How bad is the film production crisis in L.A.?

Let’s put it this way: If you are a lighting technician or a grip, chances are you didn’t work at all in January, February or March. As I report Monday in the British daily the Guardian, the estimated unemployment rate for technicians for that period was 75-80 percent.

According to the leading agencies representing cinematographers, about 80 per cent of directors of photography are also currently out of work -- including members of the ASC, the cream of the profession.

As Film LA and other organizations have pointed out, nobody is shooting here -- not before the state’s proposed package of tax incentives kicks in over the summer, anyway. This winter saw just two big-budget productions: “Iron Man 2” and Tim Burton’s take on “Alice in Wonderland.” A decade ago,...

Sometimes it takes a judge to state the obvious. The auction of Michael Jackson’s possessions from Neverland can go ahead later this month -- at least according to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brett Klein, who rejected a preliminary injunction to stop the sale on Friday -- for the very simple reason that Darren Julien’s auction house has a contract to do exactly what it is doing.

This is the latest loopy episode in Jackson’s frequently loopy legal chronicles, and it doesn’t look like it is going anywhere -- except perhaps back to more courtrooms for more litigation and wrangling. A different judge is going to hold another injunction hearing on April 15, just one week before the auction is set to begin, and the arguments may well continue to rage thereafter.

Last month Jackson...

I'm not usually a fan of individuals who set up front companies and phony websites with the express intention of misleading people. It's how the oil industry manages to convince people its "thinktanks" are in fact sources of objective research on energy and global warming. It’s how Washington uber-lobbyist Richard Berman -- the model for Aaron Eckhart’s character in "Thank You for Smoking" -- has operated for years.

At least in theory, then, I feel I should be at least a little scandalized that Sacha Baron Cohen has done exactly the same thing for his new movie, "Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt."

As reported and extensively documented by...

David Tillman, the chief executive of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, is desperate to put a human face on his decision to close down the Fund’s long-term nursing home and hospital.

That might explain why, when one of his longest-serving employees lost a son to cancer, he and his vice president for human resources, Jan Zlotowicz, showed up, uninvited, to the funeral.
 
Nothing went as Dr. Tillman might have hoped. The ceremony, held at the chapel at Forest Lawn last Wednesday, was a colossally sad occasion – Joel Morales Jr. was just 29 when he lost his battle with lymphoma.

Joel’s mother Juana, who has worked at the MPTF nursing home for more than 25 years, was heartened to see several co-workers among the hundred or so mourners.
 
But she was decidedly unhappy to see her boss, Dr. Tillman. And, according to those...