Thompson on Hollywood

Academy Selects Scientific Achievement Short List

The Motion Picture Academy's scientific and technical awards committee has selected 15 achievements for further awards consideration. Now anyone else with similar devices or prior claims can offer their achievements to the committee, by August 31.

By Anne Thompson
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August 20, 2010 5:36 AM
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Ranking Stanley Kubrick: Top Ten Directors, Top Twenty Flickchart Movies

My most recent online time-waster (along with Flickchart) is Formspring, which asks you questions and posts your answers on various social media. For example, when asked to name my top ten directors of all time, I came up with this list:

By Anne Thompson
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August 12, 2010 4:02 AM
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3-D Stats are Trending Down

Hollywood would like to think that 3-D cures all ills. But the stats don't lie, as a discerning public picks and chooses the 3-D movies that are clearly worth paying a premium for. Check out The Wrap's analylsis of 3-D performance. The studios may want to reconsider throwing good money after bad when they try to buttress their returns on a bad B-movie with retrofitted 3-D. I quickly started to tune out Step Up 3-D, which actually had some good dancing, which I would much rather have seen in good old-fashioned 2-D. The intrusive 3-D wore out its welcome real fast. (Variety's Justin Chang disagrees.)

By Anne Thompson
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August 4, 2010 7:04 AM
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Pixar is Hiring

Are you a John Lasseter or Brad Bird wannabe? Check this out. The place I have always fantasized about working--assuming that I had the necessary skill-set, which I don't--is Pixar, in Emeryville, in the Bay Area. I actually applied for a long-shot marketing job there once. Not only do they make the best movies on the planet, year in year out--ten for ten blockbusters to date, and I'll lay odds that Toy Story 3 beats How to Train Your Dragon and takes this year's number one summer spot--but I've visited the campus, and it's fabulous. It's the kind of place where bicycles line the hallways and folks like Lasseter use their offices to display their toy collections. These people are not only seriously talented, but seriously cool.

By Anne Thompson
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June 1, 2010 7:23 AM
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3-D Divide: Upfront vs. Retrofit

No one in Hollywood will listen now that Avatar and Alice in Wonderland have scored the mother-lode of grosses as 3-D movies. Could Alice have done as well in 2-D as a perfect match between name director, beloved children's book, and family-friendly studio? No, confirms Disney, because 70% of its grosses came from 3-D screens.

By Anne Thompson
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March 31, 2010 1:29 AM
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Things I Learned at the Oscar Nominee Mixer

I pulled into the Beverly Hilton for the annual Academy Nominees lunch alongside Quentin Tarantino (pictured with Academy president Tom Sherak). At the press table, an Academy staffer asked me turn the handle to spit out a ball telling me where I'd be sitting.

By Anne Thompson
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February 16, 2010 3:13 AM
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Disney's Next Move: Who Will Replace Cook?

Something had to give at Disney. But motion picture chief Dick Cook was such a fixture at the studio that despite Disney chairman Robert Iger's public complaints about the quality of the movies, I figured production chief Oren Aviv would be the target. Disney's output has been suspect ever since Aviv replaced Nina Jacobson at the studio. Cook, who over 38 years rose up through the ranks to run distribution before he took over running movies, was clearly comfortable with Aviv, who came from the marketing side, but had written the high-concept hit, National Treasure. So Cook and Aviv were both strong marketers, but hit a rough box office patch in the last year.

By Anne Thompson
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September 20, 2009 8:48 AM
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Critics Faves: Arty or Artful?

In the fall season, as hundreds of movies are launched and weighed at film festivals, critics come into their own. They don't hold much sway with audiences in the summer. But in the fall, suddenly, what they think does matter.

By Anne Thompson
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August 31, 2009 8:58 AM
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Weekly Oscar-Talk Podcast Debut

I am happy to announce the debut of a weekly Friday kudo-podcast with In Contention's Kris Tapley. Here's the first Oscar Talk. We discuss the awards hopefuls so far and likely contenders coming out of upcoming fests; Meryl Streep’s remarkable emergence as a 60-year-old movie star; how the ten best picture slots could effect the Oscar race; new indie distribs Overture, Summit and Apparition; changing trends in Oscar campaigns; Paramount pushing Shutter Island to 2010; how Avatar Day went; and a Toronto preview.

By Anne Thompson
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August 28, 2009 6:22 AM
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Awards buzz, Indie News, Disney Confab

In Indie news, despite Inglourious Basterds' rousing start, the Weinsteins aren't out of the woods. They weren't taking any chances. They upped their media spend by several millions in the week before the opening, targeting their weakest link, women. It worked. The WSJ explains why the Weinsteins face a long road ahead.