Adam Sternbergh wonders if its ok if not everyone in the audience is in on Sacha Baron Cohen’s joke.

Filed under: Opinion | 10 Comments »

Kim Masters wonders if artists like Michael Mann can continue making high-budget films in Hollywood’s currently skittish economic climate.

Filed under: Opinion | 9 Comments »

Further rules changes threaten to make the Oscars even more meaningless.

Filed under: Opinion | 8 Comments »

Forget about Transformers action fans, go see The Hurt Locker this weekend instead

Filed under: Opinion | 11 Comments »

Is Michael Bay threatening to make art movies?

Filed under: Opinion | 17 Comments »

“You can be anything you want when you grow up, honey…
…as long as you marry a black man!”
Disney has long been criticized for its treatment of black people in movies. Song of the South first springs to mind with its happy singing slave stereotype Uncle Remus, but there are also the crows in Dumbo and [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 6 Comments »

With a presentation to shareholders on Tuesday, executives from Toronto based Imax addressed the crapstorm over screen size recently stirred up by Aziz Ansari. Their justification? They’ve been doing it for 6 years, profits are up and until now nobody was complaining. According to Carl DiOrio in The Hollywood Reporter:
Imax officials dealt with the matter [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 9 Comments »

The IMAX you know vs. the IMAX they’re selling
I don’t know about where you live, but Imax seems to be cropping up at more and more theaters around here…except it isn’t. I made a special trip last year to The Bridge to see Shine a Light in Imax and the huge screen was definitely worth [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 7 Comments »

It was apparently a slow news day over at THR yesterday because Steven Zeithchik and Borys Kit take another look at the increasing remake trend that grips Hollywood. Regular LiC readers will know that I’m no fan of remakes, and yet sometimes I wonder “what’s the harm?” If I don’t like them, I don’t have [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 7 Comments »

For the second year in a row, LA Times awards jockey Tom O’Neil was denied a press pass to cover the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s awards banquet and for the second year in a row he’s using the snub to suggest LAFCA’s machinations aren’t above board. Noting that the critics group allows journalists who [...]

Filed under: Awards, Opinion | 7 Comments »

In the wake of this week’s Associated Press dictate limiting its entertainment writers (including movie reviewers) to 500 words, Roger Ebert weighs in on the current state of film criticism in general. He sees intelligent criticism increasingly pushed aside in favor of celebrity gossip and he fears not only for critics but for the health [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 8 Comments »

Some people are so blind, they can’t see a metaphor even when it’s right in front of them.
I thought the protests over Tropic Thunder were the silliest ever, but now blind activists are planning on picketing the release of Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness, a film about society crumbling when it’s hit by an epidemic of sightlessness.
Marc Maurer, [...]

Filed under: News, Opinion | 24 Comments »

I don’t know Lou Lumenick of the NY Post. I don’t care for his reviews or his employer, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of a doubt. Even so, I’m trying to imagine how this story can be spun so he doesn’t come off looking like a complete asshole. Here’s Ebert’s version of events.
We’ll [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 18 Comments »

The state of independent cinema has been on the minds and lips of everyone who follows the business of making movies this year. The cry of “independent cinema is dead” has superseded the one of a year or two back that went “box office is down, the movie business is doomed.” Next year it will [...]

Filed under: Analysis, Opinion | 16 Comments »

Following an Islamic civil rights group’s call for a name change of Alan Ball’s upcoming Towelhead, Warner Bros.’ initial response could be paraphrased as something like “ummm…no.”
Yesterday, Alicia Erian, the Arab-American author of the source novel defended the title.
“As an Arab-American woman, I am of course aware that the title of my book is an [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 4 Comments »

“An Islamic civil rights and advocacy group has asked Warner Bros. to change the title of its upcoming film Towelhead, saying ‘the word is commonly used in a derogatory manner against people of the Muslim faith or Arab origin.’ ”
This doesn’t really need a comment from me, does it?
Source: THR

Filed under: Opinion | 9 Comments »

All it took is one clown spouting off about a friggin’ test screening at AICN and suddenly the idea that David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is too long is on its way to becoming conventional wisdom.
Next Anne Thompson rings in. I don’t know if she’s referring to the AICN piece which had [...]

