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by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
So, here's the story, as they say in the movies... Sunday night Jan. 8, at the Golden Globes hosted by Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), award-winning actor/legend Meryl Streep stepped in it by “calling out” the new US President-Elect with a pointed speech on bullying as an undesirable trait. Long story, short, the soon-to-be-installed President Donald J. Trump, ignited a Twitter firefight in which he dubbed Str...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Say what you will about “rigged” elections and fixed ways of thinking, voters at the WGA (Writers Guild of America) just went rogue and nominated DEADPOOL. Okay, they didn’t exactly go rogue, they actually went bold by nominating the graphic novel adapt of a Marvel character, from the X-Men series, by 20th Century Fox - a genre often limited to the margins of high art. Why are they right to do so? Because it’s no...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Sometimes a press release is so good it’s just fine art, or more specifically it’s the holidays and we’re lazy, plus this is great writing from our friends in show business. That said, we’d only put a slightly different headline on it, for the diehard hipsters. Which is “The Dude, AKA Jeff Bridges Now in HIGHWATER, Wins American Riviera Award From Santa Barbara,” whereas our more respectable writing colleagues b...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Cui Bono? That’s the famous Latin line that means “who benefits,” and in the realm of conspiracy theories, this blunt tool ranks right up there with “Historian’s Fallacy” as a go-to. The term historian’s fallacy was minted by Brandeis Professor David Hackett Fischer in 1970, who pointed out the bright idea that even when someone is going through a historic event, or having experienced a historic event, s...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Oh, to ruin Award Season… but isn’t that what we’re on earth for? To have our dreams shattered but then our lives uplifted, if only in the movies? Enter LA LA LAND, a singing, dancing act of pure wish fulfillment starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Wait, a musical? Don’t be fooled. This is classic cinema updated with today’s angst. Stone says “the idea of this really modern story of two artists and ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
The first thing you hear when Stellan Skarsgård and Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland call at 8:00 am LA time for a phone interview from New York is Stellan’s unmistakable laugh. This is a far cry from the stoic Nils he plays in their new movie In Order of Disappearance that opens Aug. 26. Between the -40 celsius setting and the operatic violence, whereby Skarsgård picks off a succession of formidable enemies, including Bru...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
It may be easier to get a trade deal with China than to get a condom, or get a jailed human rights attorney freed — these are just some of the peripheral issues on view in director Nanfu Wang’s documentary HOOLIGAN SPARROW, released last week in Los Angeles. Wang’s documentary also covers child rape, female endangerment, and the universally egregious harassment of voiceless women.
To put it in the words of its champions:...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Woody Allen’s newest film Café Society just opened July 15, and it fits into a cinematic history of stories about Hollywood that audiences love. But Woody Allen himself has been a lightning rod for so long, the electricity generated off the attendant controversies could power a small town. That said, we’re talking about a movie, folks, not the personal life of the director. With that caveat, Café Soc...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
That director Byrd McDonald (Haunters) is from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, birthplace of Loretta Lynn speaks volumes about his path toward the making of VINTAGE TOMORROWS, a documentary about the movement known as Steampunk coming at you on July 19 from Samuel Goldwyn Films. Viewing this film is essential as part of any aficionado’s playlist. In the unpacking of facts as to why the Steampunk community welcomed B...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
If in the fifty-odd years since British spymaster John le Carré began plying his trade as a novelist, you have somehow missed any of the screen versions of his works, know this: there are favorites. Everybody has one: from 1965’s Richard Burton classic The Spy Who Came in From The Cold to 2005’s The Constant Gardener (Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes) to 2011’s Gary Oldman-starrer Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.
John ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
You have to hand it to filmmaker Alex Gibney (GOING CLEAR), he has taken on everything from Eliot Spitzer’s political downfall to the Enron debacle to Lance Armstrong’s doping to soft-money “super-lobbyist” Jack Abramoff to Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, not to mention Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti. So it comes as no surprise that Gibney goes from wrestling Xenu to rattling the NSA’s cage with ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
That’s not click-bait in the headline, and we will get to the Morgan Freeman Appreciation Society in a moment; but first Day One of the Produced By Conference held June 4-5 at Sony Studios by the Producers Guild of America (PGA). It was nothing short of a rousing success yesterday. To a person, attendees gave it raves, whether from Arkansas or Iceland or Pasadena. An Infolist sponsor rep even whispered it is the only must-attend event on h...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
One of the most interesting aspects of movie reviewing is looking behind the screen at the provenance of a project, and with Dubai’s first ever CGI animation, BILAL, the story behind this 1400-year-old animation saga is truly gripping. Cannes 69th Film Festival is the perfect venue for this, where it will screen shortly. The cast includes excellent actors Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (who played the yacht assassination target for Matt Damon in...
By Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that Jane Austen (1775-1817) will be source material in the foreseeable forever, but it is actually surprising that director Whit Stillman (Last Days of Disco, Metropolitan) has so nailed her work in his new film “Love & Friendship,” that lead Kate Beckinsale should be Oscar-worthy for 2016.
And while giddy Fanboys still own Beckinsale for her sleek, sexy turn in the &ld...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Tonight Johnny Depp’s alleged "Oscar slight" was put into perspective by esteemed film critic Leonard Maltin at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. “There are only five slots,” Maltin said of Depp’s absence from the Best Actor category for BLACK MASS. “It was a career high for him.” This was on the red carpet right before a sit-down interview with Johnny Depp before the Maltin Mode...
by Quendrith Johnson, (Awards Intelligencer, 1/19/2016)
If Oscar-winner Sean Penn can go interview El Chapo, then the state of journalism really is in trouble — oh, nevermind, this is just indicative of how movie people perceive and interpret the craft. A cocky Penn goes on CBS with Charlie Rose to call out those who ‘don’t think I’m a real journalist,’ while having committed a de facto ethical violation of the profession by grandsta...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Raise your hand if you saw Al Pacino in "Danny Collins." Raise your hand if you saw Al Pacino in "Danny Collins" and actually liked it. Okay, kidding aside, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced their nominations today at 5:15 am PST, which left a few of us critics cranky. But not without the usual clear-eyed objections to the Golden Globes' mash-up of categories. Is "Joy" a comedy? Is "T...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
What a gift when three of your favorite on-screen presences turn out to be three of your favorite off-screen presences; that’s what happened last night in Santa Barbara as the stunning Jane Fonda received the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film from The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF). To set the scene, and this rarely happens, Jane Fonda and one of her star presenters Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch Perfect 2,”...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
What most people will remember from last night, when Penny Marshall was handed the Cinema Icon as Honorary Chairperson of the Hollywood Film Festival, is Marshall’s shoe comment regarding women: “You can’t direct in high heels.” And this opening night was kind of like that, a swag bag of unforgettable lines. Not just from Penny Marshall, who’s bona fides as the first $100 M female director for Tom Hanks brea...
NEWS/EVENT ALERT:
IFFF Screenwriters' Panel: Are family films relevant for the digital age?
The International Family Film Festival
Sunday, November 8, 2015 from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM (PST)
Los Angeles, CA
IFFF PANEL - Fairbanks Theater
Screenwriters' Panel: Are family films relevant for the digital age?
A must attend event, join some of Hollywood's most prominent film scribes as they discuss how and why big-tent family films resonate more with wired aud...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
When King Willem-Alexander came to pay an official visit in June, including meeting US President Barack Obama to commemorate the 70th anniversary of The Netherlands liberation from the Nazis, he laid out some interesting facts in a quick speech during the June 1-3 tour. Coronated in 2013 upon the abdication of Queen Beatrix, then 71, the Sovereign said the main point of his visit “was to thank the United States… especially the 82nd ...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
He may not look like your typical American leading man, but actor Paul Dano, 31, is likely a next Oscar contender for Best Actor come the Academy Awards presentation next year. Dano, who celebrated a birthday this month, is indelible as a younger Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy, though this latest is just a topper among many gripping performances. If you turn back the clock 10 years to The Ballad of Jack and Rose from writer-director Rebe...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Absolutely no one in literary circles anywhere on Planet Earth would have approved the casting of Jason Segel, (the guy who does the Musical Puppet Rock Opera of Count Chocula in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), as David Foster Wallace for the biopic “The End of The Tour” to be released on July 31.
But that’s why Segel’s unexpected interesting plasticity and flirt with authenticity as the late great lite...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
On May 15, IFC Films will release GOOD KILL starring Ethan Hawke, Bruce Greenwood, January Jones, Zoë Kravitz, and Jake Abel. It’s an unusual war-related drama in that it uncovers the world of armchair drone pilots and how they go about the business of warfare from 7000 miles away. Set in 2010, the year President Obama made headlines for biggest number of drone strikes in US Military History, Ethan Hawke plays an F-16 fighter who is r...
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
Sometime last month it was reported that Susan Sarandon, 68, exited the five-year personal relationship with New York-based ping-pong venture partner Jonathan Bricklin, 37, and while this isn’t an essential footnote in her long Oscar-winning career, ironically it does have a connection to her son’s new documentary “Storied Streets” since the impetus for the film was a player at the Sarandon-Bricklin club SPiN. Last night,...
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Johnson Quendrith 
