Articles tagged with film

Actor Zach Braff wants to raise $2 million to make a sequel to his cult hit “Garden State.”
But instead of going to Hollywood producers or a studio with his idea, the star of the TV show “Scrubs” went directly to fans on the money-raising website Kickstarter.
Cash those fans can shell out for the forthcoming flick – “Wish I Was Here” – but for which …

Day of activism. Marches, rallies, prayer vigils and voter registration drives are taking place up and down California and nationwide today as activists work to shape the immigration reform debate.  A major rally is also scheduled in Washington, D.C., where bipartisan groups in the House and Senate are putting the finishing touches on reform proposals. The activists want to make sure those proposals include …

If you want to be mayor of Los Angeles, you really have to appeal to Hollywood.
Wendy Greuel had a four-year stint at DreamWorks and is married to a film producer, which could help her campaign.
But the truth is, the mayor doesn’t really have the power to do the one big thing entertainment people want – create financial incentives to make it more profitable to …

Documentary filmmaker T.J. Martin won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2012 for his film “Undefeated,” which follows a high school football team from Memphis. The film chronicles the life of underprivileged teenagers on and off the field.  Martin says that having Oscar on his mantel hasn’t changed his life. ” I’m not flying to Tahiti,” says Martin, but winning  Oscar does help him get meetings. “In a …

Last year Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won a Best Documentary Short Film Oscar for her film “Saving Face,” which focused on the plight of two Pakistani women attacked with acid and their subsequent quest for justice. It was the first Academy Award in Pakistan’s history. “I’ve locked it in my house and we’re looking for a secure place to store it,” says Obaid-Chinoy.  She says that taking home …

The Sundance Film Festival is about halfway through its run in Park City, Utah. And one of the trends that’s emerging is that a number of this year’s movies deal with sex. Now the idea that sex sells is nothing new in the entertainment business, but some of these movies are being criticized for being unusually frank. Los Angeles Times film reporter John Horn says one of the …

Making it big on the silver screen has never been easy, but Kickstarter is trying to change that. The world’s largest funding platform for “creative projects” hosted roughly 82,000 project pitches online last year, receiving a total of $450 million dollars in pledged donations. In the past three years, $100 million dollars has been donated to filmmakers. (Kickstarter updates their stats here).
“This would be …

 We asked eleven of our sharpest local observers what they thought were the most important stories and trends of the year. From politics and music to faith, literature and film, they weigh in on the one thing that shaped 2012.
Editor at large for the Hollywood Reporter and Host of The Business, Kim Masters says the one thing she’ll remember from 2012 was the acquisition of Lucasfilm …

Golden Globe nominations were announced today, and “Lincoln” took the lead with seven nominations. That film was well-received, but what about Nicole Kidman’s nomination for “The Paperboy?”
The Golden Globes may not be taken as seriously as other awards ceremonies, but it carries a lot of weight “because of the TV show,” says Steven Pond, who covers awards and indie films for TheWrap.com, and is the …

For meteorologists this is Winter; for people in the entertainment business it’s Awards Season.
This morning via twitter, the New York Film Critics Circle announced the winners for their awards. “Zero Dark Thirty” got some top honors: it was named Best Film, Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director and Greig Fraser was named Best Cinematographer. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” got some love from the critics: Daniel Day Lewis …

Film: Word of Mouth Movie Hopes
It’s common practice to look at box office numbers on Mondays— especially the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. But what’s most striking today isn’t the massive success of the final installment in the Twilight series or of Bond’s “Skyfall,” it’s the relatively small number that “Silver Linings Playbook” did. The film was directed by David O. Russell, who also adapted …

For years, California’s been trying to stem runaway film and TV production to other states and countries. Is the effort a failure? A new report says LA County has lost 16,000 jobs since 2004, the year of peak production. Another study says the state as a whole lost $3 billion in wages from the decline. We get the latest on what’s still a major …

Ken Burns Subpoenaed
Filmmaker Ken Burns— famous for documentaries about Americana like Baseball and Jazz— has co-directed a movie with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon called “The Central Park Five“. It’s about the infamous Central Park jogger case of 1989 when five black and Latino teenagers were convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park. After they spent between 6 to 13 …

Here are a few entertainment stories that have the town buzzing…
Dueling Docs: Obama 2016 v. Seal Team Six
“Obama 2016,” the documentary by Dinesh D’Souza based on his book, and released earlier this year is now out on DVD. This anti-Obama film is the second highest-grossing political documentary of all time. And now it’s being screened in churches causing some to question if that’s a violation …

The Toronto International Film Festival is underway, with hundreds of films vying for attention.
David Rooney, film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter, is there, and joined KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis with his top picks, among them “The Master” and “The Silver Linings Playbook.”
“It’s not a perfect movie,” Rooney said about “The Master,” from Oscar-nominated writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, “but …

The web series “Sunset Junction” chronicles the lives of three of friends in L.A.’s hipster haven, Silver Lake. The catch: Characters Rosa, Phoebe and John aren’t skinny jean-clad, bicycle riding musicians or aspiring micro-brewers. They’re actual lake creatures — a duck, a snail and a frog, respectively — brought to life by stop-motion claymation in two-minute mini-episodes reminiscent of those “Penny” cartoons from “Pee …

Warren talks with Professor Todd Boyd about LA culture around the time of the Rodney King riots.

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Gail Becker didn’t plan to make a film for public release about her 2007 family visit to Auschwitz.  Her 83-year old father had been imprisoned there as a boy, and forced to work in the crematorium. He agreed to return with his daughter and her then 9-year old son, Joshua.  Gail, a media executive based in Los Angeles, hired a camera crew to document …

Val Kilmer is a familiar face in Hollywood. He’s played Ice Man in “Top Gun,” Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” Jim Morrison in “The Doors,” even Moses on stage.
Now Kilmer will embody the spirit of one of America’s great men of letters, Mark Twain. “Citizen Twain,” which Kilmer wrote, directed and stars in, begins a limited two weekend run tonight at the Masonic Lodge at …

You’ve likely heard about the sudden cancellation of the HBO horse racing drama “Luck” after the deaths of three horses during production. Well, that got me thinking about who makes sure animals aren’t mistreated by Hollywood. Today, I’m trying to learn more about the rules and regulations governing the use of animals in film, television and commercial productions. (Of course, others are wondering if …