Strike News

Looks like the worst. The AMPTP is still dicking around the WGA and not making serious proposals -- and probably won't till the six-week mark when they get to fire whoever they want under the 'force majeure' clause. Silly.

Deadline Hollywood Daily » URGENT! Talks Day #4: Producers Present New Media Proposals To Writers; WGA Responds It’s A Rollback & Rejects; But Is This The Whole Offer Or Just Half

Movie Review: Into the WIld

The more I think about Into the Wild, the less I like it. To be sure, I was incredibly moved by this story, despite what I see as continuous poor stylistic choices on the part of writer/director Sean Penn. (Penn got script help from poet Sharon Olds.) I am a fan of non-fiction journalist Jon Krakauer, from whose book of the same name this movie is adapted. I have the feeling I would've enjoyed reading the book better.

Which is not to say the movie doesn't get certain things incredibly right. The performances of all the supporting players are uniformly excellent, and some, like Hal Holbrook are as truthful as any of Sean Penn's own nominated turns. The story is definitely brought to life by filming in the actual locations that were waystations the tragic journey of Chris McCandless.

After graduating from Emory College, McCandless (Emile Hirsh) dropped off the grid and took the name and persona 'Alexander Supertramp', setting forth with only shoe leather to see the United States, his goal to eventually find solitude in Alaska. Episodes from his months of survivalist living in the great white north are intercut with episodes from his road journey and elegiacally narrated by his sister (Jena Malone).

Into the Wild is more a journey of inner discovery than a travelogue. Continue reading about Into the Wild (spoilers ahead)...At 23, McCandless is incredibly sure of his own back-to-nature philosophy. But by the end of the movie, he will see his philosophy completely inverted. His spiritual cockiness is a form of hubris, and this tragic flaw allows for a powerfully tragic conclusion.

The problem is, several of Penn's stylistic choices come close to diffusing the grand tragedy. I have no problem with lyricism of the Malick vein, but Penn is no Malick. From the very beginning, with the odd font choices in the opening titles and the rather inelegant editing of a montage of wilderness, we are clearly in the hands of a director who lacks the confidence of his protagonist.

The odd cuts, abrupt textual interludes and at least two Brechtian moments where Emile Hirsch breaks character and looks directly at the camera make Into the Wild play like Godard-but-with-plot. The compositions occasionally attain an accidental beauty, but I was surprised by how often amazing landscapes came across quite pedestrian; and I was baffled by the continually changing film stocks and color timings. The blue greasepaint on Emile's face at the end was a distraction from what was actually coming across via acting and emaciation: I get he's sick without you making him look like a pale member of the Blue Man Group.

Even with all this hamfisting, Into the Wild moved me. I experienced McCandless' revelation that joy in life comes not from solitude but human relationships. And I wept at how his wild paradise became a prison, and the guilt his family must've felt upon hearing of his death. (William Hurt's sit-in in the road was a clam note in the final fugue.) The photo of the real McCandless said it better than Eddie Vedder's warbling or Penn's most inspired coaching: happiness is other people.

MORE:
Sean Penn interview

The Strike Gets Scary

Horror Writers Protest

RitM: Now Available on DVD and HD-DVD

Joel and Christine, the directors of indie film Rain in the Mountains (which this blog has chronicled all the way from pre-production) signed a deal with Vanguard International for domestic home video release.

Rain in the Mountains tells the story of Eric Smallhouse, a Native American who believes it is his destiny to lead his people back to the old ways. The problem is, he doesn't know anything about the old ways.

Director Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals) called it "a slice of Native-themed humor for all ages" and it has won numerous awards at film festivals all over the world. I'm proud to have worked on it.

The movie comes out Feb. 26. Amazon.com is already taking pre-orders:

DVD


HD-DVD
I'm particularly excited about the HD-DVD, which will allow people to see in great color and detail some of the phenomenal Pacific Northwest landscapes in which the movie was shot.

ALSO: Check out the new de-Flash-ified Rain in the Mountains website. Looks like the webgnomes took this advice for filmmakers with websites and made the site more searchable.

