Thompson on Hollywood

#SXSW : Gondry Goes Animated with Daniel Clowes' Megalomania

Michael Gondry is a marvel--and I would have loved a longer chat than this flip-cam quickie, which skates across his SXSW doc The Thorn in the Heart, about his school teacher aunt Suzette, who the family used to visit deep in the country in the summer. He wanted partly to capture a vanishing world.

By Anne Thompson
|
March 15, 2010 4:59 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

SXSW Preview: Rodriguez, Kick-Ass, Predators

Gold Film/Interactive Badge and packet of party tickets in hand, I'm plugged into a power strip in the main courtyard at the Austin Convention Center. (The wi-fi sucks.) On my way downtown, I drove the wrong way onto several one-way streets, including a train track. I am safely parked in the convention lot, which costs $7 a day, but the guy let me in for free when I offered an out-of-state check.

By Anne Thompson
|
March 13, 2010 12:06 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Oscar Red Carpet Fashion: Firth, Parker, Cruz, Banks

On the red carpet at the Oscars, as Hollywood's Beautiful People glided by in their Oscar designer duds, a few came over to talk to Jeanne Wolf, the BBC and the In-Style reporter, whose job it was to flag as many people as possible about what they were wearing. I picked up a few of them on the flip cam.

By Anne Thompson
|
March 10, 2010 12:50 AM
|
3 Comments

More:

Oscar Video Round-Up: Opener, Chartier, Hurt Locker Victory Laps, Parties, Fashion

There's some juicy Oscar material out there about the most-watched show in five years. At the Governor's Ball, Sandra Bullock was among the nominees getting her Oscar engraved (everyone got their own statues engraved except Jeff Bridges; notable no-shows were Tivi Magnusson, producer of short The New Tenants, and Sandy Powell, costume designer of Young Victoria). Exhausted producer Bill Mechanic said that he and Adam Shankman had aimed for a more populist show (his red carpet interview is below).

By Anne Thompson
|
March 9, 2010 1:19 AM
|
2 Comments

More:

Oscar Red Carpet Video: Psyihoyas Talks The Cove

On the red carpet before his documentary feature Oscar win, The Cove director Louie Psyihoyas previewed some of the things he would try to say on stage--before being played off--and backstage as well.

By Anne Thompson
|
March 8, 2010 11:05 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Oscar Red Carpet Video: Weinstein, Villaraigosa, Gaiman, Banderas

It was thick and fast on the Oscar red carpet, so rather than take notes, pictures or tweet, I whipped out my handy flip cam:

By Anne Thompson
|
March 8, 2010 11:00 AM
|
2 Comments

More:

Oscar Red Carpet Video: Media Moguls

"The lines are still open," said Disney chairman Robert Iger of the Cablevision/ABC dispute that is shutting the Oscar broadcast down on the Cablevision system in NYC. Local WABC can't be seen on cable in the NYC area. UPDATE: WABC-TV has gone back on in New York.

By Anne Thompson
|
March 8, 2010 12:55 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

Dennis Lehane Talks Shutter Island

The thing to remember about Shutter Island is that it's closely based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. James Cameron collaborator Laeta Kalogridis wrote the adaptation that lured Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. Read the book and you will see how closely she hewed to the original. Whatever the movie's strengths or weaknesses--and it has both--they come from the book. I'd argue that as cinematic as this paranoid thriller is, it works better as a book than a movie. That's because Scorsese faced the challenge of making this high-wire reality vs. fiction puzzle into a plausible, believable narrative that didn't throw the audience for a complete loop. Some buy it, some don't.

By Anne Thompson
|
February 24, 2010 1:34 AM
|
4 Comments

More:

Oscar Watch: Nick Hornby's Hollywood Education

Brit author Nick Hornby discovered the Lynn Barber memoir An Education and showed it to his producer wife, Amanda Posey, as a possible movie. He liked it so much he adapted it for the screen himself, something he has avoided doing with his own novels, three of which--High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, About a Boy--have been turned by other writers into damned good Hollywood movies. He did adapt his first novel Fever Pitch into a British movie starring Colin Firth. But otherwise he has kept some distance from Hollywood adaptations of his novels.

By Anne Thompson
|
February 19, 2010 5:55 AM
|
3 Comments

More:

Oscar Watch: T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham Talk Crazy Heart

After the Academy Nominees luncheon Monday at the Beverly Hilton, I repaired downstairs to do a couple of interviews pool side--along with a few other media. I flip-cammed Crazy Heart's T Bone Burnett, the tall and famous music supervisor who was instrumental in making the movie as good as it is. First, the movie wouldn't have been made without him. Burnett told old pal and jam-mate Jeff Bridges that if he would make Scott Cooper's movie, so would he. Second, Burnett insisted that the movie's backers raise enough money to do the music properly. The hand-crafted songs that fit Bridges' Bad Blake persona like a glove are what make Crazy Heart work so well. Burnett brought along songwriter Ryan Bingham, who wrote Oscar best original song front-runner "The Weary Kind."