Category: Movies

People Root for Billionaires If They Believe They Also Could Become Billionaires

(p. 22) “Billions” manages the feat of making you want the guy who has everything to have even more.
“People still root for billionaires because it reinforces the idea that they can do it too,” Mr. Kirshenbaum said recently. “People don’t want to be in a place where there’s not a lot of magic left in the equation.” Political analysts have long given this explanation for why poor or working-class people vote against tax increases for the wealthy: They want to believe that some day they, too, will have assets to guard.
. . .
Like the TV series, the film “The Big Short” puts you in the position of wanting the investors — or at least the investors depicted on the screen — to win. The movie channels your anger at the banks that came up with the perilous financial instruments that devastated the economy, but it leaves you no room to despise the charmingly eccentric rogue geniuses who made hundreds of millions of dollars shorting the housing market. All that hard work, the culling of documents and the fact-gathering trips to endangered Sun Belt real estate markets — it would be so wrong if they didn’t triumph in the end. Institutions are greedy; people are merely obsessed.

For the full commentary, see:
GINIA BELLAFANTE. “Big City; Rooting for the Robber Barons, at Least Those Onscreen.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., MARCH 20, 2016): 22.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date MARCH 18, 2016, and has the title “Big City; Rooting for the Robber Barons, at Least on the Screen.”)

Reticent George Lucas Has Single-Minded Work Ethic

(p. C12) Although sometimes mocked by his contemporaries for his laborious approach to screenwriting (the script for “Star Wars” would evolve painfully over two years, as Mr. Jones describes in detail), Mr. Lucas developed for “Star Wars” a prodigious range of characters and settings. He had always loved make-believe, he recalled, “but it was the kind of make-believe that used all the technological toys I could come by, like model airplanes and cars.” Mr. Lucas earned respect as a shrewd and unsentimental negotiator. “I don’t borrow money,” he would say flatly, and his work ethic was second to none. From the outset, he foresaw the potential of merchandising, and by the late 1970s virtually every child in America and around the world would cherish his or her “Star Wars” figurines. In 1975, he established Industrial Light & Magic, a company that has produced the special effects not just for Mr. Lucas’s films but also for many Oscar-winning titles of the next 20 years, including “Jurassic Park.” He believed in the potential of computer games and perhaps regretted having sold his brainchild Pixar to Steve Jobs in 1986, far too early. He embraced the digital era, even predicting the advent of pay-per-view and online streaming.
Mr. Jones returns time and again to Mr. Lucas’s single-minded personality, in which work almost always took precedence. Fiercely independent, he was quite simply “the boss,” refusing to compromise with studio demands. Mr. Jones notes that Mr. Lucas has had “an inherent ability to hire the right people, and a preternatural knack for asking the right questions.” Diagnosed early on as a diabetic, Mr. Lucas has eschewed drugs and liquor. Reticent but not quite a recluse, devoted to his children, he hovers tantalizingly beyond the reach of the gossip columnists.

For the full review, see:
PETER COWIE. “A Death Star Is Born.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C12.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 9, 2016, and has the title “George Lucas: The Edison of the Movie Industry.”)

The book under review, is:
Jones, Brian Jay. George Lucas: A Life. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016.

Department of Motor Vehicles Staffed by Sloths

The video clip above is an authorized “embed” from YouTube.

(p. D3) . . . “since the trailers have been playing everywhere, I can tell you a bit about one of the best things in “Zootopia”–an extended sequence set in a Department of Motor Vehicles office where all the clerks are sloths. That’s a funny notion, to be sure, and the main sloth, a clerk named Flash (Raymond S. Persi) has a deliciously distinctive demeanor. But the sequence’s great distinction is how confidently it is developed. In an era of quick cuts and speedy action, Flash is remarkably…outlandishly….hilariously….and memorably s-l-o-w. Kids will be imitating him for a month of Saturdays.