Contest: Alcantara®LAB: Extraordinary, Every Day

I don't know this competition or endorse it, but it sounds Italian:

Dear makingthemovie.com

I take this chance to bring to your attention the following news regarding
an international movie contest launched by Alcantara®LAB: Extraordinary,
Every Day.
www.alcantaralab.com/moviecontest

To conceive, design and realize a video production (which should not be
longer than 3 minutes), using all video techniques and languages available
(graphics, animation, actual filming and so for)

The EXTRAORDINARY, EVERY DAY movie contest is aimed at all those who live
their personal experiences based on the following values : sensoriality,
aesthetics, functionality, exclusivity and who practice the art of making
life extraordinary, every day.

Prize amount = 15.000euros

Divided among 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. The top prize is 10,000 euros, which is like $20,000. According to the website, entering the contest is free of charge and "the intellectual property of the works will remain with the authors."

Book Publishers Become Movie Producers

Another bad trend: book publishers becoming movie producers. It didn't work for Microsoft, why would it work for Random House?

Essay About Book Publishing and Movie Deals - New York Times

The Golden Compass is the 'anti-Narnia'.

Movie Review: Margot at the Wedding

The latest movie from The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach, Margot at the Wedding plays like America's Sweethearts for the The New Yorker-set. On a crumbling coastal home reminiscent of Grey Gardens, prodigal daughter Margot (Nicole Kidman) returns to witness or perhaps stop the marriage of her sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) to good-for-nothing wannabe artist Malcolm (Jack Black). She drags along her sensitive son Claude, whose sexual awakening among the young women there (cousin Ingrid, babysitter Maisy) is complicated by the strange sexual bond with his own mother. As the movie progresses, we find that Margot is not only sexually immature, but also vindictive and manipulative.

Margot is a novelist, and she tries to keep her autobiographical stories at arm's length. But when she is confronted with the depth of her characters' cruelty, she must also confront her own. Nicole Kidman doesn't do much with this terrifically complicated ice queen, but neither does any actor in this movie shed light on his or her urbane archetype. Baumbach is clearly drawing from a deep well with these characters, but we never quite see into the gloom.

The Squid and the Whale did coming-of-age better, and it did marital strain better. I wish Baumbach had focussed the movie more on Margot, and on the wake of her emotional hurricane. As it stands, she's mean, crazy and too close to her adolescent son not to be institutionalized.

MORE: Interview with Noah Baumbach

RitM: More Good Festival News

Rain the Mountains just took home another Best Picture prize.

It's also getting translated into Turkish, for a screening at film festival in Istanbul. I wonder how you say, "Damn you, Edison!" in Turkish?

See the Rain in the Mountains blog for all the details.

UPDATE: Rain in the Mountains will be available on DVD and HD-DVD on Feb. 26!!!

From the Archives: Thanksgiving Movies

Why are there so few Thanksgiving movies?

As the WGA and the AMPTP break bread again, be sure to give thanks for all the great crew members you've worked with, vendors who have done better than asked for or cut you a deal; equipment that isn't broken, expendables that aren't expended. Give thanks to the writer, whose mind bequeathes; to the producer, who makes things happen; to the actors, who perform truth at 24fps and to the director, who has to get the actors to perform truth. Give thanks to loved ones who support your independent dreams and thanks to the audiences who indulge them.

Thanks to all the readers of Making the Movie for another great year of moviemaking.

Movie Review: Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is a sweet and surprisingly moving film about socially inept man named Lars (Ryan Gosling) who falls in love with a life-size sex doll. Harvey as filtered through a deadpan Hal Ashbian lens, Lars is medium funny but surprisingly moving.

The arrival of 'Bianca' sets tongues wagging in a nonspecific northern town. Lars' brother (Paul Schneider) and his pregnant wife (Emily Mortimer) are advised by the local doctor (Patricia Clarkson) that the best thing for Lars is to go along with the delusion. Reluctantly at first, then with vigor, they set the tone for the whole town who, like Lars, pin their own subconscious dreams and hopes on the silicone doll.

