Film Nerd 2.0 Festival Concludes

I'm only just getting around to reading the final part of Drew McWeeny's Film Nerd 2.0 writeup of an impromptu "festival" weekend of movie gorging he did with his boys Toshiro ("Toshi") and Allen. He even made them badges.

The first installment covered Bride of Frankenstein. The second one: Beetlejuice, an Indiana Jones movie, Harvey, and Beneath the Planet Of The Apes. They ended with Legend, Empire of the Sun, and finally, Young Frankenstein.

Drew is the dad a lot of people wish they had, if only for his movie programming tastes.

Lindelof Reflection

From a great profile piece (this week's THR cover story) on mega-writer Damon Lindelof, who works much harder than most internet trolls give him credit for:

At a time when franchises are driving the box office, and those who can craft addictive stories to back up mere concepts are in high demand, Lindelof has proved invaluable. He arguably is the single most- visible screenwriter in a town that traditionally marginalizes them, in great part because he's taken to social media like an irate town crier, engaging his quarter of a million Twitter followers -- about, among other things, the relative quality of his own work -- when he should probably turn the other cheek. And yet … and yet.

"A lot of writers whom I love, admire and call friends share this feeling," confides Lindelof, "which is this fundamental idea that we're frauds. That we will be pushed out on to the stage, and it will be revealed that the emperor has no clothes. That was always like a fun, self-deprecating thing that I said. But it was always something that I felt."

On this day, a couple of weeks before his 40th birthday -- which will be spent with a few close friends (and a cake modeled after a ridiculous yellow hat worn by Lindelof's recent Twitter obsession, Justin Bieber) at a party at L.A.'s Osteria Mozza -- Lindelof looks tired. His brown eyes, framed by thick black glasses, still are alert, but there's an occasional sigh in his barrel chest that conveys exhaustion.

Which is understandable, given that since Lost ended in May 2010, he's been working nearly nonstop.

Tsujihara and "Forward-Thinking" at WB

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has been rightfully shoring up support last week behind new Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara, who was elevated from being chief of the studio's home entertainment division. According to George Feltenstein in last week's episode of Screen Time, Tsujihara is the reason that Warner Archive exists in the first place.

Just yesterday, in a separate piece form Home Media Magazine, Tsujihara consolidated and reorganized roles within home entertainment such that video games fall under the same umbrella as movies and TV, and that they also support DC Entertainment in some vague manner. Huh.

In the same breath, Tsujihara created a new Chief Digital Officer position to be held by Thomas Gewecke:

Gewecke, previously president, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, is responsible for driving the studio’s worldwide digital growth and managing its global business strategy. He will further be charged with coordinating the company’s various digital distribution strategies across all current and emerging digital exhibition platforms, including direct-to-consumer, business development and Flixster groups. SVOD and TVOD functions will continue to be managed by the television and home entertainment groups. Gewecke also reports directly to Tsujihara.

“The digital revolution continues to change every aspect of the way we do business, and this strategic realignment will help us address those changes to better deliver our world-class content to the widest array of consumers across the globe,” Tsujihara said in a statement.

Bold, smart moves. "Flixster" is code for "Ultraviolet", a digital locker "solution" that needs some solutions of its own.

Ozu at 110

The Japan Times reports on digital restorations of Yasujiro Ozu classics debuting throughout the year, starting this week:

The restored “An Autumn Afternoon” will be screened for the first time at the Cannes International Film Festival starting Wednesday, while the refurbished version of “Equinox Flower” will be shown at the Venice Film Festival later this year, the studio said.

A special Ozu series will start June 22 at the Cine Nouveau theater in Osaka, while all of his works will be screened at the Jimbocho Theater in Tokyo starting Nov. 23.

Ozu, who directed “Tokyo Story” and other classics, was born Dec. 12, 1903, and died on his 60th birthday in 1963.

Events are also planned at places where some of his movies were shot, including Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture.

These "new" restorations are likely the same as the ones already on Blu-ray from the BFI (like the aforementioned Equinox Flower and  An Autmn Afternoon).

