Movie City News Archive for January, 2019

Singer Hiring

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Also, can we fucking stop with the “men can’t control themselves” shit? It’s condescending to everyone. I can fully well keep myself in control. If you can’t, that’s choice you made and you shouldn’t be excused for it. — Brant Daugherty (@brantdaugherty) January 24, 2019

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Atlantic On Hearst

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Statement from reporters Maximillian Potter and Alex French on investigation of Bryan Singer published in @TheAtlantic: pic.twitter.com/iouvNZGQtz — The Atlantic Communications (@TheAtlanticPR) January 23, 2019

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Red Singer

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

As for whether Bryan Singer is still directing RED SONJA, a Millennium rep is “checking” for me (7 hours later). — Tatiana Siegel (@TatianaSiegel27) January 23, 2019

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Bruce Weber’s NYT Obit For Jonas Mekas

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

“I can’t understand why people prefer the grossness and banality of a Hollywood or a European Art movie, as against the illuminations and ecstasies of an Avant-garde Film. The Hollywood film deals with gross, simplified realities, banalized feelings, ideas, thoughts. The Avant-garde Film deals with the subtler nuances of experience, emotions, ideas, perceptions — it…

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The Atlantic’s Year-in-the-Making Report On Bryan Singer: “No One Is Going To Believe You”

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

“He says he used to feel certain the accusations against his friend were false. Like others we spoke with, he says he’s seen Singer check the IDs of young guys who approached him to make sure they were of age. “ The Atlantic’s Year-in-the-Making Report On Bryan Singer: “No One Is Going To Believe You” 

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Jonas Mekas

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019
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Jonas Mekas

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

https://twitter.com/thenyff/status/1088165974220701696?s=21

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Why No Oscar Category for Best Title Design?

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Why No Oscar Category for Best Title Design?

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Condé Nast to Put All Titles Behind Paywalls by Year-End

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Condé Nast to Put All Titles Behind Paywalls by Year-End

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Verizon Media Starts Layoffs, Firing At Least 7% Of Workforce

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

Verizon Media Starts Layoffs, Firing At Least 7% Of Workforce

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Schrader

By Ray Pride - Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

"This is a very difficult conversation because I have never really respected the Academy for their choices. On the other hand, I'm enormously gratified that they have selected me." Paul Schrader on his first-ever Oscar nomination for FIRST REFORMED https://t.co/mKVm1eopIc pic.twitter.com/lIernM86M1 — Mark Olsen (@IndieFocus) January 23, 2019

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Yalitza Aparicio

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

https://twitter.com/yalitzaaparicio/status/1087747265421283331?s=21

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Ruth Carter

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

I GOT NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR THIS MORNING!!! This is the morning of all time to be alive. We did it! @theacademy here we come!!! pic.twitter.com/KRoVJD7D4K — Ruth E Carter (@iamRuthECarter) January 22, 2019

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Russell Baker Was 93

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

Pulitzer-Winning Columnist Russell Baker Was 93

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“For more than a decade, movie-lovers have enjoyed the AMC Best Picture Showcase to catch up on the nominated films that played at AMC throughout the prior year. This year, Academy members nominated a film that was never licensed to AMC to play in our theatres. As such, it is not included in the AMC Best Picture Showcase.”

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

“For more than a decade, movie-lovers have enjoyed the AMC Best Picture Showcase to catch up on the nominated films that played at AMC throughout the prior year. This year, Academy members nominated a film that was never licensed to AMC to play in our theatres. As such, it is not included in the AMC Best…

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Gaga on Christianity

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

BIG difference btw @ladygaga & most critics of Pences is that Gaga IS A CHRISTIAN. We need to focus on what she’s saying positively about following Jesus. “I am a Christian woman and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everybody is welcome.” https://t.co/RuPcb3qbCO — Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons (@GuthrieGF) January…

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“Mr. Elliott’s resonant baritone growl, which still weakens the knees of female fans, and mustache, rendered in multiple shades of handlebar, have, over the decades, become synonymous with stoic, steely dudes.” And now he’s an Oscar nominee nytimes.com/2015/08/16/mov…

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

“Mr. Elliott’s resonant baritone growl, which still weakens the knees of female fans, and mustache, rendered in multiple shades of handlebar, have, over the decades, become synonymous with stoic, steely dudes.”

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Netflix Joins MPAA

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

“Joining the Motion Picture Association further exemplifies our commitment to ensuring the vibrancy of these creative industries and the many talented people who work in them all over the world. We look forward to supporting the association team and their important efforts.” Netflix Joins MPAA

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Kaye Ballard

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

Kaye Ballard, known for her Broadway runs in “Carnival!” and “The Golden Apple,” among others, has died at 93 https://t.co/RTezrQLuoz — NYT Theater (@nytimestheater) January 22, 2019

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Oscar-Nominated Minding The Gap Debuts On POV February 18

By Ray Pride - Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019

Oscar-Nominated Minding The Gap Debuts On POV February 18

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“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