This little fable about a fake woman has a lot to say about real love. I was resistant to it at first -- Gosling, with his squinting and blinking is far too mannered, the score is distractingly blunt at times -- but Lars and the Real Girl won me over. Screenwriter Nancy Oliver, a former staff writer for Six Feet Under, deserves credit for telling an askew tale with great heart; director Craig Gillespie for using such restraint; cinematographer Adam Kimmel for bottling the genie that is winter light.

I give Lars and the Real Girl a big recommend.

MORE: Interview with Nancy Oliver

Making Butterknife

Filmmaker Joe Swanberg is blogging the production of the web series Butterknife:

SpoutBlog » BUTTERKNIFE on spout.com

A WGA AMPTP Detente?

Cinematical and other sources are reporting that talks will soon resume.

Your Weekend Viewing

A friend of mine is in post on a documentary about how she hired a stripper to impersonate her at her 10 year high school anniversary.

Check out the video on the MySpace page for I Remember Andrea.

Even Without the Help of Big Media...

Writers are winning over the public - Variety

Is Avid Finally Turning Things Around?

Mike at HD For Indies passes on an announcement from Avid:

In the past, we’ve seen how investing marketing resources in alternative, customer-focused activities, can be more effective with our users – and to our bottom line. It’s time for Avid to start giving something back to the industry and these activities will create a more vibrant community where customers and newcomers can learn, share, and understand where the industry is headed – and how they can help shape it.

I work on Avids all day long and let me just say: it's about frakkin time.

For a long time, Avid was the only game in town. When Final Cut Pro came on the scene, showing Avid at the very least how give NLE users a better experience, Avid continued to act like they were the only game in town. By my count, three of Media Composer for Mac's last four updates have had bugs that range from seriously frustrating to catastrophic. Troubleshooting an Avid without a tech that has worked with them for years is a nightmare. Avid's web presence seems incapable of speaking in a language the end user can understand. Their disdain is clear when their website for Mac troubleshooting doesn't even work in Safari. They recommend you download Firefox, rather than they design a website that works with the default Mac browser.

From what I hear, the PC version is no less buggy.

Ninety percent of the young filmmakers I know are learning to edit on Final Cut Pro. If Avid doesn't get their products back down market, Final Cut is going to swallow them whole.

I got an anonymous email from wga.advocate@gmail.com that is apparently making the rounds:

This email is going everywhere in Hollywood - every studio lot - almost every person I know. This was not sent to you by mistake. This entertainment labor strike touches everyone, as does TV and film (in "the business" or not). The rest is of this email is a personal shout out into the abyss, on behalf of Hollywood, for which I have worked for many years, whether for agents, managers, producers, studios, even talent including writers and directors... This is going to everyone I worked with everywhere, and everyone else I know too. It's time to cover the real news that media networks are not, because media is owned by the same people with which the writers are negotiating.

[...]

I worked for producers and learned so much. As someone who has also worked as a writer, I loved working with all the producers I have in this town, and they are fair and decent people. Even if we disagreed on story, the same Development Execs feeling a pinch right now are a writer's teammates and story allies. Writers are weakened without their perspective. But instead of talking with these co-workers at the table, writers are negotiating with lawyers.

No one is happy on either side of the table here, and if this continues, it will only get worse. The lawyers are only looking out
for the giant conglomerates that have gobbled up Hollywood over the past fifteen years, and I fear they have forced writers to strike for a reason. And yes, there is no other term that fits outside of "forced". Unless the writers want to cut their income from 2.5% on residuals to .3% as new media and television merges (resulting an an 80% paycut), writers have no choice but to strike. And the AMPTP would not force a strike without an agenda.

