Director Alfonso Cuarón and Netflix sent letters to assure authorities that actor Jorge Antonio Guerrero Martínez, who played Fermín in the movie Roma, wasn’t going to the U.S. to work but rather to give interviews – but the letters went unread. “I tried giving it to the consul. They grabbed the paper and literally just returned my passport through the teller window. … If they don’t want to read it, then it’s going to be very difficult.” – Los Angeles Times
Category: media
The Newseum Is About To Be Homeless
It was a bad – even terrible – week for journalism, with layoffs left and right and center. Then Johns Hopkins bought the D.C. building that houses the Newseum. – NPR
Remind Us: How Did The Just OK Movie ‘Vice’ Get Eight Oscar Nods?
One theory: “These awards are more about what the academy hopes to communicate by endorsing a movie and less about the movie itself. The academy wants to say it hates tyrannical dictators, that it likes Amy Adams.” (But where does that leave If Beale Street Could Talk?) – HuffPost
The Wages Of Onscreen Interracial Friendship
Has the U.S. learned nothing since Driving Miss Daisy? Well … the Academy likes Spike Lee a tad bit more now, 30 years later. – The New York Times
The Self-Worship Of Directors Who Make Themselves Their Own Stars
This will come as a real shocker, but a lot of these people are men such as Clint Eastwood. Eastwood wrote and directed The Mule, and … well: “All those closeups of himself looking incorrigible, or lapping up the adoration of others, or getting down to business with women young enough to be his great-granddaughters – these were staged and approved by him. Perhaps he even asked for extra takes. Better safe than sorry.” – The Guardian (UK)
Buzzfeed Lays Off Entire National News Desk, National Security Unit
BuzzFeed’s national news and national security teams broke some major stories on the Trump administration, Russia’s use of social media to shift public opinions in the United States, and other important subjects. – Variety
Unsealed Docs: Facebook Created Kids Game That Caused Them To Spend Millions
“Facebook created a system that allowed children to spend tens of millions of dollars through their parents’ credit cards and Paypal accounts on games and other goods without their parents’ knowledge and, despite concerns raised by game developers and solutions suggested by internal analysts, did nothing to fix the issue, according to a trove of documents unsealed from a 2012 class action lawsuit.” – Variety
Director Michael Greif Reimagines ‘Rent’ For Live TV
Greif staged both the original off-and-then-on-Broadway production (1996-2008) and a 2011-12 Off-Broadway revival, and he’s now directing Rent: Live, airing this Sunday on Fox. Diep Tran talks to director and cast about how they’re reconfiguring the show for a live audience of 1,500 plus a TV audience they hope will be in the millions. — American Theatre
Jonas Mekas’s Final Interview: ‘The Best Commercial Cinema Today Is Action Cinema’
“The plots are invented on the spot. Not like Hitchcock, where every scene that follows is connected with the final scene. In the action movie, it is more like the style of The Arabian Nights.” (Mekas’s favorite recent film? Lady Bird. “It is the only one that deals with real life and succeeds.”) — The Guardian
Netflix Is Dribbling Out Viewer Numbers. Traditional Hollywood Is Pissed
As Netflix continues to grow, this game of peekaboo has become increasingly irksome to other studios as well as talent agencies, some of which feel that Netflix’s lack of transparency gives it an unfair competitive advantage. – Los Angeles Times