Movie City News Archive for November, 2017

“If NBC wants to start making amends, it could finally make public any ‘Apprentice’ archival video that sheds further light on its star’s behavior. As AP reported, more than 20 former crew members, editors, and contestants affirmed that Trump repeatedly demeaned women on the show. A former ‘Apprentice’ producer said there are ‘far worse’ tapes…

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Harassment Allegations: Vice Fires Three Unnamed Employees

“The conduct of these employees ranged from verbal and sexual harassment to other behavior that is inconsistent with our policies, our values, and the way in which we believe colleagues should work together.” Harassment Allegations: Vice Fires Three Unnamed Employees

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Nine Women Accuse Playwright Israel Horovitz of Sexual Misconduct

“I heard a word used recently about people like this — they’re dream crushers. He took this thing that was such a beautiful thing, this young hope, this sense of promise, and he just ruined it.” Nine Women Accuse Playwright Israel Horovitz of Sexual Misconduct

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Misconduct Allegations: B’wy Casting Director Justin Huff Out; Worked For “Kinky Boots,” “Newsies,” “The Color Purple,” “On Your Feet!,” “Honeymoon in Vegas.”

Misconduct Allegations: B’wy Casting Director Justin Huff Out; Worked For “Kinky Boots,” “Newsies,” “The Color Purple,” “On Your Feet!,” “Honeymoon in Vegas.”

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Key Uber Investor Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Multiple Women

Key Uber Investor Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Multiple Women

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“Will Hollywood lawyer Martin Singer’s pitbull tactics still work in a post-Weinstein era?”

“As accusations against Ratner, Harvey Weinstein and a seemingly ever-widening cast of others increase, Martin Singer’s hard-edged style is colliding with a sudden cultural shift toward empowering women (and men) to speak out about abuse. Strategies like Singer’s of pointedly challenging an alleged victim’s account, history and possible motivations are being questioned in an avenging time…

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J. C. Penney Drops Russell Simmons’ Argyleculture Line After Sexual Assault Allegations; HBO Edits Out Of “All Def Comedy”

J. C. Penney Drops Russell Simmons’ Argyleculture Line After Sexual Assault Allegations; HBO Edits Out Of “All Def Comedy”

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20 Weeks To Oscar: Year of the Reconstructed Rom-Com

Award seasons have a theme that emerges as the season progresses. With the arrival of Phantom Thread and The Post, this year is loaded with rom-coms that don’t want to be rom-coms.

The form has been torn down in recent years and barely exists now in Hollywood movies, indies, or even TV. But take the idea of a romantic comedy about, say, the black guy being brought home to meet the over-exuberant white suburban parents and give it a twist… and BAM!… Get Out.

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Laura Kipnis On The Moment

Laura Kipnis On The Moment

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Steve Gravestock On “Circle of Three,” TIFF Founders (And Independent Producers) Bill Marshall, Henk Van der Kolk And Dusty Cohl

Steve Gravestock On “Circle of Three,” TIFF Founders (And Independent Producers) Bill Marshall, Henk Van der Kolk And Dusty Cohl

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Mr. Mamet Turns 70. Here’s The Paris Review Art of Theater No. 11

“The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always what does the protagonist want. That’s what drama is. It comes down to that. It’s not about theme, it’s not about ideas, it’s not about setting, but what the protagonist wants. What gives rise to the drama, what is the precipitating event, and…

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Unnamed Workers On Justice League Desultorily Describe Frankenstein Monster

“Warner Bros. declined comment for this story.” Unnamed Workers On Justice League Desultorily Describe Frankenstein Monster

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DVD Gift Guide II: Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Der Bingle, Hitchcock, Homicide, Agatha Christie, Jean Rouch, MST3K, Curtiz, Logan Lucky, Animal Factory, Woodshock and more

Because our grandparents and great-grandparents already seem to have everything they need, they get shorted when gifts are being handed out around the Christmas tree. The challenge of picking out presents grows greater every year, it seems. After all, how many sweaters, robes and slippers can a person possibly own? Why not give the gift that never gets older that it already is: nostalgia. No matter how many channels there are, the ones dedicated to shows seniors might recall with fondness are limited to TCM, PBS and niche services on premium networks.

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Terry Crews

“This whole thing from Weinstein to all that’s happening in Hollywood is about an abuse of power. An abuse of the position you have, and what happens is they’ve fooled everyone into thinking it’s part of the job.” Terry Crews

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R Kelly

Why Is R. Kelly Untouchable? Asks Jim DeRogaitis

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NYFCC 2017

Richard Schickel Memorial Edition New York Film Critics Circle Awards Lady Bird; Sean Baker, Director; Phantom Thread, Script; Ronan, Chalamet; Haddish, Dafoe; BPM; Coco; Faces Places; Mudbound, Cinematography; Molly Haskell, Career

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How Closing A Hungarian Opposition Paper Was A Worldwide Omen For Fate Of Publications Like LA Weekly

How Closing A Hungarian Opposition Paper Was A Worldwide Omen For  Fate Of Publications Like LA Weekly

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Lauer

“Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul-searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort. It is now my full time job… There is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.” Matt Lauer Says He Is Beginning Image Recovery

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Simmons Yogic

“I am removing myself from the businesses that I founded. The companies will now be run by a new and diverse generation of extraordinary executives who are moving the culture and consciousness forward. I will convert the studio for yogic science into a not-for-profit center of learning and healing. As for me, I will step…

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Jenny Lumet Accuses Russell Simmons

Jenny Lumet Accuses Russell Simmons

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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