Thompson on Hollywood

Sundance 2012 Revisited: Top Ten Winners, Theatrical Numbers Down, VOD Profits Up (Charts)

Festivals

As the buying frenzy for Sundance 2013 begins -- bolstered by the unexpected Oscar nominations for last year's grand jury prize-winner "Beasts of the Southern Wild" -- let's look at what happened to the rest of the 2012 acquisitions. Last year, the prices for top films fell a bit below 2011, after several high-profile acquisitions underperformed...

By Tom Brueggemann
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January 17, 2013 6:00 AM
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Sundance Institute's Artists Services Program Announces New Digital Titles 'Primer,' 'Hipster,' 'Detropia,' 'The Slaughter Rule' and More

News

Sundance Institute Artists Services, In collaboration with Cinedigm Entertainment Group/New Video, announces the SI films releasing today on various digital platforms. Check here to watch them. The Artist Services program provides filmmakers with exclusive opportunities for self-distribution...

By Sophia Savage
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January 15, 2013 4:59 PM
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Now and Then: 'Enlightened,' HBO's Masterpiece of Heartbreak

Reviews

"Enlightened" opens with Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) gag-sobbing in a bathroom stall, mascara streaking down her cheeks in mournful black rivulets. Like the rest of Season 1 of HBO's masterpiece, which returns for Season 2 on Sunday at 9:30, it isn't all that funny. But to call "Enlightened" simply a comedy is unjust: it's a symphony of regret.

By Matt Brennan
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January 7, 2013 2:01 PM
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Now and Then: 'Justified' and the Anti-Antihero

Television

Tony Soprano. Dexter Morgan. Walter White. Television's latest "Golden Age," on cable and in the ancillary afterlife, is full of men who break bad. Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), the U.S. Marshall at the heart of "Justified," may not be squeaky clean, but he's a saint by comparison — and the key to the series' subtle genius.

By Matt Brennan
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January 3, 2013 7:22 AM
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MOD (Manufactured on Demand) Moves into Blu-Rays

Features

Hollywood is always looking for new ways and new places to sell its movies. In 1982, Barry Diller, one of the smartest men ever to run a Hollywood studio, told me that the decisions he and the other studio heads were then making about new technologies – basic cable, pay-cable, satellite television. Pay-Per-View, videocassettes and videodiscs – “will dictate the makeup of this industry 20 years from now.”

By Aljean Harmetz
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January 3, 2013 6:26 AM
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DVD Review: 'The Words' Has A Serious Case of Writer's Block

Reviews

It would be easy to come away from "The Words" with the impression that writing is a stiff, musty line of work — all grand ballrooms, solemn readings, and blue-blooded accents, a veritable Titanic of pretensions. This would be a mistake. The only sinking ship here is the film itself.

By Matt Brennan
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December 26, 2012 6:11 AM
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Now and Then: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Reviews

Early in "Meet Me in St. Louis," Esther Smith (Judy Garland) pines for the boy next door. Lent silky grace by Garland's perfect warble, Esther describes love — and, by extension, Vincente Minnelli's 1944 classic. "I want it to be something strange and wonderful," she says. "Something I'll always remember."

By Matt Brennan
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December 24, 2012 2:51 PM
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Blu-ray Review: Smoldering Dietrich is Von Sternberg's 'Blue Angel' in Kino Restoration

Reviews

“The Blue Angel,” a crowning achievement of Weimar cinema and the most famous of the seven collaborations between director Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, is newly on Blu-ray from Kino. The finely restored transfer, with sharp picture quality and crisp sound highlighting Von Sternberg’s early-talkie innovations, is the original German-language version. (Two versions were shot simultaneously in 1930 -- the lesser known English-language version was long considered a lost film until its discovery in the early 2000s.)

By Beth Hanna
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December 19, 2012 2:38 PM
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Now and Then: The Rachel Weisz Argument, or the Best Performers of the Year

Reviews

Last week, the NYFCC awarded Rachel Weisz its Best Actress prize for her sumptuous period turn in "The Deep Blue Sea," and well-deserved it was. But it reminded me of what I'm calling the Rachel Weisz Argument: an actor's entire body of work in a given year is a better measure of "best."

By Matt Brennan
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December 11, 2012 4:49 PM
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Cinema Guild Acquires DVD and VOD Rights for Terence Nance's Gotham Winner 'An Oversimplification of Her Beauty'

News

The Cinema Guild has picked up U.S. home video, digital and non-theatrical distribution rights for Terence Nance's recent Gotham Award-winner "An Oversimplification of Her Beauty." The filmmakers will release the film theatrically in 2013, followed by a DVD and VOD release via Cinema Guild.