July 02, 2009

Sorry, ShockedShocked Indie World, But...

Variety is out there beating a horse that's been dead for a while.

Sony Classics is the only studio Dependent that is focused on pick-ups. None of the others were driven by pick-ups in recent years and still pick up their 2 or 3 pictures a year, and get involved in pre-production on 2 or 3 more. (SPC does that last one too.)

And what the Variety story also fails to note is that IFC Films and Magnolia are 90% non-theatrical companies now, even though most of their product gets a theatrical nod of some kind. But you don't sell your movie to either company these days sanely expecting to ever see more than (or as many as, in most cases) 50 prints out at one time.

The Dependents, in my opinion, destroyed the indie world in recent years, the way the studios destroy all innovation... by buying in and slowly but surely transforming it into a cash machine before realizing, in this case, that they have way overreached.

I tag the Indie Depression to John Lesher and Paramount Vantage primarily. They raised the bar so high with their spending that even when other companies showed restraint, there ended up being budget creep, both on films they made, films they bought, and most disastrously in marketing.

It's great that There Will Be Blood could get made with studio funds. But every other studio knew they would have a money loser by doing it... which is why the project sat around for years. I'm not blaming PT Anderson. And I am not saying that Vantage didn't market the hell out of it, achieving a much bigger box office than anyone imagined as well as its Oscar booty. But bottom line is, when you lose money, it has to come out of someone's pocket.

The question, which has been on the table and unanswered in the last year, is what the next model is going to be?

One of the companies that actually looks strong and smart is Oscilloscope, which Adam Yauch was out in LA promoting a couple of weeks ago. These guys are serious about movies. And they expect their filmmakers to buy into their belief system when they make their deals. When I asked which film was "the one that got away," the immediate response was, "Humpday," which went to Magnolia and starts its rollout in NY next week. This film was their ideal... and the company just wasn't established enough in January to make it happen.

But I think that is a part of this. If "mumblecore" continues to evolve into bigger films - and experiments have started at the Dependents - then it could feed a new generation of indie distributors who need product that is low budget and whose filmmakers need to be able to pay off their production costs, not just throw it to the biggest company that shows interest for almost nothing and hope against hope that they become the next surprise hit.

But Humpday is at Magnolia... Baghead was at SPC... Paper Hearts is at Overture.

On the other hand, Stony Island did a strong $2 million with Is Anybody There? and Truly Indie has, currently, the biggest doc of the year in Valentino, their first film to crack 20 screens. So maybe there is hope there.

Francis Coppola will keep making small personal films. He distributed Tetro himself. He can afford to find a guy like Yauch, commit the next 2 or 3 films to him without making it impossible for a company the size of Oscilloscope to worth within both their means, and be the cornerstone of building a new distributor, giving him a committed, serious distribution team that is putting out (or trying to put out) a film a month and not just ramping up for one movie a year.

As much as we discuss all of this and try to remain on the art side of it, the truth is, money is money and you can't play the game without it. The finest artists, producers, directors, etc, are all walking that line when they get a film made between what company can do the most for their film, what company is offering the most up front, what company they really like, and last, but least, which company really cares about their film.

Would any other company but The Weinstein's Miramax have gotten In The Bedroom a Best Picture nomination... while not even focusing primarily on that film as their front runner? No. But does Todd Field ever want to make a movie - he sold that one at Sundance - with Harvey Weinstein? No. But Todd is an intensely serious guy.

All that said, after spending a lot of effort on Blood Meridian, it seems Todd is moving on to another weighty piece, The Creed of Violence, which if eventually made for Universal would seem to be a 5 year wait between releases, as he had between his first and second film.

On the happy side, Overture seems to be serious about being involved early in a fair number of $5m - $15m titles each year, adding some pick-ups. Summit, which has become The Twilight Studio, is likely to have its first Best Picture nomination this next season with the Venice/Toronto pick-up, The Hurt Locker. And last year's Oscar-winner/$360m worldwide grosser, Slumdog Millionaire, was, essentially, a post-production pick-up by Searchlight. So there is some hope out there.

Of course, these are the exceptions and you can't have an industry of exceptions. When someone comes up with a concept for indie distribution in which they can assure no in-house project will have more than a $2 million loss and pick-ups can't lose more than $500,000 (the SPC model) while NOT being owned by a studio can have a working business that can release a dozen movies a year and have only two be significantly profitable and still make money. It will, as always, be cobbled together via foreign, DVD, digital-delivery, pay TV, etc.

