I can’t believe the film was made and that it came from Russia but reached American distribution alongside Dark Knight Rises and the latest Wayans brothers’ satire, and moreover that it was nary mentioned on a single 2012 year-end list. This is a film I dreamed of making for years – not necessarily the subject matter alone, but the tone, the style, the acting – it’s like John Cassavettes directing Ghostbusters. Leelee Sobieski is amazingly understated but charismatic and sexy in this movie and Ed Stoppard carries the film well, playing the line between insanity and prophecy beautifully.

Anyway, see it. It works and it is wonderful and it will be the first film to be added to my favorites of all time (that includes the aforementioned Blade Runner and Brazil as well as Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Stalker and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers) since Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover in 2002.

Finally I want to mention that this is a Lionsgate release. LGF has it going ON right now. They are the New Line Cinema for which I originally moved to Hollywood. Fuck the Hobbit. Lionsgate is taking chances and making bold choices – The Hunger Games, The Cabin In the Woods and grindhouse fare like Rambo and The Expendables, and that I have worked on for them via Punisher: War Zone and Texas Chainsaw 3D – which remind of what it might have felt like to work on a Roger Corman film when the going was really good. they are releasing the funnest, most daring slate of any studio around and Branded is a perfect example of that.

The post “Branded” from Lionsgate Films – A Review appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

Amazon has always been about innovation, and a bottom-up approach; building from the consumer’s perspective -> inward.

And now, as music, movies, books and businesses all go virtual, Amazon must continue innovate, or die. But with 33% of online sale marketshare, that isn’t bloody likely, at least not anytime soon. The best news is, everyone (except Bezos’ competitors, end even likely they) will benefit.

Did you know that Amazon is the digital host for such cloud-based companies as foursquare, Reddit.com and Netflix? Which is only a little disconcerting when Amazon’s cloud servers go down as they did in late April 2011. We’ll chalk it up to growing pains, a mere glitch in the Matrix, you know – just Neo and Agent Smith going at it again…

Check out the amazing free Slideshow below, furnished by consultants faberNovel via another very cool little company called Slideshare – “the world’s largest community for sharing presentations,” that demonstrates, in no shallow way, just how, against all odds, Amazon makes it happen, over and over again.

The post A Deeper Look At Why Amazon Keeps Winning (SlideShow) appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

It was another great year for film. Anyone who think some years are stronger than others, just isn’t getting exposed to enough of the good stuff. Dozens if not hundreds of great new works were released and viewed at festivals around the world. Oscar time just aggregates the buzziest among them.

So here is the list of noms, along with my comments from the cheap seats:

Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Ryan Gosling (snubbed for Blue Valentine).

Too tough to call this one.  Have to see how the night goes.  Bridges got his last year.  Eisenberg did well, but Hollywood won’t go for it.  James Franco is a wild card.  Bardem did his work in a foreign film (again).  It will likely sweep and go to Firth.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

Go John Hawkes!  Nice one buddy 🙂 He is great as “Teardrop” in Winter’s Bone.

Christian Bale was so good in The Fighter.  

Geoffrey Rush will get this one though. No hard feelings there.

Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

All amazing women, giving amazing performances.  Damn Jennifer Lawrence is so amazingly understated in Winter’s Bone. MIchelle Williams stellar (as always) in Blue Valentine. Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman – there is a reason they have been in this position so often before. Natalie’s ballet was amazing, her performance was amazing and we need to push her through to a deserved Oscar, even just to acknowledge the span and scope of her work which has nearly always been dead on (Amidala wasn’t really her fault). But if Jennifer Lawrence (the big underdog here) takes it, I will not feel let down.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Adams again?  Leo Again?  Love them both (they are both a degree of separation and they both did amazing work in the Fighter, Amy especially) but are there only five supporting actresses working in Hollywood?

Animated Feature Film

“How to Train Your Dragon” Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
“The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
“Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich

“How to Train” for story…

But “The Illusionist” because it’s Tati, it’s magic, it’s beautiful beyond repair, and because it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t happen twice.

