Red Envelope Entertainment, Netflix's acquisition and distribution arm, is no more. Reports Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE:

In its short life, Red Envelope acquired 126 films, including the Golden Globe nominated "Sherrybaby," co-produced a slate of movies for IFC TV (including Kirby Dick's "This Film is Not Yet Rated") and partnered on theatrical distribution for such micro-hits as "2 Days in Paris" with Samuel Goldwyn, "No End in Sight" with Magnolia Pictures, "The Puffy Chair" with Roadside Attractions, and "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" with IFC Films.

Due to changing marketplace conditions and the natural evolution of Netflix, according to Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, the company decided it was time to move on. "The one thing we learned this year is that there's no shortage of produced movies and there's no shortage of money for viable projects," Sarandos told indieWIRE yesterday. "The best role we play is connecting the film to the audience, not as a financier, not as a producer, not as an outside distributor or marketer."

Netflix will continue to license streaming rights for films, which had become Red Envelope's focus in the past few months -- in effect, they'll no longer be competing with the distributors they also partner with: "When Red Envelope was buying streaming rights from producers, it was effectively taking licensing money from distributors. ('Unique partnerships can create channel conflict in this new evolving world,' Sarandos admitted.)"

[Photo: "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," an IFC/Red Envelope co-production, 2006]

+ Netflix Folds Red Envelope; Exits Theatrical Acquisition and Production Biz (indieWIRE)

By Alison Willmore in Biz | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Netflix, Red Envelope

"In an era where risk-averse studio executives have declared men the more reliable movie stars--and the more desirable moviegoers--perhaps it's no surprise that they are also the medium's top earners. The reality: Hollywood's 10 best-paid actors out-earned Hollywood's 10 best-paid actresses 2-to-1 over the course of the year...

"Will Smith leads the pack of Hollywood's best-paid actors, banking an estimated $80 million over the course of the year. Frequently called the hardest-working man in Hollywood, Smith has proved that no matter the genre--be it sci-fi thriller (Warner Bros.' I Am Legend) or sappy drama (Sony's The Pursuit of Happyness)--he can deliver an audience."
      --Forbes on Hollywood's best-paid actors

"The $20 million paycheck club in Hollywood is shrinking, and for good reason: When it comes to the highest-paid performers, the studios aren't getting good returns on their investment.

"Just check out our Ultimate Star Payback list for proof. At the top of our list is comedy actor Vince Vaughn. His films earned $14.73 for every dollar he was paid. That's because until recently his salary was relatively low, and the films he was in, like Wedding Crashers and The Break-Up, had modest budgets yet did extremely well at the box office worldwide ($285 million and $205 million, respectively)."
      --Forbes on Hollywood's best values

"Today, Absolut Vodka becomes a "Friend" of the walk, shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a star-like plaque embedded in Hollywood Boulevard... It's unclear just how different the Absolut plaque, near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, will be from nearby stars for Antonio Banderas, Matthew Broderick and Jackie Chan.

"Chamber officials wouldn't provide a sneak preview, but Gubler described the plaque as a 3-foot square set in terrazzo and brass featuring an Absolut bottle, text citing Absolut as a 'Friend of the Walk of Fame,' and icons such as a film projector and microphone that appear on other stars."
      --LA Times

[Photos: Famous! Will Smith in "Hancock," Columbia Pictures, 2008; Vince Vaughn in "The Break-Up," Universal Pictures, 2006; Absolut Vodka]

+ Hollywood's Best-Paid Actors (Forbes)
+ The Ultimate Star Payback (Forbes)
+ Some find corporate sponsorship of Walk of Fame hard to swallow (LA Times)

By Alison Willmore in Biz | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Absolut, Vince Vaughn, Walk of Fame, Will Smith

"Spaced," the grandly geeky British sitcom about two North London roommates and their friends that Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost created before moving on to "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," is out on region one DVD today and is well worth convincing someone else to purchase for you. As Sam Adams writes at the LA Times:

"Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" are "Spaced" writ large, more elaborate homages crafted with more precision and focus. But the show has an emotional resonance that the movies, particularly the latter, lack. Tim and Daisy might use pop-culture references to explain their lives, or escape from them, but they always come back to the real world, and to each other, returning to a sublimely unconsummated romance that gives the series a poignant undertow.

Guest commentators on this new set include avowed fans and sometimes series touchpoints Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone and Diablo Cody. Of the former, Robert Abele at the LA Weekly notes:

Tarantino's commentary track is even for the episode that features the pastiche of Pulp Fiction, which nearly sent [star/writer Jessica] Hynes into a gushing tailspin. "It was brilliant that he did it, and I didn't fawn in an inappropriate way," she says, admitting that, at one point, she vocalized how their faithful-but-silly re-creation of the tense Butch-shoots-Vincent buildup was missing a shot. "He was, like, 'No, that's in another part.' I was, like, 'Of course, of course! Well ... you know, I mean.' It was a total honor."