For the full review, see:
Morgenstern, Joe. “‘Zootopia’: Beauty and the Beasts.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., March 4, 2016): D3.
(Note: the ellipsis at the start is added; the internal ellipses are in the original.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 3, 2016, and has the title “‘Zootopia’ Review: Beauty and the Beasts.”)

Did Feds Try to Sully Sully’s Reputation?

(p. B3) Even before this weekend’s release of the Hollywood movie “Sully,” about the pilot who safely landed a disabled US Airways airliner on the Hudson River on a frigid January day in 2009, a rebuttal campaign is already underway by some of the participants in the real-life story.
The federal investigators who conducted the inquiry into the flight contend that “Sully” tarnishes their reputation.
. . .
Allyn Stewart, a producer of the film, said it was not a case of taking creative license to ratchet up the drama. “The story is told through the experiences of Jeff and Sully, and so they felt under extreme scrutiny and they were,” Ms. Stewart said.
Jeff is the co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, played in the film by Aaron Eckhart.
Captain Sullenberger, who retired from US Airways in 2010, said in an email that the tension in the film accurately reflected his state of mind at the time. “For those who are the focus of the investigation, the intensity of it is immense,” he said, adding that the process was “inherently adversarial, with professional reputations absolutely in the balance.”

For the full story, see:
CHRISTINE NEGRONI. “Safety Agency Challenges True’ Story told in the Film ‘Sully’.” The New York Times (Sat., SEPT. 10, 2016): B3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date SEPT. 9, 2016, and has the title “‘Sully’ Is Latest Historical Film to Prompt Off-Screen Drama.”)

Sully’s book, on which the movie is loosely based, is:
Sullenberger, Chesley B., III, and Jeffrey Zaslow. Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

Good Niche Movies Can Be More Profitable than Blockbusters

(p. 5D) “Counterprogramming is the framework to get the most
bang for the buck for movies that aren’t necessarily going to be blockbusters. ”
Counterprogramming has become a crazy expensive game of chicken, Dergarabedian says.
Scheduling a rom-com next to a superhero franchise or a horror movie on Valentine’s Day is a classic ploy, he says, but there’s no formula that’s guaranteed. “You still have to be able to deliver the movie,” Dergarabedian says. “People are looking for different and good. You can’t just rely on being the other option.”
. . .
“A lot of these are David and Goliath matchups,” Dergarabedian says. “But it’s about who wins the profitability derby. That can ultimately be more important than where you rank on the chart.”
To determine success, look at how well the audience is served rather than money, says Erik Davis, managing editor for Movies.com and Fandango.com. The greater the disparity in the genres, the better the position to succeed, he says.
Though Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 performed modestly against BvS, Davis considers that scheduling a a win. “They (both) have potential to mine their specific audience,” he says.

For the full story, see:
Heady, Chris. “Studios Think Outside the Box (Office).” USA Today (Thurs., July 7, 2016): 5D.

Standard Oil Money Funded Homage to Oz

(p. A1) Vandals are slowly destroying the Land of Oz, a small private theme park nestled atop Beech Mountain, N.C., built on land bought years ago with money from a Standard Oil fortune. Thieves and urban explorers have carted off polka-dot mushrooms, a pair of cement lions and, most hurtfully, pieces of the golden-hued path that runs through the park.
“It’s magical,” says Vicky Conley of Morganton, N.C., who took her son to Oz last year when he was six. “People should leave it alone.”
. . .
(p. A8) In 1966, Mr. Leidy’s grandfather Page Hufty–an insurance pioneer and real-estate developer in Palm Beach, Fla.–bought land on Beech Mountain. His wife, Frances Archbold Hufty, was the granddaughter of John D. Archbold, a titan of the Gilded Age and John D. Rockefeller’s right-hand man at Standard Oil, which was dissolved by the government in 1911.
Mr. Hufty leased some of the land to other developers, who wanted a summer theme park to complement their ski resort.
The Land of Oz opened in 1970, amid much fanfare about the 70th anniversary of L. Frank Baum’s classic book. Debbie Reynolds stopped by. So did Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow in the 1939 movie. At least 300,000 people visited the first year, says Neva Specht, a historian and a dean at the College of Arts and Sciences at Appalachian State University.
By the second year, she says, it was one of the biggest attractions in the Southeast, and it graced the cover of “Southern Living” magazine.
. . .
But the park quickly became more of a white elephant than a Merry Old Land. Attendance dropped, as families were lured away by splashier attractions like Disney World, which opened the following year in Orlando, Fla. The developers went bankrupt, and Mr. Leidy’s grandparents eventually gained ownership.
. . .
Mr. Leidy installed fences topped with barbed wire, but thieves cut through. Security cameras didn’t seem to deter anyone either. Mr. Leidy is now hiring guards.
. . .
Mr. Leidy says he doesn’t know what lies in store over the rainbow, but thinks his grandparents would be proud.
“Until we figure out a long-term plan here,” he says, “it’s important to me to protect it.”