I doubt it's as simple as trying to bust the union, because writers will never give up minimums or the leverage of standing together (I wouldn't have), no matter how long this takes. Nor is this about those four cents on DVDs. Let's face it, instead of charging $15 a DVD, they could simply charge $15.20 (giving ALL artists double the
current rate), and STILL sell the same number of DVDs. Would twenty cents stop you from buying one? I also doubt it's all about the small percentage from downloads as an issue either - because even if the studios make no money, neither would writers. So, if that ain't it... And those are the big issues on the table... So, why force writers to walk out?

More like a lockout. This is what has been bothering me too. I wondered if the writers might be collateral damage in a battle against the agencies. The WGA Advocate takes it a step further:

Here's my far-fetched theory that over half the people I have spoken with are stunned that they actually believe it... Could be this Machiavellian? For your consideration:

Since "Big Business" (multi-national conglomerate organizations) bought out the studios, they have not had the chance to do what they normally do when buying major companies, and that is to: fire almost everyone, give middle management promotions (without raises) to fill the gaps of the fired bosses and their big salaries, then integrate a production pipeline with a simple, efficient, NORMAL business model. This is only possible NOW because until recently there were still independent movie studios who accepted the film business model norms. In short, they are forcing writers (and soon actors) to strike so they have an excuse to fire the people who work behind the gates, not the artists. They just want to blame the artists for firing half of L.A. over the span of the strike. Think about how much money they will save.

Big Business can now force majeure more than writers, but expensive producers and their entire teams as well. Why not streamline production and run all projects directly through studio personnel only? One simple pipeline of product and production run by story editors and savvy accountants (the new studio producer/executive)? It would save these studios a fortune. No more independent producer deals, instead strictly studio production teams. We ALL know that this is what Big Business does best. So they force the artists to hike to they can clean house and redesign studio lot efficiancy.

If it takes too long, as a perk, they'd love to bankrupt agencies and managers by keeping talent out of work - deals without so many middle men - no managers and their producer fees - perhaps direct deals with talent just like in the '30s.

A lot of people will be fired on every side the longer this strike goes, and it will happen. Hell, I almost see the appeal of it... It
would simplify everything... Sever all those hands reaching into the cash register. Worst case scenari: can you see studio emblumed Polo style shirts everyone wears and don't forget Hawaiian shirt Fridays? I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

In short, I fear for everyone in town. I don't think the producers see the writing on the wall that the AMPTP (supposedly a producer's alliance, yet no producers are involved nor oversee these negotiations) is going to get most producers laid off as their offices are shut down when product diminishes. Even if it went a year or so, those fiscal losses wouldn't equal the TRILLIONS in saved revenue long term. And for Big Business, these losses are a drop in the bucket - acceptable in exchange for the future cost cuts. We all know this is how these companies have always operated.

This gives the studios a lot of credit for being forward-thinking. I'd say Big Business is more focussed on short-term goosing of stock prices. Mass firings, however, do tend to do that...

Unless producers like Bruckheimer, Silver, Grazer, and Rudin take over and stop letting the corporation lawyers negotiate in their name, we're ALL in trouble. People will be fired in waves. Deals flushed. It's only a matter of time. If Producers and Writers would just sit in a room together instead of writers and lawyers... Or even better, business affairs guys sit down with a few top agents, this could be over in a few hours! But sadly, that will not happen, UNLESS producers unite and intervene on their own behalf. Because in a year, the AMPTP can replace Nick Counter with a giant parachute, and then they'll cut the deal with the unions once studio pipelines are sorted and ready for new product. And nobody will know the truth, just like the strike is starting to be swiftly brushed under the rug in news reports by the networks.

Maybe this strike has made me a little crazy - too much time to consider conspiracy theories. I'm just urging everyone I know to make a deal. The longer it takes, the worse it will get for everyone. Everyone. We all must work together.

I pray for a swift resolution, for all of us.

Thank you all.

Best,

The WGA Advocate

Moview Review: No Country for Old Men

The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, er, Anton Chigurh

Up until a woman by a motel pool offers Josh Brolin's Llewelen Moss a beer, No Country for Old Men was the best movie I had seen all year. There were great Texas characters speaking great Texas dialogue in epic Texas landscapes, and the narrative had set a number of these characters on a collision course for a climactic scene at the aforementioned motel. The screen fades to black.

