A great day for independent film
Many of the first studio bosses were showmen – theatre-chain owners for whom bringing in an audience and giving them something to love was in their blood. In the Golden Age of Hollywood, all the major studios owned their own theatre chains, until anti-trust actions forced them to sell them off. The argument about whether [...]
Making the movie proved too precious for the country to resist
File this under “News They Oughtta Know Isn’t Really News”; the LA Times is confirming that The Hobbit will film in New Zealand after all, in spite of weeks of recent grumbling amongst SAG, a small sister union Down Under, and the Peter Jackson filmmaking empire. The thing is, they were never going to pack [...]
Somebody get this man a development deal
“The movie industry in itself is changing. You have mostly branded titles that are successful right now and you are either… The middle ground is really being erased. You are either doing huge budget massive effects and massive cast, or you are going very small budget and you are trying to put forth an interesting [...]
Norton!
So it is confirmed that Edward Norton will not be playing Bruce Banner or The Hulk in 2012’s planned Avengers movie. Judging by the article’s comments, the denizens of the Internet are reacting with their usual decorum and sense of proportion. If Marvel had announced they were re-casting Thor before his first movie was even [...]
In which some penniless fool shows his ignorance of How Things Work
Entertainment Weekly just ran a feature asking what is wrong with this summer’s movies. By extension, it merits asking what has been wrong with movies in 2010, from both the critical and commercial standpoint. If you ask the masters of the greenlight, who must be smarter than I am since they make so much more [...]
Ms. Fox – Not Fantastic, Also Not Worst Person Ever
I probably have a different perspective on this than most people. It represents some of the public fallout over Megan Fox’s – let’s call it, “involuntary departure” – from the upcoming third Transformers movie. As someone who has yet to find in her overmuch talent or star charisma, and has largely seen anything resembling acting [...]
News Most Excellent
Of the type that I cannot tell you about. It’s a Hollywood development, it is one of the most exciting things to happen in my career in awhile, and I must remain mum, because: 1) It involves a name I am not officially permitted to drop in public. 2) It does not pass my test [...]
Yes, this is me allowing hope in
I often say that working in the film business is like being a sprinter lined up in the stadium for a 400-meter dash; only you don’t wait seconds for the starter to fire his pistol, you wait months, maybe years. But he could pull that trigger at any moment, and Jimmy, you’d better keep limber [...]
Still foolish enough to believe
I don’t know what I’m going to do more often in this life; fall in love or let myself hope I actually have a chance of making a movie. A new opportunity for the latter came into sharper focus today – I have a small raiding party together and we’ve breached the first couple doors [...]
Call Rich Little: I need a Sniglet
There must be a term for the threshold beyond which the behavior of an individual or organization becomes unmockably retarded. When you have found the exaggeration someone might have used to satirize your actions and actually lapped it. From Variety.com: Sony Takes ‘Risk’ With Board Game Risk. The board game. The one they made fun [...]