"Discovering Ozu" returns as early as this weekend, alongside multiple new "Soderberghopolis" (in the lead-up to Behind the Canelabra hitting HBO), and some new longform pieces debuting over the next two weeks.

Daily Grab 136: Are You a God?

This is taken from the just-released "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray release of Ghostbusters, which represents a vast improvement over the previous Blu-ray's picture quality. A full piece with loads of direct comparison shots hits tomorrow.

Daily Grab 135: The Tru-Tru

Cloud Atlas is one of the best movies you probably didn't see last year. It's now on Blu-ray, and you owe it to yourself to watch its nearly three-hour running time all in one sitting. Go in unencumbered by all the unfinished items on your to-do list. You don't experience a symphony on a track-by-track basis, and the same is true (true) here.

Regarding the below: we all have a creepy green-skinned devil man who looks like Hugo Weaving following us around, in a manner of speaking.

Daily Grab 134: Kara and Kal

Better than the first Supergirl-related DCU movie, Batman/Superman: Apocalypse. More on it tomorrow.

Spoiling "The Name of the Doctor" (No Spoilers)

I'm still not entirely convinced that yesterday's headlines-grabbing leak regarding Doctor Who season seven finale The Name of the Doctor wasn't planned. Follow my deductive reasoning for a moment.

For those unaware, it has been confirmed by the BBC that the Series 7 Part 2 Blu-ray shipped early to US purchasers who bought from the BBC America online shop. This Tumblr Early-Getter posted images of as much. Tumblr has exploded with detailed spoiler synopses covering the entire episode.

Previously, a SPOILER-RIDDLED thread appeared on the IMDb message boards, discussing various elements of the finale. It was posted by someone who alleged to have taken some shots from a cinema screening of most of the finale. I've chosen not to link it here in the event the spoilers are legit.

I've lost the link, but one story I read last night had a followup from this poster who acknowledged that the shots he posted were fake, and that he works for some part of the production, has been found out, and is going to be fired.

The images on the Tumblr match the released box art and so on, and that looks like a real title card screen. All of these things establish confidence in the legitimacy of this thing.

And yet...I wonder about all of this.

An examination of the Tumblr Early-Getter's Tumblr reveals that it has only existed since 22 April 2013, which as of this writing, makes it around 13 pages of Whovianism long. They didn't post any screengrabs other than the title card. Even though their Tumblr content as posted includes some spoiler posts, none are blatant, fully-spoiling content in advance of an episode airing. The rest is run-of-the-mill Who fan GIF-age. An intern in a production office could be running it, for all we know.

I do not think that the spoilers for this season's finale were leaked intentionally at first, however I am convinced that the famously airtight BBC offices governing Who have quietly accepted that enough people of a young enough age work on the series, and with that come consequences of always-on-and-connected lifestyles leaking info. Inevitably, things will get out, and the best way manage that is to get out ahead of it if possible, and if not, to try spinning it into a social media and publicity spike.

The initial spoilers came from a screening for Doctor Who Magazine staff and select press, which did not include the final three minutes of the episode. They must have known that someone would use the anonymity of the internet and spread some spoilers. Moreover, not even the power of the BBC can stop things from being uploaded to torrent networks, and the episode itself has yet to appear, according to all reporting I've seen. Note that the official BBC statement says nothing about asking fans to prevent the piracy of the episode, only to not spread spoilers. The "special video with Matt & David" to be released as a reward for preventing spoiler spread could have been planned all along.

The early release of Blu-rays to the US purchasers is good for inducing some saber rattling over in the UK, "Those damned Americans ruined Doctor Who for us! Get them (digitally)!". This distracts from the initial leak having happened, and redirects fan energy toward fighting the good fight against spoiling trolls. This also makes the actual airing an even bigger event, now that there's a scandal attached. Mabe the initial leak was planned as well, along with the "I've been fired" followup. Who knows.

My entire theory falls should the episode leak prior to its airing. We'll see between now and Saturday evening UK time.

Amazon Coins

Amazon has created a new store credit currency for those buying Kindle Fire apps and in-app content: Amazon Coins. Pre-buying credit through this new non-currency gets you a discount. Buy $5 worth for $4.80, $10 worth for $9.50, $25 worth for $23, $50 worth for $45, and $100 worth for $90.

