Jorge Carreon blogs on how The Weinstein Company has pacted with Disney and ABC to give its movie musical "Nine" the kind of media exposure reserved for big summer tentpole features. First up, a big number on the Nov. 17 episode of "Dancing with the Stars."
I had a slight bitch session about the heterosexualized poster for Tom Ford’s not-so-heterosexual “A Single Man,” and the recently released trailer just re-enforced those thoughts. Check out my story on indieWIRE (http://www.indiewire.com/article/a_tale_of_two_trailers_the_de-gaying_of_a_single_man/) about the remarkable de-gaying of “A Single Man” in its new Oscar-buzz emphasized trailer, and take a trip down memory lane with these For Your Consideration ads for “Brokeback Mountain” back in 2005, which are oh so gay themselvesfrom indiewire:
I had a slight bitch session about the heterosexualized poster for... more
Jorge Carreon blogs on how media pundits are making plenty of noise for the record setting bow of indie darling "Precious," despite the solid debut of "Disney's A Christmas Carol."
Conor Knighton takes a look at Kate's recent interview special as part of his weekly roundup of the week in media. Also includes Al Roker getting humped and playing pranks, 'The Girls Next Door,' Bill O'Reilly, V's Obama references, H1N1 victims, Oscars news, 'I Want To Work For Diddy,' 'Tool Academy,' 'Styl'd' and Levi Johnston.
infoMania is a half-hour satirical news show that airs on Current TV. The show puts a comedic spin on the 24-hour chaos and information overload brought about by the constant bombardment of the media. Hosted by Conor Knighton and co-starring Brett Erlich, Sarah Haskins, Ben Hoffman, Bryan Safi and Sergio Cilli, the show airs on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific Times and can be found online at http://current.com/infomania/ or on Current TV. And make sure to check out our facebook profile for special features at http://infomaniafacebook.com.Conor Knighton takes a look at Kate's recent interview special as part of his weekly... more
This week on infomania cable news knows its not the quality of election coverage that matters but the quantity. Al Roker is stealing jokes from 'The Girls Next Door.' Levi Johnston is all out of secrets. Sergio counts down the hottest songs in the land. And Brett scours YouTube for the best Deathcore metal screamers.
infoMania is a half-hour satirical news show that airs on Current TV. The show puts a comedic spin on the 24-hour chaos and information overload brought about by the constant bombardment of the media. Hosted by Conor Knighton and co-starring Brett Erlich, Sarah Haskins, Ben Hoffman, Bryan Safi and Sergio Cilli, the show airs on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific Times and can be found online at http://current.com/infomania/ or on Current TV. And make sure to check out our facebook profile for special features at http://infomaniafacebook.com.This week on infomania cable news knows its not the quality of election coverage that... more
Actor Alec Baldwin and comedian Steve Martin have been tapped to co-host the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony. The comedic duo will share hosting duties at the Oscars, scheduled to air on March 7, 2010.Actor Alec Baldwin and comedian Steve Martin have been tapped to co-host the 82nd... more
Over the past week, Tom O'Neil of the LA Times' Gold Derby blog polled some 16 Oscar pundits and film critics to get an early pulse on what they think are top contenders right now for Best Picture. Those polled include well-known film critics like Erik Davis, Pete Hammond, Peter Travers, Jeff Wells, and Susan Wloszczyna. And the list of their top picks might not exactly be what you're expecting. Or maybe it is? Read on for their picks and to tell us your own!
Paramount shifted an expensive film like Shutter Island to 2010 and moved the lucrative G.I. Joe DVD to November to improve fourth-quarter numbers. Kim Masters asks: Is such short-term thinking worth it?Paramount shifted an expensive film like Shutter Island to 2010 and moved the... more
Indian IT vendors are gearing up for significant business opportunities in IT consulting, systems integration and infrastructure management as their clients look to migrate from older operating systems (OS) to the latest version Windows 7 (Win 7).Indian IT vendors are gearing up for significant business opportunities in IT... more
Brett and Ellen pay tribute to the upcoming Oscar season.
The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a movie review show that airs on Thursday nights at 10:30 e/p on Current TV. From reviews of the newest releases to commentary on cult favorites and movie trends, each episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a fast-paced, comedic journey through the week in cinema.
For more about movies from Current: http://current.com/moviesBrett and Ellen pay tribute to the upcoming Oscar season.
The Rotten Tomatoes Show... more
"The quirky low-budget comedy film "Little Miss Sunshine" and the 1989 Laura Esquivel novel "Like Water for Chocolate" are this year's choices to be adapted as stage musicals at the annual Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak in Yulee, Fla., the institute is expected to announce on Tuesday.
"Little Miss Sunshine" -- based on the film that premiered at Sundance in 2006 and netted a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for its young star, Abigail Breslin -- has music and lyrics by William Finn and direction by James Lapine. Finn and Lapine are frequent collaborators, perhaps best known for "Falsettos."