And then, when the company has one shockingly large hit and is sitting on a pile of cash bigger than one year's budget, they have to not spend it all on being more ambitious... for that way lies death.

Onward...

Posted by dpoland at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

BYOB - Uncle Sam-a-thon

Posted by dpoland at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)

Ice Age Wins Opening Day

Ice Age 3 won the opening day battle vs Day 8 of Transformers 2 and it wouldn't be shocking if that continued through the weekend.

It was the best Wednesday ever for an animated film and, as follows, the best Wed opening ever for an animated film, though it is just #22 all-time and only 22% of what Transformers 3 opened to last Wednesday (which includes the late-Tuesday shows).

The biggest second weekend ever is The Dark Knight's $75.32 million. In the first set of non-opening weekdays, Tr2 is running about $6 million a day behind TDK. Wednesday was also 82% off of opening day. So the weekend numbers should be good, but further off of TDK and likely behind what seems to be at least a $60m weekend coming for IA3.

Posted by dpoland at 01:13 PM | Comments (3)

It's All Showbiz, Baby

**Due to the recent announcement that Michael Jackson’s funeral will be held on Tuesday, July 7th,
the ADAM LA Press Day will now MOVE to:
WEDNESDAY, JULY 8TH.

Posted by dpoland at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2009

Public Enemies Video Review

Posted by dpoland at 06:38 PM | Comments (43)

Karl Malden Passes

Karl Malden has been elderly and well and unwell for a long time. Living in this town, one got used to seeing Malden now and again, looking stronger or weaker at different times.

A few weeks ago, Michael Douglas was given a lifetime achievement award by AFI, and his father, Kirk, was in attendance and cracking jokes, slurred a bit by his stroke, but still fighting on. But it was Michael Douglas' tribute and love for Karl Malden that most strongly resonated. He spoke of feeling like Malden's son and wishing that he could, indeed, be adopted by his second father. At an age at which he was trying to break away from his parent/legend, he was shown the showbiz ropes by Malden.

The guy was, by all accounts, a mensch... even if he forced the questionable award for Elia Kazan at the 1999 Oscars... in his work... in his industry involvements... in the community...

He will truly be missed.

Posted by dpoland at 02:45 PM | Comments (10)

June 30, 2009

The Informant!

Posted by dpoland at 11:44 PM | Comments (17)

Who Killed Cock Roger?

That's what I get for believing the NY Daily News gossip section... not to mention paying any attention to what Roger Friedman is "telling everyone." The guy can't help but lie even when he is telling his own story.

The lawsuit that was filed yesterday has only one mention of Scientology in it - more on that in a bit - and a rather more bizarre (didn't know that was possible, did you?) at all to any motivation on Murdoch's part for the firing.

There is a repeated refrain about the video that Friedman "saw a film called Wolverine on the internet," but that "Friedman did not download Wolverine." How exactly does that work?

Continue reading "Who Killed Cock Roger?"

Posted by dpoland at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)

Has The Bruno Basher Outed Himself?

Richard Day is quoted in a Movieline EXCLUSIVE today, sounding an awful lot like the phantom e-mailer who got both Sharon Waxman and Nikki Finke to launch hyperbolic competing hypefests about Bruno's "gay problem."

In fact, Movieline (and others, including me) mocked the dueling drooling when it happened.

But today, using his real name, Richard Day hits some of the same notes, including the shrill argument that "the film has not been screened for a large number of gays" and that "the reaction from gays has been almost uniformly one of alarm."

The film has been shown to GLAAD and widely screened for hetero and homo sexuals in the industry alike. There has been little alarm since.

Not coming up much anywhere is also the fact that there is what would be an NC-17 version of the film that was screened for international exhibitors that was considered by most to be much more shocking than the final version... though not on the basis of gay content.

Day's quotes today sound like the continuing story of someone with an ax to grind, whose first efforts didn't take. Movieline oversells the story in its headline, suggesting a dramatically different ending to the film, when in fact, the difference, according to the angry accuser, is basically that the earlier version further extends the gay bashing that still happens in the film to a physical injury. The fact that the passive sidekick of Bruno would be victimized and take it without anger is hardly outside of the overall theme of the film nor does it seem to further anything about the gay elements of the film. They picked a gentler ending. But the joke was the guy who would get himself beat up for his employer who repeatedly treats him like shit, not that a gay man was bashed.

