Movie City News Archive for June, 2019

Sundance’s John Cooper Stepping Down

Sundance’s John Cooper Stepping Down After 2020 Fest

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Writing magazine features to sell IP

The increasingly blurry line between journalism and IP-creation seems like something we should all be talking about more. For instance, how magazines are increasingly propping themselves up by marketing/selling their content to Hollywood. https://t.co/3PgDdrVevW — Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) June 27, 2019

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His love ski

On his birthday, we're remembering the Polish master Krzysztof Kieślowski, who translated the mysteries of everyday life into incandescent, richly cinematic reveries with a mix of rigorous philosophical inquiry and operatic emotion. https://t.co/lDkSjFbmws pic.twitter.com/aszhnjHAr5 — Criterion Collection (@Criterion) June 27, 2019

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Mixtape legacy

“Like an even more precarious version of the Universal vault, the for-profit servers that host these primary documents of hip-hop culture can vanish in an instant." Who will save the mixtapes? https://t.co/lQu8x7XN5b pic.twitter.com/lCcjXs2Dea — WFMU (@WFMU) June 27, 2019

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Drago

Il avait ce qu'on appelle la gueule de l'emploi : rendu célèbre par le rôle de Frank Nitti dans "Les Incorruptibles", Billy Drago est décédé à 73 ans. #RIP #BillyDrago pic.twitter.com/et4En7uxJF — TCM Cinéma (@TCM_Cinema) June 27, 2019

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Bye Bing

Tomorrow @LACMA, our LAST screening ever in the Bing Theater will be Ozu's final film, AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON. As both a send-off of the theater and a celebration of FILM at LACMA's legacy there, we hope to see you one last time at the Bing! https://t.co/IgZUr1bT6H pic.twitter.com/XQsHTGJb09 — Adam Piron (@adam_piron) June 27, 2019

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Drago

Billy Drago Dead: 'Untouchables' Actor Dies at 73. Billy played John Bly, a great bad guy on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. He was sinister and understated on screen, sweet and humble off screen. Safe travels, fellow thespian. Well played! https://t.co/XJ7SiCcnk2 — Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) June 27, 2019

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UMG Inferno

Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire – https://t.co/HD4x9qcPJx <- It’s like the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria. Irreplaceable originals (and we’ll never know what other treasures) lost, though copies of many highlights survive. — (((The Other David Cohen))) (@David_S_Cohen) June 25, 2019

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Netflix Loses “The Office”

This just in: As we kind of expected, NBCU will take back the exclusive domestic streaming rights for #TheOffice for its new streaming service, starting in 2021 and for five years. It's currently believed to be one of, if not the, most-watched shows on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/JPhZqgqUvS — Michael Schneider (@franklinavenue) June 25, 2019

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Brit Ann Sarnoff New Warner CEO

Brit Ann Sarnoff New Warner CEO

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“Thr expectations of the world-devouring $200 million was what was in the box-office writers’ heads. So when they saw it coming in 40% below that outrageous estimate, the fire alarms went off. But they can’t say that, because they aren’t supposed to be basing their reporting on the NRG numbers that no one dares speak aloud. So it’s a dud based on the guidance. “Well below studio predictions of $140 million to $150 million,” is how the LAT put it.”

“Thr expectations of the world-devouring $200 million was what was in the box-office writers’ heads. So when they saw it coming in 40% below that outrageous estimate, the fire alarms went off. But they can’t say that, because they aren’t supposed to be basing their reporting on the NRG numbers that no one dares speak…

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Village Elder Joel Silver Out At Silver Pictures

Village Elder Joel Silver Out At Silver Pictures

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Berney

Amazon Studios marketing and distribution chief Bob Berney departinghttps://t.co/6vY2bVfFud — Screen International (@Screendaily) June 25, 2019

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Dunleavy foot

“There was the night a blizzard buried Manhattan and Dunleavy, “reclining” with a young woman in a snowdrift outside Elaine’s, and had his foot run over by a snowplow. Snarled Pete Hamill of the Daily News, ‘I hope it was his writing foot.’”

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Dunleavy

Tabloid legend Steve Dunleavy dead at 81, family confirms https://t.co/DgJ6N3GPvZ — larry mcshane (@lmcshanenydn) June 25, 2019 The legendary @nypost reporter Steve Dunleavy dead at 81. Some of my favorite classic photos of him from 2006 at Langans. #RIPDunleavy https://t.co/Y7ThgMyXFx pic.twitter.com/8B48AxsAIU — Zach Kouwe (@zkouwe) June 25, 2019 Whenever I think of Steve Dunleavy, I…

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Dun

Goodbye, Steve Dunleavy Ignore the official obituaries, and read this 2008 Gawker article on the Australian New York Post journo, if you want at least a bit of reality. https://t.co/pgarWHwBmz #ausmedia also, this on the man he campaigned to have released https://t.co/tCFxzIS1GO — Leroy (@Leroy_Lynch) June 25, 2019

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Streaming

I’ve told the people who have no physical media – especially the ones who don’t live in an area with good art or revival houses – that they will eventually be at the mercy of what corporations think they want, but the response is ¯_(ツ)_/¯. — Farran Nehme (@selfstyledsiren) June 24, 2019

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Endeavor

This is a must read about the smoke and mirrors that is the Endeavor IPO. $7bn in liabilities… annually running in the red… with my former independent analyst hat on, I’d have advised investors to run a mile. https://t.co/JJTn3R9r5a — Arash Amel (@arashamel) June 23, 2019

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A Sunday Peter Bart Column by Any Other Byline

“I recently came down with an acute case of movie-world-itis — call it ‘franchise fatigue’ fatigue. The symptoms are as follows. It’s blockbuster movie season (otherwise known as: any given week of the year), and a handful of sequels, reboots, and tentpole-smash wannabes have all come out and performed badly. The media predictions of weekend grosses…

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Google Scrapes genius

Amazing video. Google was scraping Genius’ content and showing it to users without sending them to Genius. Google denied it. Genius proved it by embedding a hidden message in the apostrophes of their text. Applied steganography for plagiarism detection!https://t.co/mu1oqE2mO6 — Balaji S. Srinivasan (@balajis) June 16, 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?

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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