Richard Leakey Was 77

“Global Unions Call To End ‘Long Hours Culture’ for Film, TV Workers” Unions and guilds across 70 countries, including IATSE, want reduced working hours, more minimum standards and safe working hours and conditions worldwide“

Retitled Betty White: A Celebration Still Set For Theaters On January 17

Max Julien Was 88

“Adam McKay inserted himself into an ongoing debate on Twitter between critics and more passionate admirers of Don’t Look Up… Presumably in response to film critics who found the movie less than satisfying, he tweeted, ‘Loving all the heated debate about our movie. But if you don’t have at least a small ember of anxiety about the climate collapsing (or the US teetering) I’m not sure Don’t Look Up makes any sense. It’s like a robot viewing a love story. “WHy ArE thEir FacEs so cLoSe ToGether?”‘ If McKay was ever hoping to see off accusations that he’s one of the more condescending people making movies right now, this declaration doesn’t help. In fact, the main charge against Don’t Look Up’s effectiveness as a satire, as delineated in reviews and across Twitter, is the exasperating nature in which it assumes its audience is blissfully ignorant and unconcerned about our globe getting rapidly hotter and, therefore, needs to be enlightened by a heavy-handed allegory. Thus, it makes sense that McKay, along with former Bernie Sanders speechwriter David Sirota, who co-wrote the story, and a slew of liberal pundits, are categorizing anyone—but mainly journalists—who criticized the movie as indifferent to the threat of climate change or, more extremely, as climate-change deniers.”

“Getting to this point has been a struggle, and the rate of change in a century-old sector of the entertainment industry has been stunning. Major studio films like Dune and Halloween Kills were refashioned as simultaneous HBO Max or Peacock releases. Streaming services snapped up some of the buzziest projects on the market and, in the case of Amazon, bought one of the most storied studios in Hollywood history by signing a deal to acquire MGM, the home of James Bond. And AMC Theatres, no one’s idea of a cool company before COVID, improbably emerged as a meme stock embraced by an army of Reddit traders who sent its share price soaring into the stratosphere. But the headaches, hurdles and head-spinning twists and turns aren’t over yet. Even as Peter Parker continues to capture more and more moviegoers, the movie theater industry continues to grapple with major challenges. Spider-Man: No Way Home has been an optimistic coda to an otherwise downbeat year at the movies, at least in terms of most films’ commercial performance. The domestic box office was much improved from the dumpster fire that was 2020, with total revenues expected to top out at roughly $4.4 billion. That’s a massive 91% increase from 2020, which was after all a 40-year low for the business. However, it’s down approximately 61% from pre-COVID 2019. The good news is that frequent moviegoers, defined as those who go to theaters once a month or more, have returned in force, but ticket buyers who go to a handful of movies annually aren’t really buying many tickets. About 49% of pre-pandemic moviegoers are no longer going to multiplexes, and some of that contingent, roughly 8%, have likely been lost forever, according to studies.”

Ira Deutchman: “There are two ways to respond to the virulent debates going on about some of the high profile movies in release. One is to take sides and get angry. The other is to be glad that people are debating movies again.”

Steve McQueen: “If there are films that people want to go and see in the cinema, they will go. I don’t know if cinema needs saving, to be honest, but it’s definitely worth saving. It’s such a complicated question. Personally, I adore it. I love being in a cinema with an audience. I love the ‘oohs’ and the ‘ahhs’, the applause, the titters, and communal viewing? There’s nothing like it.I always prefer to consume and see something in the cinema. It doesn’t matter what genre it is; I don’t really care. As a filmmaker and as an artist, part of my sort of development was to venture out, catch the bus, walk down the road, pay your money, get your coffee, sit down and watch a movie. It’s part of my DNA. There are certain movies which are currently going directly to television which could have had a better reception in the cinema, for me at least. However, I didn’t grow up at a time where you could press a button and see a film any time you wanted. That would have been amazing. Maybe it’s a generational thing, but I do feel that the experience of watching something in the cinema is far superior to watching anything at home. Now the question is: do people care? I do.”

