There is something creepily colonialist in Madonna’s attitude to Africa. First we had the White Man’s Burden -– now we have the White Madonna’s Burden. More and more celebrities are treating Africa as a wide-eyed child that needs a Hollywood hug -– or as a wicked devil that needs a Hollywood hammering.
posted on May 16, 2008 - View this thread

Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films (official site w/Flash) Filmmaker Arthur Dong covers the good (YT), the bad and the players (link to Flash video clips) in his latest award-winning documentary. Related MeFi post.
posted on May 4, 2008 - View this thread

Otto Preminger died on this day 22 years ago at 79 years old, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.
posted on Apr 23, 2008 - View this thread

Long Duk Dong: Last of the Hollywood Stereotypes? Related: Whatever Happened to John Hughes? which has an accompanying photo gallery: Where are Hughes' teen stars now? [A previous post about John Hughes here.]
posted on Mar 24, 2008 - View this thread

Time Magazine's 25 Most Important Films On Race
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Hitchcock Classics as illustrated in the 2008 Hollywood Portfolio from Vanity Fair.
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules. A truly inspirational set of values that could add everything to the life of anyone in education. What makes this set of rules even better is that they came from the students themselves. But they couldn't have done so without the pioneering work of Sister Mary Corita
posted on Jan 30, 2008 - View this thread

On Tuesday, A.V. Club critic Nathan Rabin's reassessment of the rabidly ambitious Perfume: The Story of a Murderer marked the culmination of his Year of Flops project, a reviewing marathon of 104 commercial and critical failures. Here's the index of the films, sorted into Elizabethtown-derived categories of good but luckless movies, ordinary losers, and disasters of mythic proportions.
posted on Jan 24, 2008 - View this thread

Hollywood Midget Movie Stars. They started as popular vaudevillians. (From a review: "The chief feature, however, was the ten scenes in which the Singer Midgets appeared. The Midget strong man, the Midget conjurer, the Midget "Cleopatra" with the winning ways--these and many more were there.") They stormed the New York stage. They were members of The Lollipop Guild (YouTube link), as well as playing other Munchkins. They were suspected of being German sympathizers. But they may be best remembered for starring in the world's first all-midget musical western. Now available for your viewing pleasure from YouTube: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
posted on Jan 21, 2008 - View this thread

I've internally debated the merits of addressing my appearance in, (and thus tacit condoning of) "Alvin and The Chipmunks". I am not stupid nor unobservant. I knew going into this movie that I would be eating a lot of delicious sh*t for it.
-David Cross, on appearing in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
posted on Jan 1, 2008 - View this thread

Francis Ford Copolla owns the Blancaneaux Lodge, Clint Eastwood owns the 22-acre The Mission Ranch, John Malkovich owns The Big Sleep Hotel, Liz Hurley owns Number 11. What is it with movie people and hotels? And where are the arthouse establishments?
posted on Dec 28, 2007 - View this thread

Prior to his critically acclaimed program The Wire, creator Edward Burns wrote the HBO miniseries The Corner, which also focused on the drug trade in Baltimore. Charles S. Dutton, an African-American Baltimore native and former convict probably best known to most as TV's "Roc," was chosen to direct the miniseries. Who Gets To Tell a Black Story?, part of a Pulitzer-prize winning NYT series on race in America, examines Dutton's take on how to make a TV program which portrays a mostly African-American cast of characters, the struggles and differing perspectives of Dutton and Burns, and how race is portrayed in Hollywood.
posted on Dec 17, 2007 - View this thread

As the WGA strike enters its second week, the writers have begun to flood the internet with brief videos explaining (and even making light of) their situation. A small collection after the jump.
posted on Nov 14, 2007 - View this thread

As the Writer's Guild of America strike wears on into its second week, it seems appropriate to remember why they're striking in the first place. If you ask me, the terms seem almost too reasonable. But in the defense of the studios, I'm sure the businessmen involved have gotten used to spending those millions of dollars, and wouldn't want to see them go. Now that Broadway has shut down in allegiance to their Hollywood compatriots, things are looking grim for anything to be resolved without more financial bloodshed.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

