entertainment

There are 121 posts filed in entertainment (this is page 14 of 16).

Ricky Gervais’s Remarkable Golden Globes Performance

Ricky Gervais’s performance at the Golden Globes tonight was classic Gervais: incisive, brutal, and loaded with uncomfortable truths [Watch his opening monologue now, if you haven’t. It’s the stuff of legend.]

But it’s a good thing we have reporters like Mary McNamara, writing for the LA Times, to protect the bruised egos of these poor, poor millionaire superstar actors and directors:
This year, [Gervais] was far better prepared, and one would imagine, much sweatier, as it quickly became clear that his material wasn’t just falling flat, it was making many audience members and presenters uncomfortable and even angry…Poking fun at big stars is in the job description. But televised teasing requires a lightness of touch or else it quickly becomes bullying.
For a few short hours, an awards show host wields undeniable power. He or she can make a joke about someone in the audience and that person is stuck between a camera and a hard place — get all shirty about it and you risk looking like Sean Penn defending Jude Law from Chris Rock’s rather gentle ribbing. So most just smiled, perhaps at the memory of Gervais’ own dismal box office record, and prayed for a quick cutaway.
McNamara’s piece is well-written, but sheesh. Here we have a situation where we finally have a comedian who is willing to speak truth to (box office) power and shake things up a bit, and you’re going to argue for the status quo? Take a step back from your job and think about the extraordinary dressing down that Gervais gave everyone, HFPA-included, tonight. Gervais may not ever be invited back again, but for one night, he knocked a few inches off the Hollywood pedestal that the public is only too-willing to place our stars upon. For that, we can marvel and be grateful.

Court Rules that Documentary Filmmakers Are Not Journalists

Sad development in the case over the documentary film Crude:

A federal appeals court says that Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker who was ordered to give footage from his 2009 documentary “Crude” to the Chevron Corporation, could not invoke a journalist’s privilege in refusing to turn over that footage because his work on the film did not constitute an act of independent reporting.

Film Critic Eric D. Snider Demonstrates Viable Alternative Business Model for Online Personalities

A few weeks ago, Eric D. Snider launched a Kickstarter campaign, whereby he would agree to write 50 (almost) weekly “Snide Remarks” columns for an entire year if people pledged $5,000 for him to do it. I’ve read Snider’s “Snide Remarks” on a number of occasions and I think they’re hilarious and frequently  brilliant. I’m also a fan of Kickstarter, which allows people to allocate money via Amazon Payments towards exciting projects that would never otherwise get backing. So, I threw in a few bucks for the cause. Here’s what Snider had to say about it at the outset:

I thought: How much would I need to be paid per “Snide Remarks” column for it to be worthwhile as a writing gig? The answer I came up with was $100. I did some quick math and determined that if I wrote a column every week for a year, minus two weeks off for vacation and to make the math easier, that would be $5,000.

That is my project bid for this gig. For $5,000, I’ll write a year of weekly “Snide Remarks” columns, starting the first Monday in March 2011.

I’m pleased to report that as of right now, Snider has hit his goal of $5,000! I asked Eric via IM how he felt about achieving his fundraising goal. “I’m excited to write the column again regularly and glad that at least 190 people are interested in reading it,” he said. In the past, Eric has also opined that people are generally unwilling to pay for things they read on the internet. I asked him if he still had that opinion, and he responded:

Yeah, and I still believe that. I mean, that’s not an opinion; that’s a demonstrable fact: people in general don’t like to pay for online content. That’s why the Kickstarter thing is so genius. 190 people pledged money for Snide Remarks. But if I had used a subscription model — pay X dollars per year to access it — I bet most of those 190 wouldn’t have done it (Unless the X dollars per year was something comically low, like a dollar.) With Kickstarter, it doesn’t feel like you’re paying for the content I’m producing. Everyone will be able to read it, not just those who contributed money. So it feels more like backing a good cause, which people *will* pay money for.

Indeed. Eric’s success proves that if you work hard enough at building your online persona into something distinct and entertaining, people are willing to pay to continue consuming the content that you put out. They just need the right channel through which to do so.

[I realize others have demonstrated this theory before, but Eric’s a good colleague and with the exception of people like Ebert, few have had a lot of success with this type of thing in the realm of film writing. So, I felt it worth writing about, because I think his success has implications for many of us in the online community.]

[P.S. Be sure to check out Eric’s site and his cool podcast too.]

