Nikki Finke claims Paramount has bumped Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island from an October 2009 release date to February 2010, for the sole reason that they don’t have enough money to give the picture an awards campaign this year. If this is true it would would sort of make sense, since a) the film hasn’t been slotted into any of the fall film festivals, and b) Paramount is probably all-in, Oscar-wise, on The Lovely Bones. But also: do they really think this is awards bait? Because the trailer makes it look like weirdly generic high-concept horror. Plus, Nikki claims it’s scoring well with audiences — which is more evidence that the Academy wouldn’t give it the time of day.
Thanks to a (front page?) article on Nikki Finke and Deadline Hollywood Dailyin today’s New York Times, the much-derided, much-feared entertainment journalist is getting quite a lot of exposure, just in time for her transition to her new home at Mail.com Media. Also courtesy of the profile, written by David “Carpetbagger” Carr, we now learn that Finke’s deal with Mail.com is closer to $5-10 million rather than the $14-15 million being reported last month.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for female film journalists today, we also found out that Anne Thompson, formerly of Variety, will now park her Thompson on Hollywoodblog at indieWIRE (an official announcement is forthcoming). Meanwhile, though less film-related than the other two women, gossip magazine editor Bonnie Fuller is set to head Mail.com’s Hollywood Life. I don’t think we’ve seen this much girl power in one industry since the Spice Girls took the music world by storm.
Anyway, all I can say is that I wish them all luck and look forward to continuing to read their stuff (okay, this statement only includes Finke and Thompson) at their new homes. Now, let’s see what the rest of the film blogosphere has to say about the ladies after the jump: …Read more
I may be one of the few film bloggers who enjoys the existence of Nikki Finke (you may remember I somewhat defended her earlier this year when Variety made its three-pronged attack). Of course, I appreciate her for the same reason I appreciate a lot of filmmakers I don’t necessarily agree with or like. And for the same reason that I’m glad Fox News exists. She plays by her own rules, doesn’t ever seem to hold back and doesn’t appear to care with whom she becomes enemies.
So, I for one was glad to hear the news that her blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, was bought by Mail.com Media Corp., which also owns one of my other favorite film blogs, Movieline. Hopefully she isn’t reigned in at all now that she’s got a boss, though I can’t see why MMC would want DHD if they didn’t want the Finke everyone knows and doesn’t love.
It’s hard to tell if anyone else is as excited as I am to see how her transition goes, but those who’ve covered the story at least seem curious. Check out some bloggers’ reactions after the jump:
Variety published three separate but similar “Top Stories” Sunday (one - two - three) on the topic of blogs and how certain bloggers (mainly Nikki Finke, pictured) exhibit questionable journalistic practices. What seemed at first to be an excessive, behind-the-times and otherwise forgettable trio of articles has today (and initially last night) become a topic of discussion for many film bloggers, including some who were mentioned in these Variety pieces who felt the need to respond.
My personal response is primarily, as I said, one of disregard. But here’s a quick commentary: I enjoy Finke and others as I might have appreciated Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper decades ago — with a grain of salt. The fact that some bloggers are taken more seriously for their rumors and faulty reporting styles than, say, any one of the hundred other fanboy movie blog sites out there is the problem of the reader (especially the one who’s a Hollywood player), not the writer.
Though the timeliness of Variety’s blogger-hating trilogy comes on the heel of recent errors and conflicts involving Finke and others, there’s no more necessity in such articles as there would be for a trio of stories about the trustworthiness of Fox News. Don’t read the blog, don’t watch the channel, don’t read the trade magazine if you don’t like their content.
Anyway, I’ve given my two cents; read what others have to say after the jump:
I found it unnecessary yesterday to be the billionth blogger to link to the Christian Bale tirade, but today I want to roundup some of the damage control, both direct and indirect, that should hopefully water down the seemed significance of yet another recording of yet another actor having yet another bad day. Because when big media like the Daily News finds it newsworthy and gets poll results from readers believing it to be more “bad attitude” than “bad day,” it’s necessary to spin the positive and concentrate on what we should be concentrating on: the actual movie being made.
