Thompson on Hollywood

Stringray Sam: Coming Soon to Screens of All Sizes

Just as several folks steered me to check out Stingray Sam, the episodic six-part serial musical space-western designed for mobile phones that debuted at Sundance 2009, writer-director-musician Cory McAbee, one of many filmmakers these days taking distribution into their own hands, posted the following:

By Anne Thompson
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September 3, 2009 4:38 AM
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LACMA Update

As the dust settles around the film program controversy at the Los Angeles County Museum, it's starting to look like director Michael Govan was as clever as a fox. Clearly, he wasn't happy with the way the film program was going. Announcing that he was shutting it down was a way to alert the media, improve attendance this summer, designate the film program as a curatorial department, and raise some badly needed funds to expand the programming. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Warner Warner Cable and Ovation TV saved the program through 2010 with $150,000 in pledges. The NYT reports.

By Anne Thompson
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August 30, 2009 10:15 AM
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LACMA Film Program Saved, Housing Unit for Aged to Close

There's good news and bad news.

By Anne Thompson
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August 26, 2009 8:19 AM
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Avatar Day

James Cameron himself wasn't happy that the Avatar online trailer preceded the Avatar Day IMAX 3-D screenings on Friday. The reason that happened, according to Fox, is that the trailer went out at the same time as the first 10 AM screenings in New Zealand Tokyo on the other side of the world. It was a synchronous global release. The Apple site was so overwhelmed with clicks that it crashed at first. More than 4 million people streamed the Avatar trailer on that first day, breaking the prior record of 1.7 million set by Star Trek. So that was good news for Fox. Curiosity was high.

By Anne Thompson
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August 22, 2009 6:40 AM
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Scorsese Writes Letter Protesting LACMA Film Shut-Down

Here is director Martin Scorsese's open letter to Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, who actually sat down and talked with his recently laid-off program director Ian Birnie this month while they both vacationed in the Hamptons. In July, Govan told Birnie he was losing his job after 13 years without ever giving him the chance to alter his programming or improve attendance. Birnie, who was job hunting back East, says that Govan had no idea what kind of reaction his hasty decision to shutter the film program this October would inspire from the film community. Govan has agreed to meet with the Save Film at LACMA group. UPDATE: The meet is confirmed for September 1.

By Anne Thompson
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August 12, 2009 9:51 AM
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Save LACMA Film Protests

My e-mail is inundated by folks who want to save the LA County Museum of Art film program. L.A. film fans are pissed that LACMA saw fit to close it down before most of us knew that it was threatened. Here are eloquent editorials from critics Todd McCarthy and Ken Turan.

By Anne Thompson
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August 10, 2009 12:13 PM
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Comic-Con: Disney 3-D Panel Showcases Burton, Depp, Zemeckis, Tron Legacy

Thursday was a long day. The official Comic-Con movie program began in Hall H with Disney's 3-D panel. "A lot of you are going to stay here all day," said host Patton Oswalt. The 6000-strong crowd roared. Bob Zemeckis broke his Comic-Con cherry with footage from the start of Christmas Carol, which stars Jim Carrey in five roles. Instead of heavy make-up, it's the Zemeckis brand of motion capture (in 3D and IMAX 3D), which I find stilted. (People tell me that seeing Polar Express in IMAX was transformative.) The audience went "Ooooh" when they first put on their 3D glasses as Scrooge inspected Marley's dead body and was visited by his green, chained ghost. "It's a ghost story," Zemeckis said.

By Anne Thompson
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July 24, 2009 3:12 AM
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First Look: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

USA Today presents a first look at Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter and Anne Hathaway, pictured here as the Mad Hatter and the white and red queens, respectively. The on-line story allows you to explore cool large photos via zooms.

By Anne Thompson
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June 21, 2009 6:45 AM
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Cannes Day One: Up Up and Away

Cannes master promoter Thierry Fremaux knows what he is doing: the photo taken from the Debussy stage of the Cannes press corps wearing 3-D glasses will be seen everywhere. (They had to be returned.) I started out the morning in tears during Up , which as Disney chairman Dick Cook puts it, is Pixar's "most emotional film." Co-writers Bob Peterson and Pete Docter took the idea of an old guy who travels in a house carried aloft by balloons to find a lost South American paradise, and worked it over for a good two years before it passed enough muster to go into voice casting and animation.

By Anne Thompson
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May 13, 2009 4:19 AM
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3-D Conquers NAB

I'm out of my element in Vegas for my first-ever National Association of Broadcasters convention. Monday I did a Q & A with stop-motion auteur Henry Selick, who ran some nifty clips from Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and the surprise $74-million hit Coraline, which is starting to open in Europe. View this photo.