ScriptShadow reviews the latest screenplays from Hollywood, usually with links to the screenplays themselves.
posted by alby on Jul 7, 2009 - 13 comments

Asteroids... the movie?
posted by geos on Jul 2, 2009 - 90 comments

Hollywood Bloopers: 1936-1947 A couple of the years won't load for me, but the ones I can watch are fun.
posted by grumblebee on May 29, 2009 - 14 comments

Love Carol Channing? The Hollywood magazine Daeida has done The Carol Channing Issue - available online.
posted by greekphilosophy on May 13, 2009 - 20 comments

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Scores. The Hollywood Reporter and a jury of film music experts select the 100 greatest film scores of all time. One of the jury is Dan Goldwasser, editor of Soundtrack.net, which publishers interviews with composers, reviews of soundtracks and keeps a valuable list of trailer music - for when a new trailer uses old film music and you can't quite remember where it's from. [more inside]
posted by crossoverman on Apr 30, 2009 - 60 comments

The universe is unfolding as it should: from White Castle to House to ...the White House. Actor Kal Penn dramatically left his medical show last night (spoilers everywhere) to take a job in the Obama administration. He credits his interest in politics to his grandparents, who marched with Gandhi.
posted by CunningLinguist on Apr 7, 2009 - 72 comments

Coincidental to the publishing of her memoir, Candy Spelling - the widow of legendary television producer Aaron Spelling - is selling her Beverly Hills mansion for $150 million. (Daughter Tori Spelling is not expected to share in the proceeds.)
posted by Joe Beese on Mar 27, 2009 - 23 comments

Newspaperman, war hero, blacklist front, distinguished screenwriter, co-creator of Mr. Magoo, novelist at age 90... Millard Kaufman is dead at 92.
posted by ubiquity on Mar 17, 2009 - 17 comments

Actor Rainn Wilson has launched a community-driven discussion blog focused on life's big questions, such as do we get what we pray for?, why do we spend so much time talking about other people?, and do the imaginations of adults need a serious kick in the balls?
posted by Roach on Mar 15, 2009 - 30 comments

Clue : 60 years, the movie, the books, the TV series, the fan site, the musical, the Harry Potter edition, the movie remake.
posted by crossoverman on Feb 25, 2009 - 91 comments

The bumping off of a famous person is the sort of oyster that any detective delights to open, so you can just bet the family jewels that I was pretty much elated when my Chief, the late Thomas Lee Woolwine, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, called me into his private office on the morning of February 3rd, 1922, and assigned me to represent his office in the investigation of this greatest of all murder mysteries. -- Excerpted from an article archived at Taylorology, a site exploring the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a silent movie actor and director whose unsolved murder was among the earliest Hollywood true crime scandals. Researcher Bruce Long first published his accumulated information about the case as a small fanzine which evolved into a monthly electronic newsletter and is now a vast archive of articles and interviews, official documents, photos, and more. Although the Taylor case is the main focus, there's also a wealth of supplemental information about the silent film industry and its stars. [more inside]
posted by amyms on Feb 22, 2009 - 7 comments

"The biggest problem with the metal bikini, was that it wasn’t metal. ——Not that metal would’ve been an improvement over what it was actually made of, which was kind of a hard plastic. Whatever it was, it didn’t adhere to one’s skin. MY skin. My young, soon to be popular, unlucky skin. SO, when I was relaxing leisurely against Jabba the Hutt’s gigantic, albiet grotesque stomach, my hard, plastic bikini bottom……….well, it had the tendency to make my now not so private privates quite public. Especially for the actor standing behind Jabba playing Bobba Fett—–I believe his name was Jeremy—–from where Bobba/Jeremy stood, so straight and tall and severe behind his mask——to put it simply and weirdly, Jeremy could see beyond my yawning, plastic bikini bottoms all the way to Florida."

