film - Blog 2.0 - California Film Foundation2024-03-28T20:52:30Zhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/feed/tag/filmNew Threat to California Film & TV Jobshttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/threat-to-california-film-tv-jobs2022-10-21T20:41:06.000Z2022-10-21T20:41:06.000ZJohn Bordeauhttps://californiafilm.net/members/JohnBordeau<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10847060093?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>NOTE: The following is an editorial. CFF takes no position on the author's assertions.</p>
<p>Enjoying the Golden Age of film and TV franchises? Legislation rapidly moving in Sacramento could bring it all to a crashing halt. Film, television, and streaming have never given us so much content to love. In 2021 alone, nearly 950 films entered production and 560 original scripted series were released to U.S. audiences – an all-time high. Many were created here in California.</p>
<p>But those projects are only possible when complex production schedules involving hundreds – or at times even thousands – of people can be synced up to the talent’s availability. If producers can’t solve that scheduling Rubik’s Cube, audiences will lose out on captivating and continuous stories, putting California’s creative economy (which supports nearly 570,000 jobs each year) at risk.</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what a proposal being rushed through the legislature, AB 437 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, would do. By virtually banning the exclusive employment agreements used today as the foundation of film, television and streaming productions, this bill would jeopardize countless productions in this state. And while it is being sold as a “pro-artist” labor reform, in practice AB 437 would tie the hands of performers and studios as they work to negotiate creative deals that move exciting new projects forward.</p>
<p><img src="https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CultureditWWD241864Finals-1.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1" alt="The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles, California on February 12, 2021." /></p>
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<p>Exclusivity agreements for performers provide the certainty necessary for producers to finance, insure, plan for and complete major feature film, television and streaming projects, particularly those involving long-term story arcs. They assure writers and showrunners that characters developed in one season can be brought back for subsequent storylines. When fans, talent and crew all clamor for a second or third season, the tailored exclusivity agreements customary for lead actors allow everyone working on or watching a production to benefit from a continued run. In other words, they provide the foundation on which large scale and long-term productions are built – laying down the economic bedrock for everyone from screenwriters to stagehands.</p>
<p>Today, exclusivity agreements are meticulously negotiated, and producers pay handsomely for them – not just for top talent but for supporting actors and character roles. And while the term “exclusivity” suggests actors can’t take on other projects, that’s not the case. Under the carefully constructed and hard-fought exclusivity deals used in today’s productions, actors can take on a great deal of additional work and are not held off the market. Actors working on a streaming show, for example, can still appear in feature films, commercials, live theater, voice-over work, animation projects and even make guest appearances on other shows.</p>
<p>Banning these agreements would ripple through the industry, putting the livelihoods of thousands of creative professionals at risk (including those with good-paying, high-quality union jobs supported by productions) whose earnings depend upon the certainty provided by these agreements. Without assurances that talent will be available, producers will not risk investing in and creating characters or storylines that span several seasons. Many series might not go beyond a first season. Additionally, under AB 437, there is no amount of compensation that a producer could pay, and a performer could accept, in exchange for exclusive services. This proposal would needlessly tie the hands of actors and performers and prevent them from negotiating deals that serve their own interests while putting thousands of jobs and California’s cultural and creative leadership at risk.<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/43/3a/7b433aa84bc3a041d16ebe0983268294.jpg" alt="Pin on Audio Visual" /></p>
<p>The studios are being a good partner. In fact, through the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), they are negotiating right now solely on this issue, almost a year before the current collective bargaining agreement expires. This bill is a totally unnecessary invasion of negotiations and bargaining between performers and studios, including the agreements the bill would override.</p>
<p>Two earlier versions of this legislation have already failed to advance through California’s Assembly over the past two years. Now bill sponsors are seeking to take another swing in the Senate, but three strikes surely should bring this bad idea to an end for good. It simply puts too much at risk.</p>
<p>Film, television and streaming boost California’s economy, providing thousands of high-skill, high-wage jobs across the state, and cementing our cultural and creative leadership worldwide.The California Senate should reject this effort to erode the foundations of that great success.</p>
<p>By Charles Rivkin for <a href="https://variety.com/">https://variety.com/</a></p></div>John Fithian Retiring as Head of National Association of Theatre Ownershttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/john-fithian-retiring-as-head-of-national-association-of-theatre-2022-10-10T21:43:33.000Z2022-10-10T21:43:33.000ZJohn Bordeauhttps://californiafilm.net/members/JohnBordeau<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10838762672?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">John Fithian, the top lobbyist for the exhibition industry, will retire as the CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners on May 1, 2023. The group said it has already begun a search for Fithian’s successor, but he leaves big shoes to fill, having been a major force at NATO, as it is called, for 30 years.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">Initially engaged as outside counsel to NATO in 1992, Fithian assumed the presidency in 2000. In that capacity, he helped guide the group’s members through some of the most tumultuous periods in the cinema business’ history, including its transition to digital projection, as well as the COVID-19 closures that brought the industry to its knees.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">“It is nearly impossible to sum up a career of three decades in a few sentences,” Fithian said. “I will leave that to others. But my highest goal was always to leave this organization and this industry stronger and more effective than I found it — and more importantly — to ensure that it remains strong and effective after I am gone. The professional and experienced staff I leave behind and the culture of service we have built together is a legacy to be proud of.”</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">During COVID, Fithian worked with public health experts and theater owners to develop a set of safety measures and cleaning standards that enabled cinemas to reopen during the pandemic and before vaccines were widely available. He also lobbied the federal government to pass legislation providing federal loan guarantees, as well as expanded unemployment benefits and cash payments to the 150,000 cinema workers who were furloughed during the theater shutdown.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">Fithian is a smooth operator, adept at navigating the corridors of power on Capitol Hill (his father, Floyd Fithian, was a congressman from Indiana) and the c-suites of Hollywood. And he could be a passionate, unvarnished advocate for the theater owners who comprise NATO’s ranks. That was never more apparent than in his fights with studios over their many attempts to shrink the theatrical window, industry parlance for the amount of time that movies appear exclusively in cinemas. He also was a notable skeptic about the push by media companies to grow streaming at the expense of theatrical as a way to compete with Netflix. In that, he may have been proven partly right. After shrinking windows to a matter of weeks in some cases, studios have been actually expanding the amount of time they are keeping films solely in theaters as a way to maximize their box office revenue. Monthly streaming subscriptions, it seems, do not pay as much as ticket sales, VOD rentals and other licensing opportunities.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">“John’s impact on the movie theater industry is profound and lasting,” said NATO Chairman Rolando Rodriguez. “Whether in Hollywood, Washington, D.C., or internationally, NATO’s reach and effectiveness as an advocate for the movie theater industry has grown and sharpened under John’s leadership. We have big shoes to fill, and we offer John our profoundest thanks for all his years of service.”</p><div id="adm-inline-article-ad-2" class="admz"><div class="adma boomerang"><div class="pmc-adm-boomerang-pub-div ad-text"><div id="gpt-dsk-tab-mid-article2-uid1" class="adw-300 adh-250">By Brent Lang for <a href="https://variety.com/">https://variety.com/</a></div></div></div></div></div>Midnight Club Breaks Record for Most Jump Scareshttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/midnight-club-breaks-record-for-most-jump-scares2022-10-10T21:21:46.000Z2022-10-10T21:21:46.000ZAmy Whiteheadhttps://californiafilm.net/members/AmyWhitehead<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10836798500?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">The “Midnight Mass” and “Haunting of Hill House” mastermind packed 21 separate instances of the classic horror trope into the premiere of his latest <a id="auto-tag_netflix" href="https://variety.com/t/netflix/">Netflix</a> series, “The <a id="auto-tag_midnight-club" href="https://variety.com/t/midnight-club/">Midnight Club</a>,” a tally so high it actually breaks the Guinness World Record for “most scripted jump scares in a single television episode.”</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">A Guinness World Record official presented Mike Flanagan and Co. their certificate for the achievement during the “Midnight Club’s” <a id="auto-tag_new-york-comic-con" href="https://variety.com/t/new-york-comic-con/">New York Comic Con</a> panel Thursday night, which included a preview of the premiere episode ahead of the show’s Friday launch. </p><p>Flanagan’s Intrepid Pictures producing partner Trevor Macy jumped in: “There’s a meme about it, especially with movies, ‘Put more jump scares in the first act, it doesn’t work!'”</p><p>Based on the work of YA horror author Christopher Pike, “The Midnight Club” is set at a hospice for terminally ill young adults, where eight patients come together every night at midnight to tell each other stories — and make a pact that the next of them to die will give the group a sign from the beyond. The format of the show allowed Flanagan and co-creator Leah Fong to “abandon tone at any point depending on who was telling the story,” per Flanagan, which gave them the chance to hit 21 jump scares in the premiere, including the “dumb throw-a-cat-across-the-foreground jump scare” and the “unexpected-teleport jump scare,” among others.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">“The Midnight Club,” which launches its 10-episode first season is already released on Netflix, stars Heather Langenkamp, Iman Benson, Igby Rigney, Adia, Aya Furukawa, Sauriyan Sapkota, Annarah Cymone, Chris Sumpter and Ruth Codd.</p><div class="article-tags // a-children-icon-bullet lrv-u-font-family-primary u-letter-spacing-012 lrv-u-line-height-large lrv-u-color-brand-primary">By Jennifer Maas on <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/midnight-club-jump-scares-record-mike-flanagan-1235394859/" target="_blank">Variety.com</a></div></div>ACADEMY CLAIMS 'APOLLO 10 1/2 NOT ANIMATED FILMhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/academy-claims-apollo-10-1-2-not-animate-film2022-10-10T20:46:08.000Z2022-10-10T20:46:08.000ZRudolph Montana Evenhousehttps://californiafilm.net/members/RudolphMontanaEvenhouse<div><div class="post-inner"><div class="entry-content"><div class="jumbotron container-fluid"><img class="attachment-feature-thumb size-feature-thumb wp-post-image" src="https://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/apollo-1280x600.jpg" alt="apollo-1280x600.jpg" />Richard Linklater’s <em>Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood</em>, an original Netflix animated feature released earlier this year, was rejected by the Academy for consideration in the upcoming best animated feature race, and its filmmakers are speaking about the snub.</div><p>As reported by Indiewire, the Academy sent a letter in September explaining their decision, saying that it “does not feel that the techniques meet the definition of animation in the category rules” due to the “extensive use” of live-action footage.</p><p>Linklater and Netflix have since filed an appeal to the Academy, but have yet to hear back despite several follow-up requests. According to the Indiewire report, the Academy has declined to comment on the situation, but eligibility standards are scheduled to be assessed by the branch executive committee this fall</p></div></div><div class="PicoSignal cb-advert cb-dt ad-wrap ad-feed ad-970x450"><div class="ad-inner"><ins><div id="beacon_6a11a45602"><img src="https://www.reachoutmedia.com/reachout-control/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=4311&campaignid=1117&zoneid=30&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cartoonbrew.com%2Ffeature-film%2Fapollo-10-1-2-oscars-rotoscope-linklater-222019.html&referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&cb=6a11a45602" alt="" width="0" height="0" /></div></ins></div></div><div class="post-inner"><div class="entry-content continue-column"><p>For now, Linklater and producer Tommy Pallotta are speaking out about the perceived injustice and an Academy bias against rotoscoping. According to them, the technology was used on less than 20% of the film.</p><p>“The only rotoscope in the film is the outline of the characters,” Pallotta told Indiewire. “That’s it. Everything else is animated.”</p><p>He went on, “I feel like if I’ve been caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare where someone is saying something isn’t real and I know it’s real. I’ve been producing rotoscope animation for 25 years, and I’m done with people telling me it’s not animation. It’s just such an insult.”</p><p>Animation for <em>Apollo 10 1/2</em> was executed by Austin’s Minnow Mountain and Dutch outfit Submarine, which handled the film’s rotoscoping.</p><p>Linklater’s concerns about the Academy’s decision extend beyond just his film.</p><p>“This decision cuts off the creative flow for a certain kind of animated movie,” he explained to Indiewire. “Will anyone greenlight something like this if it can’t get nominated?”</p><p>Indiewire was also given access to a letter that Linklater wrote to the Academy in which he compared the frame-by-frame redrawing in <em>Apollo 10 1/2</em> to that used in 2017 Oscar nominee <em>Loving Vincent.</em></p><p>In the letter, he explained:</p><blockquote><p>This naturalistic style is not a technical choice but rather an artistic choice in the crucial area of how I want the film to look and feel. It is accomplished by the hard work of animators drawing character motion and performances frame by frame, not a side effect of some hidden software or automatic process.</p></blockquote><p>Around the time of the film’s release, Linklater said that the animation process used for <em>Apollo</em> differed from his previous rotoscope animated outings – <em>Waking Life</em> and <em>A Scanner Darkly</em> – in that:</p><blockquote><p>[E]verything had to be designed and created . . . [and] to achieve all the necessary textures (vintage period, comic book, newsreel documentary, grandiose fantasy, realistic character piece), it would require a playful combination of various techniques such as 3d and some minimal performance capture within the character animation.</p></blockquote><p>He additionally explained that the animation crew went to great lengths to achieve the film’s 1960s patina:</p><blockquote><p>The beautiful look of Kodachrome film is where we started. We decided to animate on 2s to give it a retro feel and chose handmade animation over digital effects. We thought of new ways to show the different textures and designs to mirror the analog world and subjective and creative memory of Stan [The film’s protagonist] … We also invited our animators to leave their fingerprints on the film and celebrate the collective creativity of our artists and feel their impressions all over the film.</p><p> </p><p>Written by Jamie Lang for Cartoon Brew</p></blockquote></div></div></div>Chris Pratt’s Mario Voice Baffles Fanshttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/chris-pratt-mario-voice2022-10-07T00:55:10.000Z2022-10-07T00:55:10.000ZJohn Bordeauhttps://californiafilm.net/members/JohnBordeau<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10836178069?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">The trailer for Universal Pictures and Nintendo’s "The Super Mario Bros Movie" has debuted, bringing with it a first listen of Chris Pratt's Mario voice. The actor told Variety earlier this year that he “worked really closely with the directors” to craft the perfect Mario voice, adding, “[We tried] out a few things and landed on something that I’m really proud of.”</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">So what does Pratt’s Mario voice sound like? He only gets two brief lines of dialogue in the trailer (“What is this place?” and “Mushroom Kingdom, here we come!”), but it was enough to send social media into a craze with reactions. Many users found Pratt’s Mario voice too similar to Pratt’s own speaking voice, which led to confusion as the actor previously touted the voice as “unlike anything” fans had heard before.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">“It’s an animated voiceover narrative,” Pratt added to Variety about the role. “It’s not a live-action movie. I’m not gonna be wearing a plumber suit running all over. I’m providing a voice for an animated character, and it is updated and unlike anything you’ve heard in the Mario world before.”</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">“Just showed the boys the Mario trailer,” The Telegraph film critic Robbie Cullin wrote. “The way they turned around and looked at me when Chris Pratt’s voice piped up is going to be making me laugh for months, if not years.”</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">In addition to Pratt, “The Super Mario Bros Movie ” also stars Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike.</p><p class="paragraph larva // lrv-u-margin-lr-auto lrv-a-font-body-m">By Zach Sharf for <a href="https://variety.com/">https://variety.com/</a></p></div>‘The Adam Project’ Now Fourth Most-Viewed Netflix Filmhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/the-adam-project-now-fourth-most-viewed-netflix-film2022-04-14T00:26:14.000Z2022-04-14T00:26:14.000ZNicole Groskreutzhttps://californiafilm.net/members/NicoleGroskreutz<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10363838463,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10363838463,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10363838463?profile=original" /></a></p><p>The Adam Project, starring Ryan Reynolds, is now Netflix’s fourth most-watched English-language film of all time, the streamer announced today, having garnered 233,150,000 views in its first 28 days on the platform.</p><p>Reynolds also currently has the globe-trotting action-comedy Red Notice and action-thriller 6 Underground on the list, at #1 and #9, respectively. The former title generated 364,020,000 in its first 28 days, with the latter drawing 205,470,000. Skydance was behind The Adam Project, as well as 6 Underground.</p><p>Other titles on the list as of today include Don’t Look Up (#2), Bird Box (#3), Extraction (#5), The Unforgivable (#6), The Irishman (#7), The Kissing Booth 2 (#8) and Spenser Confidential (#10).</p><p>Released on Netflix on March 11, The Adam Project is an action-adventure pic centered on time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed (Reynolds), who after accidentally crash-landing in 2022, teams up with his 12-year-old self (Walker Cobell) for a mission to save the future. Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldaña and Catherine Keener also star.</p><p>The film was scripted by Jonathan Tropper and T.S. Nowlin & Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin. Reynolds, Levy, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger produced, with Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen, George Dewey, Patrick Gooing, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin exec producing.</p><p>Netflix started releasing streaming numbers for around 100 countries last year, using the same metric of total streaming that Nielsen does in the U.S.</p><p>Reynolds and Levy’s partnership on The Adam Project followed their collaboration on 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy. The pair will next work together on Deadpool 3, with Levy as director, as previously announced.</p><p>Written By Matt Grobar for <a href="https://deadline.com/2022/04/the-adam-project-now-fourth-most-viewed-netflix-film-of-all-time-1235000967/" target="_blank">Deadline</a></p><p> </p><p> </p></div>ENTERTAINMENT Alec Baldwin says ‘my heart is broken’ after prop gun he fired kills cinematographer on movie sethttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/entertainment-alec-baldwin-says-my-heart-is-broken-after-prop-gun2021-10-22T21:06:37.000Z2021-10-22T21:06:37.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><div id="ArticleBody-InlineImage-106964613" class="InlineImage-imageEmbed"><div class="InlineImage-wrapper"><div class="InlineImage-imagePlaceholder"><div><div class="InlineImage-imageContainer"><img src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106964613-1634917635999-AP21295540761516.jpg?v=1634917801&w=929&h=523" alt="Alec Baldwin speaks on the phone in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in Santa Fe, N.M., after he was questioned about a shooting on the set of the film "Rust" on the outskirts of Santa Fe, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. Baldwin fired" /></div></div></div><div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCaption">Alec Baldwin speaks on the phone in the parking lot outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in Santa Fe, N.M., after he was questioned about a shooting on the set of the film “Rust” on the outskirts of Santa Fe, Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. Baldwin fired a prop gun on the set, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza, officials said.