince On “Dreamscape, Nightmare, city: the weirded urbanisms of german expressionist film”

Owen Vince On “Dreamscape, Nightmare, City: The Weirded Urbanisms Of German Expressionist Film”

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Tom Hardy Just Wants To “Have A Cuddle”

Tom Hardy Just Wants To “Have A Cuddle”

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Sam Adams On Why Closing Of The Dissolve And Grantland Aren’t The Same

“What brought Grantland down was not the lack of an audience but internal politics: It existed in part because ESPN wanted to keep Simmons happy, and once they stopped caring about that, its fate was sealed. That’s not to say its ending isn’t equally as depressing, but it’s harder to spin this into some kind of…

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NYDN Seeks Quentin Tarantino’s Father For Comment

“Quentin is a phenomenal talent, a filmmaking genius. So when he or someone like him gets up and makes a statement like that, it’s felt the world around. It’s an injustice to call New York cops murderers. That is so wrong. They don’t deserve that kind of talk.” NYDN Seeks Quentin Tarantino’s Father For Comment

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A Few Witticisms From Terry Gilliam

“I try to submit—I’m Muslim-like when I’m making a film. I am there to serve the film and submit to it. I don’t feel I’m God, actually. I’m merely the hand that writes.” A Few Witticisms From Terry Gilliam

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Police Unions Asserting Opposition To Political Opinions Of Quentin Tarantino Now Include Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Las Vegas

“There is no place for inflammatory rhetoric that makes police officers even bigger targets than we already are.” “Questioning everything we do threatens public safety by discouraging officers from putting themselves in positions where their legitimate actions could be falsely portrayed as thuggery.” Police Unions Asserting Opposition To Political Opinions Of Quentin Tarantino Now Include Los Angeles,…

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One More Major Lovely Downbeat Tale About Anomalisa

“I love doing stop-motion for no reason except that it’s stop-motion,” Mr. Stamatopoulos said. “My favorite thing is a puppet not moving, just sitting there and being depressed.” One More Major Lovely Downbeat Tale About Anomalisa spoilers, natch

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Benedict Cumberbatch’s Latest Post-“Hamlet” Speech Reportedly Includes “Fuck The Politicians”

Benedict Cumberbatch’s Latest Post-“Hamlet” Speech Reportedly Includes “F— The Politicians”

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Al On “Happy Days,”Al Molinaro, Was 96

Al On “Happy Days,” Al Molinaro, Was 96

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“The Spy Who Became le Carré”

“The Spy Who Became le Carré”

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SXSW Reacts To Backlash On Giving In To Harassers; Sets Daylong “Online Harassment Summit”

SXSW Reacts To Backlash On Giving In To Harassers; Sets Daylong “Online Harassment Summit”

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Lou Lumenick On Why We’ll Never See Phantom Of The Opera The Way Audiences Did 90 Years Ago

Lou Lumenick On Why We’ll Never See Phantom Of The Opera The Way Audiences Did 90 Years Ago

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Norman Lear On His Book About His Early Years As A Television Writer

Norman Lear On His Book About His Early Years As A Television Writer

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“Ed Ruscha: L. A.’s Artist”

“Ed Ruscha: L. A.’s Artist”

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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