Movie City News Archive for January, 2018

“Majority” Shingle Launched For Female Filmmakers by Senain Kheshgi and Jonathan Ker

“We saw this as an opportunity to create a space for women directors to speak directly to consumers through their work and artistry.” “Majority” Shingle Launched To Nurture And Employ Female Filmmakers by Senain Kheshgi and Jonathan Ker

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Cuaron On Escalante

A dos días de su estreno, @Cinemex eliminó de su programación LA REGION SALVAJE de Amat Escalante, ganador al mejor director en el Festival de Venecia 2016. La excusa, no tener espacio por la cantidad de títulos. Esto es ofensivo e indignante. Espero @Cinemex reconsidere. — Alfonso Cuaron (@alfonsocuaron) January 31, 2018 Alfonso Cuaron on…

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“Starting with Gawker and L.A. Weekly, we’re backing up entire news sites that might be threatened by the ‘billionaire problem,’ in which wealthy buyers can erase coverage they dislike.” Freedom of the Press Foundation Announces

“Starting with Gawker and L.A. Weekly, we’re backing up entire news sites that might be threatened by the ‘billionaire problem,’ in which wealthy buyers can erase coverage they dislike.” Freedom of the Press Foundation Announces

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Writers Guild Sets “Zero Tolerance” For Sexual Harassment

“Zero tolerance does not mean the absence of due process, or that there is a one-size-fits-all punishment for every incident. The WGAW supports a fair and legal process that is consistently and transparently applied.” Writers Guild Sets “Zero Tolerance” For Sexual Harassment

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Ezra Swerdlow, 64, Producer On 21 Jump Street, Hannah and Her Sisters, Wag the Dog, Enchanted, Zombieland, Spaceballs

Ezra Swerdlow, 64, Producer On 21 Jump Street, Hannah and Her Sisters, Wag the Dog, Enchanted, Zombieland, Spaceballs

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The New Passion Of The Mel

“The Resurrection. Big subject. Oh, my God.” The New Passion Of The Mel

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“The staff of Disney Animation Studios will gather on the lot for a ‘Day of Listening,’ with human-resources professionals present. The gathering, which Disney veterans say is unprecedented for the Burbank-based animation unit, comes as sources with ties to both Disney Animation and Pixar Animation Studios speculate that John Lasseter, who oversees both companies but has been on leave since November, will not return from what was characterized by Disney as a six-month ‘sabbatical.'”

“The staff of Disney Animation Studios will gather on the lot for a ‘Day of Listening,’ with human-resources professionals present. The gathering, which Disney veterans say is unprecedented for the Burbank-based animation unit, comes as sources with ties to both Disney Animation and Pixar Animation Studios speculate that John Lasseter, who oversees both companies but…

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College Roommates Nellie Killian And Jennie Slate Talk About Programming Women’s Voices on Film

“The time is now to listen to these women’s stories and as I was putting it together I realized that that refrain of ‘listen to women’—people kept on saying it like it was a burden to bear. Like, ‘You have to listen to women, even though it’s a bummer,’ and I was like, ‘It’s not…

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Trump Dept. of Commerce Paper Tariffs Could Cost Jobs at U.S. Publishers

“With all the issues that we have going on in the world and the country, to see [the government] focusing in one mill which has complained about unfair pricing seems ludicrous to me. It’s bizarre. I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with it. I think this is one of the things that makes people…

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After Sexual Harassment Allegations, University of Iowa Removing Name Of Elderly Gambling Billionaire Steve Wynn From Institute

After Sexual Harassment Allegations, University of Iowa Removing Name Of Elderly Gambling Billionaire Steve Wynn From Institute

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Rose McGowan To Weinstein: Don’t Try to “Slut-Shame” Me

Rose McGowan To Weinstein: Don’t Try to “Slut-Shame” Me

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Connie Sawyer, 105, Film’s Oldest Working Actress

Connie Sawyer, 105, Film’s Oldest Working Actress

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Anonymous Content

“Our collaboration will push New York Times stories onto new screens and new platforms.”  Anonymous Content

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Cesar Nominations Go To Au revoir là-haut, Barbara, C’est la Vie And A Record 13 For BPM

Cesar Nominations Go To Au revoir là-haut, Barbara, C’est la Vie And A Record 13 For BPM

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Charting The Hit Trajectory Of The Greatest Showman

Charting The Hit Trajectory Of The Greatest Showman

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True Gens

hahahaha 22 and under we know what to call you all now https://t.co/lpSEsMv7dA — NYT Styles (@NYTStyles) January 31, 2018

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Alex Balk’s Fine, Fond Farewell To What The Awl Was And Now Is No More

Alex Balk‘s Fine, Fond Farewell To What The Awl Was And Now Is No More

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Much Smaller Village Voice Staff Returning To Paper’s Longtime Cooper Square Haunt

Much Smaller Village Voice Staff Returning To Paper’s Longtime Cooper Square Haunt

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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