</div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit">Jim Weber |Santa Fe New Mexican via AP</div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit"> </div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit">Actor Alec Baldwin said his “heart is broken” after a prop gun he fired on a movie set Thursday killed the film’s director of photography and injured its director. Halyna Hutchins, 42, was killed and Joel Souza, 48, was injured on the set of “Rust,” a Western being filmed at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Sante Fe, New Mexico, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office.</div></div></div></div><div class="group"><div class="BoxInline-container"> </div><div class="BoxInline-container">Hutchins was transported via helicopter to the University of New Mexico Hospital where she was pronounced dead. Souza was brought to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center to undergo treatment for his injuries. He has since been released.</div><p> </p><p>“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours,” Baldwin wrote on Twitter Friday. “I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy occurred and I am in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family.”</p><p>“My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna,” he said.</p><p>According to a new report from the Los Angeles Times, half a dozen camera crew members walked off the “Rust” set just hours before the shooting in protest of working conditions. The report, which cites three anonymous sources who worked on the production, alleges that there were two previous prop gun misfires on set, one the previous week and one on Saturday.</p><div class="MidResponsive-midResponsiveContainer">Rust Movie Productions told the Los Angeles Times that it had not been made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set.</div><p>The circumstances of the shooting are under investigation. No charges have been filed.</p><p>“This case is still in its preliminary states of investigation,” said Mary Carmack-Altwies, First Judicial District Attorney, in a statement Friday. “We are assisting the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office and have offered our full support to them. At this time, we do not know if charges will be filed. We will look into all facts and evidence of the case with great discretion and have further information at a later time. Our thoughts are with all affected by this tragedy.”</p><div id="ArticleBody-InlineImage-106964423" class="InlineImage-imageEmbed"><div class="InlineImage-wrapper"><div class="InlineImage-imagePlaceholder"><div><div class="InlineImage-imageContainer"><img src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106964423-1634901727999-Untitled-1.jpg?v=1634902117&w=929&h=523" alt="Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (L), was shot and killed with a prop gun while Director Joel Souza was injured on the set of Alec Baldwin film Rust." /></div></div></div><div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCaption">Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (L), and Director Joel Souza (R). Halyna was accidentally shot and killed with a prop gun on set while Souza sustained injuries.</div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit">Getty Images</div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit"> </div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbedCredit">Hutchins graduated from the American Film Institute in 2015. She was involved in several short films before working on “Archenemy,” a 2020 feature film starring Joe Manganiello.</div></div></div></div><div class="group"><p>Originally from Ukraine, she held a graduate degree in international journalism from Kyiv National University and previously worked as an investigative journalist with British documentary productions in Europe.</p><p>In 2019, she was selected as one of American Cinematographer’s rising stars.</p><p>“All of us at Innovative Artists are heartbroken,” Hutchin’s agency said in a statement Friday. “We mourn for her family and we hope this tragedy will reveal new lessons for how to better ensure safety for every crew member on set.”</p><p>Hutchins’ death echoes that of actor Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts movie legend Bruce Lee. Brandon Lee died after he was shot by a round from a prop gun while filming for the movie “The Crow” in 1993.</p><p>“There was an accident today on the New Mexico set of Rust involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks,” a spokesperson for Baldwin said in a statement to NBC News. “Production has been halted for the time being. The safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority.”</p><p>Baldwin, 63, is a co-producer on “Rust” and plays infamous outlaw Harland Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental killing. Rust travels to Kansas to break his grandson out of prison and the two fugitives must outrun U.S. Marshal Wood Helm and bounty-hunter Fenton “Preacher” Lang.</p><p>Earlier on Thursday, Baldwin posted an photo of himself on Instagram in costume for the film, complete with what appeared to be fake blood on his shirt.</p><p>Recently known for portraying President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” and starring in the NBC comedy “30 Rock,” Baldwin has won multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards and been nominated for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.</p><p>Baldwin has hosted “SNL” 17 times, more than any other person, and starred in films like “The Departed,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and the “Mission Impossible” franchise. He was also the producer on director Souza’s film “Crown Vic.”</p><p>Baldwin has a history of losing his temper, which has included incidents leading to his arrest. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to harassment of another person in connection to a dispute over a parking spot in Manhattan in Nov. 2018. He agreed to undergo anger management counseling in that case.</p><p>Before that, police arrested him for riding his bicycle the wrong way, and for disorderly conduct after he allegedly became belligerent with the cops who stopped him.</p><p>Baldwin was also acquitted of misdemeanor battery charges after being accused of punching a freelance photographer in California in 1995, breaking the lensman’s nose.</p><p>The actor is married to Hilaria Baldwin, and they have six children together. He also has a daughter named Ireland from his previous marriage to actress Kim Basinger.</p><p><em>Disclosure: Comcast</em><em> is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.</em></p><p>Written by Sarah Whitten for CBNC</p><p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/22/alec-baldwin-fires-prop-gun-on-set-of-movie-killing-a-crew-member-and-injuring-director.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/22/alec-baldwin-fires-prop-gun-on-set-of-movie-killing-a-crew-member-and-injuring-director.html</a></p><p> </p></div></div><div class="InlineImage-imageEmbed"> </div></div>What will shut down if Hollywood crews strike? Your IATSE questions, answeredhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/what-will-shut-down-if-hollywood-crews-strike-your-iatse-question2021-10-15T20:42:56.000Z2021-10-15T20:42:56.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><div class="page-lead-media"><img class="image" src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/93cfabb/2147483647/strip/true/crop/6720x4480+0+0/resize/840x560!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F37%2F8f%2F1fadfebd49f6a3f5450b0ea71fc2%2Fla-photos-1staff-846037-fi-hollywood-workers-ready-to-strike-03-mjc.jpg" alt="?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F37%2F8f%2F1fadfebd49f6a3f5450b0ea71fc2%2Fla-photos-1staff-846037-fi-hollywood-workers-ready-to-strike-03-mjc.jpg" /><div class="figure-content"><div class="figure-caption">Donna Young of IATSE Local 700 Motion Picture Editors Guild writes a message of “fair wages for all” on a union member’s car during a Sept. L.A. rally</div><div class="figure-credit">(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)</div></div></div><div class="byline"><div class="authors"> </div><span class="published-date-day">OCT. 14, 2021 </span><span class="published-time">10:31 PM PT</span></div><div class="page-article-container"><div class="page-article-body"><div class="rich-text-article-body"><div class="rich-text-article-body-content rich-text-body"><p>At 12:01 am on Monday, 60,000 TV and film crew members could stage an historic strike.</p><p>International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees President Matthew Loeb said union members would walk off the job if they could not hash out a new contract with the major studios by Monday.</p><p>A strike would halt productions nationwide and pose a major blow to one of Southern California’s most important industries.</p><p>Here is what you need to know about a potential IATSE strike:</p><p><strong>What is IATSE ?</strong></p><p>IATSE represents 150,000 technical workers employed across the entertainment industry, including stagehands who work in theater productions and concerts. But it is the 60,000 IATSE members working in film and television who are poised to strike on Monday.</p><p>This union is composed of 13 Hollywood IATSE locals representing cinematographers, hairdressers, grips, makeup artists, sound editors, on-set dressers and other below-the-line workers. Also included is an additional 23 union locals that represent workers outside Los Angeles and New York.</p><p>The strike would be unprecedented for IATSE, which has traditionally avoided confrontations with the studios to keep its members working. It would be the first in the union’s 128-year history and affect workers in such production hubs of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta. The union has staged much smaller walkouts, such as in 2018 when 300 national freelance broadcast workers at the Golf Channel went on strike for 11 days.</p><p><strong>What do they want?</strong></p><p>IATSE has been pushing for various improvements to its contract with studios, including demands for higher wages and increased compensation from streaming productions.</p><p>Streaming shows pay crews less than traditional broadcast networks because years ago they were considered “new media” and crews wanted to foster new modes of employment. But now they see streaming is booming and that pandemic-driven home viewing has boosted the stock prices of these companies.</p><p>Another big sticking point: long hours. The union argues that as studios have tried to make up for lost time caused by production shutdowns, they have subjected workers to increasingly long hours on set, creating unsafe working conditions.</p><p>Studios, still recovering from heavy financial losses caused by the pandemic, have disputed the union’s claims. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of companies such as Walt Disney and Netflix, says it has offered increases in rest periods and wage hikes for the lowest-paid members and has agreed to cover a projected $400-million deficit in the union’s health and pension plans.</p><p><strong>Why have they set a deadline to strike?</strong></p><p>IATSE’s main contract for film and TV workers expired on July 31. It was extended until Sept. 10, in part to allow unions and studios time to renegotiate a return-to-work agreement that covers COVID-19 safety protocols, pay and sick leave.</p><p>But union leaders have grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress in five months of talks. They secured a strike authorization vote this month that drew nearly unanimous support.</p><p>“Without an end date, we could keep talking forever,” Loeb said Wednesday.</p><p><strong>Who will be affected by a strike?</strong></p><p>Some 60,000 workers employed on dramatic, scripted TV shows and feature films will walk off the job if no deal is reached by Monday.</p><p>Crews employed under different contracts, such as those covering commercial shoots, music videos, low-budget theatrical shoots and live sports, can continue to work. Additionally, crews who work on nonunionized reality TV series and other unscripted programs may also be unaffected.</p><p>Some productions that air first on premium cable channels such as HBO, Showtime and Starz could also continue, as they fall under a separate contract that runs through the end of 2022, according to the IATSE pay TV contracts. There may be gray areas that will require labor attorneys to figure out whether shows can proceed.</p><p>Those on strike will not be able to claim unemployment benefits in states like California. IATSE does not have a strike fund to assist members, though some locals do have hardship funds and some are sharing tips on how to subsist without paychecks.</p><p>Also affected will be small businesses that supply various services to industry, such as prop houses, transport companies, catering companies, dry cleaners, costume houses and equipment rental outlets.</p><p><strong>How will my TV shows or movies be affected?</strong></p><p>Studios would not be able to replace union crews, in effect shutting down the vast majority of scripted TV and feature film production nationwide.</p><p>“This is a unique circumstance because these are highly skilled workers, not to mention the hazard of untrained workers dealing with, for example, heavy equipment and electricity,” said Helen Rella, an employment attorney at New York-based firm Wilk Auslander.</p><p>Some shows such as ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will come off the air immediately. Others could have episode release dates delayed or even canceled, depending on how long a strike lasts.</p><p>Late-night talk shows on NBC and CBS — NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden” — would not be affected as they are largely staffed by workers from a different union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.</p><p>Shutting down a film production after it starts can be extremely costly for producers. Even a short stoppage could throw productions into chaos as A-list actors often have only short windows to film their scenes before they are lost to another project.</p><p>Written by Anousha Sakoui and Meg James for the Los Angeles Times.</p><p><a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-14/hollywood-crews-strike-iatse-what-you-need-to-know">https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-14/hollywood-crews-strike-iatse-what-you-need-to-know</a></p></div></div></div></div></div>Disney Is Making a Movie About the Creation of Disneylandhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/disney-is-making-a-movie-about-the-creation-of-disneyland2021-10-13T01:32:24.000Z2021-10-13T01:32:24.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><div class="u-margin-l-6@desktop-xl"><div class="article-header //"><div class="article-header__feature // u-margin-lr-n050@mobile-max"><div class="c-lazy-image"><div class="lrv-a-crop-16x9"><img class="c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto" src="https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/disneyland218280.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1" alt="disneyland218280.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1" /></div></div><cite class="lrv-u-font-size-10 u-font-size-11@tablet u-letter-spacing-005 u-color-brand-secondary-80 u-font-family-basic lrv-u-line-height-large">Michael Buckner/Variety</cite></div><div class="article-header__feature // u-margin-lr-n050@mobile-max"> </div></div></div><div class="a-content a-content--logo-end u-font-family-body lrv-u-line-height-normal lrv-u-font-size-18 u-max-width-600@tablet u-max-width-640@desktop-xl lrv-u-margin-l-auto lrv-u-margin-b-1"><div class="vy-cx-page-content"><p>Talk about meta. Walt Disney (the studio) is developing a movie about Walt Disney (the person) and his journey to build Disneyland (the California theme park). It will premiere on Disney Plus (the streaming service).</p><p>David Gordon Green (“Halloween Kills”) is directing the yet-to-be-titled film . Evan Spiliotopoulos, whose credits include Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and “Snow White and the Huntsmen,” is writing the screenplay.</p><p>Dubbed “The Happiest Place on Earth,” Disneyland opened during the summer of 1955 in Anaheim. Though Disney parks were later built in Florida, Paris and other parts of the world, the California original is Disney’s only theme park constructed under the direct supervision of the man whose name inspired the entertainment destination.</p><p>Disney’s theme parks have been a rich source of material for the studio, with “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Haunted Mansion” and “The Jungle Cruise” among the attractions that inspired major motion pictures. Not every theme park attraction has spun off into cinematic gold. (“Tomorrowland” starring George Clooney, we’re looking at you.) Inversely, some of Disney’s most popular film franchises have paved way to themed areas like Star Wars’ Galaxy’s Edge and Marvel’s Avengers Campus.</p><p>The upcoming movie isn’t Disney’s first attempt to capture the triumphs and tribulations of Walt Disney. In 2013, the studio hired Tom Hanks to portray its founder in “Saving Mr. Banks,” a biographical drama about the film producer and entrepreneur’s pursuit to land rights to Mary Poppins.</p><p>Cavalry Media is producing the film. Dana Brunetti and Matt DelPiano at Cavalry Media will serve as producers with Jason Reed. Jessica Matthews will serve as executive producer. Allison Erlikhman will oversee for Disney Studios.</p><p>Deadline Hollywood first reported the news.</p><p>Written by Rebecca Rubin for Variety</p><p><a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/news/disney-movie-theme-park-1235086522/%C2%A0">https://variety.com/2021/film/news/disney-movie-theme-park-1235086522/ </a></p><div class="article-tags // a-children-icon-bullet lrv-u-font-family-primary u-letter-spacing-012 lrv-u-line-height-large lrv-u-color-brand-primary"> </div></div></div></div>Film looks back at Fanny, '70s rock band that defied racial, gender barriershttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/film-looks-back-at-fanny-70s-rock-band-that-defied-racial-gender-2021-10-13T01:29:01.000Z2021-10-13T01:29:01.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><p>The group, founded by two Filipina American sisters, was praised by David Bowie and has been cited by artists like Bonnie Raitt and the Go-Go’s as a major influence.</p><div class="article-hero__media-holder layout-grid-container"><div class="article-hero__media-container layout-grid-item grid-col-10-xl grid-col-push-2-xl"><img src="https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2021-10/211012-Fanny-ew-144p-60a2fc.jpg" alt="Members of Fanny June Millington, Jean Millington and Brie Darling." width="1200" height="1200" /></div><span class="caption__container">Members of the California rock group Fanny, from left, Jean Millington, Brie Darling and June Millington.</span><span class="caption__source">Madeloni Photography</span></div><div class="article-body__grid--container"><div class="ad dn-print"> </div><div class="article-body__section"> </div><div class="article-body__section layout-grid-container article-body__last-section"><div class="article-body layout-grid-item layout-grid-item--with-gutter-s-only grid-col-10-m grid-col-push-1-m grid-col-6-xl grid-col-push-2-xl article-body--custom-column"><div class="article-body__date-source">Oct. 12, 2021, 5:31 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 12, 2021, 6:40 PM EDT</div><div class="article-body__byline">By Lakshmi Gandhi</div><div class="article-body__byline"> </div><div class="article-body__byline">Decades before Olivia Rodrigo, there was Fanny — an all-women, mostly Filipino American rock band who took the early 1970s by storm. As they rose to fame in the San Francisco music scene, the band quickly dazzled superstar contemporaries like The Kinks and David Bowie, who later noted that Fanny was “one of the finest [expletive] rock bands of their time.” Their success was all the more dazzling because they did so while pushing back against the restrictions placed on female musicians of color in that era.</div><div class="article-body__byline"> </div><div class="article-body__byline"><p>Founded in California by June and Jean Millington, sisters born in the Philippines to a Filipino woman and an American naval officer, Fanny is still hailed for its songwriting and melodies, and counted some of the biggest stars of the day as fans. A new documentary “Fanny: The Right to Rock” aims to put the band in its rightful place in music history by tracing its origins in the Philippines through its rise to fame, to the recent reunification of many of the band’s early members. Among the stars who cite Fanny as a major artistic influence in the film are Bonnie Raitt, the Go-Go’s, The Runaways and Todd Rundgren.</p><div class="lazyload-wrapper"><img src="https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2021-10/211012-fanny-poster-ew-144p-1220a5.jpg" alt="Fanny: The Right to Rock" width="1200" height="1200" /></div><span class="caption__container">"Fanny: The Right to Rock" is currently on the film festival circuit. - </span><span class="caption__source">Adobe Productions International</span></div><div class="article-body__byline"> </div><div class="article-body__byline">“The thing about Fanny is that we delivered at every single gig we did,” lead guitarist and songwriter June Millington, now 73, told NBC Asian America. “Whether it was a high school dance, or at the Fillmore, or any of the TV shows we did. We were completely prepared.”<div id="taboolaReadMoreBelow"> </div><p>The film is currently on the film festival circuit and is screening as part of the San Diego Filipino Film Fest on Oct. 14; the OUTShine Film Festival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Oct. 16; and as part of the Seattle Queer Film Festival on Oct. 23.</p><p>As the film shows, no one was more surprised that rock music would bring a group of young Asian American women together than the band members themselves. An early iteration of the band consisted of June Millington, who sang and played lead guitar, and Jean Millington, who played bass; fellow Filipino American Brie Darling on vocals and percussion; keyboardist Nickey Barclay; and drummer Alice de Buhr, who were all still in their teens at the time. (Barclay and de Buhr are white.) Darling, the child of a former military officer and a Filipina immigrant, remembers how excited she was when she heard the Millingtons were searching for a drummer.