Surge Trims Day From CES Public Gathering

Peter Kalmus: “The movie Don’t Look Up is satire. But speaking as a climate scientist doing everything I can to wake people up and avoid planetary destruction, it’s also the most accurate film about society’s terrifying non-response to climate breakdown I’ve seen.”

Todd Gilchrist: “Even among our perpetual cycle of outrage, people seem especially concerned about other people’s reactions to Don’t Look Up. I liked it a lot, and if you did too then cool, but if you didn’t that’s good for you! Let’s all live our lives and move on.”

Barbara Crampton: “Whatever you think of Don’t Look Up..its message is fucking clear. Listen to scientists and vote for leaders who will make changes. These rampant wildfires were predicted 5 years ago… it’s all coming true. Wake up”

Bette Midler: “Just finished watching Don’t Look Up, and it was flat-out fantastic. We laughed, we cried and I’m so glad it got made. The line ‘We really had everything, didn’t we?’ will resonate for all. Congratulations to all involved, and kudos to Netflix. I hope it goes the distance.”

Paul Schrader: “The Upside of Netflix is that many more eyeballs watched Don’t Look Up than would have with a theatrical release. The Downside is: did it make any difference?”

Theater 80 On St. Marks Place Endangered By Big Property

“The long U.S. copyright period adopted in recent decades has meant that many works that would now become available have long since been lost, because they were not profitable to maintain by the legal owners, but couldn’t be used by others.”
It’s Public Domain Day For Creations From An Ungodly 95 Years Ago

A Rundown Of Books, Plays, Films, Music From Public Domain Review

Denis Villeneuve: “Jean-Marc was a singular poet. A man of high contrasts. He was charismatic, magnetic, of strong leadership, modest and shy all at a same time. He was flamboyant, mysterious and discreet. He was at the epicenter of all attention but highly protective of his privacy. He was gentle, lovely, warm but could be tempestuous. He was passionate and mindful. He hated squirrels and bad drivers. He was honest, authentic, truthful and incredibly generous. He was a nostalgic man and an ultra modern artist.  He was solid like a mountain but hyper sensitive. He was a complex figure to say the least. In Montreal, after his success abroad, Jean-Marc became a beacon. The one who showed us the way. He knew where the keys to the car were hidden. He knew secret passages. His house was open. His table always filled with great food and great wine. At the end of the night, we were all riveted, listening to the incredible stories of his last adventures. He was a fantastic storyteller. Jean-Marc was curious, he knew everything about everything. He loved to share cultural discoveries. He was fascinated by new artists, he loved their drive, their ambition, shared their vulnerability. He loved youth. He understood youth. That age where the world is at your feet. That age devoured by that voracious appetite for change. Jean-Marc was young. He was also passionate about rock & roll. He shared the sensuality, the sexiness, the melancholy and the screams of exposed inner pains of rock stars. He loved rebels.”

Nick Pinkerton: “The following is the last installment of a four-part piece discussing contemporary IRL livestreamers, the cross-breeding of cinematic and video game aesthetics, and various related topics. This piece grew out of two separate commissions from Rhizome and Criterion. The final result, which appears after approximately a year of writing and research, was something too sprawling and scurrilous to taint either upstanding masthead, so it instead emerges here.”

Susan Orlean on Joan Didion: “I knew I’d never write like her —no one did—but she changed the way I wrote in a profound way. Despite what seemed like her chilliness, her work was very emotional (the emotion was that chilliness) and she showed me that it was both possible and necessary to incorporate that into every word on the page. But first of all, she was a fastidious, exacting reporter. She was a minesweeper, viewing every setting intensely and clocking every detail that mattered. Obviously, she was an incredible stylist, but I think that praise often overlooks the fact that her style was dependent on her talent and guts as a reporter. She truly proved that it’s all about the art of facts. She gathered the exact names of things, listened for the most telling quotes, and noticed everything. Like Hemingway, she leaned towards the raw simplicity in her language, but studded all of it with the factual details that complicated and enriched it. The facts she chose to use is how she imbued her work with tone, rather than relying overly much on adjectives and descriptions that hit you over the head with her intentions. That inspired me and instructed me, making me realize that it has more impact on a reader to show a telling detail than to tell the reader what you want him or her to think.”