Art Direction

• “Alice in Wonderland” – Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O’Hara
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” – Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
• “Inception” – Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat
• “The King’s Speech” – Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Judy Farr
• “True Grit” – Production Design: Jess Gonchor; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh

Cinematography

• “Black Swan” Matthew Libatique
• “Inception” Wally Pfister
• “The King’s Speech” Danny Cohen
• “The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth
• “True Grit” Roger Deakins

The good old boys comprise this list (Conrad Hall R.I.P.)  – will be happy when any one of these luminaries wins.  They are all Senseis.  If I had to choose, I’d give it to Cronenweth Jr. for the crazy low light style he pulled off in Social Network.  It made Gordon Willis seem like a softie.  But God bless, Roger Deakins.  He is Obi Wan.

Costume Design

• “Alice in Wonderland” Colleen Atwood
• “I Am Love” Antonella Cannarozzi
• “The King’s Speech” Jenny Beavan
• “The Tempest” Sandy Powell
• “True Grit” Mary Zophres

Directing

• “Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
• “The Fighter” David O. Russell
• “The King’s Speech” Tom Hooper
• “The Social Network” David Fincher
• “True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Nolan is conspicuously absent from this list. Oscars don’t take Science Fiction or Fantasy seriously (LOTR being the exception).  Remember Avatar?  District 9? What about Blade Runner? 2001: A Space Odyssey? Only Science Fiction films nominated for best pic in these genres in the history of Oscar before this were A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Wars (1977) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

That aside (as I do have a personal bias towards those genres):

Man this is a tough one to call.  Really really tough.  I am not touching this one.  They are all deserving.  For once. (Except 1999: Director:
SAM MENDES for “American Beauty”, Spike Jonze for “Being John Malkovich”, Lasse Hallstrom for “The Cider House Rules”, Michael Mann for “The Insider”, M. Night Shyamalan for “The Sixth Sense”)

Documentary (Feature)

• “Exit through the Gift Shop” Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz
• “Gasland” Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
• “Inside Job” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
• “Restrepo” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
• “Waste Land” Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Don’t get me wrong – I really liked Exit through the Gift Shop.  I idolize Banksy.  Mr. Brainwash is a tool.  But this film isn’t one of the best docs of the year.

A couple missing from this list:
“Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” – Sophie Fiennes
“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” – Werner Herzog
“Darkness of the Edge of Town” – Thom Zimny
“Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie” – Sturla Gunnarsson

Documentary (Short Subject)

• “Killing in the Name” Nominees to be determined
• “Poster Girl” Nominees to be determined
• “Strangers No More” Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
• “Sun Come Up” Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger
• “The Warriors of Qiugang” Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon

Film Editing

• “Black Swan” Andrew Weisblum
• “The Fighter” Pamela Martin
• “The King’s Speech” Tariq Anwar
• “127 Hours” Jon Harris
• “The Social Network” Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Foreign Language Film

• “Biutiful” Mexico
• “Dogtooth” Greece
• “In a Better World” Denmark
• “Incendies” Canada
• “Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)” Algeria

Where is Gaspar Noé’s “Enter The Void” – a work of staggering ambition and cinematic brilliance and audacity. Likely, because it premiered at Cannes over a year ago, it has fallen in between the cracks, considered a 2009 release, thus losing any opportunity for award consideration. Which is a shame, because this is truly a masterpiece.

Makeup

• “Barney’s Version” Adrien Morot
• “The Way Back” Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
• “The Wolfman” Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

The Wolfman.

Music (Original Score)

• “How to Train Your Dragon” John Powell
• “Inception” Hans Zimmer
• “The King’s Speech” Alexandre Desplat
• “127 Hours” A.R. Rahman
• “The Social Network” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

They totally missed Daft Punk for TRON. But go Trent!

Music (Original Song)

• “Coming Home” from “Country Strong” Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
• “I See the Light” from “Tangled” Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
• “If I Rise” from “127 Hours” Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
• “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3″ Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

I’m over Randy Newman being nominated for Toy Story songs.  Please stop.

Best Picture

• “Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
• “The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
• “Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
• “The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
• “The King’s Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
• “127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
• “The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
• “True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
• “Winter’s Bone” Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

What is with these huge lists of best picture noms recently?  Just commit.  This is just politics and diplomacy.  Why the fuck is Toy Story on this list? I’d be fine with any of the others, but I really loved Black Swan. Not decided yet though.