</p><p>“One of them played bass, one of them played guitar, they were my age, and we were exactly the same racial mix,” Darling, 72, said. “When I found out they were looking for a drummer — I think my mom read it somewhere — it was a perfect mix.”</p><div class="lazyload-wrapper"><img src="https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2021-10/211012-Fanny-archive-ew-637p-53cce7.jpg" alt="Fanny, the first all-women band to release an LP with a major record label (Warner/Reprise, 1970)." width="1200" height="1200" /></div><span class="caption__container">Fanny, the first all-women band to release an LP with a major record label (Warner/Reprise, 1970) - </span><span class="caption__source">Linda Wolf </span></div><div class="article-body__byline"> </div><div class="article-body__byline">Fanny released its self-titled debut album in 1970 and followed that with four more albums in five years. While contemporary music fans may be startled to discover that a pivotal band in the history of women in rock was helmed by mostly Asian Americans, Darling says now that the band’s shared Filipino heritage was not something they spoke of at the time. “I think when you’re that young and you are a teenager, you are just trying to fit in,” said Darling, who grew up in Folsom, California, and says she and her siblings were the only children of color in their neighborhood. “We just accepted it, and laughed and loved and played music together and moved forward. I think there’s more talk about how painful it was back then now.” <p>However, the pressures to conform to the demands of the industry and fans nearly derailed the band several times. The members of Fanny chafed at the industry’s attempts to give the band a highly stylized image that required extremely feminine outfits and a commitment to conformity. Darling, who married at 17 and had a child three years later, was asked to leave the band both because of her pregnancy and because the label wanted the band to have four members to mirror the Beatles. For the queer members of the band, like June Millington, there was also an awareness that the industry would prefer that they stay in the closet. </p><p>“There was a sort of secret ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that was unspoken and with me my whole life. If somebody had asked me, I would have talked about it, but nobody did,” said Millington. “But that 'don’t ask, don’t tell' policy was with me my whole life. We couldn’t talk about being Filipino. Why? Because people didn’t want to see it. We couldn’t talk about racism or sexism.”</p><div class="lazyload-wrapper"><img src="https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2021-10/211012-fanny-1973-ew-214p-f6865c.jpg" alt="Fanny" width="1200" height="1200" /></div><span class="caption__container">The rock group Fanny; drummer Alice de Buhr, keyboard player Nickey Barclay, guitarist June Millington and her sister, bassist Jean Millington, on May 17, 1973.</span><span class="caption__source">Michael Putland / Getty Images file</span><p>But despite those obstacles, Fanny would get the attention of the male dominated world of music criticism at the time, with many writers noting the high bar an all-woman band had to clear. “A male group playing as well would have gotten standing ovations from the Fillmore audience,” a critic for The New York Times wrote in 1971 after a show at the legendary San Francisco venue. </p><p>Millington recalled how the band was often greeted with boos and jeers by crowds that did not know what to make of a group of primarily Asian American women playing rock music. While those shows would get off to awkward starts, the band prided themselves on their ability to turn things around. “We did not feel racism when we were playing music,” said Millington. “It’s really incredible. People didn’t fight about race while dancing.”</p><p>Darling notes that one of the reasons she did not resent audiences for not understanding more about her experiences as a mixed race Asian American woman was because of the tumult of the 1960s and '70s and the struggles most communities of color faced at the time. After leaving Fanny, Darling pursued a career in acting, but quickly realized that casting agents didn’t know what to make of her. “They didn’t know what I was at the time. But a lot of African Americans were also not getting work on TV. So why would a Filipino be recognized?” she said.</p><p>That outlook also affected the way she and her bandmates viewed booing audience members in the earliest days of the band.</p><p class="endmark">“If somebody looked at me as if they weren’t expecting much or if, you know, they weren’t particularly friendly,” Darling recalled, “I just thought to myself, ‘Just wait until we play. Wait until you see what I can do.’”</p><p class="endmark">Written by Lakshmi Gandhi for NBC News.</p><p class="endmark"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/film-looks-back-fanny-70s-rock-band-defied-racial-gender-barriers-rcna2918">https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/film-looks-back-fanny-70s-rock-band-defied-racial-gender-barriers-rcna2918</a></p><p class="endmark"> </p></div><div class="article-body__content"> </div></div></div></div></div>Mill Valley Film Fest Fetes Spirited In-Person Returnhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/mill-valley-film-fest-fetes-spirited-in-person-return2021-10-07T20:08:21.000Z2021-10-07T20:08:21.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><div class="u-margin-l-6@desktop-xl"><div class="article-header //"><div class="article-header__inner //"> </div><div class="article-header__feature // u-margin-lr-n050@mobile-max"><div class="c-lazy-image"><div class="lrv-a-crop-16x9"><img class="c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto" src="https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Haley-Bennett-Cyrano-Movie.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1" alt="Haley-Bennett-Cyrano-Movie.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1" /></div></div><cite class="lrv-u-font-size-10 u-font-size-11@tablet u-letter-spacing-005 u-color-brand-secondary-80 u-font-family-basic lrv-u-line-height-large">Courtesy of Peter Mountain/MGM</cite></div><div class="article-header__feature // u-margin-lr-n050@mobile-max"> </div></div></div><div class="a-content a-content--logo-end u-font-family-body lrv-u-line-height-normal lrv-u-font-size-18 u-max-width-600@tablet u-max-width-640@desktop-xl lrv-u-margin-l-auto lrv-u-margin-b-1"><div class="vy-cx-page-content"><p>This year’s Mill Valley Film Festival marks the much-anticipated return of movies, and audiences, to theaters, but the Northern California event founded in 1977 retains some lingering influences of the pandemic, with both in-person and online viewing options. With the Delta variant raging, the festival’s founder and director Mark Fishkin notes that the logistics for the fest’s hybrid-style return are even more challenging than before.</p><p>“This year everything has been changing so rapidly it has caused a lot of sleepless nights,” he says.</p><p>But the fest, which runs Oct. 7-17, also features a bevy of screenings and events that stand to make the Bay Area gathering one of its most hotly anticipated. Joe Wright’s “Cyrano” will bow opening night, with Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” closing the fest. Mike Mill’s “C’mon C’mon” is the centerpiece feature film. The fest will also spotlight Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (“The Great Beauty,” “The Hand of God”), who will also receive Variety’s Creative Impact in Screenwriting award (see story, following page) at a brunch and discussion on Oct. 17. <em>Variety</em>’s Malina Saval will moderate the discussion, along with a panel discussion featuring Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch, celebrating a select group of up-and-coming film scribes.</p><p>The fest will also present Spotlight Awards to San Francisco native Simon Rex, who stars in Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket”; Maggie Gyllenhaal, who wrote and directed “The Lost Daughter,” based on Elena Ferrante’s novel; and Denis Villeneuve, whose adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel “Dune” will screen at the fest.</p><p>“Seeing a movie with a group of people who are receiving the emotions and impact all together is deeply touching, and I missed it more than I realized,” Villeneuve says. “A film has to stand on its own but having the creative people here to discuss it makes for a fascinating experience,” Fishkin says. “And it puts the ‘festive’ back into festival.”</p><p>The fest will also honor Kenneth Branagh with the Mill Valley Film Festival Award for his 1960s coming-of-age drama “Belfast.” Jane Campion, whose 1920s Montana-set Western “Power of the Dog” screens at the fest, will receive the Mind the Gap Award-Innovative Artist.</p><p>Launched in 2015, the Mind the Gap gender equity initiative was created with the goal of reaching 50% of women directors at the festival by 2020. In 2016, 36% of the festival’s films were directed by women; last year the number had reached 57%.</p><p>“Tracking these numbers is a tangible way of showing what we as a festival do,” says Zoe Elton, MVFF director of programming. They are now tracking women producers, DPs, editors and screenwriters to ensure forward progress. “We can model this and show you can as curators get this done.”</p><p>This year, the program will honor Nana Mensah, director of “Queen of Glory,” with the inaugural $10,000 Mind the Gap Creation prize.</p><p>“We were looking at ways to support women filmmakers and money is just such a huge issue,” Elton says. “Getting plugged into the world of money is really difficult. These women need space and time to get their work made and the money will help.”</p><p>Other screenings include actor-turned-director Rebecca Hall’s “Passing” (producer Nina Yang Bongiovi will receive a Mind the Gap Award), Sylvie Ohayon’s “Haute Couture” and director Amitabh Reza Chowdhury’s drama “Rickshaw Girl,” the first Bangladesh-Germany-U.S. co-production to screen at the Mill Valley fest.</p><p>“‘Rickshaw Girl’ is a vibrant and lovely film,” Fishkin says of the adaptation from the YA novel penned by Bay Area resident Mitali Perkins. Producer Eric J. Adams is also a Northern California native.</p><p>Elton says it’s not where filmgoers are screening movies, but that they continue to have the opportunity to watch them regardless of where that might be. This is the core spirit of Mill Valley, being as inclusive as possible, Elton says, adding that the pandemic has changed the rules, and hybrid options remain an essential component of the festival circuit, which Elton says is “really exciting.”</p><p>It’s all about striking a balance, and Mill Valley is openly embracing the change.</p><p>“We are in a new trajectory for film as a whole and how we receive stories,” Elton says. “We are in the next phase of seeing what a festival is and can be.”</p><p>Written by Stuart Miller for Variety. </p><p><a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/festivals/mill-valley-film-festival-pandemic-cinema-northern-california-1235082660/">https://variety.com/2021/film/festivals/mill-valley-film-festival-pandemic-cinema-northern-california-1235082660/</a></p><p> </p><p> </p><div id="adm-inline-article-ad-1" class="admz"> </div></div></div></div>Dare to spend Halloween in original ‘Scream’ house? It’s cheap if you’re brave enoughhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/dare-to-spend-halloween-in-original-scream-house-it-s-cheap-if-yo2021-09-30T04:09:34.000Z2021-09-30T04:09:34.000ZTeddi Hastreiterhttps://californiafilm.net/members/TeddiHastreiter<div><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625789498,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625789498,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625789498?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></p><div class="lead-item"> Exterior <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></div><p> </p><p>Horror fanatics know it well: The infamous house in 1996’s film “Scream,” where teenagers, including one or two killers sporting ghostface masks, go to party after a string of murders occur in their tight-knit community.</p><p> </p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625790277,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625790277,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625790277?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a> Exterior <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></p><p>Now, the setting where so much (fake) blood was shed can be the backdrop for one of the best Halloweens ever for some lucky guests’ lives...if you’re able to move fast enough.</p><p>The two-story house in Tomales, California will be <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/51750061?source_impression_id=p3_1632940382_WI3yAS8S5yYgXbtc&modal=DESCRIPTION" target="_blank">available on Airbnb </a>for three nights only in order to celebrate the movie’s upcoming 25th Anniversary along with the release of the new 2022 film that’s next in the popular franchise. One of the perks? It’s only $5 per night.</p><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625790886,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625790886,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625790886?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></p><div class="img-container picture"> Kitchen area <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></div><p> </p><p>However, it’s first come first serve.</p><p>Booking opens at 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 12 for three stays on Oct. 27, Oct. 29, and Oct. 31, the Airbnb listing says. Four guests are welcome.</p><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625791100,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625791100,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625791100?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></p><div class="img-container picture"> Living room <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></div><p> </p><p>While the stay comes with a lot of excellent perks, one of the main draws will be a delight for die hard fans: Host David Arquette, who will be in character as Sheriff Dewey Riley.</p><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625792058,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625792058,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625792058?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a></p><div class="img-container picture"> Host, David Arquette <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></div><p> </p><p>“As the local sheriff, it’s my duty to be your host to keep everything under control for your stay at the SCREAM house,,” the listing teases. “What could possibly go wrong? In honor of SCREAM’s 25th anniversary and the upcoming 2022 film, face your fears and stay the night where Ghostface’s terrors began.”</p><p>Other perks include:</p><ul><li><p>Chance to explore the house in “all its original glory”</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>Movie marathon featuring all four films on VHS</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>Dedicated phone line (you know, if you want to talk to Ghostface himself)</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>90s snack favorites</p></li></ul><ul><li><p>“Scream” memorabilia</p></li></ul><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9625791898,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9625791898,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9625791898?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>Exterior <span class="credit">SCREEN GRAB FROM AIRBNB</span></p><p>It is noted that Arquette’s presence will be virtual, but “but once you arrive and check-in, our socially distanced concierge will ensure a comfortable stay for you and your guest — including showing you around and arranging meals.”</p><p>Guests are responsible for their own travel to the vacation rental in Tomales, which is about 75 miles north of San Francisco.</p><p>We figure you can check out anytime you like, but can you ever leave?</p><p>Written by TJ Macias for The Sacramento Bee.</p><p><a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article254620497.html">https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article254620497.html</a></p><p> </p></div>The Quarantine Stream: 'Bad Trip'https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/the-quarantine-stream-bad-trip-has-a-surprising-amount-of-kindnes2021-04-08T21:38:50.000Z2021-04-08T21:38:50.000ZJosephine M Stummerhttps://californiafilm.net/members/JosephinemStummer<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8773735877?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p> </p>
<p><strong>The Movie</strong>: <em>Bad Trip<span class="aCOpRe"><br /> </span></em></p>
<p><strong>Where You Can Stream It: Netflix</strong><a href="https://freestar.com/?utm_medium=ad_container&utm_source=branding&utm_name=SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post" target="_blank"><img src="https://a.pub.network/core/imgs/fslogo-green.svg" alt="freestar" width="14" height="14" /></a></p>
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<p><strong>The Pitch</strong>: From one of the guys that brought you <em>Jackass</em> and <em>Bad Grandpa</em>, this hidden camera comedy follows best friends Chris and Bud (<strong>Eric André</strong> and <strong>Lil Rey Howery</strong>) as they go on a cross-country road trip to pursue one of their high school sweethearts. Meanwhile, <strong>Tiffany Haddish</strong> is in hot pursuit as Bud’s escaped convict sister, who is pissed that her hot pink car has been taken without her permission. But this isn’t just your average buddy road trip comedy. Along the way, the narrative includes inventive pranks on real, unsuspecting people, pulling its real-life audience into the mayhem.</p>
<p><strong>Why It’s Essential Viewing</strong>: Sacha Baron Cohen has perfected the hidden camera comedy that pulls real people into insane situations with cringeworthy results in the <em>Borat</em> film franchise. However, <em>Jackass</em> and <em>Bad Grandpa</em> producer <strong>Jeff Tremaine</strong> and director <strong>Kitao Sakurai</strong> get a little more wild and crazy with their stunts in the narrative-driven prank movie <em>Bad Trip</em>. That’s not the surprising part though. What will really catch you off guard is that no matter how raunchy and inappropriate <em>Bad Trip</em> gets, it’s full of kindhearted, helpful people willing to lend a hand in some truly shocking and awkward scenarios.<span id="more-665860"></span></p>
<p><em>Bad Trip</em> has Eric André and Lil Rey Howery staging some crazy situations, with André taking a lot of embarrassment and faux injuries. Throughout the movie, he accidentally sticks a hand into a blender with bloody results, gets forced into sex by a gorilla in a low-rent zoo as attendees watch on in horror, and falls off a bar balcony after too many shots. The duo also get in a car-flipping accident that ends in a ball of flame. The pranks are impressive, but what’s even more astonishing is how willing people are to help in these extreme situations, no matter how stupid the events leading up to it have been.</p>
<p>There are moments of incredible kindness in the face of complete stupidity and danger. When a car vacuum sucks off André’s work jumpsuit, leaving him naked as he waits to talk to his high school sweetheart, a nearby customer offers his coat to cover his junk. After André feigns ridiculously drunken behavior, a massive fall prompts a nurse in the bar to immediately help him, even as he uncontrollably vomits with an impressive sleeve rig. When the aforementioned car accident creates a rift between André and Howery’s characters, another man steps in to stop them and encourages them to get to safety. Upon learning the car was stolen, he even encourages them to make a run for it so they don’t get in trouble with the police. Elsewhere, when Tiffany Haddish stages a prison escape after hiding under a prisoner transport bus, a lone man runs interference for her when the bus driver comes looking for an escaped convict. There are also more low key moments where candid conversations bring heartfelt and helpful advice from average people in the face of perplexing, idiotic ideas.</p>
<p>Beyond this unanticipated turn of events in <em>Bad Trip</em>, there are still plenty of satisfying bits that you’ve come to expect from movies like this. There are a handful of people who aren’t thrilled to be part of the insanity and react unfavorably. One particular sequence involving André and Howery having a certain part of their lower anatomy stuck in a Chinese finger trap seems like it could take a nasty turn at any moment.</p>
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<p>Those wondering how people reacted when they learned they were being pranked just need to watch the credits, which will leave you even more touched by how concerned total strangers were with the well-being of these two knuckleheads. <em>Bad Trip</em> certainly wasn’t the movie I was expecting to give me a little more hope for humanity, but I’ll take what I can get.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/the-quarantine-stream-bad-trip/" target="_blank">Article by Ethan Anderton for SlashFilm</a></p></div>Making Film Safer-- One Test At A Timehttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/Covid-tests-for-film2021-04-03T17:32:26.000Z2021-04-03T17:32:26.000ZFatima Barrohttps://californiafilm.net/members/FatimaBarro<div><p> </p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8756179063,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8756179063,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8756179063?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="401" height="226" /></a></p>
<p>It’s no secret that Covid-19 has single-handedly changed the entire film industry. In a blink of an eye, production studios and freelance filmmakers were forced to stay at home, where the possibility of filming a movie was next to none.</p>
<p>Fast-forward a year later and many filmmakers are transitioning to Covid-safe sets. But while major production studios may have the resources to introduce quarantine quarters and accommodations for all actors, small productions do not always have such luxuries. This is where Molecular Matrix steps in.</p>
<p>Due to the Pandemic, California has seen an influx of pop-up Covid testing sites. Molecular Matrix, which was founded in West Sacramento in 2011, studied tissue regeneration and expansion of bone cells before the pandemic. Today they also offer Covid-19 testing in a slightly different method from many pop-up sites.</p>
