Week in Film
Focus on Film News
April 14 to 20, 2008
Animator Ollie Johnston
Courtesy J-E Nyström
The Last of the Nine Old Men
14 April, 2008
An era came to an end with the passing of Disney animator Ollie Johnston, who died on April 14. Johnston, aged 95, was one of Walt Disney's inner circle of "directing animators," the masterminds behind Disney's classic cartoon features. Johnston, who was first hired on the short Mickey's Garden (1935), was an integral contributor to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and countless other classic Disney movies. Johnston retired after being a supervising animator on The Fox and the Hound in 1981 in order to concentrate on writing and lecturing. He was also a friend of Pixar director Brad Bird, who featured caricatures of him and the late Frank Thomas (a fellow member of the Nine Old Men) in the films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.
Dentler leaves SXSW for NYC
14 April 2008
Since he took over as boss in 2003, Matt Dentler has become synonymous with the South By Southwest film festival and has elevated it to a position where it is second only to Sundance in the hierarchy of U.S. film festivals. However after overseeing five editions of SXSW, Dentler has left Austin for New York where he is to head up the marketing and programming division of Cinetic Digital Rights Management, an offshoot of John Sloss' Cinetic Media company. "I'll be helping indie filmmakers find the best possible home for their films from a strictly digital perspective, like VOD or online downloads," Dentler explained. "It goes hand in hand with what I was doing at SXSW." Taking over from Dentler is Janet Pierson, wife of indie film guru John Pierson and a producer in her own right. "Matt has been a totally brilliant and inspired leader at SXSW," Pierson said after her appointment. "This will be a hard act to follow, but I've been a fan and supporter since [the festival's] inception and it will be great to be a part of its continued growth."
Director Fears for Democracy
15 April 2008
Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld spoke this week at the National Association of Broadcasters Show about his concerns regarding the impact of the internet on future generations, saying "I fear the Internet for so many reasons." He voiced the opinion that the internet had "invaded our home and taken over our minds" and that the "Facebook generation is not concerned with what people know about them… they will have no problem with additional governmental supervision, spying and intervention." He continued, "I suspect we are probably looking at the last generation of Americans that exist in a democracy. Totalitarianism is not far in our future, and the next generation will go down that road happily. My only hope is the Bush administration has screwed things up so profoundly — socially, economically and environmentally — that perhaps they will be angered by how our generation has selfishly destroyed their future and will put down that computer." Sonnenfeld's last film was the Robin Williams movie RV.
Yankee Movie, Go Home
17 April 2008
For tourists out to visit Europe this summer, the dollar's freefall in international currency has been a major financial hardship, forcing one tourist in London to quip, "I told the kids I could either pay for that slice of pizza or their college education." For areas of the United States hoping to lure film production, the dollar's decline has been a blessing in disguise. Last week the "London Times" reported that a number of high profile films, like Angels & Demons (Ron Howard's follow up to The Da Vinci Code), are cutting short their European production schedule to head home. Producer Kathleen Courtney, who sits on the board of the Producers Guild of America, reported, "The dollar has fallen so much and more film producers are choosing the US instead of places such as the Czech Republic. Until very recently, you would get a lot more for your dollar if you used studios abroad but now there is little incentive. It is very good news for the United States." Canada, which had absorbed much of US film production in the last decade, has noticed the return south of the border to the United States. The Canadian Press recently pointed out that "over the last five years, 90 major feature film and TV projects have been made" in New Mexico, including the upcoming Focus Features comedy Hamlet 2. Indeed New Mexico now proudly wears the moniker "Tamalewood." So successful have these regional areas been that they are also drawing work away from Hollywood. Indeed, The Los Angeles Business Journal reported that "Louisiana and New Mexico, thanks to their successful incentive programs, got nearly $1 billion last year in spending on film productions poached from Los Angeles."
Middle East, the Ride
19 April 2008
While in politics, Arab countries often hold America up as the Great Satan, that doesn't mean they might not want to create the Great Satan ride in their backyard. Ryan Nakashima of the Associated Press reports that "Investors, studios and park operators are all aiming to cash in on what some observers call the Middle East's decades-long fascination with American culture." Of the eight major licensing deals signed in the area, the $2.2 billion Universal Studios park hopes to open up in 2010 in an area appropriately called Dubailand. Marvel Entertainment is looking to set up shop there in 2011, but with some adjustments. While they'll be playing down Captain America and the scantily dressed Wonder Woman, Marvel will play to more general ideals. Marvel Chariman David Maisel remarks that "our characters [are] either about individuals helping people or they're about teams of people of different types, like mutants, that band together." Even Anheuser-Busch hopes to enter the market by 2012, but, in keeping with local laws, the beer drinking areas will be very private and not advertised. The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (which will meet this week in Dubai) projects investments in leisure industries to top 3 trillion dollars in the United Arab Emirates alone in the next 20 years.
> Post a Comment