- Carrie Fisher goes from writing the occasional book to daily blogging, from substance abuse to abusing punctuation
posted by crossoverman on Feb 3, 2009 - 66 comments

Brad Pitt is no spring chicken, but it still took some work to put an 85-year-old version of his face on a child's body in his newest movie. The first step: a new markerless, wireless, uncanny-valley-clearing motion capture process, termed "volumetric cinematography" by the effects studio. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz on Jan 1, 2009 - 49 comments

Just Like The Movies. Michal Kosakowski reconstructs the morning of 9/11/01 completely through clips from Hollywood movies released before 9/11. More of Kosakowski's short films are available here. [more inside]
posted by mattbucher on Dec 11, 2008 - 40 comments

Director Peter Watkins' web site describes the filming, distribution and critical reaction to each of his controversial films, including Punishment Park, the rock star satire Privilege, The War Game, La Commune and more. He also offers a 10-part critique of "the media crisis" that marginalizes non-mainstream ideas via the Hollywood monoform and the Universal Clock, a style he claims structures almost all of the messages delivered to the public, but which sharply limits the range of relationships possible between media producers and audiences. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Nov 3, 2008 - 7 comments

Every Halloween I think about him Vincent never wanted to be an actor. What with the degree from Yale in Art History and English. His intent was certainly not to be one the classic Masters (YTV) of Macabre (YTV). Never the less his legend surpasses his own humble ambitions. Part of our collective childhoods (MP3) gone but not forgotten. [more inside]
posted by tkchrist on Oct 31, 2008 - 28 comments

Who ruined the Hollywood fight scene? With average shot length under six seconds and falling, are fight scenes more exciting than they used to be? Or is Hollywood's love of fast editing cutting us short? [more inside]
posted by The Card Cheat on Jul 29, 2008 - 111 comments

Look out, New York ladies, the Goot is loose! His experience on Dancing With the Stars "made him a better person"; after getting the hook as a hoofer, a disllusioned Steve Guttenberg abandons Hollywood for New York.
posted by grounded on Jul 16, 2008 - 46 comments

It's been proven that people tend to look like their dogs, but startling new findings reveal a freakish resemblance between Hollywood celebrities and Sesame Street puppets.
posted by HotPatatta on Jul 11, 2008 - 40 comments

The male rejection of adulthood is now the dominant attitude in Hollywood comedy.

The center of attention is usually a guy, his buddies and his toys. He will, most of the time, be nudged toward responsibility, forgiven for his quirks and nurtured in his needs and neuroses by a woman who represents an ideal amalgam of supermodel and mom.
posted by plexi on Jun 6, 2008 - 154 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by dawson on May 16, 2008 - 81 comments

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 by LinusMines on May 4, 2008 - 19 comments

Otto Preminger died on this day 22 years ago at 79 years old, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY. [more inside]
posted by Bathtub Bobsled on Apr 23, 2008 - 20 comments

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 by amyms on Mar 24, 2008 - 69 comments

Time Magazine's 25 Most Important Films On Race
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 8, 2008 - 69 comments

Hitchcock Classics as illustrated in the 2008 Hollywood Portfolio from Vanity Fair.
posted by dhammond on Feb 8, 2008 - 34 comments

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 [more inside]
posted by MrMerlot on Jan 30, 2008 - 32 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by Iridic on Jan 24, 2008 - 38 comments

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 by Astro Zombie on Jan 21, 2008 - 32 comments

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 by beaucoupkevin on Jan 1, 2008 - 104 comments

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 by MrMerlot on Dec 28, 2007 - 31 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by whir on Dec 17, 2007 - 24 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth on Nov 14, 2007 - 46 comments

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 by GoodAaron on Nov 10, 2007 - 90 comments

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 by unSane on Nov 2, 2007 - 202 comments

John Simpson, on actors.
posted by veedubya on Oct 9, 2007 - 23 comments

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 by Iridic on Sep 5, 2007 - 34 comments

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 by Cool Papa Bell on Aug 19, 2007 - 42 comments

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 by wendell on Jul 10, 2007 - 19 comments

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 by PostIronyIsNotaMyth on Jul 9, 2007 - 124 comments

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

Obit with small gallery.

More photos via Google Images.
posted by The Deej on Jul 8, 2007 - 11 comments

'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 by chuckdarwin on Apr 27, 2007 - 36 comments

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 by JHarris on Apr 26, 2007 - 36 comments

$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 by jonson on Apr 16, 2007 - 74 comments

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 by loosemouth on Apr 13, 2007 - 18 comments

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 by flapjax at midnite on Mar 31, 2007 - 19 comments

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 by phaedon on Mar 20, 2007 - 15 comments

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 by Lord Kinbote on Mar 20, 2007 - 42 comments

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 by Faint of Butt on Mar 8, 2007 - 52 comments

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 by amyms on Feb 1, 2007 - 11 comments