For the full story, see:
CHRISTINA REXRODE. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Even a Wizard Can’t Save Oz.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Sept. 18, 2015): A1 & A8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 17, 2016, and has the title “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Even a Wizard Can’t Save Oz From Vandals.”)

Working for Uber Allows Flexibility for Aspiring Actors

(p. 8) Not long ago, being a waiter at the Ivy or a salesman at Fred Segal was considered the reliable way to earn a living until one got a big break in a Wes Anderson film and got picked up by a major Hollywood agency like CAA or WME.
But Krystal Harris, 27, an actress who appeared in the recent Kevin Hart film “About Last Night,” quickly realized those sorts of jobs were overrated. So now she works primarily for Lyft.
“I was a lead hostess at three different restaurants,” Ms. Harris said. “It really didn’t allow for much flexibility at all. I ended up getting fired for going to an audition. Even when I got my shifts covered, they gave me a hard time.”
In 2013, she turned her Ford Escape into a roving cash register. She had total control over her hours, never needing to clear her schedule with anyone for a last-minute audition. There weren’t even rules against working for both Uber and Lyft.
When acting gigs were hard to come by, she drove as many as 40 hours a week, earning what she estimated was about $20 an hour after Uber and Lyft took their commissions (generally around 20 percent). If the casting gods shined on her, she simply shut off the apps.
“When I’m really on a roll, I don’t have to work,” she said. “As long as my insurance and registration are up to date, I can go back.”
Mr. Totten had a similar experience. Before driving for Uber, he worked at a half-dozen restaurants. All those jobs ended when he had to take off for auditions, or was caught trying to learn lines on the job. Once, he refused to shave because a casting director was looking for someone with stubble.
“My look is my scruff,” said Mr. Totten, who is blond and blue-eyed, with a James Dean meets 90210 appeal. “As soon as I started driving for Uber, things got better.”
. . .
(p. 9) Recently, Mr. Totten considered getting a new side job. “I’m probably going to do Postmates,” he said, referring to the app-based service that delivers artisanal food in under 60 minutes and guarantees its drivers a minimum of $25 an hour. “You can’t live on this anymore.”

For the full story, see:
JACOB BERNSTEIN. “Drivers With Head Shots.” The New York Times, SundayStyles Section (Sun., JAN. 24, 2016): 1 & 8-9.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 23, 2016, and has the title “The New Side Job for Actors and Artists in Los Angeles: Driving.”)

Ten Quit, or Were Fired, “to Honor the Other 290”

