MCN Curated Headlines Archive for November, 2012

“Why Washington Can’t Stop Talking about Lincoln”  

A Visual Progress Report On The Restoration Of EbertFest’s Virginia Theater

“The term ‘realism’ is often confusing and used sort of arbitrarily. I suppose ‘relatable’ is the word I would use.”
Foundas And Nolan Go 4,500 Words

Why Won’t Oslo, August 31 Be Nom’d For Best Adapted Screenplay?

“I don’t remember a time when TV wasn’t art.”
Is It Already Time For Another Season Of Thumbsuckers About Lena Dunham’s “Girls”?

Oh. It Looks Like It Is.

variety

Katzenberg Optimistic, At Length, On Future Of DreamWorks Animation

NY Times

Meh 400-Word Review Of Variety Editor’s “Variety” History Manages To Incorporate Both Penske Peeing And Nikki Nattering At Bret Easton Ellis

NY Times

“As most professionals point out, virtually no producer will charge to read material. To do so, they say, is a predatory practice that exploits writers.”
Times Again Glories In Its “Edginess” By Esteeming “Scriptshadow” Script Spoiler “Carson Reeves”; Credits Him With The Greenlight Of Social Network

hollywoodreporter.com

Is There Realllllly A Trend Of Studios Doing International Remakes Of Domestic Properties?

indie wire

Dennis Doros On The Future Of Small Indie Gems Like Those From His Milestone Films

NY Times

“Everyone will say this about beauty: you don’t really know anything else. If you’re ugly, you’re ugly; if you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful. You don’t have a comparison.”
Charlotte Rampling Has “Rules Of Engagement”

The Geena Davis Institute On Gender In Media Lists “Seven Ways Women And Girls Are Stereotyped, Sexualized And Underrepresented On Screen”
And – The Report pdf download

The Man Who Dented James Gandolfini’s Head Confesses

indie wire

Michael Mann On HBO Photojournalism Series

Unveiling The Real Author Behind “Nine And A Half Weeks”

variety

George Stevens Jr. Gets An Honorary Oscar Saturday Night
And – Senator Franken Will Present Another To D. A. Pennebaker

“Imagine if Oscar voters were able to parse the jewels from the schlock.”
A Cry Rises Up To Recognize Nicole Kidman In The Paperboy

Producers Guild Nominates Docs, Including Gatekeepers, Sugar Man

“There were two things he never told about Ken Regan. That’s his age and his cell phone number. Being true to his wishes, I can’t tell.”
A Fine Photographer Passes Agelessly
With – His Portfolio Of Film, Sports And Music Shots

Rick Baker’s Still Making Monsters

“I’ve had people assume I dislike Chris Brown because I’m taking up for Rihanna, I’m not.”
Jenny Johnson On Shooing An Abusive Chris Brown From Twitter

deadline

“For Career Suicide, Nothing Beats The Web,” Muses Fleming

Bazooka Kills Joe

Beefing Up With Rust & Bone’s Matthias Shoenaerts

guardian

“More journalists have died in the line of duty this year than at any other point since records began. For those choosing this dangerous profession, Syria is the killing field: more have died on assignment there than in any other country.”
Information Revolutions

Matthew Quick‘s “How To Publish A Movie Tie-In Novel (Silver Linings Playbook Edition)”

Open Road Brings End Of Watch Back For Another Awards Season Shift

wsj

WSJ Does Mondo Posters

LA Times

Don Rhymer, 51, Wrote Big Momma’s House, The Santa Clause 2, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, Surf’s Up
“We had been married 29 years, 6 months, and 7 days, and I’m left with a gaping hole in my heart. He was the strongest, most generous and most honest person I’ve ever known. Oh yeah, and he was funny too.”
His Wife Remembers Him On His Cancer Blog

A Touch Of The German To K-Thompson‘s Suggestions For Classic DVD-Blu-Ray Holiday Picks

guardian

China To Become World’s Largest Film Market By 2015

hollywoodreporter.com

“It’s unfortunate that he has nothing better to do with his time than churn out graphic and homophobic dribble about imaginary superheroes.”
Concern Group Fields “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Project Director James Gunn’s Blog For 2011 Offense
And – A Comics Person’s Reflection On The Mess
Now – “People who are familiar with me know that I’m an outspoken proponent for the rights of the gay and lesbian community, women and anyone who feels disenfranchised, and it kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said.”
Gunn Fires Back

LA Times

Wright And Knightley In The Trenches Again

The Economist: “Photographic film has nearly completed its transition from the mass market to the artisanal”

hollywoodreporter.com

Universal’s “Fifty Shades” Of Litigation

How South Korea Is Postering Cloud Atlas (And Bae Doona)

Somebody Else Just Got Awed By Ishtar

Killing With Deadly Andrew Dominik

guardian

UK Censors Cut Violence From Jack Reacher
And – Brit Censors Celebrate Century Of Snips
While – Launching A New Website With All Their Bobs ‘N’ Bits

“Censor Board of Film Certification wants the word ‘Indian’ in its title”

Wolff On The “Goopy” “Bureaucratic” “Toothless” British Press Censorship Advocacy Report

CNN Hopes To Rise From Dead With Entertainment News Veteran Jeff Zucker, “More Passion And More Fans”

hollywoodreporter.com

THR Rounds Up Guy-teurs QT, Lee, Affleck, Russell, Van Sant, Hooper To Talk Directing

NY Times

“Sundance, known for championing dark and inscrutable films, has unveiled an unusually accessible—and sellable—competition lineup.”
Barnes Deciphers Sundance13 For Himself

10 Contenders Vie For VFX Oscar

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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.”

The DVD Wrapup: Cold War, Betty Blue, Official Secrets, Demons, Olivia, American Dreamer, Land of Yik Yak

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?

WEEKEND READS ON MEDIAQUAKE

Tribune Trolley Problem

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