So, first direct your attention to some cool Terminator Salvationimages recently published by Wired, and specifically focus on the image of the “Hydrobot” (thanks to I Watch Stuff for spotlighting it). Is this some kind of special tribute to two of James Cameron’s other great films? And should we be on the lookout during the film for sinking ships and flying Piranhabots?
Nikki Finke has updated her initial post with a quote from an unnamed source: “Christian and the DP are all good now. It happened. It was one isolated event. He regrets that he lost his temper.”
1st AD Bruce Franklin, who was somewhat involved in the incident, also defends Bale to E! News as simply having had a bad day: “He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair. The art of acting is not paint by numbers, it’s an art form.”
Similarly Terminator Salvation costar Terry Crews comes to Bale’s defense on Hollyscoop: “He is a class act! He is one of the greatest actors ever. You can catch anyone on a bad day.”
Heckler Spray’s Stuart Heritage believes that after last year’s arrest coinciding with the release of The Dark Knight, this rant is merely Bale’s latest means of film promotion: “Christian Bale’s next movie is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies. Lord alone knows how he’s going to promote that one, but we’d wager that it’ll involve a tank of petrol, a lighter, a box of puppies and some sort of tribal dancing.”
Rope of Silicon highlights both Herzog’s Fitzcarraldoand the David O. Russell/Lily Tomlin incident as proof that blow-ups like this are not uncommon.
Cinematical’s Scott Weinberg and William Goss have made a parody audio that shows just how common such work-related tirades can be. Yes, even bloggers have bad days.
Of course, others are using this as an opportunity to show how perfect their own sets are. On The Today Show this morning, Matt Lauer and friends shared a similar incident involving a wandering crew member that didn’t result in bad behavior. Watch the better-than-thou display here.
Finally, the best way to positively spin a negative story such as this? Dance remix! Check it out after the jump. …Read more
In 10 out of 14 years, the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role has gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. If this year marks the 11th such congruence, Meryl Streep will take home the Oscar. Yet there is an odd circumstance with the Academy’s nominations that hurts Streep’s chances. Another one of the Academy’s Best Actress contenders also received a SAG Award Sunday night: Kate Winslet, who won the supporting actress trophy for The Reader. At the Oscars, this role has been recognized as a lead performance, one that is likely a favorite to win.
Yes, it is a strange situation, one that shocked and confused Oscar prognosticators (especially this writer) on Thursday morning. Winslet’s Reader performance was campaigned as a supporting role, and she was recognized as such by the Golden Globes, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association and of course the Screen Actors Guild. A few organizations did nominate her for a lead award for The Reader, though few people take the Satellites seriously, and the BAFTA Awards are different than most in that they permit Winslet to compete against herself in the same category (she is also nominated for Best Leading Actress for Revolutionary Road).
Some now believe the Academy’s deviation will in fact cost Winslet the Oscar she could have won in the supporting field. Either voters will be confused about what film she’s nominated for (unless I’m simply less observant than elderly Academy members, which may indeed be the case), or she will now split the majority vote with Streep and thus allow Anne Hathaway or Melissa Leo to slip ahead (Angelina Jolie is believed to have no shot). Another idea is that voters will dismiss Winslet due to doubts over which category the performance belongs in. But since enough members of the Academy made it a point to nominate her as lead actress in the first place, this is hardly a reasonable theory.
After reading Anne Thompson’s post on the dismal reception given to the youth-baiting rethink of At The Movies starring Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz, I decided I had better watch The Two Bens’ first episode online to see what all the griping is about. It actually starts off rather well: Mankiewicz is totally qualified for this job, although it’s a bit of a wonder he was even hired, what with his TCM-honed, “I am going to explain this very slowly because my viewers may be aged” manner of speaking. But then he tosses it to Lyons, who says something completely incoherent about Burn After Reading being “almost like an exercise in drama,” and then they cut back Mankiewicz, who struggles to croak out, “Yeah, that’s an interesting point,” whilst swallowing his own testicles. At that point, I stopped.
Interestingly, another thing that I wasn’t able to force myself to watch all the way through this week also had to do with the sorry contemporary incarnation of the former gold standard for televised movie reviews.
