Movie City News Archive for October, 2016

Richard Brody Feels A Thrill

“Even though it comes near the beginning of Jenkins’ career, Moonlight feels like the fulfillment of an inner world that has been under pressure within him for a very long time.” Richard Brody Feels A Thrill

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Francesco Rosi Talks Politics But Says Fire At Sea Is Not Political

“Berlusconi’s nothing compared to Trump, because the action of Berlusconi affects Italy only and the action of Trump would affect the whole world. And I don’t believe that people can be so blinded to vote for him. I refuse to believe that. I would not be able to work in the street or look at…

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Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race, “Ethnic Affinities”; Choice May Be Illegal

Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race, “Ethnic Affinities”; Choice May Be Illegal

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145 Documentary Features Submitted For Oscar

One hundred forty-five features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 89th Academy Awards®. The submitted films, listed in alphabetical order, are: “The Abolitionists” “Abortion: Stories Women Tell” “All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone” “Almost Holy” “Amanda Knox” “Among the Believers” “Anne Frank Then and…

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John Zacherle, 98, Pioneering TV Horror Host

John Zacherle, 98, Pioneering TV Horror Host

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Ten Films That Capture The Sensations Of A City, By Ray Pride

“Chicago locations are used as backdrops to movies and television series, but how many movies get the gritty, rub-it-between-your-fingers texture of the streets and sidewalks and alleyways?” Ten Films That Capture The Sensations Of A City, By Ray Pride

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Bob Dylan Says, Sure, He’ll Show Up In Stockholm, If Time Allows

Bob Dylan Says, Sure, He’ll Show Up In Stockholm, If Time Allows

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Touring Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse

Touring Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse

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Liv Tyler Turns Designer, Drawing From Her Own Closet And Amelia Earhart

Liv Tyler Turns Designer, Drawing From Her Own Closet And Amelia Earhart

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Cieply & Fleming Start Series On Brad Grey And Paramount

“This place is going to be formidable. I know our company has been in the news quite a bit lately, mostly not for movies and television. I believe there is great reason to be optimistic about our next chapter.” Cieply & Fleming Start Series On Brad Grey And Paramount

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“Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer And He Still Has His Job At Apple”

“Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer And He Still Has His Job At Apple”

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Wayman Wong Says Asian Performers Shouldn’t Be Overlooked For Oscar, Either

Wayman Wong Says Asian Performers Shouldn’t Be Overlooked For Oscar, Either

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Chicago In’tl Names Audience Awards

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Sun Valley Film Fest Goes Deep On Film Funding And Mentorship

With a mission to serve as “a filmmakers’ festival.”

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STX Entertainment To Co-Produce Short Content

Builds on Strategy to Become the Best Home for Storytellers

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Tom Shone On Peter Ackroyd’s Life Of Hitchcock

“Vertigo is not Hitchcock’s best, but rather, with its lush morbidity, somnolent pace, poor box office and relative scarcity of jokes, the Hitchcock film for those who most wish he were French. “ Tom Shone On Peter Ackroyd’s Life Of Hitchcock

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Ben Child Reappraises The Filmic Career Of Dr. Uwe Boll, Who Says He’s Going To Stick To His Vancouver Restaurant

“American Beauty as scripted by Beavis and Butthead.” Ben Child Reappraises The Filmic Career Of Dr. Uwe Boll, Who Has Said He’s Going To Stick To Bauhaus, His Vancouver Restaurant

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Pornhub Wants To Buy Vine

Pornhub Wants To Buy Vine

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Cautions Against The Latest Time Warner Merger

“The viewing habits of TV watchers are changing, and they are consuming media coming in through social networks and platforms. Content creation is more decentralized and content consumption is more decentralized. AT&T’s approach is based on an old model.” Cautions Against The Latest Time Warner Merger

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Harvard Business Review On Printing Fewer And Fewer Issues

Harvard Business Review On Printing Fewer And Fewer Issues

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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?

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