Movie City News Archive for March, 2018

Helen Mirren

“I’m ambivalent about drama teachers and the classes that people go to. I think people’s instincts are crushed by bad drama teaching. I’ve watched it happen. It’s so often that the people who are actually the best are the ones who are thrown out of drama school because they’re idiosyncratic. They’re peculiar. They don’t fit…

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Jeremy Saulnier Exits “True Detective” Season 3

No comment. — Jeremy Saulnier (@saulnier_jeremy) March 31, 2018 “Pizzolatto is the sole writer on the series, with the exception of David Milch, who co-wrote the fourth episode.” Jeremy Saulnier Exits “True Detective” Season 3

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How Alibaba Is Shoveling Cash Into South China Morning Post to Enhance China “Soft Power”

How Alibaba Conglom Is Shoveling Cash Into South China Morning Post to Enhance China “Soft Power”

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“White Critics: Please Stop Using [That] Word,” Encourages Regina Victor

“Continuing down this path guarantees you will lose respect, readership, and ultimately your jobs. I am a journalist. I want you to thrive, I want you to survive. But I cannot allow you to survive by standing on my back.” “White Critics: Please Stop Using [That] Word,” Encourages Regina Victor

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“This new ‘Roseanne’ is a dream machine for someone like Steve Bannon, who worked so hard to convince potential voters that supporting Donald Trump didn’t mean they were prejudiced. It reinforces Trump voters’ defense against cognitive dissonance and gives them an idealized version of themselves that allows them to dismiss any fear that they might be intolerant. In essence, the reboot of ‘Roseanne’ has already added to the faux-populism that is Trump’s political ideology, and has given viewers a platform to further their own misconceptions of themselves.

“This new ‘Roseanne’ is a dream machine for someone like Steve Bannon, who worked so hard to convince potential voters that supporting Donald Trump didn’t mean they were prejudiced. It reinforces Trump voters’ defense against cognitive dissonance and gives them an idealized version of themselves that allows them to dismiss any fear that they might be…

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“We’re thrilled that America has welcomed the Conner family back into their homes. The show is as fresh and relevant today as it was when it left the air 21 years ago. We can’t wait to see what the ‘Roseanne’ team has in store for next year,”

“We’re thrilled that America has welcomed the Conner family back into their homes. The show is as fresh and relevant today as it was when it left the air 21 years ago. We can’t wait to see what the ‘Roseanne’ team has in store for next year,” 

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Longtime Professor Saul Levine Claims He Was Pushed out of Massachusetts College of Art and Design By Administrators Who Accuse Him of “Harming Students”

“Thugs, buffoons, secret policemen who were attacking me as an artist, as an educational professional, as a programmer, but mainly as an artist.” Longtime Professor Saul Levine Claims He Was Pushed out of Massachusetts College of Art and Design By Administrators Who Accuse Him of “Harming Students”

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What To Know About Congress’ New Sex Censorship Law

What To Know About Congress’ New Sex Censorship Law

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Cameron Diaz Says She’s Retired From Acting

Cameron Diaz Says She’s Retired From Acting

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Ty Burr Returns Again To Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” After Its References in Unsane and Blade Runner 2049

Ty Burr Returns Again To Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” After Its References in Unsane and Blade Runner 2049

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Asia Argento Addresses Catherine Breillat

“Despite everything, I think that Europeans have lost a lot with the loss of Harvey Weinstein. You have to remember that there are French producers who we haven’t denounced — I won’t mention them; I won’t mention names, although I know three who are extremely respected — I don’t know why they weren’t denounced as…

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Friday Box-Office Estimates

Ready Player 15.2 Million.”

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Roxane Gay On Roseanne

“Where once she was edgy and provocative, she is now absurd and offensive. Her views are muddled and incoherent. She is more invested in banal and shallow provocation than engaging with sociopolitical issues in a thoughtful manner. No amount of mental gymnastics can make what Roseanne Barr has said and done in recent years palatable… This…

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Putin Spokesman Dubs Harvey Weinstein Accusers “Prostitutes”

“Maybe he’s a scumbag, but nobody went to the police and said ‘Weinstein raped me.’ No, they wanted to earn $10 million. What do you call a woman who sleeps with a man for $10 million? Maybe I’m being crude, but she’s called a prostitute.” Putin Spokesman Dubs Harvey Weinstein Accusers “Prostitutes”

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Sam Neill: ‘I dodged a bullet with James Bond’

Sam Neill: ‘I dodged a bullet with James Bond’

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The Seven-Million-Dollar Man

The Seven-Million-Dollar Man “A source close to Dan Schneider strongly denied he had been inappropriate with his younger stars, but did admit of his temper, ‘He could be an asshole’… A source claimed Schneider had been the victim of false online smears, and that his exit comes amid a change of management at the network… and a…

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Groomed to Be All That At Disney and Nick, youngsters are carefully scouted and prepped for stardom. They even take classes on how to deal with fans.

“The sudden end of Dan Schneider’s time at Nickelodeon, where he built an empire”

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Flashback To 2002: “Groomed to Be All That: At Disney and Nick, youngsters are carefully scouted and prepped for stardom. They even take classes on how to deal with fans. Round-faced and multitalented–he broke in as a teenage actor on the 1986 ABC series “Head of the Class”–Dan Schneider was picking a new cast for season seven of “All That.” The show, which he co-created, has become a talent incubator at Nickelodeon, making stars out of Amanda Bynes, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, among others…”

Flashback To 2002: “Groomed to Be All That: At Disney and Nick, youngsters are carefully scouted and prepped for stardom. They even take classes on how to deal with fans. Round-faced and multitalented–he broke in as a teenage actor on the 1986 ABC series “Head of the Class”–Dan Schneider was picking a new cast for season…

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Kael

As the best writer about film ever, she was central to the film conversation in her day, but polarized readers with strong opinions. She was inconsistent, backing her faves while she debunked Andrew Sarris’s auteur theory. He wasn’t as strong a writer but was equally pivotal. — Anne Thompson (@akstanwyck) March 30, 2018

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Michael Schlesinger’s “Vintage” Comedy Shorts With “The World’s Favorite Fake 1930s Comedy Team” Hit The Bricks

KINO LORBER ACQUIRES ALL NORTH AMERICAN RIGHTS TO RETRO COMEDY BIFFLE AND SHOOSTERz Collection of New “Vintage” Comedy Shorts Starring “The World’s Favorite Fake 1930s Comedy Team” Available on DVD May 22, 2018 Feature-Length Compilation To Be Released on Major Digital Platforms including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Vudu on May 22, 2018 March 30, 2018 –  Kino Lorber has acquired all North American rights to BIFFLE AND SHOOSTER,…

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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