Garry Marshall’s “Pretty Woman” (1990) turns thirty

The Guardian critic Scott Tobias writes that Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990) may have been released in the 1990s, but it is very 1980s with its “greed is good,” Reaganomics materialism, as well as its ultraconservative sexual politics. After all, it is about a Hollywood Boulevard prostitute named Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) – who is new to streetwalking, does no drugs, and doesn’t have a pimp – snagging a wealthy out-of-towner named Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), who innocently meets her asking for directions. According to Tobias, Roberts’s star-making turn, which made her America’s sweetheart overnight, elevates the film beyond its shortcomings.

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In Florida, film industry is doing well

First created under then-Governor Jeb Bush, the FFEAC is made up of former legislators, business executives, entertainment industry veterans, and community leaders volunteering to advise the Department of Public Opportunity on how to best develop, market, promote, and provide services to Florida’s entertainment industry. (Image Courtesy: Florida Politics).

House Bill 7039, as well as Senate Bill 1636, went before the Florida Legislature at this year’s Legislative Session, threatening to repeal the Florida Film and Entertainment Advisory Council, according to Florida Politics. Even though the Legislature declined to approve a new film production program for 2020, the film industry successfully spoke out against HB 7039 with an amendment to the bill sparing the FFEAC which now awaits Governor Ron DeSantis’s signature. Floridians in the trade earn an average of eighty-two thousand dollars per year, which is two-thirds greater than the state average for all jobs, not to mention the businesses and tourism supported by film and television productions, raking in tax revenues for the government.

Website lists ten greatest thrillers of all time

 

The arbitrariness of truth and the infinity of human cruelty are key themes throughout thrillers, and shadows, dreams, crime, paranoia, conspiracy, and suspicion are key motifs. (Image Courtesy: The Manual).

 

The “thriller” is difficult to differentiate from the film noir, horror, action, or suspense, according to The Manual. In an effort to define the parameters of the genre, writer Eric Shorey listed some of the best movies considered to be thrillers. The website’s ten best thrillers are: Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991); Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992); Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000); Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019); David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001); Park Chan-wook’s Lady Vengeance (2005); Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990); Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011); Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945); as well as Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

“Ready or Not” directors attached to “Scream” reboot

Spyglass Media Group is rebooting Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) in partnership with Matthew Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who directed Ready or Not (2019), according to Variety. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are part of filmmaking group Radio Silence with Chad Villella, who will serve as one of the producers behind the untitled Scream reboot; Radio Silence produced V/H/S (2012), Devil’s Due (2014), and Southbound (2015). As for Spyglass, they were organized a year ago with former MGM executive Gary Barber and Lantern Entertainment co-presidents Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic, who took over the rights to Scream from the Weinstein Co. in 2018.

How coronavirus is infecting an already sickly film industry

The accelerated spread of Covid-19 is crippling the entertainment industry, perhaps more so than any other, because the theatergoing experience as we know it is already vulnerable from the advent of streaming services, according to Quartz. After all, studios, as well as production companies, own offices and sets all over the world, and you can’t work from home on a film shoot. While this year’s global box office is projected to underperform (having lost as much as five billion dollars so far), if movie theaters in China and other major markets remain closed all year, they may not open again.

Max von Sydow dies at 90

Swedish film and stage star Max von Sydow, known for his collaborations with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman on stage as well as onscreen, has died at ninety years old, according to The Guardian. Born Carl Adolph Von Sydow to a family of academics in Lund, he was a Catholic school student before serving in the military, after which time, he attended the acting school at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm from 1948 to 1951. He would go on to be nominated for two Academy Awards, for Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011).

The lesbian gaze in Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019)

The Guardian contributor Róisín Tapponi writes that Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) eschews the male gaze in favor of “the lesbian gaze.” The film stars Noémie Merlant as the liberated Marianne, an artist secretly commissioned to paint a portrait of the sexually repressed Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) until the two women fall in love with each other. According to Tapponi, the difference between the male gaze and the lesbian gaze is touching versus looking – where male-directed lesbian romances are full of gratuitous sex, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is more about sensuality as well as intimacy.

How the lower budget for Leigh Whannell’s “The Invisible Man” (2020) saved Universal’s monster movies

At Blumhouse, Jason Blum produced Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man (2020) for seven million dollars (before marketing and distribution), so, when the science fiction thriller starring Elisabeth Moss opened to twenty-nine million dollars, it became a hit, according to Variety. For Universal, it was close to the thirty-one-million-dollar debut for Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy (2017), but The Mummy cost three hundred fifty million dollars to shoot and promote, making The Invisible Man more profitable. Overseas, The Invisible Man even went on to gross an additional twenty million dollars at the international box office, in spite of the coronavirus outbreak.

Trailer released for Shudder’s “Cursed Films” (2020-)

Shudder’s Cursed Films (2020-) is a documentary series which will look at the ill-fated production stories behind: Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982); William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973); Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976); Alex Proyas’s The Crow (1994); as well as John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller’s Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), according to Entertainment Weekly News. Those interviewed by the streaming service include: The Omen director Richard Donner; The Exorcist star Linda Blair; Kane Hodder; Michael Berryman; Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman; Poltergeist III (1988) director Gary Sherman; Mitch Horowitz; and Blumhouse executive and Shock Waves podcast cohost Ryan Turek. The season premiere (The Exorcist) will screen April 2; on April 9, Poltergeist and The Omen ; and April 16, The Crow and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

Updates released on second “Simpsons” film

“We would only do it if it was an idea that we thought deserved being made into another movie,” said 20th Century’s The Simpsons (1989-) showrunner Al Jean. “We would do it if we thought it was a great story and we wanted to tell it.”

Al Jean, showrunner for 20^th Century’s The Simpsons (1989-) as well as a producer behind David Silverman’s The Simpsons Movie (2007), says the talks for another potential spinoff film are “in the very, very early stages,” according to New Music Express. Series creator Matt Groening said at D23 that he thinks the movie will happen, and Jean added that the Simpsons team “would love to do one for Disney, but it’s not like it’s happening next week or next year.” In a new statement, Jean made clear that any new film would be a standalone work, rather than a sequel.