Todd McCarthy got some good news and bad news Monday. While he lost his job (after 31 years) as chief critic at venerable trade Variety, he will go to the Cannes International Film Festival as the newest member of the New York Film Festival selection committee. The official announcement is expected shortly came Friday. McCarthy talks to the NYT.
Last year the Film Society added two film critics, ex-Time Out New York reviewer Melissa Anderson and ex-Voice film editor Dennis Lim, to the committee, joining LA Weekly film editor Scott Foundas (who has since joined the Film Society of Lincoln Center as an associate programmer) and Voice critic Jim Hoberman, whose term has since expired and was not extended. There had been speculation that Film Society director Mara Manus would rejigger the composition of the committee in hope of winding up with a more audience-friendly NYFF programme.
As McCarthy considers his options, no talks have begun with Variety regarding his freelance status, leaving the trade’s Cannes coverage up in the air. McCarthy used to coordinate a global slate of reviews with London-based Derek Elley. Junior critic and copy editor Justin Chang is the only Variety staffer who is in a position to glue the Cannes coverage together. In other words, if Variety had really wanted to keep on critics McCarthy, Elley and David Rooney as freelance contributors, editor Tim Gray did nothing to set that up in advance and by summarily laying them off (btw, I object to the The Wrap’s over-dramatic use of the word “fired”), alienated the marquee names he says he intended to keep on board.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, Cannes, NYFF, Media, Reviews, Writers, Critics on March 10, 2010 at 12:12pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
On Friday afternoons folks start to relax and hang on Twitter. This afternoon was particularly rich with delights. First, Deadline.com editrix Nikki Finke tweeted to refute USA Today staffer Anthony Breznican’s assertion that a publicist pitched him to have Finke appear on his radio show, even though he doesn’t have one. (I have heard Finke, who doesn’t go out much, do radio interviews.)
@NikkiFinke: “someone is punking the news media by offering me as an interview. Neither I nor Deadline.com has ever employed a publicist.”
Maybe not directly. Here’s the email pitch that Breznican received from Hollywood Life publicist Marigo S. Mihalos:
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Web/Tech, Twitter on February 19, 2010 at 5:17pm PST | Permalink | Comments (4)
I was as unhappy as anyone with the last iteration of At the Movies—the disastrous match-up of celeb-hugger Ben Lyons and Hollywood scion Ben Mankiewicz. But the latter, at least, had some potential as a professional cinephile, if not a serious film critic (I am blissfully happy with the current hosts, evenly-matched alpha males Michael Phillips and Tony Scott).
With their promise to deliver “entermation” (a word that offends me), I doubt that I am the target audience for this young-male-skewed show, but I will dutifully check out the Turner Classic Movie host’s new internet video talk show What the Flick?! with partners Rotten Tomatoes’ editor-in-chief Matt Atchity and Mank’s one-time co-host on The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, a blogger for The Huffington Post. The weekly talk show launches live on February 19 at 2 pm PT/5 pm ET through the The Young Turks (TYT) Internet Hub. Like producer The Young Turks, What the Flick?! will have its own YouTube channel.
Presumably, separate from micro-managing TV producers and demo-chasing, this show has a chance at being what the hosts promise: unscripted, irreverent and unfiltered. That’s a plus.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Media, Reviews, Web/Tech, YouTube, Writers, Critics on February 17, 2010 at 4:22pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
“8 Days to Go,” warns the headline on the home page of venerable U.K.-based trade Screen International’s website. Following Variety’s lead, the international trade will go behind a “subscription barrier” on February 25, announced Screen editor Mike Goodridge in the Berlin daily. UPDATE: Here are more details..
From next month Screen Weekly will be a new digital product, carrying all the information and news previously found in the print weekly. Screen International will become a monthly magazine with more analysis, industry insight and in-depth box office data…Mike Goodridge, the recently appointed editor of Screen International, who is now based in London after 12 years as US editor, said: “We are responding to the changes in the way people need information in this market and what our readers have told us. We are putting digital at the heart of what we do in terms of daily news, box office information and reviews.
Another one bites the dust. Will The Hollywood Reporter follow? These trades must know what they’re doing with their numbers. But I maintain that Variety lost Mike Fleming to Deadline.com because he wanted to be seen, in the conversation, a visible player. And that he is. No star writer wants to settle for invisibility when he can make news. More than ever, making news is about causing a ripple that reaches as many people as possible.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Media on February 17, 2010 at 9:35am PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
Nothing is certain until it’s over. And that’s especially true for the Oscar race.