Nikki Finke made an interesting Freudian gaffe in this story on Midnight Meat Train’s dismal opening weekend. She quoted Lionsgate’s recent credit infusion as amounting to $340, about $339 million less than the actual number, but just $27 more than what Meat Train averaged on each of its 100 screens. As Finke notes, one of the reasons for the embarrassing take (besides, you know, a complete lack of advertising or reviews) is the fact that Lionsgate booked the film in dollar theaters and second-run houses. They also skirted major markets––in fact, the film opened nowhere near New York City. So not only was this film with a built-in audience (thanks to Clive Barker’s genre credibility) made nearly impossible for fans to find, but stuffing the deck with cut-rate houses Lionsgate made sure that even if the movie filled houses (which it didn’t). it would be a statistic impossibility for it to make any real money.
In her headline, FInke asks the question, “Why Did Lionsgate Dump Clive Barker Pic Into Dollar And Second Run Theaters?” She ultimately drops the vague suggestion that “the answer may well be studio politics,” but declines to offer new insight or information, beyond citing Joe Drake’s much-reported desire to migrate “away from this genre of films in favor of more mainstream fare like Tyler Perry.”
What’s implied in Finke’s write-up and others, but never spelled out, is that in order to complete Lionsgate’s transformation from a profitable house of ill-repute into a well-funded maker of wholly inoffensive middlebrow entertainments, the total failure of vestiges of the previous regime like Meat Train is so necessary that the studio couldn’t take chances on the whims of the ticket-buying public––this is a bombing that had to be engineered.
The members of AFTRA have ratified a proposed deal with the APMTP over a new contract. This wrecks SAG’s hopes that they’ll be able to use the dissatisfaction of the hundred-thousand-plus actors who belong to both unions as leverage against their own stalled negotiations. Another factor to SAG’s woes: after the WGA strike, nobody wants to be out of work again.
Variety confirmsNikki Finke’s report that the Weinsteins are looking for a financing partner to help them get Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards made in time for premiere at Cannes 2009; the studio has already found a moneybag for Rob Marshall’s Nine in Relativity Media.
Palisades Media has picked up the just-shuttered Tartan UK’s 400-film video library, which includes films like Super Size Me, In the Mood For Love, and the works of Bergman and Pasolini.
Variety reports that Time Warner is getting rid of New Line heads Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne and is absorbing the “indie” into the general Warner Brothers machine. Nikki Finke has the full press release.
I don’t have anything to say about this, other than that NO ONE should be allowed to start a headline with the phrase “Toldja!”––even if they did, in fact, tell us.
Nikki Finke says New Line tossed the above trailer for the Sex and the City movie on YouTube to distract attention away from the expected failure of The Golden Compass. Peter Knegt says, “I don’t know. It feels wrong.” I say: Could Michael Patrick King actually get away with editing together a highlight reel of Best Moments from the series (Best Brunch Scene, Best Shoe Fetishism Scene, Best Samantha Says/Does Something To Betray The Open Secret That This Was A Show Written By And For Gay Men Scene) and calling it a movie? Would there be any material difference between that, and the trailer above?
“A woman in my senior year film production class must have seen it, however. Her class project, a black-and-white homage to Kenneth Anger featuring her husband and his very proud penis slapped on top of the gas tank of a revving motorcycle in some sort of pre-Cronenbergian man-machine coitus scenario, also showed some visual, but even more aural evidence (the soundtrack faintly reverberated its biker rock as if being transmitted from behind that radiator) that Lynch’s movie, along with Anger’s, were among her influence.” Dennis Cozzalio answers Nine Questions About Eraserhead for industrious NYU student Violet Lucca.
What’s the deal with The Daily Reel? At NewTeeVee, Liz Gannes notes that the online video journal hasn’t been updated in weeks.
Pamela Cohn sends news of a last-minute event involving one of our favorite independent filmmakers/crusaders for artist’s rights, taking place in Williamsburg tomorrow night. “Jem Cohen asked to do the event before a critical deadline in the NYC regulations on street photography and filmmaking and UnionDocs is serving as a venue for a tour of his unconventional street documentaries, as well as a forum on this important issue in NYC creative production.”
“The area of Mexico where we filmed Silent Light is plentiful with rattlesnakes. Of course, some people are afraid, but we had the correct shots, we wore boots and, if there were still rattlesnakes, then too bad. Probably people do it also because I set the example myself.” Just one of the many takeaways from this interview with Carlos Reygadas.