"Like Water for Chocolate" is composed by Lila Downs and Paul R. Cohen, based in Mexico City, with book by playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes, a Pulitzer finalist for her book of the musical "In the Heights," which won the 2008 Tony Award for best musical. The film version of the novel premiered at Sundance in 1991.""The quirky low-budget comedy film "Little Miss Sunshine" and the 1989 Laura Esquivel... more
There's a hot new drama from Pedro Almodóvar; it's just not his new movie. Spain's most famous living filmmaker has had a tempestuous relationship with the Spanish Cinema Academy for year. He and his brother Agustín left the Academy in a huff in 2005 to protest the new voting rules for the Goyas (Spain's Oscars).
Now the Academy's returned the favor by leaving "Broken Embraces" -- Almodóvar's latest -- off the short-list for their official Academy Award submission.There's a hot new drama from Pedro Almodóvar; it's just not his new movie. Spain's... more
With “Jennifer’s Body” writer Diablo Cody unleashes the comedy and horror of being a teenager in a surprising way. Now blond, but still bad and beautiful, Cody gets candid with Jorge Carreon in a Personalities Interview for Examiner.com on her demonic need to express herself.With “Jennifer’s Body” writer Diablo Cody unleashes the comedy and horror of... more
"SUMMER is Hollywood’s silly season, but it’s also when the big studios dominate chatter and screens with blockbuster blowouts like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Fall, on the other hand, is the industry’s serious season, when the studios trot out the kind of aesthetically ambitious, modestly priced work that dominates Top 10 lists and tends to clean up at the Oscars.
In the last two years, however, several studios have shut down or absorbed the specialty divisions that provided them with some of their most critically praised titles, films like “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “There Will Be Blood.” Financing has dried up as the economy has gone sour, and even well-regarded films have struggled to turn a profit. All of which makes us wonder if these types of serious, middle-size movies will become an endangered species." (more @ link)"SUMMER is Hollywood’s silly season, but it’s also when the big studios dominate... more
"FROM the tattoo on Diablo Cody’s bicep to Lone Scherfig’s leopard-spot pumps, it was impossible not to notice: The 34th Toronto International Film Festival opened on Thursday with the women in charge.
While still struggling to find their place in the movie industry at large — the number of directors at American studios remains well over 90 percent male — female filmmakers have managed to occupy some of this 10-day festival’s most valuable slots: those showcase screenings and press conferences in the first couple of days, when everyone is still paying attention.
Thursday’s most raucous event was almost certain to be the 11:59 p.m. red-carpet debut of 20th Century Fox’s “Jennifer’s Body,” directed by Karyn Kusama (“Girlfight”) from a script by Ms. Cody (“Juno”), in which Megan Fox plays a high school sex bomb who, quite literally, turns into a man-eater.
According to Natalie Johnson, a spokeswoman for Fox, tickets to the midnight show at the landmark Ryerson Theater, which seats more than 1,200, were gone within two hours of going on sale last week. (“Hell is a teenage girl,” runs a theme-setting line from the film.)
“Jennifer’s Body,” which opens in commercial theaters next Friday, got its first festival screening at noon on Thursday. Several hundred press and film industry types, normally a jaded bunch, were lined up for a look at the Kusama-Cody-Fox combination’s take on female vengeance.
The audience was laughing in all the right places, a good sign for the film, which is walking a fine line between comedy, horror and a postpunk feminism that is telegraphed by the title’s cute pink script in the opening credits.
But the deeper question is whether the Toronto festival’s first couple of days might help propel a clutch of female directors to the front of Hollywood’s award race.
Something like that happened in 2003, when a Toronto screening of “Lost in Translation” put Sofia Coppola on the path to a best-director Oscar nomination. She is one of only three women ever to earn that distinction, the others being Lina Wertmüller for “Seven Beauties” and Jane Campion for “The Piano.”
None of them won the directing Oscar. But 2003 became known as a good year for women, as Niki Caro, directing “Whale Rider”; Catherine Hardwicke, directing “Thirteen”; Patty Jenkins, with “Monster”; and Shari Springer Berman, with “American Splendor,” all joined Ms. Coppola in making a strong impression.
Ms. Campion is back in contention for prizes this year with “Bright Star,” a romance about the poet John Keats and his muse Fanny Brawne, from the new film company Apparition. The film began screening here Thursday, as Ms. Campion and her team, including the actors Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, gathered in advance of a Friday night presentation ahead of its commercial opening next week.
By Thursday morning Ms. Scherfig, a Danish director, was already in motion. Preparing for a 6 p.m. screening of “An Education,” her offbeat romance from Sony Pictures Classics, Ms. Scherfig was at the Four Seasons Hotel, doing the occasional press interview and getting ready for a reunion with her cast members, who include Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan.
“For me it was never an issue to project anything that had to do with gender,” Ms. Scherfig said of her own take on filmmaker demographics. “All my films have had men in their late 30s in the lead.”
This stop was not Ms. Scherfig’s first — she and the film had just dropped in from a festival in Telluride, Colo., and had made a splash at the Sundance festival in January in Park City, Utah — nor the last, as she was planning to head for yet another festival appearance in London.
