The devil isn’t in the details, he’s hiding out in the process. There’s always a certain high degree of fascination with how artists work… what’s their process? What’s their inspiration? Where do their ideas come from? What concepts are they mulling over and the distilling down into the work that they decide to show to [...]
There are many a great things I can say about Jai Nitz and Greg Smallwood’s The Dream Thief (Dark Horse Comics), like the intricate and graphically powerful page layouts, the naturalistic dialog and the true-to-live friction in the relationship between the lead, John Lincoln, and the women in his life. Smallwood’s characters “act” quite well [...]
A few weeks ago my brother and I were watching this disturbing HBO documentary (view it here) called PARADISE LOST: The Child Murders of Robin Hill directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. Paradise Lost chronicles the 1992/3 trial (if you can call it that) of the infamous West Memphis Three – three teenagers who [...]
Three distribution models recently come on the scene that are essentially no-brainers and should have been employed at least three if not five years ago. They are all digital distribution models that require an internet connection, use technology that the web has mastered a long time ago and provide the entertainment audience with exciting ways [...]
In the aftermath of 9/11, Hollywood has been very… shall we say “specific”… about the kinds of Terrorism on American Soil projects that get the greenlight. To a certain extent the reasoning was soaked in a kind of jingoistic-based censorship (the twin brother of patriotic propaganda) that has always rankled me as an artist. I [...]
One of my earliest memories of a classic film was the 1988 restoration/re-release of David Lean’s incomparable epic — LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. A team led by Steve Spielberg pu up the funds to pay for this film’s “remastering” – and it was a digital remaster, just an honest to goodness photochemical remaster of the magnificent [...]
A few years ago, AMC jumped into the narrative TV business with both feet (as they had done a few scripted shows previous like “Remember WENN”) and unleashed Matt Weiner’s critically-acclaimed, award-winning and avid-fan-attracting “Mad Men”. And as “Mad Men” went on to win an unprecedented number of Best TV Drama Emmys over the last [...]
In late November, one of the most curious concepts for a network TV show — “The Last Resort” — was cancelled by ABC. Co-creator Shawn Ryan, mastermind behind “The Shield” and “The Unit” went on actor/internet talk show host Kevin Pollack’s show to discuss that, among other things related to the TV entertainment — it’s [...]
One of the biggest movie industry stories of the year (if not the decade) is Disney’s purchase of LucasFilm, and the groundbreaking (yet way past its prime) STAR WARS franchise. With Star Wars and the Force tenants in the Mouse House, which is seen as high treasons in some circle, a few things should be [...]
Face it, most of the time we don’t find anything too immediately actionable on the web, but I was reading a thought-provoking article the other day by Ivan Brandon (What Comic Book Movie Are Missing), which took to task Hollywood’s use of comic books as fodder for movies mainly because these films fail to capitalize [...]
So after a short hiatus, I’m back to writing… among many things, this column (which I find most liberating, but that’s for another post). Since before my college years, I’ve been a gigantic fan of foreign cinema – my love for cinema as a creative medium and an art form is squarely rooted in my [...]
I came across a disconcerting article in the Los Angeles Times the other day that detailed the next stage of Runaway Production. Runaway Production is the phenomenon in which film production — in search of tax breaks and cheaper labor/production costs — flee the Los Angeles TMZ (thirty mile zone; you didn’t think that the [...]
Earlier this week high-octane action director Tony Scott took his life under tragic circumstances. Hollywood was considerably shaken by these events, and the details will probably continue to come out over the next few weeks and months. Unfortunately, we can’t and won’t know for certain why Tony took his own life (and it would really [...]
So now that Christopher Nolan’s operatic Batman saga has wrapped up with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES… it only makes me wonder, “How soon will it be before Warner Brothers decides to reboot the franchise (again) with a new creative team?” I was just musing about how to restart the Batman franchise with my brothers the [...]
I was at a birthday party the other day and a discussion about PROMETHEUS inevitably found its way into the merriment. Regardless of what I think about it, you think about it or your friends and enemies think about the film, what came ultimately came up was the expectation level for this film, and how [...]