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<p>So, what sets Molecular Matrix apart from the other testing sites? Jim Keefer, the Chief Operating Officer of Molecular Matrix, breaks down the science behind the test. With most Covid sites, there are three types of testing done: antigen testing, which detects pieces of the virus yet are susceptible to giving false positives, antibody testing which looks for antibodies within a virus and is also very susceptible to false positives, and finally, RTPCR testing. This last test looks for a specific strand of mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA.</p>
<p>Not only do some test providers lack the solid decade of experience Molecular Matrix has under its belt, but their method of testing is also inferior. As Jim Keefer puts it, “The most appropriate and accurate testing is RTPCR testing. When we deliver a negative result, it is a negative result. When we deliver a positive result, it’s a positive result.”</p>
<p>Other than delivering accurate results, Molecular Matrix claims to excel in one other crucial respect, the process in which the samples are taken. Bottom line, it's efficient. Testing can be done in under 2 minutes. Also, the sample collection process occurs just inside the nose, not far back into your sinuses. This means a crew can either self-administer their own test or have a medic assist if they wish. This creates a far more streamlined process with as little downtime as possible. </p>
<p>From there, the tests are quickly transported to the Molecular Matrix institute, where the samples are meticulously examined. Keefer says in regard to the speed of the process, “Our company is able to deliver results very rapidly. We can do it in 12 hours or 24 hours, depending on the needs of the organization or production.” The idea, according to Jim is that film producers get the results of the test quickly and move ahead, lessening the strain on production.</p>
<p>Jim Keefer and the researchers at Molecular Matrix have been at the front lines in terms of confronting this unexpected virus. Keefer concludes, “ Everybody wants to go back to normal, we’re all facing Covid fatigue, all our social infrastructures have been stripped- implications are profound in terms of mental health-- it’s imperative we all hold on- we’re almost there.”</p>
<p>By Fatima Barro for CFF</p>
<p>For more information, reach Molecular Matrix @</p>
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<div> </div></div>How the Pandemic Has Changed the Location Scouting Industryhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/how-the-pandemic-has-changed-the-location-scouting-industry2021-03-20T00:05:32.000Z2021-03-20T00:05:32.000ZSarai Arguetahttps://californiafilm.net/members/SaraiArgueta<div><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8685699677?profile=RESIZE_400x&width=400"></div><div><p>As productions gear up again with more cameras starting to roll, it’s likely that sets won’t look the same as before the pandemic. COVID protocols have emphasized working with smaller crews and experimenting with virtual and remote filming.</p><p>Location manager J.J. Levine (“The D Cut”) has also seen changes in the way sites are procured.</p><p>For the show she’s working on (it’s a dramedy, but she’s not permitted to reveal the title), Levine has mainly communicated over Zoom and FaceTime, since she could bring only a smaller scouting crew with her. “It was hard,” she says. “You’re used to asking each department, ‘What do you need to make this location work?’”</p><p>As the 1st vice president of the Location Managers Guild, Levine noted during one of the guild’s recent Coffee Tuesdays that location managers had become more interested in using apps and 3D technology for virtual walkthroughs of potential locations. It’s a technology widely used on real estate sites. But she has found that communication doesn’t always flow as smoothly when everyone isn’t in physical proximity. “There will be 20 to 30 crew department heads gathered, and sidebars will take place,” she explains, “and I’ll hear [after a location has already been scouted], ‘I need roof access.’” </p><p>Levine wonders if she’ll soon be using her new iPhone 12, which has Lidar light detection and ranging capability, to scout locations. “I know I’m probably going to have to use it at some point,” she allows.</p><p>“American Gods” location manager John Rakish, the guild’s 2nd vice president, has also noticed a move to virtual scouting. “There’s a lot more digital photography” when scoping out a site, he says. “It’s not like before where 35 people get in a van to look at a location.” Rakish has taken to using drones to capture 3D footage, which he then sends back to directors or the scout team.</p><p>Levine says she has witnessed other changes on set, not just in scouting. For instance, before COVID-19, up to 100 crew members at a time would dine on craft services in expandable trailers. “Now we put six people in [the trailer],” she says. “One show I was working on outfitted those trailers with shower curtains as separators, and they were used as hair and makeup stations.”</p><p>Levine says that even such basics as the logistics of a car scene are impacted by health considerations. “We would normally drive around with a camera car and the car would be on a tow dolly,” she says. “But putting two people in an enclosed spaced in a COVID world — you can’t do that anymore.”</p><p>In one instance — a site in Santa Clarita that was supposed to double for Florida — the space just didn’t work under the existing conditions. But the crew found a solution with CGI: “Virtual shooting plates were used against a blue screen, and the sequence, in which a mother is teaching her daughter how to drive, was shot on a soundstage instead of on location.”</p><p> </p><p>Levine points out that it’s not just location managers who are pivoting. Writers, too, are rethinking big background sequences. A scene that was once on the page as taking place in a crowded bar is now just a lone bartender stocking a shelf while a customer walks in. “We’re all adapting to change,” she says.</p><p> </p><p>Article by:<a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/production/location-scouting-pandemic-1234933851/" target="_blank">Jazz Tangcay</a> for Variety</p></div>Matias Antonio Bombal, Vanguard Award Winner, Sac Film Awards 2020https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/matias-bombal2021-01-07T05:54:32.000Z2021-01-07T05:54:32.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p>THE SACRAMENTO FILM AWARDS ARE HERE!<a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8397948256,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8397948256,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8397948256?profile=RESIZE_584x" width="723" height="830" /></a>The 2020 Sacramento Film Awards is part of the California Film Foundation's Sacramento International Film Festival. As such, we honor filmmakers and professionals from our festival and the wider community. Of these recognitions, the Vanguard Award is our highest local honor. It is given to the person who has demonstrated a life-long commitment to and support of local media arts. This year, we gave our local Vanguard Award to three amazing recipients. The 2nd is Matías Bombal. <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8397945085,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}"><br /> <img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8397945085,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8397945085?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="720" height="404" /></a></p>
<p>Matías Bombal, movie critic of “Matías Bombal’s Hollywood” (KAHI Radio, Valley<br /> Community Newspapers, <a href="http://www.mabhollywood.com">www.mabhollywood.com</a>), has been seen and heard in many<br /> entertainment venues as a master of ceremonies throughout California. Born in Santiago,<br /> Chile, June 3, 1967, Matías was surrounded by the arts at an early age. His father, Antonio<br /> Bombal, was a professor of comparative literature and in his later life, a piano tuner. The<br /> poet Pablo Neruda was a close friend in a family that included the Chilean novelist Maria<br /> Lusia Bombal. They moved to Berkeley, California in 1968, where his father was teaching.<br /> His mother, Judy Nevis, is a native Californian and has had a career in public service as a<br /> Deputy Director with California’s Department of Housing. Matías grew up and learning<br /> Spanish and English at the same time in an environment of classical music. The next logical<br /> musical step was jazz! Matías developed an intense interest in the music of the 1920's and<br /> 1930's from listening to his grandmother’s 78 r.p.m. records. <br /> <br /> Following a move in 1976 to Sacramento, Matías began his life-long love of the movies and<br /> their exhibition. At nineteen years of age and on sheer enthusiasm, he was placed in charge<br /> of the restoration and management of Sacramento's historic Crest Theatre. He made a<br /> considerable impression on the valley’s show going public in his tenure there from 1986 to<br /> 1991, with colorful stage introductions and clever and rare film bookings.<br /> <br /> He was directly involved with reviving Sacramento’s Guild and Colonial Theatres, as well as<br /> working in the Tower, Sacramento Inn, and Crestview theatres as promoter, booker,<br /> historian and all around showman. He has appeared as an extra and/or lent his production<br /> assistance to the films Bird, Pink Cadillac, Xenia, Wisdom, and an episode of Highway to Heaven.<br /> He was featured as a cashier in an independent black &amp; white comedy short silent film<br /> 9 Items or Less.<br /> <br /> TV 58, KSCH, Sacramento brought Matías to the small screen as a Sunday night movie host,<br /> introducing classic movies in a trademark tuxedo (movie palace managers were never seen in<br /> anything else) This led to work as master of ceremonies at numerous theatrical events<br /> throughout California on stage, screen, television and radio. Matías was featured with the<br /> Music Masters Orchestra as a singer and announcer, working closely with noted big-band leader<br /> Dick Jurgens who would help rehearsing the band that played style arrangements of<br /> tunes from the 20's and 30's.<br /> <br /> The owner of the Bijou Theatre in Lincoln City, Oregon, brought Matías to the central<br /> Oregon coast in 1996 for 6 years to manage and operate that 1937 theatre. While there, he<br /> was approached to do a movie talk show on the local commercial AM radio station, KBCH.<br /> The Popcorn Hour, co-hosted by the owner of the Bijou Theatre, Keith Altomare, was a huge<br /> success. Matías went on to produce 3 other popular weekly programmes.<br /> <br /> As a film/music historian Matías has contributed to many books on film history, especially<br /> on the silent and early “talkie” era. He is an authority on the pioneer film star Ramón<br /> Novarro, and has the Mexican actor’s own collection early cinema memorabilia.</p>
<p>His first time on radio was at nine years of age on NPR affiliate<br /> KXPR.<br /> <br /> Mr. Bombal has worked as an emcee all over the west coast for special events- such as the<br /> former Sacramento Music Festival, the silent movie series at Salem, Oregon’s great movie<br /> palace, the Elsinore, the classic film series presented by the Friends of the Fox at the Bob Hope<br /> Theatre in Stockton (Formerly the Fox-California) where he is the prize master of The<br /> Fabulous Fox Giveaway, The Reno Film Festival, a silent films series at the Ironstone<br /> Vineyards of Murphys, California and the Newport (Oregon) Performing Art Center's film<br /> festivals.</p>
<p><br /> Many people in Northern California and Nevada enjoyed listening to Matías as the popular<br /> host of radio’s Classic Jazz and Swing, which was carried over 5 affiliate NPR stations for 4<br /> years originating from The KXJZ Stations of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento. He has<br /> been seen ascending out of the orchestra pit of Oakland, California’s Paramount Theatre for<br /> the popular spin to win game, Dec-O-Win, part of the movie classics shown at the fabulous<br /> 1931 Art-Deco National Historic Landmark. He’s often engaged with Don Neely’s Royal<br /> Society Jazz Orchestra, as their on-stage announcer. Mr. Bombal additionally assists in the<br /> presentation of a yearly variety show benefit in Palm Springs, California.<br /> As a documentary filmmaker, Matías Bombal has directed three films, THE<br /> SACRAMENTO PICTURE (2015), THE STORY BEHIND YOUR RADIO DIAL (2016)<br /> and directed and co-produced with Chad E. Williams, ALHAMBRA: Sacramento's Palace of<br /> Fantasy (2018).</p>
<p><br /> Matías Bombal lives in Pocket area of Sacramento, where he cultivates and preserves his<br /> many media collections for future generations. He does voice work for commercials and<br /> industry, working for a variety of clients. His movie reviews appear in print in 4 editions of<br /> Valley Community Newspapers and weekly on KAHI Radio, 104.5 FM / 950 AM and he is<br /> a member of the Sacramento Press Club, Valley Broadcast Legends, The Society of Motion<br /> Picture and Television Engineers, . In his spare time, he enjoys motoring in his classic 1959<br /> Mercedes-Benz 220S and delights in learning a new word each day.</p>
<p>The Sacramento Film Awards will be Encore at 7pm Saturday the 16th. To watch simply</p>
<p>RSVP at the following link.</p>
<p>NOTE: You must be a MEMBER of CFF 1st to RSVP but membership is free! <a href="https://californiafilm.net/event/sacramento-film-awards-2020-1" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO RSVP</a></p></div>'First Cow' Named Best Picture by New York Film Critics Circlehttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/first-cow-named-best-picture-by-new-york-film-critics-circle2020-12-19T00:35:41.000Z2020-12-19T00:35:41.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8305438452,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8305438452,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8305438452?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>The group gave two awards each to 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' and 'Da 5 Bloods.'</p><p>The New York Film Critics Circle has selected Kelly Reichardt's First Cow as its best picture of 2020.</p><p> </p><p>The group gave two awards to Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always (best actress for star Sidney Flanigan and screenplay for Hittman) and Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods (best actor for Delroy Lindo and supporting actor for the late Chadwick Boseman). Nomadland's Chloé Zhao won best director, with Borat breakout Maria Bakalova being named best supporting actress.</p><p> </p><p>Wolfwalkers won best animated film, with best first film given to The 40-Year-Old Version, best foreign language film going to Bacurau, nonfiction film given to Time and best cinematography to Steve McQueen's Small Axe film anthology series.</p><p> </p><p>While a number of critics and awards organizations pushed back their voting timelines and eligibility windows because of the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic — the Oscars are considering any films released through Feb. 28 for the April 25 awards — the NYFCC kept its timeline roughly the same, voting just two weeks after its usual post-Thanksgiving meeting and only considering films that will be released by Dec. 31.</p><p> </p><p>The group also honored Kino Lorber with a special award for its creation of virtual cinema distribution service Kino Marquee, which the group said in its announcement, "was designed to help support movie theaters, not destroy them." Kino Marquee launched in mid-March, in the early days of the pandemic that has shut down movie theaters and other entertainment venues worldwide as authorities have urged people to avoid large gatherings to slow the spread of the virus, with virtual screening rooms for participating independent theaters, allowing them to continue reaching audiences and generating revenue. Kino Marquee's virtual ticket buyers receive a link for admission to an online screening room, with revenue split between the distributor and exhibitor. Incidentally, Bacurau was the first offering on Kino Marquee.</p><p> </p><p>Lee was honored with another special award for "inspiring the New York community," the critics announced, with Lee's short film New York New York and "advocating for a better society through cinema."</p><p> </p><p>“This was a complicated, painful year in so many ways, but movies didn’t let us down," NYFCC chair, Time magazine's Stephanie Zacharek, said in a statement. "In fact, they were major in helping us get through. Movies are one of our chief forms of human connection, a mode of communicating across the world. This year, especially, the members of the New York Film Critics Circle are grateful to be able to honor the movies and people who helped keep that chain of communication alive.”</p><p> </p><p>Founded in 1935, the NYFCC’s membership includes critics from daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and qualifying online publications. Every year the group meets in New York to vote on awards for the calendar year’s films.</p><p> </p><p>In addition to the regular categories, which include best picture, director, actor and actress, special stand-alone awards are given to individuals and organizations that have made substantial contributions to the art of cinema, including producers, directors, actors, writers, critics, historians, film restorers and service organizations.</p><p> </p><p>While award winners are typically celebrated at an in-person gala in January, due to the pandemic, a video will be released Jan. 24 celebrating this year's winners.</p><p> </p><p>Last year the NYFCC selected The Irishman as the best picture of 2019.</p><p> </p><p>A full list of the 2020 winners follows:</p><p> </p><p>Best Picture: First Cow</p><p>Best Director: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland</p><p>Best Actor: Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods</p><p>Best Actress: Sidney Flanigan, Never Rarely Sometimes Always</p><p>Best Screenplay: Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always</p><p>Best Supporting Actor: Chadwick Boseman, Da 5 Bloods</p><p>Best Supporting Actress: Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm</p><p>Best Animated Film: Wolfwalkers</p><p>Best Cinematography: Small Axe (all films)</p><p>Best First Film: The 40-Year-Old Version</p><p>Best Foreign-Language Film: Bacurau</p><p>Best Nonfiction Film: Time</p><p>Special Award 1: Kino Lorber's Kino Marquee</p><p>Special Award 2: Spike Lee</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/first-cow-named-best-picture-by-new-york-film-critics-circle" target="_blank">Hilary Lewis</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Warner Bros.’ Streaming Plan May Invite Piracy "Bonanza"https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/warner-bros-streaming-plan-may-invite-piracy-bonanza2020-12-19T00:34:17.000Z2020-12-19T00:34:17.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8305436493,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8305436493,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8305436493?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><h1>The studio’s decision to smash its theatrical windows for 2021 films could result in "high-quality" counterfeit versions of the titles "available on every pirate service in the world" the same day the features hit HBO Max.</h1><p></p><h1>The industry remains up in arms about Warner Bros.’ decision to send its biggest 2021 movies directly to HBO Max on the same day the titles hit U.S. theaters. But one group is probably pleased with the plan: Film pirates. “For sure, pirates are celebrating WarnerMedia’s decision,” says Abigail De Kosnik, director of the Berkeley Center for New Media and an associate professor at UC Berkeley.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Traditionally, the theatrical window has provided some buffer against piracy’s erosion of a film’s earnings. Usually, during the early days of a theatrical release the only pirate copies that become available are low-quality “cam” versions, surreptitiously recorded via phone or tablet by someone in a cinema. Law-breaking consumers in some territories have demonstrated a willingness to watch these copies — especially in places like Russia and Turkey, according to experts — but pirates throughout the West and among the more developed major markets of East Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and China’s major urban centers, tend to prefer to wait for the film to hit streaming services, whereupon a high-definition copy can be “ripped” and disseminated.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Warner Bros.’ hybrid plan of dropping next year’s film slate on HBO Max in the U.S. — the only territory where the service has fully launched so far — while simultaneously marketing and releasing the movies in cinemas overseas will likely erode international box office earnings of titles like Dune, The Matrix 4 and Godzilla vs. Kong. “If a film is made available in the U.S. on HBO Max, a high-quality pirate copy is going to be available on every pirate service in the world that same day,” notes Andy Chatterley, CEO of U.K.-based piracy data and analytics company Muso.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Those dynamics were on display when Disney opted to release its big-budget, live-action remake of Mulan over Disney+ in select territories this fall, while also opening it theatrically in the countries where the streaming service hasn’t yet launched (such as the enormous China market, crucially). The film attracted 21.4 million illegal downloads in the 12 weeks after it released, according to De Kosnik’s research, one of the highest totals she has observed since she began measuring pirate consumption in 2017. “Pirates will enjoy a real bonanza next year because of the WarnerMedia decision,” she adds.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Because piracy is such a complicated consumer decision, involving sensitivity to price, content availability, personal ethics and government efforts at deterrence, projecting its impact on box office earnings is difficult to do, explains Neil Gane, general manager of the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy. But thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, he says, pirates in many places are better poised to strike than at most moments in recent memory.