Movie City News Archive for March, 2019

The return of dystopian fiction From Dave Eggers to John Lanchester and Ben Okri to Margaret Atwood, writers are crafting horror stories that reflect our living nightmare.

“The return of dystopian fiction: From Dave Eggers to John Lanchester and Ben Okri to Margaret Atwood, writers are crafting horror stories that reflect our living nightmare”

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An Exhaustive History of the Making Of Fight Club

An Exhaustive History of the Making Of Fight Club

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How Indie Theaters Work To Keep Alive

How Indie Theaters Work To Keep Alive

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Censorship and sensibility: Turkey’s arthouse directors face growing crackdown

“Censorship and sensibility: Turkey’s arthouse directors face growing crackdown”

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Former New Line Co-Chairman Michael Lynne Was 77

Former New Line Co-Chairman Michael Lynne Was 77; Key Lord Of The Rings Player

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Apple TV+ Unveiling Attended By Apple Awards Guru Ralph Galvan

Apple TV+ Unveiling Attended By Apple Awards Guru Ralph Galvan

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From The Brink, Steve Bannon Has An Ugg-Clad Breakdown At Home

Steve Bannon Has An Ugg-Clad Breakdown At Home From The Brink 1’17”

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“With J.J. Abrams in Play, Bad Robot Co-CEO Nudged WarnerMedia Toward Firing Kevin Tsujihara”

“With J.J. Abrams in Play, Bad Robot Co-CEO Nudged WarnerMedia Toward Firing Kevin Tsujihara”

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Apple

What's sticking in my brain from #AppleEvent: Oprah laid her uplift shtick on pretty thick, as if her AppleTV+ content will be a beacon of light shining thru today's dark times. Meshed with Apple's own anti-Facebook positioning in the marketplace as the ecosystem you can trust. — Andrew Wallenstein (@awallenstein) March 25, 2019 …Apple could…

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Netflix

In 2018 alone, Netflix spent at least $8 billion on new content. — Euan Rellie (@euanrellie) March 25, 2019

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Apple

One thought about Apple: The company's traditional vibe–nobody else has done this/this is a new way of experiencing things/we're first–is not a good fit for content creation. These are TV shows on a streaming service. If they're good, great. But this morning, the company… — Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) March 25, 2019 Moral: When talent is…

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Scott Walker

So very sad to hear that Scott Walker has passed away, he was a huge influence on Radiohead and myself, showing me how i could use my voice and words. Met him once at Meltdown, such a kind gentle outsider. He will be very missed. https://t.co/v33Ey91hbn — Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) March 25, 2019

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Apple Announces Streaming

Apple Announces Streaming

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“Movies about alien hermaphrodites who look like Jesus; mutant newborns who slaughter an entire obstetrics team; Aztec bird-gods that nest in the Chrysler Building. Who comes up with this stuff? That would be Larry Cohen, who has been making grade-A B-movies like God Told Me To (1976), It’s Alive! (1974), and Q (1982) for nearly fifty years.”

“Movies about alien hermaphrodites who look like Jesus; mutant newborns who slaughter an entire obstetrics team; Aztec bird-gods that nest in the Chrysler Building. Who comes up with this stuff? That would be Larry Cohen, who has been making grade-A B-movies like God Told Me To (1976), It’s Alive! (1974), and Q (1982) for nearly…

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A Review of US (some spoilers)

You don’t want to be Them.

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Haneke

“There are really two types of laughter. There is the laughter of recognition—which means seeing things you’re familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there’s also hysterical laughter—a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.”#HBD, Michael Haneke! pic.twitter.com/GhqC0w2H3m — The Daily (@CriterionDaily) March 23, 2019

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WGA

Proud to say #IStandWithTheWGA https://t.co/XEQQMHw0CE — Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) March 23, 2019

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More Babs Jacko

https://t.co/VYQLQullhd pic.twitter.com/10MluYcCWp — Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) March 23, 2019

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Babs Jacko

New statement from @BarbraStreisand after her comments about the men who accused Michael Jackson of sexual abuse in “Leaving Neverland" drew serious backlash https://t.co/khUGAXjXVm pic.twitter.com/AEq1evsJrZ — Salvador Hernandez (@SalHernandez) March 23, 2019

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Diana Ross

This is what’s on my heart this morning. I believe and trust that Michael Jackson was and is A magnificent incredible force to me and to many others.STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE — Ms. Ross (@DianaRoss) March 23, 2019

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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