How bitter is Day that no one but him seems to be enraged by this film?

“I don’t know if we’re why they changed it but if we are, I regret saying anything,” says Day. “It would have been better to let them expose their true point of view; thanks to us they had a road map of the most egregious offenses and can also claim to have been responsive to our concerns.”

Angry dude... angry he didn't let them show just how evil they are... oy.

But in the end, I don't blame him. There were angry Eastern Europeans who obsessed on Borat as an ethnic slight as well. Both are wrong, in my opinion. But they have the right to scream. I only wish that publications were more careful about turning the ravings of angry people into misleading headlines and stories.

Posted by dpoland at 05:44 PM | Comments (1)

Circle Of Jerk

The News Releases/BREAKING NEWS Of The Day:

Clooney and Heslov land at Sony - The crazy thing is that much of the media seems to have missed that Clooney (and Soderbergh), who produced via the now deceased Section Eight which was primarily responsible for the birth of the also deceased Warner Independent Pictures, has been out of Warners for a while already.

Since Michael Clayton, Clooney has not had a film at WB. Leatherheads (U), Burn After Reading (Focus), Up in the Air (DW), Men Who Stare At Goats (Overture), The Fantastic Mr Fox (Fox), and A Very Private Gentleman (Focus). Soderbergh's only film at WB since Ocean's 13 is The Informant, a $21 million Matt Damon film coming this fall, a leftover from Section Eight... but he's basically been out for years already.

Paramount Seeks DVD Production Business Share With Others - It may seem like a big deal, but it really, really isn't. It's the same idea as the Paramount/MGM/Lionsgate pay-tv venture that never got off the ground. It's like all the distribution deals that Paramount has, which have created big grosses for media stories and a dangerous combination of light profits on massive hits and a decimated production business (which has NO movies scheduled to start before next year).

This is not a deal to merge libraries or anything like that. It is an effort to save money on infrastructure, just as studios that distribute through Fox or WB do... and not actually a bad idea at all, though I don't know the hard numbers.

Firings at Paramount - All inevitable. I'm not sure why people are so surprised.

What would be SHOCKING is other Par firings that are being rumored today around town. Some of these choices, if they turn out to be real, would be suicidal, as they go right to the heart of the some of the very few parts of Paramount that actually work right now.

Posted by dpoland at 05:19 PM | Comments (1)

Hitler Gets Pissed... Again

But it's still more insightful than a 7 hour block of CNN this last week... or perhaps, it is insightful ABOUT any 7 hours of CNN this week...

Posted by dpoland at 02:17 PM | Comments (2)

The Academy 134

The results of the annual ritual of inviting new members into The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences were officially announced this morning. 134 new invitees.

Most of what is interesting is along the lines of "what too so long?" For instance, Paramount's head of marketing, Megan Colligan or long-time in-house big brain David Kaminow or screenwriter John August or producers Kathy Conrad, James Lassiter, and Paula Wagner or execs Dan Battsek and Claudia Lewis or documentarian Rachel Grady or Danny Boyle or cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle or the Supporting Actress nominee of last year, Amy Ryan.

Quietly leaping in is Russell Smith, who didn't get blackballed - as I worried - after the public whining about him not getting in last year. (He deserved the slot then, as he does now.)

The Acting Branch seems to have gotten the message that it has been overly cautious about invites - last year inviting only 7 actors to join and 16 the year before - went in for 20 new members, half of whom have never been nominated.

It clearly pays to be an Apatow regular, as his cache put Michael Cera, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd into the Academy this year. Jonah Hill must be depressed.

Posted by dpoland at 01:52 PM | Comments (7)

June 29, 2009

DP/30 -Soul Power dir Jeffrey Levy-Hinte

Soul Power just won the Doc Audience Award at the LA Film Festival. The film is an extension of the Oscar-winning doc When We Were Kings, that film focusing on The Rumble In The Jungle fight with the remarkable concert that also happened as a side story. This film brings that concert of 35 years ago in Kinshasa, Zaire to life. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, established indie producer and first-time director here sat down for a 30 minute chat...

The complete video interview in QT after the jump...

Continue reading "DP/30 -Soul Power dir Jeffrey Levy-Hinte"

Posted by dpoland at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

Isn't It Enough...

... that CNN Is going wall to wall with Michael Jackson coverage... which I almost understand. I mean, we've been here before with the world-changing Anna Nicole Smith saga... so at least this guy actually added something other than tits to the culture.