Kevin Smith Did Not Get Paid Very Much for ‘Cop Out’

Another day, another series of tweets by Kevin Smith that are barely comprehensible in Twitter stream form. Let’s aggregate them, shall we? The following are an amalgamation of messages sent from Smith’s Twitter account on January 1st and January 2nd, 2011:

All this RedState chatter is just me getting my work done ahead of time, so I can go play hockey. Because as much as I love RedState (and it’s supplanted CLERKS II as my favorite), that HIT SOMEBODY script is what I like to think of as my thesis paper. It’s me putting everything I’ve learned to work & trying to make a film that sums up the last 20 years of my life – which far exceeded not only my expectations, but my wildest dreams as well. HIT SOMEBODY is graduation day for me, and in my head, I’m just starting the fall semester of my senior year, so to speak (or Grade 12 for you Canadians). RedState is just beginning for you but that adventure is winding down for me. You’re just now getting to see what we’ve spent three years putting together. So while some cats may wanna talk about it, I’m already onto the next conversation entirely. I’ve finally gotten my filmmaking to the pace I’ve always wanted to make ’em: finish one, start the next. The Clint Eastwood way. Y’know how much press Clint Eastwood does? Not much. Y’know why? He figured out what I’m only just know learning, nearly 20 years into my career: he’d rather make new movies than do press for movies he’s done making. Clint Eastwood has the work ethic of a hockey player, man. I admire the shit out of that: he finishes one, starts the next. He doesn’t dine out on one flick for a year or two; he makes flicks with all the frequency with which a teen girl texts. Loves ’em & leaves ’em. I’m 40 yrs old; I’ve been a professional filmmaker for nearly two decades. And after years of being told to stop fetishizing my work – “Enough with the Jay & Bob bullshit already…” – I’ve taken their advice: I’m not dwelling on the flicks I make. Now that I’ve got 20 years of experience on the job under my belt, I’m giving my movies the Little Red Corvette treatment: love ’em & leave ’em fast. #TrojansSomeOfEmUsed This is not a novel approach in the least. Spielberg doesn’t do shit tons of public speaking, let alone press. Robert Altman also swung from flick to flick like Tarzan, without doing much press, letting his massive cast take the lead. That’s all I’m doing here. And I’m not saying I’m as good as the aforementioned filmmakers; they are legends. But, again: I’ve got two decades experience under my belt, one more flick to make, and less years in front of me than there are behind me now. I’ve spent all that time making flicks the way I wanted to, not the way I was supposed to, and thus far, it’s served me well. I’ve gotta play my game – especially if this is my last season, so the speak.

Please enjoy the fuck out of RedState. I’ll be right there with you, all the way up to theatrical release. After that, my head’s in a different – Via @Terefkal “You’re no Clint Eastwood.” My point exactly. So if Clint moves from film-to-film without doing much press, then what kinda arrogant sonovabitch must I be to do so much press? Clint makes movie after movie & he’s an Academy Award winner. If I’m gonna try to better myself at my profession, I might as well choose a beyond-reach role model, right? So I’m’a try to work like Clint Eastwood from now on: make better movies, and make ’em one right after the other. And do minimal takes. And not listen to anybody. Clint Eastwood said recently that even at his age, with all the awards/box office/epic win, people still try to caution him against doing this or that, or advise him. He said the way to do the job is to not listen to anybody else & just do what he feels. I wanna be more like Clint. Might even get a monkey…

Via @sorryimlate “Clint Eastwood is the Wayne Gretzky of filmmaking” No – Clint’s the Gordie Howe of Filmmaking, playing in 5 decades.

Via @Eddy32191 “David Fincher does almost zero press for his films” See? And he’s a master. So I’ll never be Fincher good, but I can try to be. And he’s a guy who’s like “Fuck all this talking about the job, I wanna DO the job.” Maybe less I’m doing press, more I’m making flicks, the better I’d be at my job. Like Fincher. A little more I learn my lenses, a little less I learn what an asshole I am from bloggers & such.

Via @doubleplusgeoff “you’d do a lot for your credibility if you’d just come right out & say that CopOut was a ‘gettin paid’ movie” I wish I could. But I actually took an 84% pay cut to make #CopOut – because I wanted to work with BruceWillis. Lots of us did. Tracy got paid more than me, but not much. I also gave BACK half my already-way-less salary to get the film green-lit: there was a budget crunch to get to the $35million the studio wanted, so Marc Platt & I each gave up half our salaries IN ADDITION to the big dip in our quotes we’d agreed to. When all was said & done, we came in way under budget. Final cost: $32mil – $3mil less than we were allotted. Contractually, WB didn’t have to give me the money I gave up until they were in the black, but since we came in under budget, they cut me a check for the re-investment I’d made BEFORE the flick hit theaters. And even then, I still made 80% less than I did on my previous flick. I made MORE as the director of DOGMA in 1998 than I did as the director of COP OUT in 2009/2010. So please: enough with the “you musta got PAID” bullshit. I didn’t. Both my agent & my lawyer were like “Don’t do this. You can get paid more making a Kevin Smith movie.” But I knew if I wanted to make RedState, I had to make CopOut. There were things I needed to learn, and I learned them – while making a financially responsible buddy cop homage for a major studio, from a script I didn’t write. I’m sorry you didn’t like CopOut; feel free to skip RedState if you feel betrayed in some way. But to suggest I did #CopOut for the money is ludicrous – as it was the least I’ve been paid to direct a film since 1998 – 11 years prior. CopOut may not fit into your KevinSmith narrative, but I know where my story goes – and it was the keystone to everything that RedState is.