Wired's Erin Biba interviews Simon Pegg ("You guys have the best sci-fi in the world") while Jarett Wieselman at the New York Post talks to Hynes ("It's like suddenly they open a cupboard and there's a unicorn!"). Victoria Large at Not Coming to a Theater Near You offers more analysis: "The success of Spaced is not so much in transcending the sitcom genre as it is in pushing it to meet its real potential."

The "Spaced" folks are on a short US promo tour -- having had a screening followed by the de rigueur Elvis Mitchell-moderated Q&A in New York last night, they're off to L.A., Comic-con and Austin. Info is here.

[Photo: David Walliams as Vulva, the non-gender-specific performance artist - "Spaced," BBC Warner, 2008]

+ 'Shaun of the Dead' fans must get 'Spaced' (LA Times)
+ Spaced: The Next Frontier, on DVD (LA Weekly)
+ Simon Pegg's Geek Roots Show in Spaced (Wired)
+ "Spaced" Star: "George W. Bush is a Fan!" (New York Post)
+ Spaced: A Sitcom (Not Coming to a Theater Near You)

By Alison Willmore | Link | 1 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Diablo Cody, Edger Wright, Jessica Hynes, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, Nick Frost, Quentin Tarantino, Simon Pegg, Spaced

Filmmaker Magazine has just released its annual round-up of indie film up-and-comers, "25 New Faces in Independent Film." Quite a few of them are familiar -- congrats in particular to Barry Jenkins, whose great "Medicine for Melancholy" premiered at SXSW this year; Tom Quinn, whose "The New Year Parade" won the best narrative prize at Slamdance; and David and Nathan Zellner, designated "filmmakers who should have been on the list in the five previous years but inexplicably weren't," whose "Goliath" debuted at Sundance and is now available on VOD via our sister company IFC Films.

According to the accompanying press release, five directors off the list have been selected to create 3-5 minute shorts shot on a Nokia to be looked over by Spike Lee: "Their films will revolve around the overarching topic of "humanity" and, along with submissions from the general public, will be considered by Spike Lee for inclusion as part of the third act on his film for Nokia Productions." Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo and Zachary Lieberman, E.E. Cassidy, Daniel Robin, Christina Voros and Matt Wolf are the chosen few.

+ 25 NEW FACES OF INDEPENDENT FILM (Filmmaker Magazine)

By Alison Willmore | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: 25 New Faces in Independent Film, Barry Jenkins, David Zellner, Filmmaker Magazine, Nathan Zellner, Spike Lee, Tom Quinn

Well, if there's ever been a sign of the general decline in estimation of film critics, it's that the new hosts of ABC's review show "At the Movies," from which Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper bailed in the past two days, are just that -- professional TV hosts. Ben Mankiewicz, late of the Air America talk radio show "The Young Turks" and Turner Classic Movies, will be joined by Ben Lyons, who's the son of WNBC's on-air critic Jeffrey Lyons, serves as E!'s "film expert," and supposedly once dated one of the girls on "The Hills." Variety's Anne Thompson reports, with impressive deadpan: "Lyons co-hosts 'Reel Talk' with his father, WNBC film critic Jeffrey Lyons, and has covered various red-carpet events for E! Last year, he hailed 'I Am Legend' as 'one of the greatest movies ever made.' "

At her blog, Thompson notes that "I have never seen either of these guys. But the hue and cry is going to be fun to watch. The older target demo for Ebert and Roeper will protest. And the younger demo probably doesn't care!" I'm unsure what TV demo I fall into these days, but I can't imagine this new format will be anything more than a neutered, all-positive all the time package formulated to be gentlest on potential studio advertisers -- which would make it not a review show at all. The new season starts September 6th.

[Photo: Ben Mankiewicz, courtesy of TCM; Ben Lyons, courtesy of E!]

+ Lyons, Mankiewicz to host 'Movies' (Variety)
+ Lyons and Mankiewicz To Replace Ebert and Roeper (Thompson on Hollywood)

By Alison Willmore in Critic watch | Link | 3 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: At the Movies, Ben Lyons, Ben Mankiewicz, Jeffrey Lyons, Richard Roeper, Roger Ebert

Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing points out that the 1963 Francis Ford Coppola/Roger Corman slasher film "Dementia 13" is in the public domain and available for download for free from Archive.org.

Jarvis Cocker is writing songs for Wes Anderon's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," according to an interview with Time Out Chicago:

Yet you wrote songs for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, appearing in the film as the frontman of the Weird Sisters. Do kids recognize you?