John Boorman Knighted

“Graced with bright eyes and a wide, dimpled smile, she radiated delight — delight to be working, delight to be alive, delight in conversation, delight in animals, but also delight in wickedness. She could turn a lilting voice to sharp ends, and a combination of these effects applied in different proportions, of innocence masking experience and experience informing innocence, would serve her through her career.”

“I’ve been lucky enough to consider myself a working screenwriter since 2016, and it’s been a heck of a learning curve to see how the business of film works (or doesn’t work). I thought a Year in Review might be helpful, if only as insight into how this career even works. What are we writers doing with ourselves most of the time? Here’s a month by month breakdown of what I was doing in 2021. [I should also note: I got COVID in October 2020 and for almost all of this year felt like I was operating at very limited capacity.]

BETTY WHITE WAS 99

“In a career spanning seven decades, Ms. White became one of the most endearing and enduring faces on television. She said that her late husband, veteran game show host Allen Ludden, used to joke, ‘Meet my wife, one of the pioneers in silent television.’
 He was not far off. She appeared on an experimental TV transmission in 1939 and later became a stalwart of domestic comedies, game shows, talk shows, anthology series, soap operas and made-for-television movies. Her trademark was a disarming, dimple-cheeked wholesomeness — her very name conjured girl-next-door appeal — but her impeccable comic timing knew vast range, from genteel innocence to stiletto-like bite.”

Her Last Tweet: Anticipating Her 100th Birthday

WHEN THE DISCOURSE MET DON’T LOOK UP
When your movie is available to 214 million consumers at once, The Discourse opens a window and leaps into the burning dumpster in the internet below. (Folks who wouldn’t pay $15 to go out and see Don’t Look Up have already paid $14 with their monthly subscription, but still hold $15 a la carte opinions.) The union-busting magazine “Current Affairs” started one of the fires with the lumpy piece, “Critics of Don’t Look Up Are Missing the Entire Point.” “One problem with film reviews is that they are often so concerned with evaluating the quality of a movie that they don’t get chance to seriously discuss the ideas it raises,” their writer writes. “Reviewers are preoccupied with questions like: How is the acting? The editing? Is the dialogue sharp? The pacing energetic? Are certain mawkish indulgences by the director partly counteracted by a thoughtful score? In the case of a satire trying to make a point, does it make the point well, or does it do it “ham-fistedly”? Is it subtle and graceful or does it “beat you over the head”?… [M]any said it was a heavy-handed political satire that made obvious points and was not clever… I decided to watch it when I saw that leftist investigative journalist David Sirota… had co-written the story. I know that Sirota is not stupid…. If he was involved with writing a Netflix comedy, I thought it would at least be not completely terrible... I came away thinking that its critics were not only missing the point of the film in important ways, but that the very way they discussed the film exemplified the problem that the film was trying to draw attention to. Some of the responses to the movie could have appeared in the movie itself.”

These assertions led to some inflamed responses. (Idea man-producer David Sirota gets lots of stick for his eager leaps to the film’s defense and blocking of Twitter conversants: “Find yourself someone who looks at you the way David Sirota looks at his own name in the search bar.”) The evolving conversation has sprawled onto the role of the film critic from correspondents on Twitter and elsewhere. Aside from the scabrous and the basic “fuck-yous” earned by the article’s meandering moralizing, the conversations are well-capped by what Alex Winter posted: “The current targeting of film critics as the enemy of the people would be laughable if it didn’t speak to a pervasive, growing contempt for scholarship, expertise, and intellectual critique, accompanied by a moral imperative being imposed on culture. That’s scary… I think when you’ve been in this business a while you come to understand we’re all in the same eco-system but doing quite different jobs. Critics aren’t here to serve artists or frankly vice versa. That line gets blurred a lot.“

Meanwhile, Don’t Look Up as the gods (and the Academy) look down on ecological mayhem: Seven Oscar nominations? Eleven?