When we fade back in, this great movie has evaporated. Just based on my emotional and narrative investment in Josh Brolin's hunter character alone this ranks as one of my top cinematic disappointments. The taut, suspenseful, thematically-resonant narrative that the movie had demonstrated up to this point unravels scene after scene, as if the brothers Coen had let a pretentious novelist sneak in to write the last act.

The final scene, which I don't hate, like many of the people I've talked with about the movie, is the biggest middle finger given to a trusting audience since Magnolia. Taken with the late scene that introduces a new, retired lawman confidant to Tommy Lee Jones' world-weary Sheriff, it would seem to explain the title of the film better than reading Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium":

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

The poem is a rumination written by a poet who admires Byzantine art for its ability to last the ages. The phrase 'no country for old men' is literal in the movie (and the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name to which the movie is apparently quite faithful): Tommy Lee Jones' old man Sheriff Ed Tom Bell feels that he no longer understands this world of remorseless violence.

The need to have this theme swallow the narrative is the clearest demonstration yet that the Coen Brothers despise their audience. The alternative, that they somehow lost control of their last act, is dispelled by the absolute mastery on display in the first two thirds of the film. This is not like Gangs of New York, where a great film has been crippled by bad story structure; this is a great movie that was driving along and WHAM out of nowhere got t-boned at an intersection.

If you look to the horizon, you might just see Joel and Ethan Coen, fleeing the scene of the accident: no doubt sailing off to Byzantium with a bag of producer's fees. Continue reading about No Country for Old Men (spoiler-filled discussion of the elliptical ending)...

I'll get back to the car accident in a moment. Let's break down the scenes that lead up to it, and see if we can't discover exactly what the Coens & McCarthy were driving at, because a lot of critics are declaring this movie a masterpiece yet all saying contradictory things about its themes. First, we have the scene where a woman by the pool offers Llewelyn a beer. "Beer leads to more beer," she says. Does he believe her? Does he go party with her, and thus - by movie morals - deserve to die? There is no clue in the movie. [UPDATE: The screenplay draft dated November 28 makes clear that she was in league with either the Mexicans, Chigurh or a third party seeking the money, that Llewelyn did in fact party with her, and that she died in the gun battle.]

When we fade in, the Mexicans who got the info from Carla Jean's mother are finishing an assault on the motel. Definitely dead are one Mexican gangster, the beer woman and Llewelyn. We don't want to believe Llewelyn is dead, because we've invested so much in his conflict with Chigurh, so the Coens even give us a scene in the morgue to rub our faces in their narrative perfidy.

Why are the Mexicans fleeing the scene when Sheriff Bell already shows up? We know they don't have the money, because later we see Chigurh's coin calling card by an opened air vent, which can only mean Chigurh got the money. (It's tough to believe Llewelyn wouldn't have been more creative in choosing a hiding place, but I will allow some movie logic.)

Later, after the local Sheriff mentions that Chigurh has been known to return to the scene of a crime, Sheriff Bell goes back to the motel. In what the Coen Brothers say, in the Creative Screenwriting podcast interview, is only major change they make from the novel, they have Sheriff Bell enter the motel immediately after seeing the lock is punched out on the door to Llewelyn's room. In the book, he drives around, to give anyone who is inside a chance to escape. While this may not seem like a big change, depending on how you view the rules of Chigurh, it is potentially huge. Chigurh doesn't seem to target people unless they actively get involved (or have a car he wants). He doesn't flip the gas station proprietor for his life until the proprietor starts a conversation. Sheriff Bell entering the motel room is a more active choice, and thus the many people who interpret Bell's final monologue to be a vision of his own death at the hands of Chigurh have ammunition from this moment.