Ms. Caro was also expected in Toronto with her latest film, “The Vintner’s Luck,” which was to be toasted at a New Zealand film cocktail party Friday, ahead of a weekend screening. Other women with films in the Toronto festival include Rebecca Miller..." more @ link
The kick-off of the Venice Film Festival tomorrow marks the annual turning point for the fall awards season. Over the next 19 or so days, Venice, Telluride this weekend and Toronto next week will offer both industry, and in Toronto’s case the public, a glance at dozens of films that may or may not factor into this year’s big race. From new works by the Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh and Michael Moore, to films that could rocket out of nowhere to feature prominently during awards season, these fests should take us a few decent-sized steps away from the state of mostly ignorant speculation we’re currently in.The kick-off of the Venice Film Festival tomorrow marks the annual turning point for... more
Michael Haneke's Cannes Palme d'Or winner "The White Ribbon" will be Germany's official candidate for the 2010 foreign-language film Oscar.
A small-town tale of morality, depravity and the rise of fascism set on the eve of World War I and shot in stark black and white, "The White Ribbon" marks Haneke's return to his native German after a decade of success in French.
If nominated, it will be a first for the Austrian director, who enjoys auteur star status in Europe but has yet to break through in the U.S. Sony Classics is releasing "The White Ribbon" stateside, with a February 2010 bow planned, following the obligatory pre-Christmas Oscar qualification run.
A nomination would also be a first for German producer X Filme Creative Pool, which despite being the driving force behind films such as "Run, Lola, Run" (1998) and "Goodbye, Lenin!" (2003), has yet to receive an Oscar nom for one of its in-house titles.
"The White Ribbon" was set up as a four-territory co-production together with France's Films du Losange, Austria's Wega Film and Lucky Red of Italy. This pan-European approach is typical for Haneke but it has proved a liability in past Oscar campaigns.
The director's well-received Cannes Jury Prize-winner "Cache" (2005) was rejected by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences because the film, submitted by Austria, was in French not German. The Academy has since changed its rules to accommodate more polyglot productions.
The Academy will announce the 2010 best foreign-language film nominees February 2, 2010. The 82nd Academy Awards will be held March 7, 2010.Michael Haneke's Cannes Palme d'Or winner "The White Ribbon" will be Germany's... more
Surely, the question has occurred to you: Why isn't Oscar-mad Harvey Weinstein releasing "Inglourious Basterds" in Oscar-friendly November or December? Doesn't he have faith that "Inglourious Basterds" can run the derby? Hey, Quentin Tarantino proved himself in 1994 when "Pulp Fiction" was nominated for best picture and Tarantino won best screenplay.
Last year, Harvey held back "The Reader" to the last possible stretch, giving it a limited opening in Los Angeles and New York in December, then wide release in January. The strategy paid off with five Academy Award nominations -- including a surprise bid (to some, not us) for best picture -- resulting in the Big Win at Long Last for Kate Winslet as best actress.
Answer: Harvey plans to reserve that last-minute, ambush strategy he employed for "The Reader" for his other major Oscar pony, "Nine," Rob Marshall's adaptation of the Tony-winning musical starring Penelope Cruz, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard. For "Inglourious Basterds," he plans to use the "Crash" campaign model.
By releasing "Inglourious Basterds" in theaters now, Harvey can give the flick a second wave of ballyhoo when the DVD comes out late this year. Because the DVD will be a mass release, it won't need to be watermarked with numerals identifying each disc with the name of an academy member or other award voter. That's one of the sneaky ways "Crash" beat front-runner "Brokeback Mountain" for best picture of 2005 -- Lionsgate blitzed Hollywood with more than 120,000 cheap DVDs.
To manufacture and ship a watermarked DVD costs about $20. The cost for a non-watermarked equivalent: $5.
Beware, Hollywood. Given how red rivers flow in Tarantino pix, the town will be engulfed in a blood tide this December when Harvey unleashes his "Inglourious Basterds" DVD campaign. It will probably pay off with two Academy Award nominations: best screenplay (Tarantino) and supporting actor (Christoph Waltz). Maybe more. "Pulp Fiction" got nommed for best picture when there were only five slots; this year there will be twice as many.Surely, the question has occurred to you: Why isn't Oscar-mad Harvey Weinstein... more
This weekend edition of Personalities in Brief kicks off with a major Oscar Watch 2010 upset. Paramount Pictures has decided to move Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" out of its October release date into February 2010. Is it because the film simply isn't ready? Or was it actually a victim of the new Hollywood frugality?This weekend edition of Personalities in Brief kicks off with a major Oscar Watch 2010... more
Budget woes plus public outcry over L.A. paying for security at Michael Jackson's memorial may cost the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys big money.
The Los Angeles City Council will vote in September on whether to continue funding traffic and crowd control services at large events such as awards shows, street fairs and sporting events. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and some council members believe that those events should pay for their own security.
Earlier this year, the city paid $410,000 to police the Oscars. It came from an annual fund of $2.5 million, which was recently cut from $5 million.
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yikes! I guess security doesn't accept IOU's as payment...Budget woes plus public outcry over L.A. paying for security at Michael Jackson's... more
