Movie City News Archive for June, 2016

Lionsgate Paying $4.4 Billion For Starz, Aligning Two John Malone Investments

Lionsgate Paying $4.4 Billion For Starz, Aligning Two John Malone Investments

Read the full article »

“Under 16 years of Chicago-based ownership the Los Angeles Times newsroom has been whittled down to less than half the size it was two decades ago (publications across the country have suffered similar decreases). With steadily declining revenue — again, similar to what most U.S. newspapers are experiencing — the L.A. Times is in a desperate state.”

“Under 16 years of Chicago-based ownership the Los Angeles Times newsroom has been whittled down to less than half the size it was two decades ago (publications across the country have suffered similar decreases). With steadily declining revenue — again, similar to what most U.S. newspapers are experiencing — the L.A. Times is in a…

Read the full article »

“Future Shock” Author Alvin Toffler Was 87

“Future Shock” Author Alvin Toffler Was 87

Read the full article »

A List Of The 52 Women Directors Nominated For The Academy

A List Of The 52 Women Directors Nominated For The Academy

Read the full article »

Industry Groups Contest China Arrest Of Tibetan Filmmaker Pema Tsede

Industry Groups Contest China Arrest Of Tibetan Filmmaker Pema Tsede

Read the full article »

Settlement Approved To Put “Happy Birthday” Into Public Domain

Settlement Approved To Put “Happy Birthday” Into Public Domain

Read the full article »

The 683 Oscar Invitees Are 46% Female And 41% Of Color

“This year’s list is so massive, it’s sure to provoke plenty of debate over whether all those names on it deserve to be included.” The 683 Oscar Invitees Are 46% Female And 41% Of Color

Read the full article »

Melissa Anderson On The Amazing Career Path Of Kristen Stewart

Melissa Anderson On The Amazing Career Path Of Kristen Stewart

Read the full article »

Isaac Butler And Dan Kois’ Oral History Of The Spasmodic Creation of Tony Kushner’s “Angels In America” Is A Must-Read For Those Who Care About Writing And Art

Isaac Butler And Dan Kois‘ Oral History Of The Spasmodic Creation of Tony Kushner’s “Angels In America” Is A Must-Read For Those Who Care About Writing And Art

Read the full article »

Academy Invites 683 To Membership

ACADEMY INVITES 683 TO MEMBERSHIP LOS ANGELES, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 683 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in…

Read the full article »

Academy Invites 683 New Members

Academy Invites 683 New Members pdf — infographic version

Read the full article »

Hw’d Chamber Of Commerce Announces Those Who Agree To Walk Of Fame For 2017

A new group of entertainment professionals in Motion Pictures, Television, Live Theatre, Radio and Recording have been selected to receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it was announced today by the Walk of Fame Selection Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. These honorees were chosen from among hundreds of nominations to the…

Read the full article »

Max Nelson Critiques Quirky Subtitling

Max Nelson Critiques Quirky Subtitling

Read the full article »

No Magic Left At Alchemy

No Magic Left At Alchemy

Read the full article »

For Mel Brooks’ 90th, A 2013 “Fresh Air” In Which The King Proclaims, “I’m An EGOT! I Don’t Need Any More!”

For Mel Brooks’ 90th, A 2013 “Fresh Air” In Which The King Proclaims, “I’m An EGOT! I Don’t Need Any More!”

Read the full article »

Nigel M. Smith Comes To Worship Scarlett Johansson (And Her Worldwide Box Office)

Nigel M. Smith Comes To Worship Scarlett Johansson (And Her Worldwide Box Office)

Read the full article »

Rush to Judgment: The Legend Of Tarzan

The things that are wrong, or wrong-headed with the latest incarnation of The Legend of Tarzan, are myriad and numerous.

Read the full article »

“Why The Shallows Is Better Than The Birds”

The Murder Of The Thinkpiece By The Grauniad Subeditor “Why The Shallows Is Better Than The Birds“

Read the full article »

Justine Smith On James Agee’s Voice

Justine Smith On James Agee’s Voice (link fixed)

Read the full article »

From A Toronto Perspective, Meet Manhattan’s Metrograph Theater

From A Toronto Perspective, Meet Manhattan’s Metrograph Theater

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