Movie Blurt

19/05/2024

"There's plenty of irony in Hollywood, but no one ever gets it--which is also ironic, I guess."
--Nicholas Meyer

30/03/2024

During the filming of Deliverance, James Dickey--the author of the novel and screenplay--was on set a lot because he played the sheriff. According to Jon Voight, when he and Burt Reynolds were drinking with Dickey in a bar one night after shooting, this exchange took place.

Dickey: You're exactly how I pictured Lewis when I wrote the novel.
Burt: I'm not Lewis. I'm Burt Reynolds. And this is my time off. So shove it.
Dickey: That's exactly what Lewis would say.

07/03/2024

Apparently the National Association of Theatre Owners is getting serious about going after piracy recording in theaters. I suspect this is due to pressure from the MPAA.

The use of recording devices is not permitted in this theater. Please report all suspicious activity to theater management. Use of audiovisual recording devices may be punishable by up to three yea…

27/10/2023

Woke film schools are now feeling the need to recontextualize classic films, judging them according to today's social norms rather than by those in place when they were made.

Don't be surprised if soon we hear that Citizen Kane wasn't much of a film because Kane's newspaper didn't publish editorials promoting the use of wind and solar energy and the HR department didn't guarantee a safe and welcoming environment for transgender staff. Welles should have known in 1941 where we'd be in 2023.

Administrators from top film schools weigh in on how to teach films with problematic legacies like "Gone With the Wind."

23/10/2023

"It's always frustrated me that many people don't consider the movie a musical, which makes me nuts--because it has more music than most musicals."
--John Landis, director of "The Blues Brothers."

16/10/2023

If you've ever wondered about how silent movies were written, this explanation by one of the silents' brightest stars will shed light on the matter. It will also exemplify what a class act and a gracious lady she was.

16/10/2023

Does anybody really believe she directed this movie? She doesn't know how to hold her phone for a selfie video.

"Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce," in theaters Dec. 1, will allow fans to attend the singer's mega-successful world tour.

08/10/2023

When the suits at Disney tell a legendary poster artist what expression a character should have.

06/10/2023

There was never a better movie poster artist than Drew Struzan.

Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor in “Harlem Nights” (1989) Unpublished Concept Painting…

06/10/2023

Shirley Q offers this film review set to music.

Miss Liquor just finished watching that abomination known as Titanic.

29/09/2023

You don't have to like what everybody else likes. It's better that you be true to your own authentic preferences. But if you're curious about what Netflix DVD customers liked the most (and rented the most), here's the list straight from those who know.

Today Netflix ships its last DVDs after 25 years in the DVD rental business. They were a DVD-only company for 10 years before they got into streaming. And today they're the biggest streaming service of them all. They have 238 million streaming customers and only one million DVD customers. So they felt it didn't make sense to keep shipping DVDs.

Netflix has released their list of the most rented DVD's of all time. After announcing that they will end thei...

28/09/2023

A tribute from one genius stylist to another. Struzan is the best movie poster artist ever.

Remembering Jim Henson on his Birthday today 🎂

23/09/2023

The DVD side of Netflix shuts down in one week. Their catalog of movies was much bigger than on the streaming side. And a lot of their DVDs had special features with BTS featurettes--sometimes my favorite part!

I'll miss Netflix red envelopes in my mailbox. I've been with them for over 20 years. Sometime this week I'll have to download my rental history just for giggles.

21/08/2023

This clown is a film critic like I'm a professional wrestler.

Paul has some notes on Christopher Nolan's latest film

29/07/2023

An impressive trailer has been released for Ridley Scott's big Napoleon movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. I'm a big fan of both Scott and Phoenix, but this new movie is going to have to be something truly great to surpass my current favorite Napoleon movie, The Emperor's New Clothes.

Starring Ian Holm as Napoleon and Iben Hjejle as the woman who wins his heart, it's a clever tale of speculative fiction well worth your time.

What would have happened if, instead of dying in exile on the island of St Helens in 1821, defeated emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Ian Holm) escaped and attempt...

19/07/2023

What a week for movies, huh?

Hat tip to Sean Longmore Design.

17/07/2023

I wouldn't bet against any prediction from Barry Diller.

There's a good chance we're headed for a sea change in TV and movies similar to the one that hit the music industry 20 years ago.

If you like the way things are now, enjoy it. Because the entertainment industry may be unrecognizable in just a year or two.

It's likely the transformation in cinema and television will mirror what happened in music but will be different. "Similar but different" is the key factor in many things like this when you see history repeating itself.

The changes in music made it a lot harder for bands and artists to get a recording contract but made it possible for a lot more bands and artists to find an audience through their own means. The unsigned artist became conspicuous and ubiquitous on the music landscape. A rapper with no record label who only released his material on SoundCloud won a Grammy.

If this goes the way I think it might, this will open things up for independent low-budget filmmakers. The unions will lose a lot of their power. Maybe all of it. And the marketplace will become more egalitarian. Talent will prevail more than industry stature. Studio moguls will become dinosaurs.

Or it could go a completely different way. I don't deserve any awards for fortune-telling. But I see big changes in the wind.

A failure to resolve twin strikes of the writers’ and screen actors' guilds could lead to “devastating effects" if ...

18/04/2023

Netflix DVD is closing up shop later this year. We knew it was coming, we just didn't know when. The streaming side of Netflix is going strong and will continue. But fewer people are interested in watching movies at home off physical media.

Renting DVDs through the mail was Netflix's entire business model initially; they added their streaming service only after there was enough network bandwidth to support it. At one time, Netflix streaming accounted for one-third of the bandwidth use in the United States.

Netflix will ship their last DVD on September 29, 2023.

On April 18th, we announced that after 25 years of shipping DVDs, this will be our Final Season, and we'll ship our last disc on September 29th, 2023.