I had a very specific look going on in that film--giant fur jacket, snakeskin trousers--that I wouldn't normally wear down the street. That would get me attention, but probably the wrong kind of attention. I've been doing some stuff for a children's film Wes Anderson is doing, an animated feature.

The stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox?

I've written three, four songs, and some of that might become bits of the score.

MTV's movies blog has the trailer for "What We Do Is Secret," the Darby Crash and the Germs film that's been on the festival circuit forever. Shane West plays Crash and, er, Bijou Phillips plays Lorna Doom.

Peter Coyote has an "we're all actors together" open letter/suggestion to the leads out there at Deadline Hollywood Daily that seems idealistic if also highly unlikely:

There is a simple way leading actors might bring a second, more flexible and targeted weapon into the fray on behalf of your colleagues which incidentally, would provide the ancillary benefit of insuring that you consistently play opposite actors of the highest caliber. If you were to include language in your contracts specifying that, in your films, the "quotes" of your peers must be recognized as a negotiating floor for their compensation, if you publicized that fact, and, if you kicked back a modest amount, say on salaries over six million dollars a film to make that money available, each and every actor negotiating to play opposite you would be empowered to demand the fair compensation that he or she has won for their work.

In the new issue of Sight & Sound, Jane Giles wonders "Who killed the double bill? And when did our days or nights become so short that the very idea of going to the cinema to watch four to six hours of brilliantly compatible or creatively contrasting content became impossible?" A "selection of experts" proposes their fantasy film pairings.

[Photo: Francis Ford Coppola's "Dementia 13," 1963]

+ Dementia 13 (Coppola's first mainstream movie) on Archive.org (Boingboing)
+ From the U.K. to the Magic Kingdom (Time Out Chicago)
+ EXCLUSIVE: 'What We Do Is Secret' Trailer Premiere (MTV Movies Blog)
+ Peter Coyote's Open Letter To Lead Actors (Deadline Hollywood Daily)
+ Dream Tickets (Sight & Sound)

By Alison Willmore in Odds | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Dementia 13, Francis Ford Coppola, Jarvis Cocker, Peter Coyote, Roger Corman, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson, What We Do Is Secret

In a statement released today, Roger Ebert announced: "After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named 'Siskel & Ebert' and then 'Ebert & Roeper' in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it." It doesn't come as such a surprise -- Ebert's 2006 surgery made it impossible for him to continue to appear on air. But S. James Snyder at Time has more:

His departure now stems from a dispute with Disney, the distributor for At the Movies, over the show's famous trademark thumbs-up/thumbs-down verdict on films. The rights to that trademark belong to Ebert and the widow of Gene Siskel, Ebert's original co-host. Ebert's departure from the show apparently comes after he and Disney could not come to an agreement on compensation related to the trademark.

Ebert writes "The trademark still belongs to me and Marlene Iglitzen, Gene's widow, and the thumbs will return. We are discussing possibilities, and plan to continue the show's tradition."

Richard Roper made his own announcement Sunday about departing the show. From the AP: "Roeper said he intends to 'proceed elsewhere ... as the co-host of a movie review show that honors the standards established by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert more than 30 years ago.' He also said he wishes Disney 'the best of luck with their new show, whatever form it may take.' "

[Photo: Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times]

+ Statement from Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com)
+ Roger Ebert: The Final Thumb? (Time)
+ Richard Roeper leaving popular movie review show (AP)

By Alison Willmore in Critic watch | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (5)

Tags: Ebert & Roeper, Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, Siskel & Ebert

I'm still haven't seen "The Dark Knight," which recent reporting indicates made approximately $7.3 jillion this past weekend, but I almost don't feel the need to when there's been enough coverage and analysis of the film, its director and its talented, deceased star to equal a dozen volumes of "Crime and Punishment." Some that have caught my eye:

Esquire is rerunning Lisa Taddeo's bizarre and somewhat grotesque piece of professional fan fiction that pulls together details from and speculation on the last days of Heath Ledger. Fortunately, they also have Mike D'Angelo on Christopher Nolan:

The thing about Christopher Nolan (who's as much British as American -- but sue me, so was Hitchcock) is that he doesn't clonk you over the head with his genius. While he's become more visually sophisticated over the course of his short career, he still has no use for the look-at-me camera moves. Nor does he seem to care whether people notice that his clever, gimmicky narratives conceal deep and unsettling questions about human nature. Nolan's films are casually profound -- like watching somebody bunt the ball out of the park.