(p. 1) A hellbent quest for authenticity produced some indelible on-set moments for Alejandro G. Iñárritu as he directed “The Revenant,” his two-and-a-half-hour opus of death, love and improvised surgery in the American West of the 1820s.
. . .
(p. 20) There were enough grumblings from the crew about delays, safety and overall misery that The Hollywood Reporter published an article in July in which one source described the experience as “a living hell.” Ten people either quit or were fired during filming, Mr. Iñárritu said, and he will not apologize for that.
“I have nothing to hide,” he said. “Of the 300 we started with, I had to ask some to step away, to honor the other 290. If one piece in the group is not perfect, it can screw the whole thing up.”
. . .
“Standing in a freezing river and eating a fish, or climbing a mountain with a wet bear fur on my back — those were some of the most difficult sequences for me,” said Mr. DiCaprio, who is considered a strong contender for an Oscar nomination for his performance. “This entire movie was something on an entirely different level. But I don’t want this to sound like a complaint. We all knew what we were signing up for. It was going to be in the elements, and it was going to be a rough ride.”
. . .
In person, . . . , Mr. Iñárritu has the chilled-out affect of a man who meditates every day and loves long walks. The only hint of intensity, and just a tinge of anger, comes when he discusses other movies. Too many of them today are like the products of fast-food chains, he said, ordered up by corporations that prize predictability and sameness over all else.
“What about going to a restaurant to be surprised?” he all but shouted. “That’s the risk that everybody avoids! In the context of cinema now, this movie is a bet.”
Raised in Mexico City, Mr. Iñárritu, 52, is the son of a banker who would eventually file for bankruptcy and end up selling fruit and vegetables to hotels and restaurants. The younger Iñárritu started off as a radio host, playing music and writing provocative, comical sketches with a political bent. He studied theater and learned to direct by shooting brand-identity commercials for a television station. By the time he landed his first feature, “Amores Perros,” released in 2000, he had spent hundreds of hours behind a camera. Then came “21 Grams” (2003), “Babel” (2006) and “Biutiful” (2010).

For the full story, see:
DAVID SEGAL. “That Bear and Other Threats.” The New York Times, Arts&Leisure Section (Sun., DEC. 27, 2015): 1 & 20.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 22, 2015, and has the title “About That Bear: Alejandro G. Iñárritu Discusses Making ‘The Revenant’.”)

A More Dynamic Labor Market May Be the Answer to Italy’s “Quo Vado?”

(p. A19) ROME — A balding government clerk in his late 30s has one true love: “il posto fisso,” a job for life. He doesn’t want to compete in the labor market; he has no urge to move on. He doesn’t even want to earn more. Give him a desk, a chair and a 9-to-5 job in the “pubblica amministrazione,” and he’s happy. Clocking in late, chatting with colleagues, accepting small bribes from taxpayers (most favored: quail), a regular salary — that’s life!
And, of course, there are rubber stamps. The clerk loves them. Slam! Slam! Slam! When his boss, who wants to get rid of him, asks angrily: “What have you contributed to this department?” he shows her his stamping prowess, and almost demolishes her glass table.
This is, more or less, the story of “Quo Vado?” a new comedy that has smashed Italian box office records. It had its premiere on Jan. 1, and in its first week made $39 million; “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” in three weeks, reached just $23 million. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Quo Vado?” — or “Where Am I Going?” a modern spin on the Latin question “Quo vadis?” (“Where are you going?”) — is on course to beat the box-office record for an Italian film in the country, currently at $56 million, set by 2013’s “Sole a catinelle.”
. . .
Italians aren’t afraid of a more dynamic labor market. There is still the dream of making it in the private sector, even if it is less secure than the public-sector jobs that have long been the backbone of the Italian work force. Two out of three workers, according to a recent survey in the Turin newspaper La Stampa, wouldn’t mind taking a risk, as long as it meant the prospect of career advancement.
To foster this more proactive mood, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi — who has seen “Quo Vado?” with his family — last year introduced labor-market legislation known as the Jobs Act (in English, mysteriously). It makes hiring and firing easier, but only in the private sector. For state jobs, like Checco’s, things stay the same. Once you’re in, you’re in.

For the full commentary, see:
Severgnini, Beppe. “More Popular than ‘Star Wars’.” The New York Times (Sat., JAN. 16, 2016): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date JAN. 14, 2016, and has the title “The Secret Behind Italy’s Favorite New Film.” Where there are minor differences between the print and online versions, the version above follows the online version.)

