Wake Up and Embrace the Technology, Urges Napster Documentary 'Downloaded'
April, 02, 2013 6:17 pm | Comments On #Alex Winter, Downloaded, henry rollins, independent film, indies, Movies, NapsterIt was perhaps inevitable that at the Q&A that followed a screening of Alex Winter’s Napster documentary “Downloaded” on Monday night, one audience member would ask if the movie was going to be available on the internet for free.
The film, after all, chronicles the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of the file-sharing service that fundamentally changed the music industry, ushering in a generation of music fans who got their music for free online rather than paying for it in record stores.
To admirers, it was a revolution that put power in the hands of the fans; to the record industry, it was an assault on copyright and intellectual property, a case of organized piracy on a scale...
Pioneering Rock Journalist Paul Williams Dies at 64
March, 28, 2013 3:25 pm | Comments On #Bob Dylan, Crawdaddy, music, Obituaries, Paul Williams, rock 'n' rollPaul Williams, a pioneering music journalist who started the first magazine devoted to rock ’n’ roll criticism, died on Wednesday in Southern California. He was 64.
Williams was the founder of Crawdaddy! magazine and the author of more than two dozen books about music, popular culture and new-age philosophy. He died of complications related to Alzheimer’s, which came on after he suffered a brain injury in a 1995 bicycle accident.
Williams was a 17-year-old student at Swarthmore College when he launched Crawdaddy in 1966. At a time when the mainstream media looked askance at rock music and the only magazines devoted to the sound were teeny-bopper publications like Tiger Beat, Williams wrote...
Read MoreRobert De Niro's Tribeca Film Fest to Close With De Niro's 'King of Comedy'
March, 28, 2013 11:00 am | Comments On #film festivals, Movies, robert de niro, tribeca film festivalThe Tribeca Film Festival will close with a new restoration of “The King of Comedy,” the 1983 Martin Scorsese film that happens to star Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro.
The disturbing black comedy, in which De Niro plays obsessed stand-up comic Rupert Pupkin, who kidnaps talk-show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) and demands a spot on Langford’s show, won largely rave reviews but has grown in stature since its initial release.
The film has been given a digital 4K restoration by Scorsese’s Film Foundation, Regency Enterprises and 20th Century Fox.
According to Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal, the idea of including restorations in the festival’s lineup came...
Read MoreOscars Overhaul Short-Documentary Rules, Plan to Expand Doc Branch
March, 27, 2013 6:19 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, documentaries, oscarsOne year after opening the Documentary Feature category to involve more voters, the Academy is doing the same for Documentary Shorts, which likely had fewer voters this year than any other Oscar category.
And in another change that could have a significant effect on the documentary awards, the Academy is expected this year to invite substantially more members to join the branch than ever before. The Board of Governors, according to branch governor Rob Epstein, has responded favorably to requests to relax the restrictions on new members for that specific branch.
The Academy has not publicly announced the changes, but Epstein, one of the three representatives of the Documentary Branch on the Board of...
Oscars Move Into March for 2014
March, 25, 2013 11:14 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, oscarsThe Oscars are getting out of the way of next year’s Winter Olympics and moving into March, 2014, but the show then plans to return to late February for the 2015 awards.
The move to March allows the Academy to slightly adjust the timetable that forced voters to cast their nominating ballots earlier than ever this year, although it still requires ballots to be returned in early January.
The dates for the 86th and 87th Oscars were announced on Monday morning by the Academy, which said that next year's Academy Awards will take place on March 2 and 2015's awards will happen on Feb. 22.
Although the organization has been under pressure to consider a move to early February or even late January,...
Read More'The Birds,' 'Beetlejuice' Added to Tribeca Lineup
March, 25, 2013 11:04 am | Comments On #Alfred Hitchcock, Beetlejuice, film festivals, Movies, The Birds, Tim Burton, tribeca film festivalAlfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” are among the films added to the lineup at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, TFF organizers announced on Monday.
The 50th anniversary screening of “The Birds” and the 25th anniversary screening of “Beetlejuice” will be part of the “Tribeca Drive-In” series of free outdoor screenings at the World Financial Center Plaza, and will take place on Thursday and Friday, April 18 and 19. “Lil Bub & Friendz,” a new film about a cat who became an internet sensation, will also screen as part of the series on April 20.
Tribeca also announced a collaboration with the Museum...
Read MoreDavid Mamet on 'Phil Spector': It's Not About Phil Spector
March, 22, 2013 6:54 am | Comments On #Al Pacino, David Mamet, Girls, HBO, Helen Mirren, lana clarkson, phil spector, Television, Zosia MametPlaywright, screenwriter and director David Mamet tries to have it both ways with “Phil Spector,” his upcoming HBO film about the eccentric music legend who was convicted for the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.
The film uses the names of Spector, Clarkson and the legal team that defended the mercurial producer and makes use of official court transcripts for a couple of scenes. But a disclaimer at its beginning insists, “This is a work of fiction ... It’s not ‘based on a true story,’” and Mamet called his work "a fable" in an interview with TheWrap this week.
Also read:...
Read MoreTales of the Real Phil Spector: Music, Guns - and Hot Dogs on Silver Platters
March, 22, 2013 6:53 am | Comments On #Al Pacino, David Mamet, HBO, phil spector, TelevisionWhile Al Pacino is bewigged and bold as the eccentric movie producer Phil Spector in David Mamet’s HBO film “Phil Spector,” does he capture the real Spector?
Some, from Spector’s wife to the former publicist for Lana Clarkson, who was shot to death in Spector’s house in 2003, have said no. Mamet has responded to TheWrap with a wonderfully blunt assessment of his film: “Anything which is a matter of record is completely accurate, and anything which is a matter of invention is completely made up.”
Also read: David Mamet on ‘Phil Spector...
Read MoreTribeca Film Fest Is Talkin' to Clint Eastwood, Jay Roach, Whoopi Goldberg and More
March, 21, 2013 11:00 am | Comments On #Ben Stiller, Clint Eastwood, Darren Aronofsky, Ethan Hawke, film festivals, Jay Roach, Julie Delpy, Mira Nair, Movies, Richard Linklater, tribeca film festival, Whoopi GoldbergClint Eastwood, Jay Roach, Richard Linklater and Gloria Steinem are among the directors, writers and actors who will participate in the “Tribeca Talks” series at this years Tribeca Film Festival, TFF organizers announced Thursday.
Directors Darren Aronofsky and Paul Verhoeven, actors Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke and Ellen Page, actor-directors Whoopi Goldberg and Adrian Grenier and singer Elaine Stritch will also take part in the "Tribeca Talks" programs, which will take place during the late-April festival launched by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal 11 years ago in downtown New York.
Also read:...
Read MoreHBO's 'Phil Spector' Issues Odd Disclaimer: 'We're Not Based on a True Story'
March, 20, 2013 1:00 pm | Comments On #Al Pacino, David Mamet, HBO, Helen Mirren, lana clarkson, phil spector, TelevisionHBO’s upcoming film “Phil Spector” has taken a different tack from all the other recent movies that have been based on true stories.
That’s because the film, which takes place during the trial of record producer Phil Spector for the 1993 shooting death of Lana Clarkson, insists in its opening credits that it is not based on a true story.
“This is a work of fiction,” reads a card at the beginning of the film, which was written and directed by David Mamet. “It’s not ‘based on a true story.’”
This, even though Spector and Clarkson are characters in the film, in which music-producer Spector is accused of the murder of...
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Description
Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering entertainment for more than two decades. He also writes on the awards circuit for TheWrap, in his column "The Odds."