But do they need to keep claiming that every word that falls out of anyone's mouth is "BREAKING NEWS?"

I'm pretty sure that live footage of American troops invading Iraq is Breaking News. I'm pretty sure that a newly announced Supreme Court ruling is Breaking News. I'm pretty sure that there may be some breaking news in a presidential press conference, though not always. But people - mostly ghouls and leeches - speculating about a dead superstar without any new news breaking for many hours... not.

Posted by dpoland at 07:42 PM | Comments (11)

Weinstein Butt Boy, Roger Friedman, Angles For A Settlement

The irony of Roger Friedman's idiotic suit against Fox News/News Corp is that by looking away from Roger's incredibly porous journalistic standards for so long, the many reasons other than the Wolverine foolishness to fire Roger can't really be brought into play in defending this claim.

It's a very similar road to the one that Nikki Finke took years ago when she sued The NY Post for firing her for cause - on a fact which she still doesn't admit she was wrong about, but was, 100% - and claimed that Disney was colluding with the paper to have her fired. The case was not quickly thrown out of court, and after a few years, quietly settled. Nikki claims to have "won," but as with all things Nikki, the facts about her actions are not available to anyone other than her and she is free to spin them into whatever variation of the truth she likes. (Only recently have other journalists been so comfy selling the hype... as they want, as the old When Harry Met Sally joke went, what she's having. The joke was funny, even if the orgasm was fake.)

If Friedman is suing for $5 million, you can be sure that he and Martin Garbus are looking to walk away with something a million dollar settlement, paid to make it go away. He likely picked the Scientology angle because their organization doesn't much like to be forced into the public eye. And by angling his case by positioning a wealthy Scientologist - who recently lost a child and wants to be out of the public eye - as his victimizer, he's probably hoping that $1 million means so little to The Travoltas that they will pay to make it go away.

Roger is scum. Has been for as long as I've known of him. His very first spoken words to be were outright lies and scurrilous attacks. Little has changed. May he receive all that he deserves.

Posted by dpoland at 07:04 PM | Comments (3)

BYOB Monday Pre-Indy Day

Posted by dpoland at 06:59 PM | Comments (71)

Eye Off The Prize

I am amazed that the drum keeps getting beaten for the idea that Google and aggregation in general is what is killing Old Media.

The formula for fixing this, as much as it can be fixed, is incredibly simple.

Syndication of content leads to an uncontrolled spread of page views on your copyrighted material. Want to read an AP story? Every paper they syndicate to has a website and as an aggregator, you have the choice of who you are going to give page views to every time you create a link. If the AP wants to stop that and wants to take advantage of views of their material, they need to stop syndicating... or at the very least, force the use of their copyrighted materials behind locals walls in each market and only offer a national link via a site of their own.

Now, the direct result may be that local news organizations place a lower financial value on the AP wire than before and they try to make deals for similar content with Reuters or other content providers. But that is business competition.

I am completely sympathetic to the fact that these businesses got to make money coming and going in recent years, facing no serious competition outside of one or two major competitors, with whom they split the giant pie. But that is over.

The second major step is to push a very specific set of rules that the Old Media companies feel constitutes Fair Use. But it needs to be a fair set of rules.

My suggestion is 500 characters that includes the original headline, a byline, and a date and time of publication, as well as a link to the original material. That would be something like:

Impressionist Fred Travalena dies at 66
BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY
zachary.dowdy@newsday.com
9:23 PM EDT, June 29, 2009

Travalena died Sunday at his Encino, Calif., home of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 66.

By some counts, he could mimic more than 150 famous people.

The Associated Press reported that Travalena, who also sang and acted, reached headliner status at the Stardust Resort and Casino in 2001, a year before the lymphoma first hit. He beat cancer twice but succumbed to the latest attack, which resurfaced about eight months ago, said his publicist, Roger Neal.

If you wanted to use a pull-quote without the rest, max 150 characters:

Travalena died Sunday at his Encino, Calif., home of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 66.

By some counts, he could mimic more than 150 famous people. (Newsday/AP)

Real simple.

Posted by dpoland at 06:34 PM | Comments (1)

June 28, 2009

The Bruno Review

Posted by dpoland at 11:21 PM | Comments (58)

DP/30 - The Stoning of Soraya M. star Shohreh Agdashloo

The Stoning of Soraya M. just won the Audience Award at the LA Film Festival, not only being a quality film, but having become a reflection of current unrest in Iran in recent months. Oscar-nominated actress Shohreh Agdashloo has been an outspoken voice about Iran for years, no more so than through her role in this film and the discussions since. She sat down for a 30 minute chat...