But if Chigurh wanted to kill Bell, he could have done so when Bell enters the motel room. Thus Chigurh does not see Bell as involved. After this scene, all dramatic tension about whether Chigurh will face Bell is gone. Unfortunately, rather than tying up the loose end of Carla Jean and being done with the movie, we are treated to two additional long dialogue scenes and a baffling car crash scene.

The first long dialogue scene is between Sheriff Bell and a male relative, Ellis. Nevermind the storytelling taboo of introducing a major character to no effect late into a script (the Coens also do this with Mike Yanagita in Fargo), what does Ellis' story mean?

Ellis
I sent Uncle Mac's badge and his old
thumbbuster to the Rangers. For their
museum there. Your daddy ever tell
you how Uncle Mac came to his reward?
Sheriff Bell shrugs.
...Shot down on his own porch there
in Hudspeth County. There was seven or
eight of 'em come to the house. Wantin
this and wantin that. Mac went in and
got his shotgun but they was way ahead
of him. Shot him down in his own doorway.
Aunt Ella run out and tried to stop the
bleedin. Him tryin to get hold of the
shotgun again. They just set there on
their horses watchin him die. Finally
one of 'em says somethin in Injun and
they all turned and left out. Well Mac
knew the score even if Aunt Ella didn't.
Shot through the left lung and that
was that. As they say.

Bell
When did he die?

Ellis
Nineteen zero and nine.

What this says to me is that the senseless violence that Bell is attributing to the kids with green hair and bones in their noses has in fact been around all along. The violence that Chigurh represents is just a feature of the landscape.

Ellis
...What you got ain't nothin new.
This country is hard on people. Hard
and crazy. Got the devil in it yet
folks never seem to hold it to account.

[...]

Ellis
You can't stop what's comin. Ain't
all waitin on you.

This raises the dramatic possibility that Chigurh will in fact be coming for Bell, and didn't kill him in the motel room for some reason. But this is not the case.

In the next scene, Chigurh has come for Carla Jean, right after death-from-natural-causes has come for her mother. Chigurh's ethics require he kill Carla Jean, because he promised Llewelyn he would do so. However, for some reason he softens and offers her a coin flip for her life. She doesn't understand him and presumably -- because the Coens cut outside the house -- she refuses the flip or loses it, and he kills her. He doesn't have a gun, so whatever murder weapon he used caused there to be blood on the floor, for which he checks the bottom of his boots after leaving the house. We know he doesn't like blood on his boots from the scene where he kills Wells, and moves his boots to avoid a slowly-spreading pool.

Driving away, in what I think is the movie's greatest dramatic and thematic blunder, Chigurh is the victim of a random car accident. Someone runs a red light, t-boning Chigurh's car and causing his arm to fracture to the point that bone is sticking out. I have heard the theory that this is a scene about how money corrupts the young, because he pays the two boys on bicycles for their silence.

But he could have as easily done that if they witnessed Carla Jean's murder and the film production could've saved the half-million dollars it costs to stage a car accident. If the movie is making a point about chance or fate it is an obtuse point. The only clear thing that comes out of this scene is the terminator-like nature of Chigurh (he did, after all, perform surgery on his leg in the same manner the Terminator operated on its own eyeball).

The movie could've ended with Chigurh hobbling off into the sunset, but instead we return to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who is restless in retirement. He recounts his dreams to his wife:

Bell
Two of 'em. Both had my father.
It's peculiar. I'm older now'n he
ever was by twenty years. So in a sen-
se he's the younger man. Anyway, first
one I don't remember so well but it
was about money and I think I lost it.
The second one, it was like we was
both back in older times and I was on
horseback goin through the mountains
of a night.

[...]

...Goin through this pass in the moun-
tains. It was cold and snowin, hard
ridin. Hard country. He rode past me
and kept on goin. Never said nothin
goin by. He just rode on past and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and
his head down... and when he rode past I seen he
was carryin fire in a horn the way
people used to do and I could see the
horn from the light inside of it.
About the color of the moon. And in
the dream I knew that he was goin on
ahead and that he was fixin to make a
fire somewhere out there in all that
dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be
there. Out there up ahead.