Short Film (Animated)

• “Day & Night” Teddy Newton
• “The Gruffalo” Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
• “Let’s Pollute” Geefwee Boedoe
• “The Lost Thing” Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
• “Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)” Bastien Dubois

Short Film (Live Action)

• “The Confession” Tanel Toom
• “The Crush” Michael Creagh
• “God of Love” Luke Matheny
• “Na Wewe” Ivan Goldschmidt
• “Wish 143” Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite

Sound Editing

• “Inception” Richard King
• “Toy Story 3” Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
• “Tron: Legacy” Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
• “True Grit” Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
• “Unstoppable” Mark P. Stoeckinger

Unstoppable or Inception.  I am going with Inception.  Sympathy trophy.

Sound Mixing

• “Inception” Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
• “The King’s Speech” Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
• “Salt” Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
• “The Social Network” Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
• “True Grit” Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland

See above.

(“Salt”…?)

Visual Effects

• “Alice in Wonderland” Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1” Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
• “Hereafter” Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojansky and Joe Farrell
• “Inception” Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
• “Iron Man 2” Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

First of all, Social Network got wickedly snubbed for its perfectly executed face transplant wherein using actors Armie Hammer & Josh Pence, Josh’s face was transferred over Armie’s throughout the film without ever once feeling like that weird crawly plastic looking business they did with Jeff Bridges in TRON. That said, from the list of delegates, Inception deserves this one, (see above).

PS. TRON > Iron Man 2.
PPS. – Enter the Void?

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
• “The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
• “Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
• “True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• “Winter’s Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Love me some Cormac, but, creative liberties aside (or perhaps because of them) I’d give this one to Sorkin.  I remember walking out of this yawn-fest and thinking, at least Sorkin did his job right.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
• “The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
• “Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
• “The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• “The King’s Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler

Would be nice if Mike Leigh got it for his amazing work.  I’m going with The King’s Speech if I had to put money down.

Also, not sure where something like Michael Winterbottom’s “The Trip” could be nominated. Even though it’s a UK picture, it is technically not “Foreign Language,” and Oscar NEVER acknowledges comedy. At least not the kind that doesn’t feature Jack Nicholson or directed by James L. Brooks. But The Trip should have been squeezed into this list somehow.

What did YOU think of this year’s nominations? What were your favorite films in 2010? Please post a comment and let me know!

The post Thoughts on the Nominees for the 2011 Academy Awards appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

This is my fifth year publishing my own lists here at the Culturepin.com because I find that in sharing them, it exposes me to further insights furnished my readers. It not only helps me organize my thoughts in a turbulent sea of information, but it also serves as insight-bait to attract further tips from anyone who may know something about the catalog that I don’t. And ultimately I hope that it will help you to navigate it all and have an amazing film going experience.

So if you will indulge me a few moments, and permit me to be your sub-curator, I will share with you the fruit of my labors thus far.

Here are my first-draft picks for films to see at TIFF 2010. Please, I implore you to comment away!

Aftershock | Feng Xiaogang

Country: China
Year: 2010
Language: Mandarin

My choice to position this film at the top of my list should give an indication not only of the caliber but also the intensity of the choices available at this year’s festival. TIFF’s programmers pull no punches, and in narrowing down my first round picks, I trust I have twisted the winch even further. Aftershock is truly an explosive but also deeply emotionally rooted grand work. It may be as difficult for me to sit through as was 2008’s Hunger.

The most successful Chinese movie of all time, Aftershock is based on the novel of the same name by Chinese Canadian author Zhang Ling. An intimate epic, the film sweeps across three crucial decades in recent Chinese history and explores the resilience of a family devastated by 1976 Tangshan earthquake.

Watch the trailer for Aftershock at the tiff website.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams | Werner Herzog

Country: USA
Year: 2010
Language: English

For anyone cynical about the new 3D movement, Werner Herzog offers a new promise for its utility and meaning. Alas, here is a real reason to not wait it out for a VOD release, but instead to actually get your butt off the couch and go out to the movies for what will undoubtedly be an uplifting cinematic experience.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting. He puts 3-D technology to a profound use, taking us back in time over 30,000 years.