The complete video interview in QT after the jump... and the podcast is available here.

Continue reading "DP/30 - The Stoning of Soraya M. star Shohreh Agdashloo"

Posted by dpoland at 08:10 PM | Comments (3)

Can We Go Any Lower?

I just became aware that Entertainment Tonight Online... a Paramount-owned business... is running an EXCLUSIVE "last photo of Michael Jackson." He is on a stretcher with a breathing bag taped to his face.

In their haste to publish this EXCLUSIVE, did it occur to him that the man was most likely as dead at that moment as he was when he was finally pronounced an hour or two later?

We know, last I checked, that he was in cardiac arrest and not breathing when the paramedics got to his rented house. We can tap dance around the pronounced time all we want, but I have seen zero indication that he was ever alive in any way other than semantic at that time.

Shall we look forward to more EXCLUSIVE photos of the corpse?

And by the way... all the media drooling over TMZ calling him dead first... is anyone actually thinking about this? The guy was dead before he arrived at the hospital. All TMZ did was to announce without the kind of confirmation that journalists consider legitimate. And had he miraculously been revived, all the gossip rag would have been accused of was jumping the gun... they have no journalistic credibility at stake. And yet, the media marvels are whoever said it FIRST!

Who is responsible for the degradation of the news? We are ALL responsible.... but especially Old Media outlets where the highest standards are supposed to be held and are often forgotten when dazzled by the speed of new media... until the porous standards of much of new media fail journalism and old media starts kicking the entire medium for the crime.

Posted by dpoland at 02:13 PM | Comments (23)

Weekend Estimates by Klady - 6/21/09

So... what does this mega-opening learn us, Jethro?

Well, Jed, investing personal ego in box office numbers is a fool's errand.

They sell more hamburger than filet mignon in this world. And big sales - which is what opening weekend tickets are - defines neither. The Dark Knight and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are the same this weekend. And yet, the differences are obvious... and not so obvious.

It is human nature to want to be on the winning team... that's always the "right" team. Except when it isn't. The vanity of being "anti-big box office" or "anti-studio" or "anti-tentpole" is as dangerous a game as being "anti-art," "anti-adult," or "anti-intellectual." We are not on teams. And life and art are more complicated than "scoreboard," though it is in the nature of our society to work hard to slide into simplifications that make it easier to distinguish winners from losers.

The two people who should most be celebrated in this moment are Don Murphy, for truly believing in this concept being a big screen home run, and Michael Bay, for understanding the images that will draw massive numbers of people based on 2 minutes or less worth of image. Obviously, a ton of people worked hard and well to make the film a reality. And Paramount's decision to pick-up half the film, which then became the entire film on the occasion of leasing DreamWorks for a few years, is the single best decision made by Brad Grey and Tom Freston in their tenure.

It's not very clear, still, what the ultimate number of Tr2 will be. Trajectories are changing fast. And while the film is clearly assured of doing more than the original domestically ($319m), the difference between the first and the second at the end of the first weekend is $46 million, which could spread further... or not. If the film does 2.5x opening 3-day weekend, the domestic total lands at $370m. Figuring a similar foreign leap - to about $450m - that would put the film at $820m worldwide, into the rarefied air of the all-time worldwide Top 20 and in the company of the mega-franchises. Odd to say it, but anything under $800m would probably disappoint Par - based on this opening - and $900m would be above expectations.

What is amazing about modern franchise business is that at $800 million, about $440 million come back to the studio in rentals... about $325m of that goes into production and marketing... at least $100m of it goes into the pockets of points players... so with ALL that money, you're still looking at the profits coming primarily in post-theatrical. Back when the first film was made, that would mean at least $300 million in profits. In the new DVDuh era, that's likely to be under $200 million, even with the DVD selling as many or more units than TDK did last year.

This reminds us, once again, about what the most profitable film of the last two years has been... Mamma Mia!. Put that in your gap-n-gold toothed robot and smoke it...

Up, the year's #2 film, will pass $250 million domestic tomorrow... Star Trek will pass 250 before the end of next weekend... The Hangover will hit $200 by the end of next weekend. So that's four $200m+ films this summer, with Potter a sure bet and Ice Age 3 the best shot at a sixth. The record remains seven, set in summer 2007. Last year was six.

