Richard Fallon

I met the Emeritus Dean of FSU's School of Theatre shortly after moving to Tallahassee for college. I never took a class from "Mr. Theatre", since he stopped actively teaching before I could. He would lecture in All School meetings. I saw him do these talks with fervor and power as recently as 2006, the same year in which he came to see me in a hybrid radio theatre production of David Mamet's The Water Engine. He was my neighbor when I lived down the street in a house full of Acting majors. When I directed my first real play for the local community theatre, he gave me insightful notes after seeing it for the first time. He asked me and dozens of others to help him get a production of 110 in the Shade off the ground at any theater anywhere in town.

Dick Fallon started his career as a kid, and encouraged generations of artists to hold on to a childlike sense of wonder:

In his childhood, Fallon starred in the radio show, "Dick Armstrong, All-American Boy." Later, as a Fulbright scholar in England, he was influenced by the British repertory theater system and subsequently made it his mission to build a bridge between university theater and professional theater. In addition to establishing the conservatory here, he founded FSU outreach programs at the Jekyll Island Music Theatre in Georgia and the Burt Reynolds Institute for Theatre Training in Jupiter.

"His radio persona was his persona in life," said Thomas. "He was the great enthusiast, the can-do-anything All-American boy. And he devoted his life to making theater available to everyone."

Daily Grab 140: Overlooking Tokyo

From Ozu's Tokyo Story: a father, a mother, and a daughter-in-law who loves them more than their blood children do.

Daily Grab 139: Out in the Rain

A different frame from this sequence (missing the piggyback little sister) is often used as key art for this movie. I like this frame more.

NYC's Film Forum Retro Dedicated to Donald Richie

I jumped over to the Film Forum website to look something up about their Ozu retrospective, and found that it is now officially dedicated to the memory of Donald Richie. The program is very densely-packed, and as usual, I'm insanely jealous of a NYC retrospective series.

The good news for Austinites is that we might just be getting some Ozu early this fall. A conversation last night with Austin Film Society Director of Programming Chale Nafus resulted in what seems to be the fast-tracking of a rather unique event for the fall.

I mentioned to Chale that one of my favorite bits of Ozu trivia is that he remade more of his own movies than possibly any other major director. I've long wished for the right venue and timing to do a film and food event with Ozu, where the first feature is a silent (something like I Was Born, But... or A Story of Floating Weeds), everyone heads to an adjoining hall to eat Japanese food, and then the second feature is the sound/color remake (Good Morning or Floating Weeds).

Chale added that AFS is hoping to do more silent movies with live accompaniment by Austin's own Graham Reynolds, and that this would be a great fit. In general, Chale seems to have loved the idea, and it's apparently at the top of the pile for fall planning. Now that AFS has its own dedicated art house venue, the Marchesa Hall, they can actually do stuff like this. I couldn't be happier.

Soderbergh and "Spielberg's Job"

I transcribed the following from the podcast of yesterday's Fresh Air, which featured a Terry Gross interview with Steven Soderbergh. The primary topic of conversation is Behind the Candelabra, but they also discuss his Twitter novel, the fact that he's not "retiring" from movies so much as taking time to think, and perhaps most interestingly, the beginning of his fascination with directing:

TERRY GROSS: When did you first become aware there was such a thing as a "director" and the director had a lot to do with why you liked a movie when you were watching it?

STEVEN SODERBERGH: When I was twelve.

TERRY GROSS: Through watching what?

STEVEN SODERBERGH: Jaws.

TERRY GROSS: Really?

CROSSTALK
GROSS: Cause of the suspense? Cause of the-- // SODERBERGH: That was the first--

STEVEN SODERBERGH: No, it was just...I-I came out of that film in St. Petersburg, Florida in the summer of 1975, and my relationship to movies had completely changed.

I had always seen a lot of films, 'cause my father loves movies, but they-they...in that two hours and four minutes...they went from something that I used to view as entertainment, and they became something else. I had two questions when I came out of the theater: one, what does "directed by" mean, exactly, and two, who is Steven Spielberg?

And luckily, there was a book that had been published around the time that the movie came out called The Jaws Log, which was written by Carl Gottlieb, one of the co-screenwriters, and it turned out to be one of the best making-of books that anybody has ever produced, and I bought a copy of that and read it over and over again, and highlighted any mention of Steven Spielberg and what that job entailed, and from that pint on, I realized "oh, this is a job. I can have this as a job."

Daily Grab 138: Old-Fashioned

The Austin Film Society screened a 35mm print of Tokyo Story tonight. I would love to see more Ozu screened in Austin later this year, both to celebrate Tokyo Story's 60th anniversary and Ozu's 110th birthday.

Yahoo! + Tumblr. = Smart

From Yahoo's official Tumblr.: the big tech news of yesterday.

We touched on this briefly in the latest Critical Path, and will attack it more in-depth soon. My gut reaction when this was rumored last week remains my thinking now.

This is a good move for both, providing Tumblr with much-needed infrastructure support, and Yahoo with an enormous amount of pageview impressions upon which to build a YouTube-like mountain of advertising business.

Daily Grab 137: Treetop

From this week's new US Blu-ray of My Neighbor Totoro:

West, Texas: Now

I'll update with more pictures to tonight when I'm at a computer.

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.