Category: media

“An obscure contract clause is reshaping show-business deal making, sometimes ruining the very relationships it is supposed to cement. Called an option, this contract term legally obligates actors and directors to work in a number of subsequent films, often at below-market rates, as a condition of employment in an initial movie. Used for years with little acrimony to bind performers to sequels, options are turning some contract talks into what look more like hostage negotiations.”

Bad behavior among Hollywood execs who have any power, is rarely punished. “This is Hollywood, the only business in the world where people seem to confuse rudeness with power. People think that being rude and demeaning is somehow a show of importance when, to me, it just suggests that you’re dealing with a lot of spoiled brats whose mommies didn’t give them enough time-outs.”

“The world knows that Adolf Hitler was the great monster of the 20th century, and the story of his rise and fall can now be efficiently packed into books and documentaries of almost any length. The great imaginative leap made in the new movie ‘Max,’ opening on Friday in New York and Los Angeles, is to give us a picture of Hitler that comes not from the last, well-thumbed third of his life, but from an earlier moment, just after the First World War, when a 30-year-old Hitler was an altogether marginal person whose future was totally up for grabs. Sight unseen, ‘Max’ has been condemned by the Jewish Defense League and others.”

“Arab-American and Palestinian groups have denounced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for allegedly keeping the acclaimed film ‘Divine Intervention’ out of the running for a foreign-language movie Oscar on the ground that Palestine isn’t a state. But the academy denies excluding Divine Intervention, saying the film was never submitted.” The film’s distributor says it wasn’t submitted because the Academy made it clear ahead of time it wouldn’t be considered.

“For some digital artists, these are perilous times. With the Internet’s rise have come increased concerns about everything from online privacy to digital piracy. Naturally artists are addressing these matters in Internet-based works. So an online project about copyright violations inevitably violates some copyrights, and a work that warns how a computer could be spying on you could very well be spying on you.”

Who rules at the box office? The big stars? Not this year. The top-grossing movies didn’t feature big stars. “Taken a gander at Variety lately, Mr. Big Studio Executive? Because if you had, you’d see something that’ll set you back on your heels faster than a casting-couch lawsuit. The big stars this year are pipsqueaks whose names you’re still trying to figure out how to pronounce…”

A new genre of movies is so sexually and violently explicit, some critics wonder if they’re too depraved and should just be ignored. No. “These movies shouldn’t be rejected. They are too well-made, too challenging, too unsettling to be ignored. Certainly, they raise questions – particularly about whether or not art must remain ‘decent’ in order to be effective – that can’t be sidestepped. But if this is a disturbing trend, then it is also disturbing in the best sense of that word – disturbing our preconceived notions of what constitutes art, and forcing us to consider and question our own responses to graphic images on the screen.”

“From a legit theater perspective, ‘Chicago’ is the first good cinematic adaptation of a Broadway musical since a very good one, ‘Cabaret.’ (Some would argue for ‘Hair,’ which came out in 1979.) ‘Cabaret,’ directed by Bob Fosse, came out in 1972. So: Let’s call it 30 years.”

Director Stephen Spielberg loves his special effects – but surprisingly, he’s not happy about the technical revolution in the movie business. “His objection is truly Luddite: it is to the idea that this technology represents progress at all. The digital moving image, unblemished by scratches, hairs, burn holes or splice marks, may mesmerise techies, but purists such as Mr Spielberg believe that it robs movie-making of its artistry. Spielberg shudders at the notion of atomised viewers calling up a film on their laptops at the touch of a button, home and alone. Mr Spielberg prefers the idea of strangers huddled together in the dark, watching a flickering image on the screen.”