The Hurt Locker had the best per-screen in the nation, albeit on 4 screens. Summit has the #1 non-studio release this summer so far, with $3.1m for The Brothers Bloom. Let's hope that THL finds a bigger audience because genre fans will love this movie if they get into the theater.

Posted by dpoland at 10:34 AM | Comments (66)

A Conversation With Christine Vachon & Julianne Moore

I just caught this chat from a few months ago, done for PBS' In The Life, between the producer and the actress. I enjoyed watching it and hope you will too.

Posted by dpoland at 01:13 AM | Comments (1)

June 27, 2009

Another Hack Attack On Eddie Murphy

Brooks Barnes' NYT piece commits the ultimate sin for a journalist. It seems to purposefully avoid the facts and instead throws around snarky opinion without backup, like "That harsh sentence...is as good an example as any of the prevailing sentiment about Mr. Murphy these days." Prevailing sentiment? Did they do a survey or did he just read a bunch of blogs?

Again... the facts... Eddie Murphy's had two flops in a row. The three films before that grossed, worldwide, $799 million, $159 million, and $155 million.

As I wrote 10 days ago, the ONLY stars who can match that run of success in the last 2.5 years are Will Smith, Ben Stiller, Matt Damon, and depending whether you count Shrek The Third or not, Vince Vaughn.

That is why people still want to be in the Eddie Murphy business. No one cares if you hated Norbit when it grossed over $150 million.

As I also pointed out, if the New York Times is going to do stories about why actors are working, they will need to go after Clooney, Pitt, DiCaprio, Wahlberg, and pretty much everyone else also, because Eddie has delivered better than they have in the last 2.5 years... even with his two flops.

This doesn't make Eddie a great guy to all or easy or the studios' friend. But a movie star he still is. And one of the top 10 in the world without much doubt.

The question I always ask when a story that seems to intentionally tell only one side of the story, even quoting friends of the victim, is who wanted this story out there and why? And the answer here seems to be Brad Grey's camp, who are working every press angle they can these days to spin the second major screwed-up in hire of a president of production at Paramount.

In addition, the Richard Pryor movie that has been kept out of the press gossip rounds for the sake of getting a deal closed, was most certainly not some sort of "we don't like Eddie anymore" flat rejection by Paramount, but rather a personal stand-off between Murphy and Grey over a deal point taken very seriously by Murphy and which added no intrinsic value to the film, making Grey's stubbornness equally if not more dubious. If not for this minor point, raised to a stand-off, the film would be in production right now for the studio with Murphy working for almost nothing, sharing risk with the studio.

But, for the record, Murphy has issues with Fox as well, over Meet Dave, which prevented Murphy's dream project from landing there as well.

So the list of people and studios that Eddie refuses to work with grows. Though ironically... other studios where there have been issues on both sides would still be happy to work with him on the right project.

But forgiving and moving back into business is not Mr. Grey's way. So now, we are getting a Tom Cruise-style smear job. Now it's John Lesher AND Eddie Murphy's fault that the studio has no big summer movie next year, aside from the Marvel sequel on which they get paid 8%.

(Note To Aspiring Smearers: When you are the company that released the last 3 hits, owns the most recent failure, and fears the presumed next failure and you aren't even "no comment"ed in an attack story that you had to be called on by a legit news publication, your fingerprints get CSI-clear.)

Eddie Murphy is many problematic things. And he is in that 50-year-old range where stars find their old tricks failing them. But this effort to throw him out in the trash is simply idiotic... not my opinion... just the facts.

Posted by dpoland at 12:00 PM | Comments (23)

DP/30 - Jean-Jacques Beineix

Jean-Jacques Beineix is in LA for the American Cinematheque US premiere of one of his films and for the Cinema Libre DVD roll-out of his entire catalog, including Diva, Betty Blue, and a package of shorts that include the real life look at the man who wrote The Diving Bell & The Butterfly. The writer-director sat down for a 30 minute chat.

The complete video interview in QT after the jump... and the podcast is available here.

Continue reading "DP/30 - Jean-Jacques Beineix"

Posted by dpoland at 10:48 AM | Comments (7)

DP/30 - The Proposal dir Anne Fletcher

Anne Fletcher spends 30 minutes chatting about her new hit film, The Proposal.

The complete video interview in QT after the jump... and the podcast is available here.

Continue reading "DP/30 - The Proposal dir Anne Fletcher"

Posted by dpoland at 10:01 AM | Comments (2)