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow | Sophie Fiennes

Country: United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands
Year: 2010
Language: French, German

Rivers and Tides, the documentary about the time-based work of artist Andy Goldsworthy affected me so deeply that I have been looking for its successor ever since. I suspect this to be a contender. But because I have not seen it and can only suspect, I will rely on Noah Cowan’s summary from the official tiff website:

“Anselm Kiefer’s monumental artwork explodes into the spaces it inhabits. Dirt and twisted metal, wildly thick impasto and found garbage compete in grand painterly gestures. His themes are volatile and confrontational, often addressing his native Germany’s Nazi past and the ravages of the Holocaust through the lens of poetry (Paul Celan is an acknowledged influence) and the Kaballah. In an era dominated by clever conceptualism, his work consistently evokes strong emotions in the museums and galleries where it is exhibited. It is common to find patrons transfixed and deeply moved by his work.” – Noah Cowan

Machete Maidens Unleashed! | Mark Hartley

Country: Australia
Year: 2010
Language: English

Blood, breasts, beasts – the three B’s form the subject to Mark Hartley’s follow up to one of my favorite Midnight Madness films in 2008: Not Quite Hollywood, this time with a focus on genre films out of the Phillipines. I grew up on really bad b-movies and the thought of going behind the scenes with the people that made them for a couple of hours is just irresistible.

Watch the trailer for Machete Maidens Unleashed! at the tiff site.

Biutiful | Alejandro González Iñárritu

Country: Spain, Mexico
Year: 2009
Language: Spanish

From the director that brought you Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, comes an intense, small-scale intimate nerve-gripper starring the man who made a coin toss creepier than your alcoholic uncle Jimmy. Javier Bardem plays a former drug dealer with a bi-polar wife who works as a prostitute in Iñárritu’s first film in his native Spanish since his startling debut.

Check out the killer trailer for Biutiful at the tiff site.

Tabloid | Errol Morris

Country: USA
Year: 2010
Language: English

The director of The Thin Blue Line and the Academy Award®-winning The Fog of War tells the story of a former Miss Wyoming whose quest for one true love led her across the globe and onto the pages of tabloid newspapers.

Errol Morris doing what he does best: an examination of the dark side of society in this examination into how we are shaped by the media.

The Trip | Michael Winterbottom

Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2010
Language: English

Reprising their hilariously fictionalized roles from Tristram Shandy: A Cock and BullStory, which screened at the festival, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reunite with director Michael Winterbottom for an acerbically witty trip through the English countryside.

Winterbottom makes a road trip movie? The guy who brought us 24 Hour Party People? The same guy who depicted a woman giving her lover a footjob until he shot a load, all on camera in 9 Songs? Something tells me this isn’t going to stay inside the margins.

Rabbit Hole | John Cameron Mitchell

Country: USA
Year: 2010
Language: English

I had the good fortune to meet John Cameron Mitchell when he was casting Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Little did I realize at the time that he would move from an underground subculture superstar into a refined, measured powerful directorial figure in the modern American film landscape. I can’t admit that that happened with his sophomore release Short Bus, but with Rabbit Hole, he has Aaron Echkart and Nicole Kidman under his watchful gaze doing what some call among their finest work as a couple struggling to deal with the immense sense of loss from the death of their son.

Based on the Pulitzer prize winning play by David Lindsay. I include this film here because the package is most certainly well worth viewing, however, I trust this will get a US theatrical release due to the cast and source so I will not work too hard for a ticket on this one during the festival.

Film Socialism | Jean-Luc Godard

Country: Switzerland
Year: 2010
Language: French

I did a double take on this one. Godard is alive? Alive and well and making films? I’m so out of the loop – I mean, I read tomes about this guy and the influence his films had when he made them over a half-century ago.

This so-called “symphony in three movements,” that attempts to make sense of a world beyond comprehension, seems to confirm that he is alive and kicking. Undeniably an experience not to be missed.