Here's the problem: I can't tell if these are accepted for Amazon Video purchases at a glance. Amazon continues to have major messaging problems.

I would love to see Amazon publish numbers on Amazon Coins after a few quarters, or sales figures on apps, or any actual data one could analyze. I guess you don't when you aren't actually very profitable.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS Trailer

The red-band teaser trailer for the new Coen Brothers movie has me wishing I were in France this week to see it at Cannes.

The "Robust" State of Projection

I particularly like Matt Singer thoughts regarding a recent LA Times piece about movie theater projection. In short, modern digital projection doesn't require the amount of staffing that the skilled profession used to require because "any idiot can push a button", according to the major exhibitors. None of these companies care that movies look like shit, more so now than ever before. They assume their customers won't complain and do nothing until (or long after) people do complain:

I saw "Zero Dark Thirty" for the first time at Sony Pictures' private screening room, in their corporate office building. The film looked magnificent; crisp, clear, and bright. About a month or so later I saw the movie a second time at a multiplex owned by one of the largest movie theater exhibition chains in the country. This time, the movie was dingy, drab, and dark. Projected improperly, the final raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound was completely incomprehensible, and even though I'd already seen the film, I struggled to follow the action. If anyone else in the theater but me noticed, they said nothing. Later, I wrote an email complaint to the theater on an unrelated matter -- there were all kinds of non-projection-related issues around the screening -- and I mentioned offhandedly at the end of my note that the projection was far too dark. My first email response from the theater's manager said no one had complained about the darkness of the movie, but after more correspondence he informed me that, yes, the bulb in that auditorium's projector was "defective," and was eventually replaced.

It's good that this theater cared enough about my complaints to investigate and fix them. But what if I hadn't said anything? How long would they have shown "Zero Dark Thirty" improperly to oblivious customers? It was eleven days between my bad experience and the email letting me know they'd fixed the screwy projector -- how many people saw "Zero Super Dark Thirty" in that time?

Support independent chains.

Legendary and Warner Bros.

I've been thinking about this nearly-week-old piece from Variety about the impending split of Legendary Pictures and Warner. The gist of the piece is that, based on how well WB did without them on Green Lantern (an unqualified flop), they would be wise to stay on the Legendary train as they hurtle toward making more big comic book movies like Justice League.

While sources close to the matter stress that there is no clear frontrunner amongst rival studios should the partnership with Warner end, many industry insiders are betting that Legendary and Universal wind up together. Legendary’s films could easily translate into theme park attractions at Universal Studios properties around the world and could be cross promoted across all of NBCUniversal’s media assets, including NBC. Universal will need to replace the massive hole that will be left once its outside production funding from hedge fund Elliott Management dries up at the end of the year.

It's been a good partnership thus far, and I wonder what happens to the DC universe movies without Legendary's guiding hand.

In the end, Legendary could still stay put at Warner Bros. Tsujihara will presumably make further attempts to make Tull feel more welcome. And, earlier this year, Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes told analysts there was “problem solving going on” between the two companies.

Maybe we'll hear something at San Diego Comic-Con?

By mid-to-late summer, Hollywood should know whether Legendary and Warner Bros. still need each other.

An "All-New Secret Uncanny Savage Mighty Dark Dark" Experiment

I loved the idea the instant that Image Comics announced Skullkickers #19 would be re-numbered and rebooted as Uncanny Skullkickers #1. What I recall as days later, they announced #20 would be Savage Skullkickers #1. The joke is easy to spot for comics fans, with Marvel and DC both undergoing massive re-#1-ing, re-adjective-ing of their entire lines over the last 18 months.

Writer Jim Zub (who was on Giant Size #4) has written an exllecent, insightful blog post about a five-issue "unbooting adjective" experiment that he and Image Comics did with his three-year-old, swashbuckling adventure comic Skullkickers:

As Skullkickers continued through our 3rd story arc, we’d settled into a low-but-stable sales pattern. Although we were picking up new readers through our web comic site or trades, most new readers weren’t going to jump on board buying singles 18+ issues into the series.