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Gane says lockdowns and stay-at-home orders have boosted the fortunes of piracy syndicates in the same way that they have driven subscription gains on legitimate streaming platforms. "For example, during the peak lockdown period in Southeast Asia from the end of March to mid-May," he explains, "we saw a proportionate spike there in usage of both pirate streaming and legal streaming platforms." (Indonesia and Malaysia were rare exceptions in the region, thanks to recent government efforts to block access to piracy sites.)</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Adds Muso’s Chatterley: “We’ve never seen so many big-budget movies hit pirate networks so quickly. The piracy rates are going to be staggering — that’s just inevitable.”</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-streaming-plan-may-invite-piracy-bonanza" target="_blank">P</a><a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-streaming-plan-may-invite-piracy-bonanza" target="_blank">atrick Brzeski</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</h1><p></p><p> </p></div>The Worst Films of 2020https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/the-worst-films-of-20202020-12-19T00:30:07.000Z2020-12-19T00:30:07.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8305432671,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8305432671,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="450" alt="8305432671?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>How do you choose the biggest movie misfires of the year? In a way, it’s easy. A movie that’s bad enough to earn a place on this scroll is, like a great movie, not one you really choose. It’s one that chooses you. It looks like a judgment, and a harsh one at that, but it’s really a feeling — that the film in question is so misconceived, so undramatic or unfunny or convoluted or just plain boring, that to watch it is enough to cause pain. In this pandemic year, there were fewer studio bombs to choose from, yet we made no special attempt to go big or go small, to go Hollywood or go indie. We didn’t have to. We just went with the worst.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>1. Dolittle</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Drug dealers used to have the mantra “Don’t get high on your own supply.” Maybe movie stars should live by the credo “Dolittle — just don’t do it.” The 1998 reboot was merely another middling Eddie Murphy comedy, but this Robert Downey Jr. remake achieves the staggering feat of being much, much worse than the fabled, creaky-boned 1967 Hollywood musical debacle. Is the problem the charmless critters? The ungodly mess of a story? Or the mechanical whimsy of Downey, who barely talks to the animals because he’s so busy talking to himself? All of the above. “Dolittle” is a movie that’s more excruciating than the sum of its frenetic yet lifeless kiddie-blockbuster parts.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>2. The Last Thing He Wanted</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>The first mistake made by the gifted filmmaker Dee Rees (“Mudbound,” “Pariah”) was deciding to adapt one of Joan Didion’s worst forays into fiction: her 1996 tale of a Washington Post reporter who becomes an arms dealer for the U.S. government. The second mistake was to bold-face every only-in-a-Didion-novel twist and contrivance, and to have Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, and Willem Dafoe chew on the turgidly incoherent espionage dialogue as if they were acting in some breathless political noir. The result is a movie that gets so lost in the thickets of its pretension that you need a machete to cut through it.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>3. I’m Thinking of Ending Things</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Charlie Kaufman used to create lyrically spiky head trips that teased your brain and heart at the same time. Now he makes sodden puzzles that don’t quite add up because they’re too busy telegraphing their cantankerous oddity. His latest trip down the rabbit hole of scrubby dream logic centers on a morose geek (Jesse Plemons) who’s too gnarled to connect to anyone, from his girlfriend (Jessie Buckley) to his Samuel Beckett sitcom parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette) to the audience. But the spirit of disconnection is mother’s milk to Kaufman, and “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is a depressive half-baked Twilight Zone — it’s all about the janitor! yeah, keep telling yourself that — that unravels before your eyes.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>4. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>There are bad movies everyone hates and bad movies some people like (like “Ishtar” or “Xanadu”), and there’s no question that Will Ferrell’s I’m-an-idiot Nordic songfest burlesque has its cult of fans, who view it as an ironic expression of pop sincerity. Yet what about the jokes — as in, all of them — that just lie flat and sit there, like something on a plate of warm herring? Or the way that the movie can’t decide if Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, as an Icelandic duo who stumble into the Eurovision Song Contest, are bad singers, so-bad-they’re-good-singers, or good singers? The movie doesn’t satirize the annual Europop competition so much as it presents it, as if its very existence were funny. It’s not.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>5. Guest of Honour</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Atom Egoyan keeps masticating his old tropes — noodgy inspectors and disreputable bus drivers, secrets within mysteries within flashbacks, sexual indiscretion with a minor — in this jaw-droppingly convoluted and unconvincing family melodrama, which is centered around a restaurant that serves fried bunny-rabbit ears. Both the dish and the movie are supremely unappetizing, yet Egoyan, whose best films (“The Sweet Hereafter,” “Felicia’s Journey,” “Chloe”) now seem a world away, is increasingly content to play in Egoyan World, a jungle gym of ludicrous contrivance.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Peter Debruge's 5 Worst Films</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>1. The Painted Bird</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Jerzy Kosinski’s 1965 novel was plenty controversial in its time, billed as an autobiographical account of the horrors he witnessed during World War II, then later recast as fiction. Czech director Václav Marhoul clearly saw the material as an opportunity to make a capital-I “Important” art film, recruiting respected actors (Stellan Skarsgard, Harvey Keitel, Udo Kier) and putting them through the motions of human cruelty the book describes. It’s literally too much to watch, and I walked out after Nazi soldiers shot a Jewish woman and her infant with the same bullet. It works for some, but don’t force yourself.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>2. 365 Days/After We Collided</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>As if fanfic phenoms “Twilight” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” weren’t hard enough on lovers of literature, other writers are piling on with tawdry erotic homages of their own. The original “After” (a sleeper hit back in early 2019) was kinda fun, as in-flight viewing goes, but this flaccid sequel is like the big-screen equivalent of an amateur high school theater production, only kinkier. “365 Days,” which shot up the charts on Netflix, is a risible Polish softcore thriller in which a successful exec is kidnapped by a brutish Italian mafioso until love or Stockholm syndrome sets in — the movie’s premise being that she secretly wants to be taken, building to an inexplicably “tragic” non-ending. American movies are far too prudish, but one of these fantasies set us back decades, while the other had me thinking of ending things (to reference Charlie Kaufman’s miserable idea of a date movie).</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>3. Artemis Fowl</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>This derivative Disney eyesore was meant to be the studio’s shot at “Harry Potter”-style success. Instead, like so many other craven grabs at franchise gold (e.g. “The Golden Compass,” “Ender’s Game,” et al.), it’s one and done for this clumsy adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s YA book series. The over-designed but under-thought-out monstrosity centers on a criminal mastermind who’s not yet old enough to shave, although Disney seems to have decided that they should turn the precocious antihero into a fairy-chasing Richie Rich. Just as well that they dumped it on Disney Plus, disguising what surely would’ve been a box-office disaster.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>4. The Roads Not Taken</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>When it comes to losing a loved one to dementia, French playwright Florian Zeller approached the subject with artful empathy in “The Father,” putting audiences in the same position as Anthony Hopkin’s character, unable to distinguish between delusion and reality. By contrast, director Sally Potter is still too close to the subject, having lost her brother to the cruel condition several years back. A fully committed Javier Bardem gives his most gratuitously unpleasant performance since “Biutiful,” while Elle Fanning’s raw reaction makes it even harder to bear in a movie Potter clearly had to make, but no one needs to see.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>5. Capone</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Close but no cigar: “Fantastic Four” director Josh Trank emerged from movie jail to make his “Scarface, Coda: The Death of Al Capone,” a film about the mobster’s final days, after he was released from Alcatraz to die of syphilis at home. Trouble is, it’s the least compelling chapter in the aging gangster’s life, doubly unpleasant as we see this incontinent antihero rant and rage and soil his sheets. Hardy’s one hell of an actor, but he’s straining way too hard here, making it impossible to get past the performance and connect with a monster who’s rotti</strong>ng inside and out.</span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1><span style="font-size:12pt;"><strong>Article by: <a href="https://variety.com/lists/worst-films-movies-2020/" target="_blank">Owen Gleiberman, Peter Debruge</a> for Variety.</strong></span></h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><p> </p></div>Female Directors Win Big at NYFCC Awards. What Does It Mean for the Oscars?https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/female-directors-win-big-at-nyfcc-awards-what-does-it-mean-for-th2020-12-19T00:26:34.000Z2020-12-19T00:26:34.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8305431472,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8305431472,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="450" alt="8305431472?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a></p><h1>A24’s “First Cow” was the big winner at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, taking home best film. In predicting the Academy Awards, the top prize from NYFCC has an astounding correlation to the Oscars. Since 1935, the NYFCC winner for best film has never failed to receive at least one Oscar nomination. More importantly, every film that has won the top prize from NYFCC has been nominated in a major Oscar category including picture, director, acting and screenplay.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>A slower burn for the average cinema-goer, “First Cow” has Oscar potential in categories like best adapted screenplay, which director Kelly Reichardt co-wrote with author Jonathan Raymond. Reichardt herself, a runner-up at Boston Film Critics last weekend, could be vying for one of the five spots for best director, which may present an interesting scenario down the line. Could we be in store for a directing lineup where the women outnumber the men? With Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), Regina King (“One Night in Miami”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”), who also won at NYFCC, the “year of the female director” is a growing award season narrative, despite many women-directed films being postponed due to the pandemic. Only five women have been nominated for best director in the 92-year history of AMPAS.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>The best director lineup could also have one or two filmmakers of color. Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” won honors for Delroy Lindo in best actor and the late Chadwick Boseman in supporting actor. Lee was honored with a special award for his short film “New York New York.” “Da 5 Bloods” could be getting a second wind from its June release, resulting in Lee becoming the first Black director to be nominated a second time at the Oscars. To date, only six Black men (and no Black women) have been nominated for best director, none of which have been selected again following their first nod.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Then there’s “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” from Focus Features, which is building momentum for its debut star Sidney Flanigan. Also a winner at Boston, Flanigan could become a critical darling, but the question is, how far does that take her? For two consecutive years, the NYFCC winner for best actress has not received an Oscar nomination (Lupita Nyong’o for “Us” and Regina Hall for “Support the Girls”). With the film also winning screenplay earlier on Friday, this indie drama can only add to the female filmmaker’s narrative.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Maria Bakalova’s win for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is just what her awards campaign needed, in a category that has been very friendly to comedic performances (examples: Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny” and Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids”). The supporting actress is wide open at the moment with no established frontrunner.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>In this unconventional awards year, will the group have the same impact? NYFCC along with the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which announces on Sunday, typically have the most influence of the critics’ groups. Normally, Oscar voters would be grabbing DVDs from their screener pile and packing them up for their holiday binge. This year, not as many physical copies have gone out, though many are available on the Academy streaming platform.</h1><p></p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1></h1><p> </p><h1>Article by: <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/awards/nyfcc-winners-first-cow-oscars-1234866516/" target="_blank">Clayton Davis</a> for Variety.</h1><p></p><p> </p></div>Late Night Hosts Poke Fun at Tom Cruise but Mostly Side With His Angry COVID-19 Set Ranthttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/late-night-hosts-poke-fun-at-tom-cruise-but-mostly-side-with-his-2020-12-18T00:49:35.000Z2020-12-18T00:49:35.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8300973876,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8300973876,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8300973876?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>The leaked audio has elicited conflicting opinions about the star's behavior.</p><p>The recent angry, curse-filled rant by Tom Cruise may have made international headlines eliciting conflicting opinions about his behavior, but late night talk show hosts in the U.S. took it easy on the actor, mostly agreeing with his message, albeit admitting it was intense.</p><p> </p><p>Audio leaked this week of the star ripping his Mission: Impossible 7 crew for apparently not following proper COVID-19 safety procedures; with some members of the set allegedly not standing more than 6 feet apart. "I don’t ever want to see it again, ever! And if you don’t do it you’re fired! If I see you do it again you’re fucking gone!" Cruise yells among other F-bombs and threats of termination in the audio. Cruise has yet to address the secretly taped rant.</p><p> </p><p>Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon went particularly easy on Cruise, joking more about how he should have been running the nation's response to pandemic from the start. "If Tom Cruise was working in the White House, we could have had the vaccine back in April," Fallon quipped. "For the nine months, that's pretty much how Dr. [Anthony] Fauci has felt on the inside. What's amazing is when Tom delivered that rant, he was hanging off a 163-story building."</p><p> </p><p>Daily Show host Trevor Noah wholeheartedly agreed with Cruise, but joked about the intense delivery. "Now, some people are saying that this is a bad look for Tom Cruise, but I disagree. Yeah, he's mad, but it's for a good cause. It's like getting recorded screaming, 'You guys are in big trouble if we don't get these toys to the Children's Hospital! I want to see happy kids or you'll never work in this town again!' You're angry, but for the right reason. This should teach people just how real this corona shit is because remember, Tom Cruise is not scared of anything. So the fact that he is worried about COVID is a reminder that no one is immune from this virus."</p><p> </p><p>Late Late Show host James Corden mostly agreed with the star's point and said it got him "fired up" about the issue. "I was like, 'Yes, great!' He starts talking about how people are going to lose their job if this film shuts down. Tom Cruise is the tough, but fair stepdad we all need right now. You know we are living in strange times when the most dangerous stunt on the set of Mission: Impossible is when a crewmember gave someone a high-five."</p><p> </p><p>The Late Show With Stephen Colbert went a different direction with the topic, addressing the situation by dubbing Cruise's angry, curse-filled rant over the Santa Claus character in the 1964 claymation classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The way in which it is done makes it appear as though Santa is ripping into his elves for not being safe while preparing his sleigh for Christmas.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/late-night-hosts-poke-fun-at-tom-cruise-but-mostly-side-with-his-angry-covid-19-set-rant" target="_blank">Ryan Parker</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>How 'Songbird' Director Navigated Filming in the Age of COVIDhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/how-songbird-director-navigated-filming-in-the-age-of-covid2020-12-18T00:48:28.000Z2020-12-18T00:48:28.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8300972275,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8300972275,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8300972275?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>Adam Mason's pandemic thriller, out now, was the first production to film in Los Angeles post-lockdown.</p><p>"There were questions of whether or not we could even have two actors in a shot together."</p><p> </p><p>That's what writer-director Adam Mason faced in the days leading up to filming Songbird, his pandemic thriller that, in July, became the first film to go into production in Los Angeles after the city-enacted COVID-19 shutdowns. The Songbird team, which included producer Michael Bay, had conversations about doing split screens and other tricks to make the movie work, but fortunately, COVID testing became more available just in time to change the script for the better.</p><p> </p><p>"We were able to regularly test and with [COVID] protocols in place, we were able to have actors in the same scene with each other," Mason tells The Hollywood Reporter. "So there was some last-minute, frantic rewriting."</p><p> </p><p>Songbird, out on PVOD from STX, is a film that was shaped by necessity, with a script that evolved on the fly. It featured a small crew and is full of scenes with actors alone or wearing hazmat suits and gas masks to stay in line with safety protocols.</p><p> </p><p>Songbird takes place in a future Los Angeles in which COVID has become even deadlier and raged for several years. It follows the star-crossed romance between a courier named Nico (K.J. Apa), who is immune, and Sara (Sofia Carson), a young woman who must stay at home with her grandmother. In this world, who test positive are sent to a government-mandated Q-Zones, with the cast also including Demi Moore, Bradley Whitford, Craig Robinson, Peter Stormare, Alexandra Daddario and Paul Walter Hauser.</p><p> </p><p>For Mason, his Songbird journey started with heartbreak.</p><p> </p><p>When lockdown began in March, Mason was just days away from filming a passion project, one he'd dreamed about for years. When it was shuttered, along with the rest of Hollywood, Mason was heartbroken, but his writing partner Simon Boyes called him the next day with an idea: they should shoot a no-budget film with friends over Zoom and FaceTime.</p><p> </p><p>"Originally it was going to be a monster movie, with 200-ft. King Kong type monsters roaming around L.A.," says Mason. "Then we shifted that to make something a bit more true to life."</p><p> </p><p>Things went from homemade to Hollywood when producer Adam Goodman read the script and wanted to help, with Michael Bay soon boarding, with the team moving fast to get something out by the end of 2020.</p><p> </p><p>They conducted casting and chemistry reads over Zoom and no role was harder to fill than their leading man, Nico.</p><p> </p><p>Mason hadn't seen Kapa's hit CW show Riverdale, and wasn't sure he was right for the part. But after five minutes on a video call with Kapa — sporting a giant beard and traveling around the country in his truck at the time — Mason knew he'd found his guy. But everything nearly fell apart when Kapa ran into visa issues, making it seem he would not make it to L.A.</p><p> </p><p>"We went back looking for another actor to play Nico, right up until the 11th hour, and just couldn't find anyone at all. It was terrible," says Mason. "A terrifying feeling for me, because Nico and Sara are the backbone of the entire movie."</p><p> </p><p>Then just days before production began, the visa issues cleared up and Mason's two leads had their first chemistry read over FaceTime. The director encouraged his actors to come up with their own backstory for their romance, partially out of expediency.</p><p> </p><p>"The movie was moving like a freight train at that point. It was a question of dividing and conquering," says Mason.</p><p> </p><p>On set, the production used a tiny prototype camera from RED that cinematographer Jacques Jouffret had used on commercials.</p><p> </p><p>"That really opened up the visual canvas of the movie for us," says Mason.