08/07/2014 Film Industry, Reviews, Screenwriting
Mobile Movie Making (MMM) is an online magazine devoted to the art and technology of using smartphones and tablets to shoot videos in all genres. From MMM’s vantage point – everyone can be a movie mogul since pocket cameras are making possible a new era of moviemaking, in which the people will not only […]
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08/07/2014 Film Industry, Newsletter, Opinion, Screenwriting
Art, Picasso tells us, is the lie that tells the greater truth. Screenwriters need to learn how to lie through their teeth. As a screenwriting educator and script doctor I have seen more scripts brought down by a writer’s wrongheaded devotion to some idealized, romanticized, self-conscious, narcissistic, pie-in-the-sky notion of The Truth. In script consultation […]
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02/27/2014 Film Industry, Opinion
The LA Times recently rounded up the annual Oscar nominees with their predictions. On deserving films for this year’s Academy Awards, here’s my view: I loathed American Hustle. O’Russell is hugely, vastly over-appreciated in my never-humble view. Like his similarly over-praised Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle is a lot of yelling and screaming and repetition. […]
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02/23/2014 Film Industry, Opinion
In more than forty years of WGA membership, it seems there’s a strike threat with the expiration of every contract as talks between the studios and the WGA went into a two week recess in mid-February. Nobody ought to be surprised that I blame the studios. An ancient movie executive characterized writers as “schmucks with […]
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01/10/2014 Film Industry, Opinion
In the December 12, 2013 issue of the LA Times’ story, “Losing Brad Pitt’s Plan B puts focus on Paramount Pictures’ strategy”, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television professor Richard Walter commented: “Paramount’s paradigm is a different model. It’s a business organization run by MBAs, and I am not saying that in a pejorative way.” To […]
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