One for the Inside Joke Hall of Fame: LOL Reelerz.
Special guest SpoutBlogger Joe Swanberg already passed along the news that Ronnie Bronstein won the Gotham Award last night for Best Film Not Playing At a Theater Near You. Other Gotham winners: Into the Wild took Best Feature, Sicko took Best Doc, and Craig Zobel won the Breakthrough Director award for his wonderful Great World of Sound.
From the Onion Headlines Come To Life file: a bunch of striking horror film scribes got together in LA yesterday and staged an exorcism in front of the Warner Brothers lot. Scott Kosar, who makes a living writing remakes of movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, used a bullhorn to ask God to “repel the greed that bewitches these studios.”
Nikki Finke says “a very reliable source” has passed along word “that there appears to be a deal seemingly in place between both sides” of the writers strike. But don’t expect to hear about it anywhere but Deadline Hollywood Daily for awhile. Noting that she was “told not to expect an agreement this week,” Finke says no one else will be covering the story because “the negotiations starting today will have a news blackout.” Though she cautions that in Hollywood, “defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory nearly every time,” she seems pretty confident that she’s revealed a story that may not break elsewhere for weeks.
I’m sure Finke’s source is reliable, and I’m certainly not going to knock her strike reporting, which has been amazingly thorough, if not exactly impartial. But you have to admit, this is lovely timing for an exclusive–if this news hadn’t come out until next week, there may be room to doubt that the Speechless series of WGA propaganda videos (which Finke hosted on her site and which I wrote about in semi-depth here) played a significant part.
Did YouTube “borrow” branding from a successful internet film festival?
Nikki Finke claimed Warner Brothers had instituted a corporate policy against casting women, then baited Gloria Allred into threatening a WB boycott. WB was like, “No you didn’t,” and then Nikki was like, “Yes, in fact, I did.”
In more devastating Warner Brothers news, the studio continues to show a lack of support for Jesse James by making it nearly impossible for non-coastal critics to see it.
Juno is not a remake of another film about a pregnant teen with ‘Juno’ in the title.
The Austin Film Festival memorializesMoonlighting.
“Any network that can be used to share cat pictures can be used to bring down a government.” This and other pearls of wisdom from from academic/blogger Henry Jenkins.
On FilmCouch, Paul and Kevin talk to Rob Parrish, the mastermind of Next to Heaven, a web series carved out of the public domain. Watch the most recent episode of Next to Heavenhere.
New York Film Festival:
Mark Cuban confirmed to us that he would not release Brian DePalma’s director’s cut of Redacted. DePalma took the case to the DGA, who ruled that Magnolia could release the “redacted” version. DePalma eventually gives up.
Sources inside Warner’s tell me that, 1) Robinov doesn’t believe there’s an actress who can carry a movie worldwide since Julia Roberts, 2) Robinov has now gone so far as admitting to his studio colleagues that the decree I reported was made when he was “in the room”, 2) Robinov is acknowledging that the studio is reassessing the strategy of making action pictures starring women, 3) Robinov was inundated with calls on Monday and Tuesday from media and Hollywood types asking him about my posting, 4) Robinov has three pics currently in production and six in pre-production and not one stars a women as the main lead of the film, and 5) he’s nixed Wonder Woman as a stand-alone film, downgrading her to just one of four superhero characters in the proposed Justice League. Again, I stand by my story.
So, in other words, more of the same. Much more interesting, I think, is an excerpt from Lisa Chase’s interview with Finke in the latest issue of Elle, in which Finke explains why women in Hollywood “can’t get ahead.” More after the jump.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Thanks to a (front page?) article on Nikki Finke and Deadline Hollywood Daily in today’s New York Times, the much-derided, much-feared entertainment journalist is getting quite a lot of exposure, just in time for her transition to her new home at Mail.com Media. Also courtesy of the profile, written by David “Carpetbagger” Carr, we now learn that Finke’s deal with Mail.com is closer to $5-10 million rather than the $14-15 million being reported last month.
I may be one of the few film bloggers who enjoys the existence of Nikki Finke (you may remember 
Nikki Finke made an interesting Freudian gaffe 
The members of AFTRA have 
Special guest SpoutBlogger Joe Swanberg already 