</p><p> </p><p>Despite the heavy subject matter, Mason considers Songbird a hopeful film about how people come together during a crisis. While making it, he thought back to stories his 85-year-old father told him about growing up during the London Blitz, which saw Germany bomb the city during World War II.</p><p> </p><p>"A lot of his most formative, happy memories as a child were actually during this terrible time in British history," says Mason. "He would always tell me about this sense of community that rose up out of that and the safety he felt within that community."</p><p> </p><p>For Mason, making Songbird brought unexpected joy during a time of sorrow for the world, and provided him with experiences he didn't think he'd ever have.</p><p> </p><p>Recalls Mason of his surreal experience: "There's Michael Bay over there, filming for my movie. That's something I never thought would happen in my life."</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-songbird-director-navigated-filming-in-the-age-of-covid" target="_blank">Aaron Couch</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>More Work Needed to Tackle Racism, Sexual Harassment, Says Anita Hill-Led Hollywood Commission Reporthttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/more-work-needed-to-tackle-racism-sexual-harassment-says-anita-hi2020-12-16T00:30:59.000Z2020-12-16T00:30:59.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8292153668,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8292153668,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8292153668?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>The final report found only 48 percent of Hollywood workers see "people welcoming and valuing diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives often or very often."</p><p>In releasing the final report of The Hollywood Survey, the Hollywood Commission — chaired by Anita Hill — warns that far more work by the entertainment industry is required to convince workers systemic racism can be tackled and that sexual harassers and other power-abusers can be held accountable.</p><p> </p><p>Following its release Tuesday, the survey's final report found Hollywood, amid the #MeToo movement, has made headway tackling the "significant culture and climate issues of harassment and discrimination." But far more needs to be done after the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences launched new representation and inclusion standards for the Oscars, Netflix promised to deposit $100 million in Black-owned financial institutions, and WME and Endeavor Content took steps toward inclusion alongside Michael B. Jordan and Color of Change.</p><p> </p><p>"Change is the sum of our collective efforts. We applaud, encourage and want to amplify these endeavors. But there is far more to do to enshrine diversity and inclusion in the industry’s value system and to bridge the divide between leadership’s intentions and the everyday experience of workers in Hollywood," Hill writes in the report.</p><p> </p><p>The industry survey found just under half of Hollywood workers, or 48 percent, said they saw "people welcoming and valuing diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives often or very often." And only 39 percent of those polled agreed that Hollywood "acknowledges and respects the dignity, unique perspectives and experiences of every person."</p><p> </p><p>Hill, a professor at Brandeis University who brought national exposure to the issue of sexual harassment during the 1991 Senate confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, also warns Hollywood against pulling back on efforts to reduce and even end racism and sexual harassment to pull through the novel coronavirus pandemic.</p><p> </p><p>"The same intent, resolve, exigency and creativity that will soon deliver a safe, effective COVID vaccine can help eradicate the parallel plagues of racism and sexism. Hollywood was born of innovation. It can be rebuilt by it, too," Hill says. But that note of optimism contrasts with the report's findings, which point to sexual harassers and predators in Hollywood too often going unreported and unpunished.</p><p> </p><p>"Despite awareness of unacceptable workplace behaviors, workers reported disappointingly high rates of bias, bullying and sexual harassment. Few reported these behaviors to their employer. Many experienced retaliation," The Hollywood Survey concluded.</p><p> </p><p>While the commission does not investigate allegations and has no enforcement mechanisms, the survey's final report makes a number of key recommendations. That action plan includes making a commitment to "respect, human dignity and inclusion," and to put in place measures to hold offenders accountable.</p><p> </p><p>The commission also urges the entertainment industry to back up its values with new in-house systems because most Hollywood workers reported more resources and options were required to blow the whistle on serious misconduct, including to human resources departments.</p><p> </p><p>The industry is also asked to embrace diversity, not least because it makes good business sense. "The entertainment industry has every reason to do better. The business case for diversity and inclusion is well-established: Diverse companies consistently out-earn non-diverse companies. Diverse and inclusive companies are also more innovative and agile, and weather crisis more effectively. Unsurprisingly, cultures that are inclusive are less likely to experience sexual harassment," Hill wrote in the report.</p><p> </p><p>"Now is the time to recommit to diversity and inclusion as a business imperative, a social mandate and a safeguard against future crisis. Put simply, it is the right thing to do," she added. The survey's findings also urge Hollywood to focus on prevention to avoid recourse to the courts and other legal channels that often do little to tackle sexual harassment and misconduct and can "backfire and often lead to retaliation."</p><p> </p><p>And the survey calls on people in high places to be held to account to put right an industry beset by reports of sexual abuse. The commission found workers had less faith in justice being handed out to serial harassers the higher up the corporate ladder abuse was alleged.</p><p> </p><p>That's after the first exposés on the disgraced former movie mogul and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein launched a national dialogue on sexual abuse. Weinstein faces six new sex assault counts in Los Angeles, but that's barely moved the needle among workers fearing sexual harassment and misconduct in their own workplaces, the report concluded.</p><p> </p><p>"Only 35 percent of our respondents thought it was 'very' or 'somewhat likely' that a powerful harasser would be held accountable for harassing someone with less authority or status, such as an assistant; only 7 percent thought it was 'very likely,'" the survey found. To mitigate against sexual predators acting with impunity, the report urges a limit to confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, more bystander intervention training, creating an ombuds office and publishing reports after allegations are investigated and violators are found and punished.</p><p> </p><p>Those measures were recommended alongside other industry action toward greater diversity and inclusion, like doing more job searches or promotions for people from underrepresented groups, supporting mentorship and career-coaching programs, and investing in more bias-training programs.</p><p> </p><p>And besides prohibiting bullying, the report also calls on workplaces to stamp out minor offenses to avoid worse behavior like discrimination and harassment before they take root. "Respectful behavior is particularly important in preventing sexual harassment because such harassment — especially gender harassment — often takes place against a backdrop of incivility or an environment of generalized disrespect," the report urges.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/more-work-needed-to-tackle-racism-sexual-harassment-says-anita-hill-led-hollywood-commission-report" target="_blank">Etan Vlessing</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the Best Films of 2020https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/hollywood-reporter-critics-pick-the-best-films-of-20202020-12-16T00:27:16.000Z2020-12-16T00:27:16.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8292151065,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8292151065,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8292151065?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>A transcendent concert film, a bold #MeToo thriller and stellar dramas from Kelly Reichardt, Chloé Zhao and Eliza Hittman were among highlights of the year, according to THR's chief film critic David Rooney.</p><p>What a year. The long drought since the first lockdown in mid-March, at least for those of us in cities like New York and Los Angeles, has meant nine months without the pleasure of settling into a darkened movie theater and being transported away from our mundane concerns. Which were not all that mundane in 2020. So it's almost miraculous that such a stellar crop of standout films emerged, even if we consumed most of them on our home screens.</p><p> </p><p>The relative dearth of big studio releases turned out to be a blessing in disguise in some ways, focusing greater attention on the kind of smaller-scale work that often gets overlooked in the commercial shuffle. But any year in which films I savored as much as Emma, Mangrove, On the Rocks, Sorry We Missed You, Sound of Metal, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and The Vast of Night get bumped out of my top 20 seems a signal that vital, creative filmmaking is alive and well.</p><p> </p><p>The profusion of excellent documentaries this year was so ridiculously robust that by rights they should fill out their own separate top 10. So rather than choose just one or two, I'll list a handful of the nonfiction stunners that stayed with me. They include the inspiring story of a marginalized community, Crip Camp; the intimate account of a tireless personal campaign against America's broken justice system, Time; the bittersweet reckoning with mortality, Dick Johnson Is Dead; the all-too-real Orwellian thriller, Coded Bias; and the searing sexual assault investigation, On the Record. Plus there were shocking exposés, of Romania's corrupt health care system in Collective and a horrific government-sanctioned purge of LGBTQ citizens in Welcome to Chechnya. Politics was inescapable in this exceedingly acrimonious election year, and strong docs on our flawed system ranged from Boys State to All In: The Fight for Democracy.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, the natural world spawned two captivating vérité documentaries in The Truffle Hunters, about the dying breed of crusty Italian eccentrics and their dogs that sniff out prized aromatic tubers; and Gunda, a mesmerizing black and white farm hangout, featuring a sow and her piglets, a one-legged chicken and a few cows, which is an adrenaline shot of the purest movie magic.</p><p> </p><p>Read on for my top 10 of the year plus 10 more alphabetized honorable mentions, followed by those of my rock-star colleagues Jon Frosch and Sheri Linden. — David Rooney</p><p> </p><ol><li>David Byrne's American Utopia</li></ol><p>OK, so I snuck in one doc. Whether Spike Lee's thrillingly immersive record of this sui generis theatrical concert is the best film of 2020 is open to debate. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the hyper-kinetic hymn to community and connection in a politically divided, environmentally ailing world is by far the most therapeutic time I had at a movie in this trying year of isolation and anxiety. Byrne's show was already something special on Broadway, with the silver-topped, professorial art-rocker flanked by a hard-working multicultural troupe of 11 virtuosic musicians, dancers and backup singers. Lee and nimble DP Ellen Kuras achieve miracles by somehow heightening that joyous experience, putting us right in there among the performers in a concert film that stands proudly alongside Jonathan Demme's landmark in the genre, the Talking Heads jam, Stop Making Sense.</p><p> </p><ol start="2"><li>First Cow</li></ol><p>There's been some online discussion of whether the tender friendship between John Magaro's diffident baker Cookie and Orion Lee's entrepreneurial Chinese immigrant King-Lu can be considered in a queer space. In my entirely subjective opinion I'm going to say the line between companionship and romantic love all but vanishes in this fine-grained miniaturist Western set on the Oregon Trail in the pioneer days of the 1820s. Kelly Reichardt, independent film's poet laureate of the Pacific Northwest, nods back to her earlier Old Joy in her reflection on the bonds that bloom between men in the wilderness. But the divine golden-brown heifer that provides both the title and the plot driver for this lyrical drama pushes it over the top to make this arguably the finest work of the director's career.</p><p> </p><ol start="3"><li>Never Rarely Sometimes Always</li></ol><p>On paper, Eliza Hittman's delicate chronicle of a Pennsylvania teenager's trip to New York City to terminate an unplanned pregnancy sounds like an issues movie, particularly at a time when the freshly stacked Supreme Court represents a renewed threat to women's reproductive rights. But the raw intimacy of this probing portrait of female friendship and solidarity both acknowledges and transcends the political with its candid snapshot of an ordinary adolescent taking control of her body and finding a safe space to reveal her trauma. The performances of screen newcomers Sidney Flanigan in the central role and Talia Ryder as her unquestioningly supportive cousin are models of restraint, yet heartbreaking in their unguarded authenticity.</p><p> </p><ol start="4"><li>Ammonite</li></ol><p>Francis Lee burst onto the scene three years ago with God's Own Country, a gay love story of stunning emotional candor and uninhibited carnality, played out against the rugged farmlands of the writer-director's native Yorkshire. He follows with this equally austere but ravishing female companion piece set on the rocky Dorset coast. In slow-burn fashion without a trace of melodrama, it chronicles a fictionalized romance between a gruff mid-19th century working class paleontologist and a well-heeled younger married woman, equally constrained by the prescribed gender roles of the period. Kate Winslet gives the performance of her career in the former role, her character's brittle exterior cracking to reveal a molten core of yearning and desire; and Saoirse Ronan, with her coltish grace and ever-alert eyes, is lovely as the woman who breaks that shell.</p><p> </p><ol start="5"><li>Beanpole</li></ol><p>Surging color that all but leaps off the screen is not something you expect to find in a drama about two young Leningrad nurses scarred by the psychological, physical and emotional ravages of war. But this audaciously unconventional survival tale from Kantemir Balagov, a wunderkind talent not yet 30, is no ordinary slice of Russian miserablism; its striking visual aesthetic and unexpected shards of acrid humor alone make it unique. As the battlefield comrades trying to scratch out lives for themselves in the devastated aftermath of World War II, transfixing newcomers Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina — both of them plucked out of acting school — draw a complicated friendship that swings between warmth and ferocity, hope and desolation in an environment of grotesque suffering, where PTSD hangs in the air like a dense fog.</p><p> </p><ol start="6"><li>Minari</li></ol><p>Asian American assimilation dramas generally unfold in coastal cities. So there's an invigorating freshness to Lee Isaac Chung's exquisitely observed Reagan-era story of a Korean immigrant family struggling to get ahead as self-made farmers transplanted from the West Coast to rural Arkansas, a plot inspired by the writer-director's own childhood. That breath of authentic experience, a sharp eye for family dynamics and an attention to seemingly small details enliven every frame of this gentle pastoral piece about hard work and hard luck. With performances of aching sensitivity from Steven Yeun as the stubborn father who dreams big for his family and is reluctant to concede his mistakes, and Yeri Han as the wife whose frustrations well up in anger, this is a heartfelt work whose delicacy lingers long in the memory.</p><p> </p><ol start="7"><li>Promising Young Woman</li></ol><p>Nothing Carey Mulligan has done before can prepare you for her avenging angel with scuzzy wings and messy lipstick in writer-director Emerald Fennell's knockout debut. This tense thriller — each scene composed with needling precision yet bursting with unexpected danger and laced with the darkest shades of sardonic humor — puts its own provocative spin on the #MeToo narrative around issues of consent and women whose trauma remains unheard. Where Mulligan's bruised badass Cassie fits into the sad history that sparked her revenge spree remains a teasing mystery until well into the film. Even when I was unsure where it was headed as it teeters between satire and sexual assault drama, this remained a white-knuckle ride through to its startling conclusion.</p><p> </p><ol start="8"><li>Nomadland</li></ol><p>In her poetic and arresting first two features, Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider, Chloé Zhao established a spiritual connection to the wide-open landscapes of the American West, using nonprofessional, mostly Native American actors playing versions of themselves and their own stories. Into that seamless blend of documentary-like realism and structured narrative she ushers a major star for the first time, with Frances McDormand as Fern, a widow whose life is uprooted when her mining town home is literally erased. Indistinguishable from the real-life nomads with whom she shares the screen, McDormand adds another indelible character to her gallery of tenacious women, refusing to be a casualty of economic hardship as she discovers both the struggle and the rewards of transient living.</p><p> </p><ol start="9"><li>Lovers Rock</li></ol><p>During a year in which human contact became a fading memory with anyone outside our immediate circles, there was no more pleasurably tactile escape than this swoon-inducing, sensual dive into a 1980 house party fueled by the slow-groove romantic reggae subgenre that supplies the title. The sole fictional entry in Steve McQueen's powerful Small Axe anthology of five films about West Indian experience in London over two decades, this dreamy, free-flowing narrative keeps the racial hostility of white Britons on the margins even if the intrusion of macho predation from within threatens to break the spell. (Airing on Amazon, Small Axe will be eligible for the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series Emmy, though McQueen has said he considers each installment a film.) A scene in which Janet Kay's 1979 hit, "Silly Games," plays out on the turntable and the people crammed into a suburban living room continue singing … and singing, is a moment of sheer musical rapture and liberation.</p><p> </p><ol start="10"><li>Bacurau</li></ol><p>There are whispers of Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill in co-directors Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles' bonkers Brazilian Western, a formally inventive, epic blend of pulpy violence with sly absurdism and subversive sociopolitical commentary. This genuine genre-bender flips the usual script on innocent tourists at the mercy of crazed off-the-grid yokels, instead dropping in a bunch of heavily armed white First World blood-sports enthusiasts to prey on remote rural villagers, the disenfranchised poor seen as disposable. But the thrill-killers don't bargain on an underclass rebellion from townsfolk already pissed about a crooked election, Sonia Braga's boozy flame-haired doctor included.</p><p> </p><p>Honorable mentions: The Assistant, Da 5 Bloods, The Forty-Year-Old Version, The Invisible Man, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, News of the World, The Old Guard, One Night in Miami, The Surrogate, Wolfwalkers</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Jon Frosch's Top 10</p><ol><li>Never Rarely Sometimes Always</li><li>Nomadland</li><li>An Easy Girl</li><li>Ammonite</li><li>Promising Young Woman</li><li>The Forty-Year-Old Version</li><li>The Climb</li><li>Beanpole</li><li>The Surrogate</li><li>Da 5 Bloods</li></ol><p> </p><p>Honorable mentions: And Then We Danced, Crip Camp, David Byrne's American Utopia, First Cow, Fourteen, The King of Staten Island, One Night in Miami, 76 Days, Swallow, Time</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sheri Linden's Top 10</p><ol><li>Beanpole</li><li>Gunda</li><li>Never Rarely Sometimes Always</li><li>Promising Young Woman</li><li>One Night in Miami</li><li>Bacurau</li><li>76 Days</li><li>First Cow</li><li>Ammonite</li><li>The Forty-Year-Old Version</li></ol><p> </p><p>Honorable mentions: Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Crip Camp, David Byrne’s American Utopia, La Llorona, My Darling Vivian, The Painter and the Thief, The Surrogate, Tesla, The Truffle Hunters</p><p> </p><p>Articles by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-reporter-critics-pick-the-best-films-of-2020" target="_blank">David Rooney, Jon Frosch, Sheri Linden</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Hulu Picks Up NEW A24's Ilana Glazer Horror Feature 'False Positive'https://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/hulu-picks-up-new-a24-s-ilana-glazer-horror-feature-false-positiv2020-12-16T00:25:23.000Z2020-12-16T00:25:23.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8292150270,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8292150270,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8292150270?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>Justin Theroux and Pierce Brosnan also star.</p><p>Hulu has picked A24 feature False Positive starring Ilana Glazer.</p><p> </p><p>The movie follows Lucy (Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux) who, after several attempts of trying and failing to get pregnant, finally find their dream fertility doctor in the illustrious Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). But after becoming pregnant with a healthy baby girl, Lucy begins to notice something sinister through Hindle's gleaming charm.</p><p> </p><p>Gretchen Mol, Sophia Bush and Josh Hamilton also star in the feature, which is due out in 2021.</p><p> </p><p>John Lee directed from a script he co-wrote with Glazer. Jonathan Wang, Glazer and Lee produced.</p><p> </p><p>Hulu, which counts Run and Happiest Season as recent acquisitions, has previously worked with A24 on the original series Ramy.