The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town | Thom Zimny

Country: USA
Year: 2010
Language: English

Never-before-seen archival footage substantiates the bulk of this behind the scenes look by Grammy and Emmy Award-winning director Thom Zimmy’s at Bruce Springstein’s fourth and much beloved album. The Boss himself is scheduled to attend. For fans, this is like dying, going to Heaven, and then dying in Heaven and going to the one beyond that.

Edge | Alexey Uchitel

Country: Russia
Year: 2010
Language: Russian

Anyone who knows me even remotely has likely heard me extol the virtues of Andrei Tarkovsky’s surreal post-apocalyptic masterpiece The Stalker. In fact, I often put it at the very top of my list of favorite films of all time. So when I see a description like:

“Fusing steampunk aesthetics with selective fragments of Russian history, director Alexey Uchitel hurls his new love-laced war epic straight into post-apocalyptic territory”

…you had better believe I will be rolling my sleeping bag out onto the sidewalk to get a ticket.

Daydream Nation | Mike Goldbach

Country: Canada
Year: 2010
Language: English

I <3 Kat Dennings, and this Canadian film from Mike Goldbach (director of Childstar) doesn’t yet appear to have an American distributor so it might be one that could otherwise be overlooked once it arrives on the Netflix list.

The Housemaid

Country: South Korea
Year: 2010
Language: Korean

Essentially a remake of director Kim Ki-young’s original film Hanyo made over 50 years ago and recently restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, The Housemaid under director Im Sang-soo’s vision alters the dynamic from vengeful femme fatale, to a startling showdown between a high-powered wealthy family and an ordinary women who enters their world. Adding a healthy helping of international cinema to the tiff menu is a must, and to my taste, this Korean fare looks like a perfect pairing with the rest of this list.

Watch the trailer for The Housemaid at the tiff site.

Black Swan | Darren Aronofsky

Country: USA
Year: 2010
Language: English

OK, for what it’s worth my friend Daniel Waters (writer of Heathers and Sex and Death 101) told me personally that his own buddy Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler) has made a near-perfect masterpiece of a film; a film that he, Daniel himself, wishes he had written. With a cast that includes Natalie Portman, Barbara Hershey and Winona Ryder, Black Swan is a chilling exploration of the psyche of a young ballerina “whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect.”

Interestingly enough, Aronofsky told MTV in a recent interview that Black Swan and the Wrestler began as one project:

“I was actually developing a project that was about a love affair between a ballet dancer and a wrestler, and then it kind of split off into two movies. I realized pretty quickly that taking two worlds like wrestling and ballet was much too much for one movie.”

Why is it a “must” ticket for me at the fest? Not because it won’t get a release, but because I just can’t goddamned wait any longer to see it.

Watch the trailer for Darren Aronofky’s “Black Swan” at the tiff site.

And I haven’t even touched on the excellent Midnight Madness fare…

Agree? Disagree? Know something I don’t? Post your comments below!

The post TIFF 2010 – The Toronto International Film Festival – My First Draft Film Picks appeared first on TheCulturepin.com.

First there was the music industry. No one tried to help it back up; after years of being viewed by the general public and bemoaned by the artist as the big soul-sucking money-hungry machine of exploitation that it was, people only gathered round to watch it burn and fan the flames.

The result has been a transfer of power is all. Not to the artists, necessarily (of course there are always a few exceptions) but to the new digital aggregators who deal in micro-payments and still cut the far less than what it cost them to make the stuff in relation to what it costs for iTunes to distribute and sell it. The difference is when there were A&R people, some of them actually filtered out the bad stuff. Today those are called Tastemakers. They are better known to Generation Y as Simon Cowell. And iGenius.




The Dawning of a New Age (Again)

The artists hear the evangelists of this new democratic age calling down from the hilltops about how they have more freedom and opportunity than ever before, but somehow they are missing the foundation of how the market works – by removing the funnels and filters previously controlled by the major labels, and dispersing the point of sales all over the place, it is much more difficult for any artist to build momentum let alone sell on the Long Tail. By abandoning the major studio model (which HAD to be shaken up regardless) the artists inadvertently abandoned the very infrastructure that formed their marketplace.