A Hollywood writer's strike now looks all but certain. With late night TV due to go dark immediately and your favorite network series drying up around Christmas, maybe you'd like to get your popcorn out and follow the fireworks between the writers and the producers. Meanwhile, the trade dailies provide coverage which reflects their dependence on the studio advertising dollar. Me? I'll be writing my novel.
posted on Nov 2, 2007 - View this thread

John Simpson, on actors.
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

Yes, that is indeed Mick Jagger playing a Chinese emperor. And those are, in fact, Edward James Olmos, Bud Cort, and Barbara Hershey heading up the supporting cast of "The Nightingale," a particularly odd episode of Shelley Duvall's ludicrously star-studded Faerie Tale Theatre. Throughout its early '80s run, the show used dozens of prominent actors to perform the fairy tale standards, including Klaus Kinski and Susan Sarandon in a virtual remake of the Cocteau "Beauty and the Beast;" Paul Reubens, James Coburn, Carl Reiner, and Vincent Schiavelli in "Pinnochio;" Helen Mirren and Brian Dennehy in "The Little Mermaid;" and James Earl Jones and Leonard Nimoy in a Tim Burton-directed "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp." The list goes on and on.
posted on Sep 5, 2007 - View this thread

Hot Properties: Want to feel inadequate? Want to visit InsaneWorld? Check out the L.A. Times real estate column Hot Properties, which covers the world of high-end celebrity real estate moves. It's like rock candy for masochists. Scarlett Johansson recently picked up a $7 million pad from a family friend. Courteney Cox wanted more privacy, so she and David Arquette flipped their $33.5 million shack for a $17 million compound. John Cleese is selling his ranch for $28 million. Tom Cruise shows them the money for a $35 million upgrade from his rental. Even the D-list celebs get ink. Double you. Tee. Eff.
posted on Aug 19, 2007 - View this thread

Charles Lane (1905-2007) , a character actor since 1931, and one of Hollywood's most recognizable "that guys". Over 350 credits from "It's a Wonderful Life" to "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" to "Petticoat Junction" and a half-dozen different characters on "I Love Lucy". Founding member of the Screen Actors guild, and more, but I'll let Mark Evanier tell you some stories. Here's his 100th Birthday party, and one of his few YouTube clips shows him as Ginger Rodger's 'customer' in "Primrose Path".
posted on Jul 10, 2007 - View this thread

You can love him or hate him but Transformers made $250,000,000 last week. To some, Michael Bay is a genius. To others he's a racist hack. Or just a hack. He may even be both a hack and a genius. Is this evidence of an auteur? Or does dude just like really big explosions? Plus: a character driven Bay film?
posted on Jul 9, 2007 - View this thread

Wallace Seawell's portraits virtually created the classic Hollywood look.

Obit with small gallery.

More photos via Google Images.
posted on Jul 8, 2007 - View this thread

'In defense of film critics' posits that 'Film critics [unlike food critics, etc] are expected to be cheerleaders.' I guess we're not supposed to think it's odd that the piece was written by paper's resident film critic. He does ask at least one good question, though: why have so many truly awful [and poorly reviewed ] films done so well at the the box office this year?
posted on Apr 27, 2007 - View this thread

How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran by Joshuah Bearman. As history keeps on happening, all people and events are becoming linked to each other in strange and inexplicable ways. Once in a while those links surface into view. Here, then, is the key event that connects Jack Kirby and Roger Zelazny to the CIA's handling of the Iranian hostage crisis. Via Wired Magazine and good evening.
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - View this thread

$78 Million worth of Red Tape. An amazing (and lengthy) LA Times article that provides an extremely rare glimpse into the finances of a major motion picture, with a line item dissection of the $160 Million disaster Sahara. The items include $230,000+ for bribes to local officials, $2 Million for a 45 second plane crash sequence cut from the final film, and 3.8 Million to a total of 10 different screenwriters for a movie that eventually went on to be one of the largest (in pure dollar terms - not adjusted for inflation) financial disasters in film making history.
posted on Apr 16, 2007 - View this thread

Roscoe Lee Browne, class act from beginning to end. The first time I ever noticed him was in The Cowboys, a western I've watched many times just to hear him speak.
posted on Apr 13, 2007 - View this thread

Burn Hollywood Burn. Some striking photos (from the BBC) of the conflagration that came a little too close for comfort to the iconic hillside sign. Some more details here.
posted on Mar 31, 2007 - View this thread

Los Angeles Magazine asks, "Can the LA Times be saved?" One suggestion is to hire Nikki Finke, Hollywood's ultimate contrarian reporter. Finke was canned in 2002 by the New York Post over a series of articles critical of Disney. [1 2] She sued in response.

