Movie City News Archive for February, 2019

Seattle weekly

By Ray Pride - Monday, February 25th, 2019

Seattle Weekly  Ceases Print

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Ratings

By Ray Pride - Monday, February 25th, 2019

https://twitter.com/thegregorye/status/1100124090910760961?s=21

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Spike Trump

By Ray Pride - Monday, February 25th, 2019

Analysis: How Trump’s Twitter pushback essentially confirmed Spike Lee’s speech https://t.co/PdKST3vh7b — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 25, 2019

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Maslin

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

Yes. It won because a lot of non-moronic people like it. Despite bad reviews, mud-slinging and Twitter. — Janet Maslin (@JanetMaslin) February 25, 2019

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Justin Chang Bangs Book

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

“The movie was clearly a palatable brand of godawful…  I find [it[ both dishonest and dispiritingly retrograde, a shopworn ideal of racial reconciliation propped up by a story that unfolds almost entirely from a white protagonist’s incurious perspective… There is something about the anger and defensiveness provoked by this particular picture that makes reasonable disagreement unusually…

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Spike Green book

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

I demand someone come through with a Spike Lee interview on Monday so he can finally tell us how he really feels about GREEN BOOK. It's the part of awards season I'm anticipating the most. pic.twitter.com/vCVjWxjgqc — Steven Santos (@stevensantos) February 23, 2019

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Green Book? Green Book.

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

Green Book? Green Book. GREEN BOOK is the worst best picture Oscar winner in more than a decade. https://t.co/JpS2zTp2EJ — Justin Chang (@JustinCChang) February 25, 2019

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Portrait Olivia

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

Olivia Colman photographed by Hana Knizova pic.twitter.com/USSVE64B5e — Chris Evangelista (@cevangelista413) December 14, 2018

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And….

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019
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Oscar Show Tweets at @mcntweets and @raypride

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

Oscar Show Tweets at @mcntweets and @raypride

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Iger

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

#AcademyAwards2019 day….BP (#BlackPanther) for BP (#BestPicture)! Fingers crossed. — Robert Iger (@RobertIger) February 24, 2019

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Romafest

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

El #ROMAFest es el evento oficial de ROMA en México para ver la premiación de los Óscar. Un evento gratuito para que los capitalinos puedan disfrutar de la premiación, la música y al mismo tiempo generar un impacto social positivo. pic.twitter.com/76j0oMzbwt — Alfonso Cuaron (@alfonsocuaron) February 23, 2019

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Donen & May

By Ray Pride - Sunday, February 24th, 2019

On the left, the late great #StanleyDonen and his longtime love, #ElaineMay. That necklace he wears is a dog tag engraved, "If found, please return to Elaine May." pic.twitter.com/QbZpuZKDG4 — Carrie Rickey (@CarrieRickey) February 23, 2019

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Labaki

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

"Lebanon is proud of you." Prime Minister @SaadHariri shows his supports for filmmaker @NadineLabaki ahead of the #Oscars2019 https://t.co/Uuk9JoxeKY — The National (@TheNationalUAE) February 24, 2019

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Spirits: If Beale Street Could Talk; Barry Jenkins; Glenn Close, Ethan Hawke; Regina King, Richard E. Grant; Screenplay, Can You Ever Forgive Me?; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?; Editing, You Were Never Really Here; International, Roma; First Feature, Sorry To Bother You; First Screenplay, Eighth Grade; Cinematography, Ensemble, Suspiria

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

Spirits: If Beale Street Could Talk; Barry Jenkins; Glenn Close, Ethan Hawke; Regina King, Richard E. Grant; Screenplay, Can You Ever Forgive Me?; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?; Editing, You Were Never Really Here; International, Roma; First Feature, Sorry To Bother You; First Screenplay, Eighth Grade; Cinematography, Ensemble, Suspiria

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Vachon Spirits

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

My first spirit awards were in 1992 with POISON. Todd and I were there with his parents and we were seated with Gus van sant and HIS parents. Buck Henry and Jodie foster hosted. No press allowed. Super funny and nasty ceremony. — Christine Vachon (@kvpi) February 23, 2019

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Donen Young

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

Among the amazing things about Stanley Donen is that he directed On the Town when he was 25 and Singing In The Rain when he was 27. When I was that age I’d barely even watched either movie. — Steven Zeitchik (@ZeitchikWaPo) February 23, 2019

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Brad Bird Donen

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

Thank you, Stanley Donen.Charade, On The Town*, Royal Wedding, Two For The Road…… and SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN.*Gotta dance. Rest In Peace.*(Co-Directed with Gene Kelly) pic.twitter.com/VYov6miBFh — Brad Bird (@BradBirdA113) February 23, 2019

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Grant

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

An emotional @RichardEGrant accepts the #SpiritAward, saying his performance was "an homage to that generation of men that were wiped out" by AIDS https://t.co/6rCFRy91OG pic.twitter.com/IEEoJa0XKC — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 23, 2019

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Participant

By Ray Pride - Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

“Having 17 nominations is terrific — obviously — but I’m mostly excited by how much the films are figuring into cultural conversations that feel really vital,” Mr. Linde said. “And wait until what’s next. I think it’s going to rock people’s socks.” What’s Up With Roma Producer Participant?

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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