Encoding the final message of the movie in a dream is a poetic gesture. It's also a highly-subjective one, and I think that's why the final scene has been so divisive and controversial. (The third response: more than one person has admitted to me they had narrative fatigue at this point, and weren't even paying attention to the dream speech.)

What isn't controversial is that the father would seem to be traveling in 'the undiscovered country' and thus this dream is a premonition of Sheriff Bell's death. Death is the country where crusty old-timers are welcome, the country for old men. Slow fade, no music. Get it?

I choose to see profundity in the point, but I rather think the profundity could've emerged stronger by telling the ending of this story in a way that didn't antagonize audiences. Several questions are still unresolved or unclear: it anyone still pursuing Chigurh? Chigurh is not pursuing anyone, not Sheriff Bell, right? What caused the drug deal to go awry (not that we care)? How will Sheriff Bell die, by violence or natural causes? I'm fine with leaving things open-ended, but one certainly has a right to expect the ending to be dramatically satisfying. No Country for Old Men was tracking just such a satisfactory ending through the plains, but lost it in a thicket of obscurity.

MORE:
Screenplay draft dated Nov. 28, 2005
Nora Ephron takes a potshot
The Coens edited on Final Cut Pro
Storyboarding No Country

A New DIY Filmmaking Manual

Free or cheap:

Filmmaker Hunter Week's DIY Manual

The Five Families Step In

The heads of the big five agencies met "secretly" with the writers...

Pressure on both camps grows - Los Angeles Times

The Strike Diary

Albert Vogler is keeping it real:

One guy kept shouting, 'Honk if you love movies!' but to me it sounded like, 'Honk if you love boobies!' Come to think of it, this might be a more effective rallying cry. (I understand some people do, in fact, like boobies.)

I actually spent a brief amount of time on the pickets with my WGA friend on Wednesday. Everyone honks; there's tons of camaraderie among these pasty writers who aren't accustomed to hours of sunlight. People are digging in for the long haul. It seems the studios wanted this strike, and did what they could to get the writers to walk. The going theory is that they wanted to write off this whole season of television. That sounds crazy to me. There's no question the studios' motivation is money. They must think they can save more by not producing anything for six months than it would cost to give the writers a share of internet revenue.

As I say, I'm no expert on labor relations. I have read about a thing called a 'dispensation', wherein the Guild would allow a writer to be employed during the strike if the employer agrees to the contract terms the Guild wants. It seems to me that the studio that breaks ranks with the AMPTP first and gets a dispensation will make off like a fat cat in the night, able to show new shows on television (and thus get big ad dollars). If their motivation is only monetary, it makes sense for one studio to backstab the others and cave in.

The writers, on the other hand, are striking for more money, yes, but also respect. Respect is a luxury in Hollywood, but the directors get it and the actors get it -- so why shouldn't writers?

UPDATE, MORE FANTASIZING OUT LOUD: Is it possible for a studio to break away from the AMPTP? I maintain it is far more likely than the WGA, the DGA or SAG disbanding. The AMPTP has only been around since 1982 and (Gene Hackman lookalike) J. Nicolas Counter III has been the President since the beginning, and is the lead negotiator with all unions, including the recent WGA negotiation. It's his job to keep the Hollywood money machine humming. I can't find any info on how much money he makes, but I bet it rivals if not exceeds the top execs at the studios. It's much easier to fire the one guy who is losing you money than fire the creative talent that is making you money.

Fox and CBS are taking a sharp stance against the writers. But Jeff Zucker at NBC is staying more neutral. Imagine if NBC could poach Lost and CSI. That's free market capitalism; and shareholders would no doubt approve.

SEE ALSO:
Vogler: Day Three
Harlan Ellison rants on YouTube (how much did he get paid for posting this?)
Call the Studio Heads - YouTube
Tim Kazurinsky breaks it down
John August on day three, on the 'Not One Word' ad
Big protest at Fox today

RitM: The Olympia Report

[FOXHALL FILMS]

Holy cripes! Josh Friedman is back.