Shortly afterwards, she landed at the LA Weekly, where she boasts an incredible archive of weekly columns - recent entries include a quasi-defense of Mel Gibson, coverage of Cruise versus Redstone, and Michael Ovitz's gay problem. On the side, she likes to bite people's heads off, and reminisce about a New York that's now gone. She now gets to let it all out on her own blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily. [previously mentioned 1 2 3 4]
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

Premiere Magazine, "The Movie Magazine" , one of the first mainstream magazines to cover the moviemaking business, is shuttering after twenty years and 200+ issues. The current issue (with Will Ferrell on the cover), on newsstands now, will be its last. Premiere.com will stay in business. I was a subscriber for most of the 1990s, until I began to notice a shift from news and features about movies to a celebration of Hollywood celebrities. I let my subscription lapse in 2001, when Premiere re-launched itself with a more celebrity-friendly slant, and celebrity It Girl Penelope Cruz on the cover. Reminisce about the golden years with Premiere's Cover Gallery.
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

Who Delayed Roger Rabbit? Rich Drees lays bare the backroom bickering and production studio drama behind one of the 1980s' most successful comedies. For an encore, Drees reviews the unproduced script of Roger Rabbit II: Toon Platoon. Weep for what might have been.
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - View this thread

120 year ago today, on February 1, 1887, Harvey Wilcox, originally a prohibitionist from Kansas, filed a grid map of Hollywood with the Los Angeles County recorder's office, carved from a nondescript plot of land he owned in Southern California. The rest, as they say, is history. Hooray For Hollywood!
posted on Feb 1, 2007 - View this thread

Lobby Card Invasion. A searchable collection of a wide variety of lobby cards for all kinds of interesting films. [via PCL LinkDump]
posted on Jan 27, 2007 - View this thread

Essay by David Denby on the future of our predominant art form: the film. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
posted on Jan 11, 2007 - View this thread

Sly talks! Rounds [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9-10][11][12][13].

Let’s face it; my powers of communication were a little bit below that of a knuckle-dragging, ooze-dwelling cretin from another galaxy. Actually, I haven’t progressed that much. I just lie better. A 13 (so far)-part interview where Rocko/Ramby answers fans with oodles of extremely quotable, self-deprecating, sarcastic one-liners about the (few) ups and (many) downs of a Hollywood career. Tips on: how to get Sharon Stone naked, how to use the 3 seashells, how to direct dancers with a "crotch tartar" problem and how to bench press with owls. We also learn the final truth about some guy named Rocky - an inbred, druid outcast from Stonehenge whose specialty is weaving whistle chains and leaping face down onto pointed objects - and another one named Rambo - a savage turned loose in Microsoft’s headquarters.
posted on Dec 14, 2006 - View this thread

The Hollywood moguls were appalled...Hitherto, Tinseltown had the police and politicians in its capacious pocket, yet here, landing like a ton of hot manure, was this crummy magazine from the east coast. A sharp look from British Journalism Review at the career of Robert Harrison, whose 1952 magazine Confidential single-handedly "opened the floodgates of tell-all sleaze." Seems Harrison branched out from publishing a long string of 1940s girlie mags after being inspired by the Estes Kefauver organized crime hearings that gripped early TV audiences in the U.S.A.
posted on Oct 19, 2006 - View this thread

Would you like a little head from Tom Cruise? Drew Barrymore? Brad Pitt? Lou Costello? Faces of Fame can help you... lifemasks from dozens and dozens of famous people.
posted on Sep 15, 2006 - View this thread

More Bad News For Mel In the 24-hour news cycle, tomorrow's bad news for Mel Gibson hits today: according to tomorrow's Sunday Herald Sun Mel Gibson once had ties to the Australian League of Rights, a right-wing group well-known in Australia for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. Says the Herald Sun: "The league claims the world is run by a secret society of Jews." (Who, presumably, are responsible for all the wars in the world"
posted on Aug 6, 2006 - View this thread