Bill Gibron at PopMatters writes that "it turns out that Batman's biggest enemy - and by indirect linkage, the biggest bane of fanboy existence - are the 12 journalists (and holding) who gave The Dark Knight a bad review." He goes on to tie those much-abused critics to the recent commenter debate. Meanwhile, Choire Sicha at Radar goes beyond parody into uncharted territory in his review, and Reverse Shot's robbiefreeling brings the pain:

When asked about the success of the latest film in the franchise which transformed him from a mediocre, strictly technical indie actor to a mediocre, strictly technical Hollywood star, reclusive Christian Bale responded in a gruff, gravely, very masculine voice not unlike that of the muppet Dr. Teeth, "I think moviegoers were just really hungry for something that would challenge their preconceived notions of good and evil, right and wrong, all that stuff; but they prefer to have that message delivered by a comic book superhero that they've admired since they were children."

Jeff Dawson at the London Times asks "Holy terror! Has the new Batman flick plundered its plot from 9/11?" Elsewhere, Dave Kehr wonders "Is the Dark Knight just George Bush with a better outfit, demanding that he be allowed all of the available 'tools' to combat terrorism, even if they include torture and eavesdropping?"

[Photo: "The Dark Knight," Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008]

+ The Last Days of Heath Ledger (Esquire)
+ Is Christopher Nolan the Greatest Director Alive? (Esquire)
+ Gotham's Most Wanted (PopMatters)
+ The Dark Knight Rocks So Hard, OMG (Radar)
+ In the Absence of Serious American Drama, A New Movie About Batman Captures the Heart of a Nation (Reverse Shot)
+ Has the new Batman plundered its plot from 9/11? (London Times)
+ The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) (DaveKehr.com)

By Alison Willmore | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: 9/11, Christopher Nolan, Heath Ledger, The Dark Night

This year's New York Film Festival will open with the North American premiere of Laurent Cantet's "The Class" (Entre les murs), or so my inbox tells me.

"The Class," the stealth late entry that managed to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, is about a year in an inner city high school, and is one of the few competition films I didn't get to catch, so I'm pleased as rum punch to see that it'll be at the festival. From the release:

Additionally, two showcases at the Film Society's Walter Reade Theater will round out the festival's main line-up with historical and alternative perspectives. The first, In the Realm of Oshima, runs throughout the festival to celebrate the work and pivotal influence of Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima. The annual Views from the Avant-Garde, presented during the festival's second weekend, will feature a 30th anniversary presentation of Guy Debord's In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

[Photo: "The Class," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Festivals | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Guy Debord, Laurent Cantet, Nagisa Oshima, NYFF 08, The Class

No critic would argue that Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss haven't found themselves a fascinating subject in their doc "Full Battle Rattle," which opened Wednesday and which focuses on Medina Wasl, a fake Iraqi village filled with real Iraqi exiles that's the final stop for soldiers heading for all-too-real Iraq deployment -- a massive, Army-run simulation. Whether "Full Battle Rattle" succeeds as a film is a point of debate for some, though again, reviews are mostly positive.

"Full Battle Rattle is an indelible vision of modern war, a not-so-fun fun-house mirror of the Iraq occupation," writes David Edelstein at New York. "The film is freaky, amusing, and sickening in equal measures--part fly-on-the-wall vérité, part multiple-perspective Altmanesque tragicomedy." "Full Battle Rattle works just fine as a two-fisted combat story, with unexpected bursts of violence peppering that old universal message that war is hell," adds Noel Murray at the Onion AV Club. "But the added layer of pretense pushes the movie to another level."

Andrew O'Hehir at Salon finds that "If 'Full Battle Rattle' begins as surreal, almost goofball farce, with a bunch of beefy guys playing a fancy-dress version of laser tag in the desert -- aided by a bunch of rented Iraqis who'd rather be watching TV in suburbia -- it ends on an ambiguous and haunting note, much closer to tragedy." Observes a more non-committal A.O. Scott at the New York Times: "Military personnel rotate through Medina Wasl en route to and from tours of duty in Iraq. Iraqis who have fled their country recreate fragments of it in the California desert, and the surreal encounters between them seem like a fact of life, or an episode of reality television."

Others express discontent with the film. "The movie arouses, without gratifying, a desire to see the camera--not to mention the hidden command center where the scenarios are devised," writes J. Hoberman at the Village Voice. "It's somewhat too seamless, even if the filmmakers do break the illusion to interview American soldiers and Iraqi role-players." "Other than delivering an initial dose of 'Can you believe this exists?' strangeness, the film contributes little to the discussion about the war's preparation and execution," sighs Nick Schager at Slant. And for Vadim Rizov at the House Next Door, "it's yet another documentary where filmmakers are fearless about getting great footage but clueless about the form it should take."

[Photo: "Full Battle Rattle," Film Sales Company, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: Full Battle Rattle, Jesse Moss, Tony Gerber