In the spirit of the sarcasm that permeates the Skullkickers concept, I came up with a way to try hyping things in an irreverent way, announcing new adjectives and new #1′s for our entire fourth story arc, making it clear that these would be the next issues in our series but that we were having fun with the whole “reboot” thing and that Skullkickers was worth checking out. I figured our hardcore audience would stick around no matter what but that we might be able to gather some new readers by playing with adjectives and cover designs based on mainstream superhero homages.

Here’s the checklist of names and release dates we rolled out:
FEB: The Uncanny Skullkickers #1
MAR: Savage Skullkickers #1
APR: The Mighty Skullkickers #1
MAY: The All-New Secret Skullkickers #1
JUN: Dark Skullkickers Dark #1

The last one might be the best name for any comic ever printed.

If you're into adventure, swords and sorcery, Skullkickers might be a good fit. Ask your local shop about it.

Daily Grab 133: Murphy

I met Peter Weller at yesterday's Ain't It Cool News double feature of Star Trek Into Darkness and Robocop. Professor/Doctor Weller is a brilliant man, consummate raconteur...

...and my next confirmed guest for Screen Time, following Jane Withers (whose episode posts very soon). He'll be on live late this week or very early the next, unless his schedule changes (as they do). He asked me to call Monday or Tuesday when he's back in Los Angeles. Keep an eye on the 5by5 schedule for updates.

He told me to tell you that the one posting tomorrow with Jane Withers ("James Dean's Pink Shirt") is your homework.

We'll naturally talk a bit about his time with the Hong Kong Cavaliers, his work protecting Detroit and Gotham, and his exterminator pastime he kept up alongside a drug habit...but I'm more interested in talking about the power of myth and the nature of art. Everyone knows Peter Weller has a PhD in Art History, right?

An Endless Quest in the Shadow of COLOSSUS

One of my favorite longreads of last week is the years-long story of dedicated gamers searching every square inch of the classic PS2 platformer Shadow of the Colossus for undiscovered secrets, including a fabled hidden end boss.

Chapman Defends the Real Merida

Original director of Brave Brenda Chapman goes for Disney's throat, talking to the Marin Independent about the makeover of Merida for the character's induction as an official "Disney Princess:

In an email to the Independent Journal on Saturday, she said she has given Bob Iger, president of Walt Disney International, "a piece of my mind" for the entertainment giant's decision to glamorize the tomboy character she envisioned.

"There is an irresponsibility to this decision that is appalling for women and young girls," she said, writing from Chile, where she has been on business. "Disney marketing and the powers that be that allow them to do such things should be ashamed of themselves."

Chapman fumed. "When little girls say they like it because it's more sparkly, that's all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy 'come hither' look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It's horrible! Merida was created to break that mold — to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance."

"The Jakal"

...(on Colbert last Thursday) on The Great Gatsby (the book):

What, Dented Meat had no opinion?

Late Night with Seth Myers

I hope they have Don Pardo do his intro. As rumored and expected for weeks, Seth Myers takes over Jimmy Fallon's soon-to-be-former job, and Lorne Michaels fully ascends to become one of the most powerful men at NBC.

My friend Devin Faraci makes a terse, good point on Twitter with a followup:

How are late night talk shows even still a thing?

Maybe Seth Meyers can also get a column in a newspaper and a job as a milk man.

I wonder how many more hours in the day do we have to watch full hours of late night talk? What happens if/when Jay Leno pulls a "Jay Leno" and goes to Fox? The following "traditional" Late Night Talk Shows will be on the air this fall:

11:30pm EST

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
The Late Show with David Letterman
Conan
Jimmy Kimmel LIVE

12:30pm EST

Late Night with Seth Myers
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Untitled Pete Holmes Late Night Show (after Conan on TBS)

The top-rated Daily Show/Colbert Report block adds a new Chris Hardwick-headlined show in the fall, which solidifies a Comedy Central 11:00-12:30 blockade. It seems like most people only watch clips of these anymore regardless.