How to Monopolize a Dead Technology

(p. C3) LOS ANGELES — When Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” is released in a special roadshow version (with overture, intermission and additional footage) on Dec. 25, it will represent a feat worthy of the heist in the director’s “Jackie Brown.”
The film is scheduled to open on 96 screens in the United States and four in Canada, all in 70-millimeter projection, a premium format associated with extravaganzas of the 1950s and 1960s.
Yet from a theatrical standpoint, the technology is nearly obsolete. Last year, “Interstellar” opened in 70 millimeter at only 11 comparable locations. There were only 16 in 2012 for “The Master,” which renewed interested in the format. No film has opened with 100 70-millimeter prints since 1992. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, 97 percent of the 40,000 screens in the United States now use digital projection.

. . .
“We looked around for anybody who was selling them,” said Erik Lomis, Weinstein’s president of theatrical distribution and home entertainment. “We tried to keep it as quiet as possible as to why. Eventually word leaked out why we were looking for them, and then the price went up.”
. . .
“We’ve been accused of actually cornering the market on 70-millimeter projectors,” Mr. Cutler said. “It’s probably pretty true. There probably aren’t too many out there that we didn’t find.” Most of them were destroyed, he added, during the conversion to digital projection.
. . .
Ultra Panavision also produces subtle aesthetic effects, unusual even to viewers familiar with 70 millimeter. The lens “for lack of a better word is a softer lens,” Mr. Sasaki said. During a screening of test footage for the film, he pointed out the impressionistic qualities of the focus and explained how the image catered to our eyes’ natural depth cues.
With projectors found and lenses made, the next hurdle is labor: Most theaters no longer have projectionists with a working knowledge of these machines. Mr. Cutler’s company will provide training for each site. “One way or the other, we will fulfill this need,” he said. “It will be a combination of house staff that we can train, professional projectionists that we can bring in, projectionists that we can find locally, and potentially some technical staff that we’ll bring in.” Every theater showing the film will get a spare set of belts, fuses and light bulbs, and instructions. Mr. Cutler’s staff will also be standing by for calls.

For the full story, see:
BEN KENIGSBERG. “In a World Gone Digital, Room for a Lost Format.” The New York Times (Thurs., NOV. 12, 2015): C3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date NOV. 11, 2015, and has the title “Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’ Resurrects Nearly Obsolete Technology.”)

Disney Used Money from His Cartoons to Fund the “Audacious” Breakthrough Snow White

(p. C2) The 1920s were no doubt a time much like our own, full of people who could see ways to advance and exploit new technologies, and Disney was one of those. But plenty of people have ideas; only a few manage to make them reality. Like many an Internet entrepreneur, Disney was able to do so because of a combination of serendipity and tenacity. You can read a lot into that sketch of a mouse he came up with.
“He doesn’t have the financial backing to support what it is he’s doing,” Carmenita Higginbotham, an art historian who teaches at the University of Virginia, says of his early career. “He wants to be a bigger voice than he is. And it’s a perfect metaphor, him being this small mouse, this seemingly insignificant figure or individual within this big industry that he wants to break into.”
The parallel to the Internet age is also evident in the speed of his ascension. His “Steamboat Willie” cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse in effect went viral after its premiere at the Colony Theater in New York in 1928, propelled by its innovative merging of image and sound.
That gave him enough credibility and money to try something audacious: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” a project that, we’re told, he outlined to his staff in 1934 by calling a meeting and enacting all the parts himself.
“What Disney was proposing had never been done, never even been tried: a feature-length, story-driven cartoon,” says the narration, read by Oliver Platt. There followed a typical Hollywood story of cost overruns and jeopardized deadlines — the animation technique used required more than 200,000 separate drawings.

For the full review, see:
NEIL GENZLINGER. “The Mind that Built the House of Mouse.” The New York Times (Sat., SEPT. 12, 2015): C1-C2.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date SEPT. 11, 2015, and has the title “Review: PBS’s ‘Walt Disney’ Explores a Complex Legacy.”)
(Note: Genzlinger is reviewing the two part documentary on “Walt Disney” that aired on the “American Experience” series of PBS on Mon., Sept. 7 and Tues., Sept. 8, 2015.)