Press Releases Archive for July, 2019

Record-breaking Opening Weekend of ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD 
on 70mm at the Music Box Theatre

[pr] JULY 30, 2019 (Chicago) — As one of five theaters in North America screening Sony Pictures’ ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD on 70mm, the Music Box Theatre saw its three-day (July  26–28) weekend estimated grosses top $122,000 – the venue earning the second-highest per-screen average in the country, the highest gross in Chicago…

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HOLLYWOOD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE TO HONOR FILMMAKER GUILLERMO DEL TORO WITH STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME

WHO:        Honoree: Guillermo del Toro Emcee: Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, President/CEO Rana Ghadban Guest Speakers: Director J.J. Abrams and singer/songwriter Lana Del Rey WHAT:      Dedication of the 2,669th Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Category of Motion Pictures WHERE:   6918 Hollywood Boulevard in front of The Line Store WHEN:     Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 11:30 A.M. PST…

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Award Winners of 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival

OUTFEST LOS ANGELES LGBTQ FILM  FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2019 AWARD WINNERS Los Angeles, July 29, 2019 – Outfest – the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization promoting equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBTQ stories on the screen – has announced the award winners of its 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival, presented by HBO. The nation’s…

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Co-founder and Artistic Director Paul Sturtz Leaving True/False Film Fest, Ragtag Film Society 

[pr] Columbia, Missouri — Paul Sturtz, artistic director and co-founder of True/False Film Fest and co-founder of Ragtag Cinema, is stepping away from Ragtag Film Society to pursue new opportunities. “Over 22 years, I have worked with inspiring, curious people, many of whom have become dear friends and accomplices,” Sturtz says. “I feel confident that…

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Press Releases

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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