Movie Review: American Gangster

Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington lose their heads in American Gangster

American Gangster is heavier than the Godfather-lite rep it's been getting saddled with. If I had to call it anything -lite, I'd say it's a low calorie version of The Wire, the show that spoiled television for me. It's more than the presence of Idris Elba (The Wire's Stringer Bell), it's the evenhanded look at the criminals and the cops, and thus society as it radiates out from them.

American Gangster would like to see its dual protagonists, played by cinematic titans Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, as emblematic Vietnam-War-era Americans. Washington's Frank Lucas is a family man, a capitalist, and a sangfroided killer. Crowe's Richie Roberts is a self-improving, priggishly honest philanderer. If I have any issues with Steve Zaillian's generally excellent script, it is that these emblems rarely seem to have based on real people, which they actually were. They are uncirculated coins, lacking the scruffs and nicks that life confers.

Comparisons to The Wire and The Godfather are unfair. American Gangster is tremendously acted, directed and shot. It tells a great story and has a handful of truly edge-of-seat suspense scenes. It is epic; thus it dragged at times because it never caught me on fire.

There was a glimmer, at the end, when I wondered for a moment if Richie truly was the Serpico he'd been made out to be, or whether he'd been true to his neighborhood cosa nostra buddies all along, targeting Frank to get him out of the way. Was Richie the American Gangster and Frank the true hero, the one who kept Harlem safe?

This sort of heads-to-tails reversal was the engine of one recent cops-and-robbers movie which will be remembered when American Gangster is just another creature in Ridley Scott's genre menagerie. That movie was called The Departed, and it won Best Picture last year. The Departed, for all its shagginess, had the alacrity of vision to peer into the dark heart of gangsters, and the lawmen who stalk them. Irish Gangster, it might have been called, if it needed an adjective. But it didn't; an adjective just colors your view of the criminal world. There is nothing uniquely American, Irish or Panamanian about sanctimonious morality or unchecked greed.

Do I blame American Gangster for over-reaching? No. That's just the filmmakers being uniquely American.

Give Me Some Dumb Money

According to Nancy Vialatte's reading of the LA Times, there is a lot of 'dumb money' "flooding" Hollywood. Where is it, and how can I get some? I promise to educate this money and make it smarter.

Goldstein points out that we’d have to go back to the fall of 2006, when "The Queen" and "Babel" were released, to find a specialty-division drama that made as much as money as a forgettable piece of fluff like "Good Luck Chuck."

--Hollywood Wiretap - Entertainment news, celebrity news, tv news, movie news, and entertainment industry news

What is really sounds to me like is that the art houses producers would be better off paying for bigger stars and P&A, rather than changing the nature of the stories they are telling. Both The Queen and Babel had such market-pleasing advantages.

The Strike Begins

The Artful Writer: Dead And Alive

UPDATE: Nikki Finke on the first day of picketing.

UPDATE: YouTube: the dayjobs the writers are going back to

RitM: An Indie Film Goes Home Again

Joel & Christine, co-directors of a movie I'm proud to have worked on, Rain in the Mountains, are headed back to Washington state, where the movie was shot, for the Olympia Film Festival. The hometown crowd is hotly anticipating the event, if this front page article from The Olympian is any indication.

Your Weekend Viewing

Wanted trailer

James McAvoy in an action movie, who knew?

MORE VIEWING: The EFF test suite

[Via boingboing]

The WGA Contract is Finito

Strike in limbo as contract expires - Entertainment News, Writers Strike, Media - Variety

Once Again, Labor Strife is Spelled DVD - Hollywood Reporter

FOX to premiere writer-less schedule - Defamer

UPDATE: A WGA friend was at the strike meeting Thursday night and reported:

The meeting was cool -- incredible unity, lots of standing ovations, cheering, boos for the AMPTP.

Sounds like television is going to be awful for a while.

FURTHER UPDATES: And later, movies will be bad.

Filmonic breaks it down.