Filed under: Buzz, Opinion | 14 Comments »

I think LiC is officially out of the business of crying about pointless remakes for the time being so I didn’t say anything yesterday about news of a redo of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
However, it’s difficult to see any angle on this thing where it makes any sense whatsoever and once you throw in [...]

Filed under: News, Opinion | 10 Comments »

Michael Cieply reports in the New York Times that several groups representing people with disabilities are expected to announce a boycott of the new comedy Tropic Thunder as early as Monday. At issue is the frequent use of the word “retard” in the film, a Hollywood satire about the filming of a war picture.
Special Olympics [...]

Filed under: News, Opinion | 9 Comments »

So, Meet Dave stiffs in the worst way ($5.25 million opening weekend) and suddenly everyone’s an Eddie Murphy expert.
Patrick Goldstein puts the kibosh on my pet theory that the movie simply sucks by pointing out that 20th Century Fox practically has a business model predicated on making money off of bad movies. For evidence he [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 11 Comments »

The troubling part of this Variety report about increased movie theater advertising revenue is the third paragraph that basically says that the ads are working and that people don’t mind them anymore.
I suppose it’s not that big of a deal, but I’m tired of being sold something everywhere I turn. I’ll go out of my [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 17 Comments »

Though I never lived through them, I think I miss the studio days when the buzz around a movie or a celebrity’s image was carefully controlled. At the very least, I’d like to go back to a time before the Internet when behind-the-camera movie gossip wasn’t dressed up as breaking news.
These days, director’s tirades turn [...]

Filed under: Analysis, Opinion | 18 Comments »

The AP takes time out from keeping tabs on the world flushing iself down the crapper to make a big deal out of the shared October 24 release date of Angelina Jolie in Changeling and Jennifer Aniston in He’s Just Not That Into You. You’d think the former Brad Pitt squeeze and the current Brad [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 16 Comments »

The real aftermath of the 2008 Universal fire can’t be photographed 
(AP Photo/Ric Francis)
The recent Universal fire claimed more than a few facades and burned more than a few prints of old movies. It struck at the very heart of what will (hopefully) be one of the enduring legacies of the United States of America and [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 5 Comments »

Besides all the other things that have irritated so many people about the new Indiana Jones movie, has anyone noticed the sound dropping out at random during your screening?
Joel brought this Boing Boing post to my attention where a movie theater posted a sign apologizing for sound drop outs during Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 17 Comments »

The Internet is getting its collective panties in a twist again. The big trades like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are routinely ’scooped’ by various Internet movie sites with news on upcoming projects. When the trades get around to making the news ‘official’, they never credit whoever broke the story.
Both Collider and Latino Review have [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 21 Comments »

I know this is an industry town, but is a review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really front page news?

Filed under: Opinion | 33 Comments »

 
Standards torch-bearer trips on shoelaces, starts forest fire
I was going to make fun of a column in yesterday’s NY Times, but then I realized David Poland already did it. After a cup of coffee, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. I can’t afford to be choosey, but neither apparently can the NY Times.
If [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 10 Comments »

All the cool kids are waiting for Iron Man and Dark Knight. Me? Bring on Speed. 
I’m as surprised as anyone to find that I’m getting increasingly excited about Speed Racer. I know, it’s weird. Normally summer kind of bores me and I have a low threshold for corniness. Somehow though, Speed is appealing to the little [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 28 Comments »

Where is Travis Bickle when we need him? 
This is a little far removed from movies and a little too close to the kind of salacious Entertainment Tonight/TMZ nonsense I hate so much, but it’s all over and since it involves Disney, it plays.
As you probably know, Annie Leibovitz took some creepily sexualized photos of teen [...]

Filed under: Opinion | 9 Comments »