While it’s hard to imagine anything dive-bombing Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique’s Oscar chances, Sandra Bullock is not a lock to beat Meryl Streep—although Bullock’s Santa Barbara tribute probably wowed the local Academy members on hand. Many older Academy members are rooting for Hollywood’s most-nominated actress (16 to Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn’s 12), who channeled her mother to play Julia Child, and hasn’t won an Oscar since 1983’s Sophie’s Choice. And The Hurt Locker‘s Jeremy Renner, who actually played the piano and sang on The View (clip on jump), is challenging veteran Jeff Bridges, whose singing in Crazy Heart not only makes the movie, but should win him his first Oscar. Does Renner have a shot? Most folks didn’t call Adrien Brody’s win for The Pianist. But, as Mark Harris writes in his Oscar cover story in New York Magazine, it’s Bridges’ turn.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Independents, Summit, Marketing, Media, Studios, Fox Searchlight, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros./New Line, TV, Video on February 9, 2010 at 3:16pm PST | Permalink | Comments (3)
Clearly, Jay Leno and David Letterman were not in the same room together for this Late Show Super Bowl spot. Amusing. Leno must be figuring that he’ll come out ahead on this one. UPDATE: EW has the back story. It was Dave’s idea. Oprah Winfrey tweeted as follows:
Yes that was REAL D, J and me. Shot Tuesday nite in New York undercover at D’s studio.
[Hat Tip: @eug]
by Anne Thompson, posted to Marketing, Media, TV, Video on February 7, 2010 at 4:36pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Is it Finke, Waxman or Thompson?
Writer-director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, The C-Word) and Cynthia Mort (Tell Me You Love Me) are developing a half-hour Hollywood blogger comedy series, Tilda, for HBO.
Yikes. She’ll be nasty and blonde. Trust me.
UPDATE: If they’re throwing other names out there, it’s to keep the notoriously litigious Finke at bay. Gawker called her up for a rare on-the-record interview. “Why are you so fucking fascinated with me?” Finke told them. “Get a life.” She’s saving her explanation of her relationship to the HBO show for her blog, natch.
Here’s THR, while Movieline posts casting breakdowns.
[Nikki Finke illo by Jaime Hernandez, The New Yorker]
by Anne Thompson, posted to Media, TV, HBO on February 5, 2010 at 12:46am PST | Permalink | Comments (3)
At their best, the photos in Annie Leibovitz’s 2010 Hollywood photo gallery capture feelings between the movie directors and their stars. This one of Quentin Tarantino and straight man Christoph Waltz—who will get an Oscar, even if his boss does not—-is my favorite.
Here’s Vanity Fair’s behind-the-scenes video:
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Directors, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Franchises, Avatar, Headliners, Meryl Streep, Hollywood, Media on February 3, 2010 at 5:31pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
A lot has changed in the last year for the Hollywood trades.
A year ago, Variety began a series of lay-offs (several years after the THR started trimming staff), including me. Long-time editor Peter Bart moved to being a columnist/blogger, while Tim Gray took over his post.
Also a year ago, ex-Variety exec Jennifer Wilhelmi Sargent and ex-LAT staffer Gregory Ellwood founded Hitfix. And ex-NYT reporter Sharon Waxman launched online trade The Wrap.
Changes continued at Variety. Reed Business CEO Tad Smith left, as well as a series of well-paid Variety editors (Michael Speier, Kathy Lyford and Phil Gallo), while LAT veteran Leo Wolinsky came in to run the Daily. And Variety publisher Neil Stiles, questioning the paper’s future, finally moved the beleaguered trade toward a pay wall.
Meanwhile, Nielsen sold The Hollywood Reporter to new owners. Online mogul Jay Penske rebooted Movieline and acquired Deadline Hollywood. Like many newspapers, the LAT was in a tailspin, chronically laying off staffers. And I relaunched TOH at indieWIRE, SnagFilms’ thriving New York-based online trade aimed at the smart movie sector.
Where do we stand a year later? Who’s where, who’s up and who’s down?
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Media on February 3, 2010 at 5:22pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
A swatch of pale loveliness, here are this year’s Vanity Fair photos of Hollywood ingenues. I believe the mag has done Kristen Stewart (Twilight) and Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!), at least, before. Last week, Stewart was in Sundance supporting The Runaways and Welcome to the Rileys; Rebecca Hall stole Nicole Holefcener’s Please Give at Sundance; Mia Wasikowska was also there, starring as one of the Kids Are All Right. She plays the title role in Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland, which should break her out even more.
Here’s the Vanity Fair story.
[Annie Leibovitz photo from left: Stewart, Abbie Cornish (Bright Star), probable Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan (An Education), Seyfried, Hall, Wasikowska, Emma Stone (Zombieland), Evan Rachel Wood (Across the Universe), and Anna Kendrick, who should also nab a supporting actress nom on Tuesday for Up in the Air.]
by Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Oscars, Franchises, Twilight on February 1, 2010 at 9:46am PST | Permalink | Comments (11)
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