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hulu-picks-up-ilana-glazer-a24-horror-false-positive" target="_blank">Mia Galuppo</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Costume Designer Trish Summerville on the Glamorous Looks of 'Mank's' Amanda Seyfriedhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/costume-designer-trish-summerville-on-the-glamorous-looks-of-mank2020-12-08T16:24:16.000Z2020-12-08T16:24:16.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924052,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924052,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262924052?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>Summerville discusses creating the stylish looks in black and white for the actress, who plays star Marion Davies in the new David Fincher film.</p><p>When costume designer Trish Summerville first started working on David Fincher’s new Netflix film Mank, “even people in my crew and friends were like, ‘This would probably make things so much easier.” That’s because the film is shot in black and white. In fact, though, the opposite was true. “It actually made it a bit more difficult,” says Summerville. “When you shoot in color, you have all these different shades and tones you can work with and you can do stuff that’s tone on tone.”</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924100,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924100,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262924100?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>What she found out — while researching the period and visiting costume rental houses, where she took photos of garments in black and white — is that not only are many options are no-go but that other problems present themselves.</p><p>“Prints became very difficult — if they had too much contrast in the colors, they popped and became very confetti like. [And] you can’t just use black and white [clothes],” says Summerville, who previously worked with Fincher on Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. “White pops too much. Black absorbs too much and goes away.” For example, in a funeral scene in the film — which stars Gary Oldman as screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz during the writing of Citizen Kane — Summerville used an array of other colors to read as black on screen. “A lot of it is navies and browns and grays and reds and burgundies and eggplant, because black just looks so flat,” she says.</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924469,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262924469,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262924469?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>One of the standouts of the film is actress Amanda Seyfried’s pitch-perfect performance as Marion Davies, the mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Her glamorous wardrobe is a showstopper as well. Early in the film, in a scene where Seyfried plays Davies (who’s playing a character who’s about to be burned at the stake), the actress wears a beautiful white dress paired with a capelet. Summerville describes the outfit as “kind of an eggshell chiffon that has very fine ribbon detail through each seam, all layers of chiffon. The piece over the top, the silk capelet, is more of an ecru. All the fabric gave us a lot of texture.”</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262925055,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262925055,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262925055?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>In another scene, a birthday party at Hearst Castle for MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, where Davies is a focal point, “I wanted her to look extremely glamorous,” says Summerville. “We found this fabric that is like an antique gold lamé. Lamé became kind of a big evening fabric in the '30s. It was bias cut, so very body hugging and very fitted, and then I wanted the sleeves to contrast that and have a lot of movement and flow.” Summerville also notes the outfit Davies wears when she leaves MGM, “That’s a muted periwinkle blue with a faux-fur gray mink collar. We made this really interesting sleeve that was fun.”</p><p> </p><p>For Summerville, one of the more fun scenes to do was a circus-themed party held at Hearst Castle where Seyfried wears a drum majorette outfit with feathered short sleeves, a fairly direct recreation of what Davies actually wore that night. “We found images of that in [Davies’ own] book — she had a lot of photographs of all of the different parties and personal photographs of her and Hearst — and through other research we were able to find photos of her and all the different people that attended,” says Summerville.</p><p> </p><p>“The people we didn’t have images of I kind of just decided what I would like them to wear. I thought it was fitting since L.B. Mayer ran MGM to dress him as a lion tamer.” She did make one conspicuous change though from what was documented, deciding against showing Hearst wearing the actual bow tie he wore that night. “It was massive and polka dotted. It was a little too much. I didn’t want him to look comical.”</p><p> </p><p>For research, Summerville also looked to histories of MGM as well as books about famed costumer Edith Head, who worked at rival studio Paramount. Head is actually an Easter Egg in the film, reveals Summerville: “In a backlot scene at MGM we dressed someone like Edith Head. She’s walking toward camera toward a rack of clothing.”</p><p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262925301,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262925301,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262925301?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>Summerville, who is currently working on her next film, Slumberland, starring Jason Momoa, Kyle Chandler and Chris O’Dowd, recently screened Mank in her own backyard. “I wanted to see it big. We actually put up a screen and showed it with a projector on a Saturday night which was really quite nice. We got to have that drive-in movie feel but being in our own backyard and had popcorn and champagne. It was kind of fitting for the mood. It just looks so beautiful and so authentic.”</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/costume-designer-trish-summerville-on-the-glamorous-looks-of-manks-amanda-seyfried" target="_blank">Degen Pener</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Christopher Nolan Rips HBO Max as "Worst Streaming Service," Denounces Warner Bros.' Planhttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/christopher-nolan-rips-hbo-max-as-worst-streaming-service-denounc2020-12-08T16:18:36.000Z2020-12-08T16:18:36.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p> </p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262895052,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262895052,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262895052?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>To many insiders, WarnerMedia's blindsiding of talent and their reps with news that it would send 17 films directly to HBO Max in 2021 felt like an insult.</p><p>For many in the movie business — producers, directors, stars and their representatives — Dec. 3, 2020, is a day that will live in infamy.</p><p>“Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service,” filmmaker Christopher Nolan, whose relationship with Warners dates back to Insomnia in 2002, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.</p><p> </p><p>Added Nolan: “Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”</p><p> </p><p>On that now-infamous morning, Ann Sarnoff — whose ungainly title is chair and CEO of WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group — and Warner Bros. film studio chairman Toby Emmerich called the heads of the major agencies to drop a bombshell: Warners was about to smash the theatrical window, sweeping its entire 17-picture 2021 film slate onto its faltering HBO Max streaming service, debuting them on the same day they would open in whatever theaters could admit customers.</p><p> </p><p>Surprisingly to some in the industry, sources say the idea was the brainchild of Warner Bros. COO Carolyn Blackwood who, looking at a relatively weak 2021 slate, saw an opportunity to avoid the humiliation of potentially bad grosses while currying favor with streamer-obsessed higher-ups.</p><p> </p><p>The instant response in Hollywood was outrage and a massive girding for battle. “Warners has made a grave mistake,” says one top talent agent. “Never have this many people been this upset with one entity.” Like others, he had spent much of the day dealing with calls from stunned and angry clients. And that swooshing sound you hear? It’s the lawyers, stropping their blades as they prepare for battle: that Warners was self-dealing in shifting these movies to its own streamer, perhaps, or that the company acted in bad faith. Some talent reps say the decision affects not only profit participants but others who have worked on films as the move might affect residual payments. They expect and hope that the guilds will get involved. (The Writers Guild of America declined to comment.)</p><p> </p><p>The Warners move poses big, maybe even existential questions: How do theaters survive this supposedly onetime, excused-by-the-pandemic move? Genies are hard to put back in the bottle — and no one believes Warners intended this to be temporary, anyway. What damage will be done to exhibitors by training customers that if they sit on their sofas, the biggest movies will come? And will Warners face serious backlash from important producers, filmmakers, guilds and onscreen talent? “Warners was the quintessentially talent-friendly, filmmaker-friendly studio,” says one agent. “Now Warners isn’t the first place, second place or third place you want to go.”</p><p> </p><p>Many in Hollywood think WarnerMedia opted for this drastic move to play to streaming-infatuated Wall Street and redo the botched launch of HBO Max, which has netted a dismal 8.6 million "activated" subscribers so far. But one prominent agent notes that the top executives at WarnerMedia and its parent — AT&T CEO John Stankey, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar and, of course, Sarnoff — “don’t understand the movie business, and they don’t understand talent relations.”</p><p> </p><p>While Kilar pays what is seen as lip service to movies, industry veterans say Warners is sacrificing the huge profit that comes from selling movies in multiple formats and on multiple platforms around the world.</p><p> </p><p>Even before Warners made its play, there was grumbling among agents that Sarnoff, who has been on the job for more than a year, had yet to get acquainted with key players on the film side or make much of an impression at all. That’s why many are focusing their wrath on Emmerich. “Toby’s passion is only about managing up,” says one agent who represents major Warners talent.</p><p> </p><p>By the weekend following the announcement, Emmerich was calling important filmmakers with projects set for 2022 to assure them that their movies wouldn’t be dropped on the streaming service without warning. “As if anyone would believe he had any control over the situation,” says one producer with a major Warner property. “Toby probably had a really bad weekend, not that I feel bad for him,” says one agent.</p><p> </p><p>According to a source, Emmerich tried to soothe In the Heights director Jon M. Chu by pointing out that the movie was still getting a “global theatrical release.” But industry insiders say the studio is pretending that pirates won’t pounce as soon as these films are streaming on HBO Max. As soon as one does, there's an “excellent version of the movie everywhere immediately,” notes one industry veteran.</p><p> </p><p>WarnerMedia’s decision to attack without warning may be understandable given the blowback that was foreseeable. But to many insiders, blindsiding talent and their reps seemed like an insult. Sources say studio president Courtenay Valenti was the only Warner exec who dared to speak up about the need to reach out to key creative partners, but she was quickly hushed.</p><p> </p><p>Much of this outrage will surely be mitigated if WarnerMedia is prepared to write big checks to all the profit participants in the films that have been moved. “It’s a critical time for them, at the highest level, to make this right with the talent,” says one rep. But agents say the guidance that’s been provided so far suggests that the company isn’t planning to offer what is now called "Wonder Woman money," in honor of the rich deal the studio gave profit participants in Wonder Woman 1984 when that film was moved to HBO Max.</p><p> </p><p>WarnerMedia had to shovel tens of millions at Gal Godot and the other key players because the company wants a third in the series. But that sets the bar high. Sources say even Suicide Squad director James Gunn, who is platform-agnostic, was not pleased when the studio followed its shocking announcement by floating a lackluster formula for compensating him and other profit participants in the film.</p><p> </p><p>At minimum, WarnerMedia has opened the door to arduous negotiations with the major agencies over compensation for multiple profit participants in 17 movies. Did the Warners numbers crunchers, in projecting the cost of premiering its entire 2021 slate on HBO Max, factor in the cost of widely anticipated legal challenges? Industry insiders believe WarnerMedia may have opened itself up to those, especially as it is selling the movies to its own streaming platform when none of the profit participants has had a chance to figure out what Apple or Netflix might have paid for the opportunity to stream their projects day-and-date. Allegations of self-dealing are almost sure to follow.</p><p> </p><p>Many think Legendary will be the first to file a legal challenge. The company fired off a previous lawyer letter after Netflix offered something north of $225 million for the rights to Godzilla vs. Kong, which has seen its release date moved from March 2020 to November to May 2021. Though Legendary financed 75 percent of the movie, Warners had the power to block the sale and did. Legendary asked whether the studio would then give it a deal to stream the movie on HBO Max — and got no clear answer until its executives woke up one December morning to find that the movie was going day-and-date on the service without the benefit of a negotiation. Legendary’s even more expensive picture, Dune, is getting the same treatment. The other companies that finance Warners movies, Village Roadshow and Bron, are also said to be aggrieved parties that might end up going to court.</p><p> </p><p>And then there’s the talent. Dune director Denis Villeneuve is said to be among those who felt most strongly that a traditional big-screen release was essential for his film. Chu, who along with Lin-Manuel Miranda went through an intense courtship with multiple suitors for In the Heights and who had turned down a huge Netflix offer for Crazy Rich Asians because he cherishes the communal theatrical experience, told an associate he was “shell-shocked” after being informed of the Warners decision.</p><p> </p><p>Sources say WarnerMedia insiders have been hoping that Disney will follow its lead and shift its slate to streaming. But Disney, which had seven billion-dollar-grossing movies last year, isn’t about to do that. Instead, it is moving some films to streaming, as it did with Hamilton and Artemis Fowl — likely Cruella and more — but an agent notes that the way Disney has handled the shift stands in stark contrast to what Warners has done. “They didn’t do a unilateral thing,” he says, adding that studio executives made pre-emptive calls to talent and their reps that helped smooth the process.</p><p> </p><p>It’s also worth noting that Disney+, which has dwarfed HBO Max in terms of subscribers, has gotten a lot of mileage out of one original hit, The Mandalorian, which is based on an iconic movie property. “There’s never been a full-fledged franchise blockbuster launched on a streaming service,” observes an executive at a Warners competitor. “It starts with theaters and it starts with opening weekend.” And so far, those blockbusters have been the ones that generated merchandise sales and theme-park attractions.</p><p> </p><p>Warners doesn’t have theme parks but it has reaped big benefits from movies that almost certainly would have been dropped onto HBO Max had the option been available at the time. Consider last year’s megahit Joker. Film studio chief Emmerich was not a fan of the project; it was defended by worldwide marketing president Blair Rich, who was recently pushed out. Emmerich lowballed on the budget to discourage director Todd Phillips from making it, and when the filmmaker persisted, sold off half the movie. Joker then became a cultural phenomenon that grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide, was honored with 11 Academy Award nominations and an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix. Would any of that have happened had Joker been dropped onto HBO Max?</p><p> </p><p>Despite their assertions to the contrary, many industry insiders believe that neither AT&T chairman Stankey nor Kilar has much interest in the legacy movie business. Kilar has said this move was made for the fans and told CNBC, “If we start our days and end our days focused on the customer, we’re going to lead the industry.”</p><p> </p><p>That brings to mind a line in the new Netflix movie, Mank — a warning delivered to the upstart Orson Welles by grizzled veteran Herman Mankiewicz: “You, my friend, are an outsider, a self-anointed savior-hyphenate. They’re just waiting to loathe you.”</p><p> </p><p>It also leaves out a long-standing Hollywood maxim: Content is king. And content comes from artists who aren’t always motivated purely by money. Says an agent who represents extremely important talent with business at Warners: “You had a decades-long legacy as being known as the most talent-friendly studio. Now you’ve gone from that to a studio that in starburst colors lit up a sign that says, 'We don’t give a fuck about talent.’”</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/christopher-nolan-rips-hbo-max-as-worst-streaming-service-denounces-warner-bros-plan" target="_blank">Kim Masters</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Inside 'Big Mouth's' Big Changehttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/inside-big-mouth-s-big-change2020-12-08T16:16:46.000Z2020-12-08T16:16:46.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8262866093,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8262866093,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8262866093?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p>Co-Creator Andrew Goldberg talks with The Hollywood Reporter about recasting the role of Missy and how new castmember — and writer — Ayo Edebiri is making her mark on the Netflix animated favorite.</p><p> [This interview contains spoilers from Big Mouth season four.]</p><p> </p><p>Jenny Slate made headlines earlier this year when she relinquished the role of Missy on Netflix's Big Mouth, joining several other white actors in stepping down from playing animated characters of color. Partway through Big Mouth's just-released fourth season, fan-favorite Missy is given a new voice — that of comedian Ayo Edebiri, who had fallen in love with the character as a college student and was already part of the show's writers room. (Slate will continue voicing other characters on the show.) But recasting a character in the middle of a season — especially one that had already been submitted to Netflix as a completed project — wasn't easy.</p><p> </p><p>Big Mouth co-creator Andrew Goldberg — the inspiration for Andrew (John Mulaney) on the show — talked with THR about the challenges of the midseason recasting, the serendipity of finding the perfect place to transition Missy's voice from Slate to Edebiri and why it's so important to make sure the girls can be just as gross as the guys.</p><p> </p><p>How did the Missy recasting happen?</p><p> </p><p>Jenny playing Missy is something we had been talking about for a couple years. It was something that Jenny initially brought up and we had this dilemma, which was that on the one hand, if we had known then what we know now, that’s not how we would have cast the part. But at the same time, we had this character who Jenny was playing so beautifully, and in a way that was making a lot of people feel seen in a way that they hadn’t before, because Missy is such a unique biracial character.</p><p> </p><p>And then in the spring, when Black Lives Matter rose to greater prominence, Jenny came to the realization that it was past time for her to step down. We supported her, and we had this big conversation with our Black writers and a few Black performers. [They] all agreed that they loved what Jenny had done and appreciated the character that she had created, but that the right thing to do was to make space for a Black actor to play the part.</p><p> </p><p>Was there anything that surprised you in that conversation?</p><p> </p><p>Something that I didn’t expect but as soon as I heard it, it made total sense, was that once the part was being played by Ayo, they felt like they had even more freedom to tell stories about Missy’s race and her racial identity.</p><p> </p><p>[Writer] Brandon Kyle Goodman in particular talked about how part of puberty for him was recognizing his Blackness and what that means and how people perceived it. You start with a little bit of innocence, but as you reach this age, it becomes a bigger part of your life. So for him, growing into his racial identity was very much a part of his puberty. That was something that I didn’t experience as my puberty, and that's the whole reason why it makes sense to have a diverse writers room with people who had all these different experiences growing up.</p><p> </p><p>When did this issue of representation in animation voicing come on your radar?</p><p> </p><p>I think it really came to our attention first via Jenny. We started talking about it before the world at large seemed to be talking about it. And then, once we made the decision to recast the part, we did it differently than we normally do it, where we think of somebody who would be great and ask them if they want to do it.</p><p> </p><p>In this case, we cast a very wide net. We went through agents in the traditional way, but we also had people tweeting us and sending us Instagram posts of like, "listen to me do my Missy." We had our casting people track those people down and put themselves on tape.</p><p> </p><p>Wow.</p><p> </p><p>We listened to dozens and dozens of Missys. And we brought back six or eight people to work with us over Zoom. It was a really cool process, and it was a chance to meet a ton of actors, some of whom we have since used on our shows because we liked them so much.