Ask any musician today who ever made a dime before just how motivated they are right now to go and spend money and time and sweat toiling to get those de-tuned guitar strings right, and perfecting the EQ on their mixes when no one cares where the music came from or how it was made or whether or not its being pirated. Why are so many people just dancing on the ashes of the music industry and failing to realize that often they are also dancing on the heads of the musicians themselves?

Don’t get me wrong. I ran an indie label for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan of the studios, but at least there was an economy for music then. It wasn’t that the studios were slow and failed to seize the right opportunities (which they did) it was that the audiences were upset about paying 15 bucks for CDs (because they thought that CDs are only like 2 bucks to manufacture) so defaulted to getting their music free from The Internets.

By the same argument – I question the widespread derision and resentment that exists towards Hollywood. “Piracy is what Hollywood deserves for charging so much at the box office.” It is just too inconvenient to go to a three-storey high theater with Dolby Certified surround sound and pay ten dollars for popcorn. And Hollywood movies are soulless shit made by suits anyway.

Screw Wolverine: The Audience Wants More Truffaut – or – If Xmen Origins: Wolverine Exists, I Can Not Be Truffaut

Why is everyone so excited about bringing down the Hollywood model all of a sudden?

Why can’t it just be that there are more opportunities for more films in addition to the tentpole conglomerates?

The problem with this line of thinking is that it belies the WWI era scarcity model mentality where there can’t be two, there just has to be ways of splitting up and passing around fragments of one.

Do indie filmmakers, disillusioned and frustrated by rejection and gatekeepers in the studio system, really think that the fall of the studios and the distribution infrastructure they support and subsidize, is going to make financing more available to them? Or that audiences, suddenly free from the hypnotic glare of Spiderman 3, will finally turn their attention to moderately well crafted HVX100 features made by really big fans of Judd Apatow and even some Hitchcock?

I like change, and I like competition in the marketplace – it wakes people up and innovates and evolves things, and it gets rid of weak and outmoded models, but this does not all have to happen in spite of the infrastructure. If you want ever to download a pirated copy of an epic adventure thriller of any quality ever again, and not just some Bokakeh HDSLR indie avant-garde piece showcasing the latest Nikor lens, think about what it takes to successfully run and release a 400 million dollar picture like Avatar and get it out to your neighborhood in digital IMAX 3D.

wondering if the above, really just came from my keyboard – the once nose-ringed, green haired, experimental prog-rocker

Scarcity vs. Abundance

The takeaway from this is: stop thinking in terms of the scarcity model and start thinking in terms of the abundance model. There is enough to go around. Don’t horde your wisdom, resources, passion. Spread it, build it, develop it, express it and let the people building airships, skyscrapers and highways do their job also. Lest your concern be that they will flood the planet in oil, burn up the oceans and kill the indies – remember that the market goes where the money is – which is to say, if you don’t pay to see Snakes On A Plane – they probably won’t make a sequel. If you do pay to see Spiderman, they probably will.

If you make a mediocre album be it indie or released via a major, people likely won’t buy it. They probably won’t even pirate it.

Make good things. If you make inefficient gas guzzling cars that spray noxious fumes and cost too much, people will probably not buy it unless it is their only choice. So make a fuel efficient, eco-friendly car that feels and looks awesome, and you might just make a whole lot of money.

So when we start hearing about how Hollywood is gonna get it just like the music industry did, consider how a desperate industry will behave; it will probably play it safer, probably do less and thus interest in that very industry will wane.

People say all we care about is the story. All that matters is the song. Really?

What about adventure? What about entertainment? What about escape? What about spectacle? What about the communal experience? The social experience?

Do none of those factor in our attention and investment in the product? Would Lost be half of what it is if it weren’t for the chance to discuss it with friends, its scope, its production value?

I can’t wait to hear from you. Please tear the above apart. Or agree with me. Let’s hear it.

This article was in part, inspired by a piece someone posted at a Digital Entertainment studies board I read by UCLA Extension instructor Peter Russel titled “Hollywood Is Going To Die — But Wait, That’s a Good Thing!“

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