Perfection and Eraserhead. Discussing Singing in the Rain and Goodfellas with prisoners. The link between Pasolini, Blind Willie Johnson and Carl Sagan. If you like hanging out at the corner of Film and Word, you might enjoy spending time in the archives at Your Humble Viewer, a wide-ranging, well-written, funny and literate film blog.
posted on Jul 31, 2006 - View this thread

"Not today, sir, probably not tomorrow": Alternatively titled "Me and My Shadow, Part I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX"; the long, touching, interesting, hilarious, disturbing story of how 'Jay' kicked his drug habit, written by 'Silent Bob', aka Kevin Smith.
posted on Jul 20, 2006 - View this thread

Chris Tucker has become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood for agreeing to star in the third installment in the Rush Hour film series. Apparently he's already prepping for the car chases. No word on whether not he got those editing rights he was asking for last year.
posted on May 11, 2006 - View this thread

Forgotten silent film comedian Larry Semon. Part II - Heyday. Part III - Trouble Brewing. In 1920, he was the world's 2nd-most-famous Hollywood star, with a contract and creative control rivaling Chaplin. In 1921, he made a popular series of films with Oliver Hardy as his main comic foil, six years before Laurel & Hardy became a household name. In 1925, he directed a truly bizarre silent version of The Wizard of Oz, just as wild overspending, erratic behavior and lawsuits ruined his career. The Larry Semon Research site has an interesting picture gallery.
posted on May 1, 2006 - View this thread

Trek fans, geeks, meet your new leader!
Rick Berman is out, out, out. JJ Abrams, with Paramount's blessing, is taking over Star Trek for an eleventh journey to the big screen which will apparently have a "Kirk and Spock: The Early Years" flavor.
posted on Apr 21, 2006 - View this thread

The Weekly Blurb - "Your dependable Hollywood quote whore." Probably by the same people who long ago brought us late, lamented Timmy Big Hands. And A Year At The Movies and Movie Megacheese. And, you know, something else.
posted on Apr 10, 2006 - View this thread

Jerry Lewis at 80 (more inside)
posted on Mar 13, 2006 - View this thread

"He said to me, 'I'm going to hang up on you if you don't stop talking to me,' " Graphic novel author Allen Moore takes a hard line with Hollywood. Reminds me of this story about Ex-Door John Densmore.
posted on Mar 11, 2006 - View this thread

"Mixed" reviews of John Stewart's performance last night. A reminder that someone warned in February that Crash might win best picture because many Academy members were "unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain" [permalinks broken, scroll down]. Marvel that YouTube somehow managed to get rights [cough] to Oscar video, at the Oscar frocks and that thing on Charlize Theron's shoulder, and at the persistent myth that a billion people watched the awards.
posted on Mar 6, 2006 - View this thread

The 25 most popular television broadcasts, actors and directors based on anonymous, aggregated data from DVR owners, updated weekly.
posted on Feb 23, 2006 - View this thread

Say "cheese" — stinky, expensive, overprocessed American cheese. The venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its set design for the Seventy-Eighth Academy Awards® Telecast. This year's edition is described as "an homage to old movie theaters" by designer Roy Christopher. "It's a no-holds-barred return to classic Hollywood glamour." Others may beg to differ.
posted on Feb 22, 2006 - View this thread

The greatest Hollywood stunt pilots of them all, Frank Tallman and Paul Mantz not only looked the part, but flew camera ships, raced planes, and performed amazing aerial stunts in films for over 40 years. Not long after forming Tallmantz Aviation, Mantz was killed on location in the excellent 1965 version of Flight of the Phoenix. Tallman, grounded on FOTP due to a go-cart accident, lost his leg as a result but flew in movies for another 13 years until crashing in 1978.
posted on Feb 11, 2006 - View this thread

Bollywood is remaking Fight Club. It seems there wasn't enough dancing and singing. Trailers here [Windows media]. No mention of soap.
posted on Feb 11, 2006 - View this thread

Jack Bauer isn't afraid to cut the eyes out of any (deliberative) body; or, Rupert Murdoch demonstrates the 17th Amendment's fatal flaw.
posted on Feb 3, 2006 - View this thread