</p><p> </p><p>But with Ayo, it was very special for us. She was a writer on season five of Big Mouth, so she was already part of the family. She is also new and young. She was in college when she first saw Big Mouth and became attached emotionally to Missy. And we knew going in that Ayo shares a lot with Missy. She will say it herself, that she felt she was a Missy growing up.</p><p> </p><p>There’s something with Missy where there’s this nervous, endearing, cerebral energy that is very hard to fake. Like, it has to be real within you to play. And Ayo really had that from the beginning.</p><p> </p><p>In the second episode, Missy, still voiced by Jenny, says, "I’m really struggling with my racial identity right now. My mom is white, my dad is Black, I am voiced by a white actor who is 37 years old." Where did that line come from? Was it improvised by Jenny? Or did it come from the writers?</p><p> </p><p>Kind of both. That was something borne out of those conversations that we had been having with Jenny about what it means to have a white person voicing a biracial character and whether that’s OK. We wrote that probably a year and a half ago. We felt like we needed to acknowledge it in some way and not just pretend it didn’t exist.</p><p> </p><p>Was it challenging to shift gears with that recasting midseason?</p><p> </p><p>We are always writing and recording way ahead of the animation. To give you an idea of how far ahead we were, we had actually recorded most of season five with Jenny as Missy [at the time of the recasting decision]. So we had delivered all of season four to Netflix already when we recast Ayo with the part. The first question was, is there a way to redo all of season four? And we found that from a production standpoint, there really wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p>There was also just the creative issue of, if we had [gone back and rerecorded Missy's lines], Ayo would have had to really replicate everything Jenny did acting-wise for a whole season, which was not a good recipe for a new actor to make the part her own. We were OK with asking her to do that for like 20 lines or so in the last two episodes, but to ask her to do that for hundreds of lines felt antithetical to what we were trying to do, which was handing over the part to Ayo and giving her an opportunity to make it her own.</p><p> </p><p>To clarify, because the animation had already been based on Jenny’s acting for season four, you didn’t want to go back and have Ayo mimic Jenny’s acting?</p><p> </p><p>Exactly. We didn’t think that that was a fair thing to ask of Ayo, or any actor, when they are taking over a part.</p><p> </p><p>Jen Flackett, one of our creators, found this really organic place in season four where it made a lot of sense to make the transition of the voice, because a lot of Missy’s story in season four is about reckoning with the different parts of her identity, and a big part of that is her racial identity.</p><p> </p><p>In the second episode, she spends a summer with her cousins (Lena Waithe and Quinta Brunson), and is really opened up to this idea that she hasn’t totally experienced the Black part of her identity because her parents had raised her with these post-racial intentions. And then deeper into the season, she has a story about code-switching with her classmate DeVon (Jak Knight). Jak wrote that episode, which is about her getting a better sense of what society expects and demands of her [as a Black girl] in a way that she hadn’t thought of before.</p><p> </p><p>The point where we make the voice change is the Halloween story. In the House of Horrors, Missy's anxiety is expressed by all these different reflections she has in the mirror of the different parts of her identity. At some point they all shatter, and she is worried that having all these different parts of her identity means that she is nothing. But then she puts the pieces together into this thing she calls Mosaic Missy. And that is the point at which Ayo’s voice takes over. Ayo is the voice of this Mosaic Missy. And then, moving forward, that’s where the voice changes and everything else Missy says in season four is Ayo’s voice.</p><p> </p><p>How did the Pen15 crossover happen?</p><p> </p><p>We watched the [Hulu] show and we loved it. Gabe Liedman was writing on our show part-time that season and he had worked on that show, and we had this idea for an episode where Andrew and Nick decide to date younger girls and thought that Maya and Anna would be really funny in those parts.</p><p> </p><p>It was really fun collaborating with them, especially because our shows deal with the same time of life. That’s one of my favorite episodes.</p><p> </p><p>It was very gratifying to see Maya’s Hormone Monster and see that, of course, hers was even grosser than any of the current Hormone Monsters.</p><p> </p><p>Well, that’s something important to our female writers. Like, let’s not let the boys be the only ones who can be horny and gross.</p><p> </p><p>Something I’ve continually wondered about the show is the gendering of various objects in the Big Mouth universe. I remember watching the episode where Jessi figures out how to use a tampon and being surprised that the tampons were men. What do those conversations look like?</p><p> </p><p>Yeah, we did have that conversation. There was a moment where somebody was like, "The tampons are guys?" And Jen Flackett was like, "Yes, they’re guys, that’s how I always think of them. ‘Cause they go in, right?"</p><p> </p><p>Earlier this year, there was a controversy over the movie Cuties, which led to a supposed boycott of Netflix. Have you had much backlash against your show for "sexualizing children"?</p><p> </p><p>Not a ton. And when it does come, it is often accompanied by some really upsetting anti-Semitism. But it's also from people who haven’t seen the show. By and large, everybody who has seen the show gets what we’re doing. When people see the show, it’s cathartic for them because it reminds them or lets them know that there wasn’t anything wrong with them back then or isn’t anything wrong with them now.</p><p> </p><p>I’ve had that experience, where Kristen Wiig’s vagina character initially made me uncomfortable. And then the more I watched, I was like, "Oh, I’m dumb, this is fine."</p><p> </p><p>Kelly Galuska, who has been a writer since season one and created [the upcoming Big Mouth spinoff] Human Resources with us, when she was interviewing to be on the show, we were telling her about the pilot and how Nick sees Andrew’s penis for the first time and sees he’s got pubic hair and feels inadequate in comparison. I remember Kelly asking, are you ever going to show a vagina on the show? Nick and I were like, "Oh God no, we can’t." And Jen and Kelly were like,"You have to. If you’re showing a penis in the first episode, you can’t hold girls to that double standard." It was like, "Wow, I guess you’re right." And if you’re going to have a talking vagina, Kristen Wiig is the right person to do it.</p><p> </p><p>I’m sure she’ll be flattered to read that in the pages of The Hollywood Reporter.</p><p> </p><p>(Laughs.) Well, I hope she already knows.</p><p> </p><p>Big Mouth season four is now streaming on Netflix. Interview edited for length and clarity.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/inside-big-mouths-big-change" target="_blank">Inkoo Kang</a> for the Hollywood Reporter.</p></div>Oscar Protests About Diversity Need to Add Hiring Statshttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/oscar-protests-about-diversity-need-to-add-hiring-stats2020-12-03T16:19:30.000Z2020-12-03T16:19:30.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8245069260,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8245069260,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="450" alt="8245069260?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a></p><p>In the COVID era, we have been forced to rethink everything. So I’m proposing another reinvention: New ways of using awards to protest Hollywood’s lack of diversity.</p><p> </p><p>Of course the protests must continue, carrying on the important work that #OscarsSoWhite did to revolutionize Hollywood starting in 2015.</p><p> </p><p>It’s time to add another step. Protesters should link up with organizations that gather hiring statistics, such as USC’s Annenberg School, the Women’s Media Center, the NAACP and GLAAD. Those stats are key: They offer numbers about how much progress is/isn’t being made. Unfortunately, tallies for awards voting — Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA and the guilds — are always kept secret, so it involves a lot of guesswork on how people voted. And guesses are less effective than hard facts.</p><p> </p><p>The biggest problem with protesting nominations or winners is that it puts the burden of change on awards voters — and takes the heat off the people who should be pressured: those in a position to hire.</p><p> </p><p>Here are some reminders:</p><ul><li>Nov. 21, 1956: Variety ran a letter from Thurgood Marshall, who was then-special counsel to the NAACP (before his tenure on the Supreme Court). He hoped for “the wider use” of underutilized Black actors. (In other words, this has been going on for 60 years!)</li><li>March 17, 1970: A group led by Ricardo Montalban formed Nosotros, intended to “solve the injustice involved in the hiring of Spanish-surnamed personnel in the industry.”</li><li>Oct. 29, 1976: Variety ran a full-page ad from Asian Americans headlined “We are not all alike: sinister villains, China dolls, waiters, laundrymen! We must be fairly considered for all roles.” It was signed by 100 individuals and as many supporters.</li><li>June 15, 1993: A five-year study by the Writers Guild of America West “shows that the industry is not making any great strides in terms of overcoming racism, sexism and ageism,” with statistics to back up the claims.</li></ul><p> </p><p>There have also been decades of protests by LGBTQ groups, people with disabilities, Native Americans, and many others.</p><p> </p><p>Showbiz execs have a history of token hiring, creating committees and workshops to address the situation, and then returning to old habits. So yes, keep protesting.</p><p> </p><p>One problem with using award nominations/wins as evidence — there is no evidence. With Oscars, for example, we know the top five vote-getters in each category, but who came in No. 6-20?</p><p> </p><p>Last year, there was lamenting over the all-male director category. But did Greta Gerwig of “Little Women” miss out by one vote? Or did voters completely shut her out? We don’t know.</p><p> </p><p>The second problem is that we’re challenging people’s tastes, as if that’s a measure of Hollywood’s wokeness. The five Oscar-nominated 2019 directors were Bong Joon Ho, Sam Mendes, Todd Phillips, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino; all had big fans, so you can’t say anyone stole her nomination. It’s like going to a restaurant with friends and telling them they ordered the wrong meal. If that’s what they want, it’s not wrong. But even if every voter chose “the right meal,” it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t result in more jobs.</p><p> </p><p>There’s another reason to focus on hiring instead of nominations. This year, there is likely to be a lot of diversity in “marquee” categories, thanks to “Nomadland,” “One Night in Miami,” “Minari,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Sound of Metal,” “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” etc. If they get nominations, many people can be lulled into thinking that inclusion has been resolved.</p><p> </p><p>Before Oscar noms are announced March 15, protesters should gather statistics about Hollywood hiring since the 2015 start of the #OscarsSoWhite movement. And they should notify journalists in advance that they have relevant stats, which can be unveiled on nomination day. That taps into awards hoopla but keeps the pressure on those who hire, not on the voters.</p><p> </p><p>#OscarsSoWhite has accomplished a lot. Five years later, we should be seeing changes in Hollywood hiring. It’s important to discover if that’s the case.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/news/oscar-protests-diversity-hiring-statistics-1234842662/" target="_blank">Tim Gray</a> for Variety.</p></div>How ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Proves the Need for More Diverse Stories About Appalachiahttps://californiafilm.net/profiles/news/how-hillbilly-elegy-proves-the-need-for-more-diverse-stories-abou2020-12-03T16:17:30.000Z2020-12-03T16:17:30.000ZElla Christiansenhttps://californiafilm.net/members/EllaChristiansen<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8245052059,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8245052059,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="450" alt="8245052059?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a></p><p>As J.D. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” surged to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, I was on location in Kentucky filming “Hillbilly” — a documentary that examines the long history of vicious cultural stereotyping that has plagued Appalachia.</p><p> </p><p>My first memory of seeing Appalachia depicted to the nation was the 1989 CBS special, “48 Hours: Another America.” As a 9-year-old, I watched Dan Rather tell the world about the people of Muddy Gut, in Floyd County, one county over from where my family and I lived. Everything about that program — from the images of the broken-down cars to the condescending tone of the faceless narrator — made me feel shame. The program even added banjo to the “48 Hours” theme, a familiar cue for the viewer signaling they are entering a place that exists outside of place and time. That news program had a profound impact on me and was the impetus for making “Hillbilly” more than 25 years later.</p><p> </p><p>I grew up in a small coal mining community in eastern Kentucky where my family lived for six generations. I was always told I had to leave and go away to college. As a student at the University of Kentucky, I experienced culture shock and my own personal awakening. I discovered documentaries, feminism, critical race theory, and bell hooks. I worked at the college newspaper where my professors and fellow student journalists ridiculed my accent. These interactions made me feel insulted, like I had emerged from some strange and peculiar place; an outsider in my own state.</p><p> </p><p>Filming for our documentary “Hillbilly” began more than two years before anyone had heard about Vance or could fathom that America was about to elect a reality television star as President of the United States. When “Hillbilly Elegy” came out it climbed to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for 73 weeks. I initially avoided reading it, fearing it would be filled with the stereotypes my documentary was actively working to defy. After it sat on my coffee table for months, I decided to read it in flight as my crew and I flew back and forth from Los Angeles to Kentucky.</p><p> </p><p>I certainly understand the criticism of “Hillbilly Elegy.” While I related to some of the memoir aspects of Vance’s story, I didn’t appreciate the gross generalizations about working class people. Likewise, the assumption that his Horatio Alger story (rising from poverty to attend an Ivy League school, working as a venture capitalist, writing a best-selling memoir, auctioning the script to Ron Howard to direct and Netflix to finance) is available to all Appalachian people is deeply problematic. Vance’s story is powerful and his dealings with his family’s addiction are relatable to many, but his outcome is unique to him alone and can’t possibly reflect the experiences of the more than 25 million people who call Appalachia home.</p><p> </p><p>Many colleagues I admire — Crystal Good, Silas House, Elizabeth Catte, Meredith McCarroll and Tony Harkins — responded critically as well. “Using the template of his harrowing childhood, Vance remakes Appalachia in his own image as a place of alarming social decline, smoldering and misplaced resentment, and poor life choices,” writes Catte in “What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia.” For a different perspective, consider hook’s “Belonging: A Culture of Place” and McCarroll and Harkins’ “Appalachia Reckoning,” an edited volume made in response to “Hillbilly Elegy.”</p><p> </p><p>As the major political party nominations were clinched in the summer of 2016, rural people were once again on the national news. This time journalists depicted them as the unsophisticated and uneducated voting block likely to support a Trump presidency. With this political climate as our backdrop, our crew traveled to Letcher County, Kentucky, to film with a group of Kentucky filmmakers who were making a film about the Black Lives Matter movement in Whitesburg, Kentucky at Appalshop, a media arts organization founded as part of the War on Poverty initiatives in 1969.</p><p> </p><p>When we set out to make “Hillbilly,” we did so with the intention of making a film that would explore why these stereotypes have persisted since the 1870s and show what impact they have on the people who live there. We strove to bring visibility to the issues facing Appalachian communities such as racial justice, economic inequality, and the long lasting impacts of exploitation of the land and people by coal corporations and other outside interests. Our goal was to do no harm; create an inclusive, gorgeous cinematic portrait; include Appalachian people in the process of making the film; and make the film accessible to rural and urban audiences. Ultimately, we wanted to present a more diverse, complex, and nuanced portrait of the region and the people who live there. We envisioned our film as an impetus for change on a broader, national scale.</p><p> </p><p>It was the honor of a lifetime to make this film, involving my family in the process, and gaining the financial backing of the National Endowment for the Humanities. We got to work with the indefatigable Silas House; my hero and fellow Kentuckian bell hooks; Poet Crystal Good; and the always brilliant Frank X Walker, who coined the word “Affrilachia,” signifying the importance of the African-American presence in Appalachia. The film has played to audiences around the world, ranging from my hometown in Kentucky; to Anchorage, Alaska; and Prague and Albania. Over and over we hear people say “Hillbilly” changes the way they think about Appalachia and the people who live there. We won the Best Documentary Award at the 2018 Los Angeles Film Festival after premiering at the Nashville Film Festival and Traverse City Film Festival, where Michael Moore awarded us the Founders’ Award for Best Documentary.</p><p> </p><p>Our movie is far from perfect. It is a glimpse into a broad range of intersectional issues, ideas, coalitions, movements, and conversations, that are all equally deserving of attention in the media space. I will forever regret its inability to interrogate racism on a deeper level and to examine the consequences of capitalism on communities like the one where I grew up in eastern Kentucky. I recognize how whiteness informed our perspective and how we could have been more inclusive in our effort to involve Black and indigenous collaborators.</p><p> </p><p>Ron Howard hosted a work-in-progress friends and family screening of “Hillbilly Elegy” in Los Angeles and invited my “Hillbilly” co-director, Sally Rubin, and I to attend. We were delighted to receive the invitation and to learn from one of the assistants that Howard and his team watched our documentary before they began filming. I wanted to meet him after the feedback session but had to rush home to my newborn baby.</p><p> </p><p>I saw the finished film on Netflix the day it premiered, and enjoyed it more than I expected. Howard’s version tells Vance’s story about growing up in a family consumed by his mother’s opioid addiction. The film is less objectionable than the book and Howard is smart to avoid an examination of the greater culture, which became the focal point of much of the memoir’s criticism.</p><p> </p><p>The film evokes a strong sense of place, which I relate to as someone who grew up in a mountain holler (slang for hollow). “Hillbilly Elegy” has redeeming qualities, including Vance’s love for his mother and the way families stick together no matter what. “Cause family is the only thing that means a goddamn,” says Vance’s grandmother (played by a nearly unrecognizable Glenn Close) during a beautifully directed funeral procession through the Appalachian Mountains. Amy Adams delivers a compelling and convincing performance as Bev, Vance’s mother who is addicted to prescription pills and later heroin. The naturalness of the dialogue and accents surprised me. While I rolled my eyes a time or two over Close’s overt performance or during a scene where we see an unnecessary cutaway of Vance’s neighbors shouting at each other on the porch, I leave the film appreciating the way it represents the traumatic and painful cycle of addiction.</p><p> </p><p>Crystal Good — a poet, journalist, and sixth generation West Virginian — describes the sentiment so many Appalachian people feel toward “Hillbilly Elegy” in a forthcoming piece for Scalawag Magazine. “It’s fun to be in the anti-JD club,” she writes. “It’s like smoking. You can always find a friend in white Appalachia circles, especially if you are willing to share your Blackness as to contrast the whiteness of ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’”</p><p> </p><p>This moment reflects a turning point and demonstrates the unique and urgent opportunity that exists for Hollywood to — at long last — be more representative and inclusive in its telling of stories about Appalachia and the people who live there. Beyond that, the opportunities are immense for expanding media, digital, and political literacy.</p><p> </p><p>Media informs the way we see ourselves and the way we understand the world in which we live. It helps us understand the experiences of others and can convey the complexity of the human condition. It teaches us to understand points of view different from our own. It is critical and necessary for our industry to invest in creating more nuanced and inclusive portraits of Appalachia in the same way it is taking steps to be more inclusive in its telling of stories about other marginalized and vulnerable communities. I fully believe when people see complex multi-dimensional portraits of themselves on screen, the world becomes a better place.</p><p> </p><p>Ashley York is a producer, filmmaker, journalist, and adjunct associate professor in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “Hillbilly” is available on Hulu.</p><p> </p><p>Article by: <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/opinion/hillbilly-elegy-hillbilly-director-ashley-york-1234839454/" target="_blank">Ashley York</a> for Variety.</p></div>