We don’t live in STAR WARS, kid. Motivations aren’t always as simple & clear as “The Empire is bad! Save the galaxy!” You may not understand why I do what I do, and that must frustrate you. But in a couple years, it’s all gonna make sense. And by the time it does, you won’t care anymore anyway. But at least I’ll have the record of this exchange; that and it’s one more question I won’t have to answer again. So thanks.

Some of my favorite trailers of 2010

Our resident trailer expert, Christopher Stipp, has already written up a great “Top 10 Trailers of 2010” post over at /Film, but I thought I should share a few of my own. Here they are in no particular order:


Inception – Somehow they manage to cram in the most important exposition into this thing while still making time f-BRRRRRRRAAAAAAHM.

TRON: Legacy – I must’ve watched this trailer one or two dozen times. Ahh, to go back to a time when this movie had the possibility of being good….

Red State – Say what you will about the controversy over Smith’s latest film, but this trailer is minimalist and masterful.

Battle: Los Angeles – I was speechless after watching this thing. Fantastic use of music and olde style photographic imagery.

True Grit – Gorgeous. And the Coen brothers really know how to use choral music in their films (see: O Brother for further examples).

The Social Network – Obviously.

The Tree of Life – I judge trailers by how well they sear a piece of music into my soul. By this standard, Tree of Life wins top honors for its use of Smetana’s Vltava.

Transformers: The Dark of the Moon – The movie has a good chance of sucking horribly, but only Michael Bay can retcon the moon landing and make it so compelling, you forget for a moment that what you’re watching is ridiculous.

Pajiba’s Brutal Takedown of Kevin Smith (and Movie Bloggers)

When Dustin Rowles from Pajiba gets pissed, I get the hell out of the way. There’s something I find addictive about Rowles’ incendiary language. It’s the language of righteous indignation, language that doesn’t give a ____ who or what gets caught up in the ensuing maelstrom. And because his latest attack targets both director Kevin Smith and some of my fellow movie blogger colleagues (and probably myself?), I present an excerpt here without further comment:

If you follow Kevin Smith over on the Twitter, I pity you. I follow Kevin Smith because I love the guy, but Jesus Christ: The man alternates between two personalities: Pitch-man, trying to sell his wares and promote his film (and the endless Smodcasts) or King of the Motherfucking Bitches. Everyone complains on Twitter — my God, it’s an endless stream of whiny motherfuckers who are either detailing every goddamn boo boo they’ve ever experienced, or taking umbrage with something someone else said or wrote. I bet you didn’t know that there were 140 characters in “YOU SUCK! PAY ATTENTION TO ME,” but that’s probably because you don’t follow enough movie bloggers on Twitter.

But nobody whines more than Kevin Smith, not even the movie bloggers who constantly whine about Kevin Smith. Lately, the dude refuses to shut the fuck up about movie critics and movie blogs and how they’re ruining society and sending us into a dark dystopian future where we’ll never be free to run Cop Out on a continuous loop until our fucking brains bleed out of our head.

Viagra Cinema

Matt Singer has an insightful piece on how Sylvester Stallone’s films have mirrored the actor’s career:

What Stallone’s done is basically without precedent. All of his former rivals for action film supremacy have faded away or moved on; all of his predecessors turned to moodier and more reflective work by the time they were his age. This is a situation that suits Stallone, since endurance was always the most important value of the “Rocky” movies. Rocky Balboa’s greatest strength as a boxer wasn’t his footwork or his punching power; on those fronts, he was mediocre fighter. What made Rocky extraordinary was his ability to take a punch and never go down. Though he has occasionally tried to distance himself from the character in his career (typically when he’s working on something other than blue-collar action films) it’s clear that Balboa is an extremely autobiographical character for Stallone. Rocky’s story is Stallone’s story: the dreams of an opportunity to prove your greatness, the struggle to remain hungry amidst the trappings of success and fame, the realization that you’ve lost your spark, the desire for one last chance.