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sdpfeiffy

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43 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

I thought Shang-Chi premieres in two weeks?

The release date is in two weeks but the premiere was on the 16th. 

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vibeology
vibeology

Matt's statement is crap because the "I have daughters" line is so very dismissive of women as a whole. It suggests sexual assault only matters because a father or a brother or a husband is impacted.

AshleyN
AshleyN

Meryl's statement: Also, I had heard this story about Haley Atwell and Emma Thompson before, but I didn't know that Harvey was the producer in question: In related news, I love Emma Thom

aradia22
aradia22

To me those aren't hugely different problems. Because a system is in place where someone like Wahlberg (or Robert Downey Jr. or whatever white male it is at the moment) has more bargaining power. And

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Raja

Raja

2 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

I thought Shang-Chi premieres in two weeks?

It does for the normal folks. The reviewers are still embargoed from saying much more than I liked it under penalty of not getting future early access should they rebel 

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Trini

Trini

(edited)
23 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Totally forgot that a) we're getting a Lion King prequel/Mufasa origin story to the new photo-realistic version and that b) Barry Jenkins will be directing it.

I hadn't heard about that at all! Interesting; wasn't the reaction to the remake mostly 'pretty, but "meh"'? But it made enough money, I guess.

Edited by Trini
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Just Here

Just Here

Via THR:  IATSE to Hold a Strike Authorization Vote Amid Stalled Contract Talks

 

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“Today, the AMPTP informed the IATSE that they do not intend to respond to our comprehensive package proposal presented to them over a week ago. This failure to continue negotiating can only be interpreted one way. They simply will not address the core issues we have repeatedly advocated for from the beginning,” international union president Matthew D. Loeb and 13 West Coast Local leaders wrote in a message to members on Monday. “As a result, we will now proceed with a nationwide strike authorization vote to demonstrate our commitment to achieving the change that is long overdue in this industry.”

The vote, which allows international union president Loeb to order a strike if members authorize it, at the very least pertains to all 13 West Coast locals of the union that are currently in talks for a three-year basic agreement, a group that includes Locals 44, 80, 600, 695, 700, 705, 706, 728, 729, 800, 871, 884 and 892. IATSE represents over 150,000 entertainment workers in the U.S. and Canada, including editors, grips, operators, cinematographers, sound technicians, costumers, make-up, hair stylists, writers assistants, script coordinators and others. Loeb, who was re-elected in July, has led the union since 2008.

Deadline's article has the full response from the AMPTP.  Besides compensation, one of the prominent concerns for the IATSE is excessively long workdays.  From last week:  IATSE Says It Received More Than 50 Reports Of 14-Hour Workdays In First 7 Months Of 2021 (via Deadline).

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Just Here

Just Here

(edited)

The IATSE has moved one step closer to a nationwide strike.

 

From the Variety article:

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The vote included 13 locals on the West Coast, as well as 23 locals around the country, including in Georgia, Louisiana and New Mexico. All 36 locals voted in favor of the authorization, with the lowest margin being 96 percent in favor. In total, 52,706 members voted in favor of the authorization, out of 53,411 ballots cast. The eligible membership, across the 36 locals, is 59,478.

Factoring in the members who did not vote, the overall percentage for "yes" is 88.6% (52,706 divided by 59,478).

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Guest

Guest

(edited)
8 hours ago, Popples said:

Tom Holland Confirms He Will Play Fred Astaire in Biopic for Sony

I'm really shocked at this because I had always heard that Fred specifically prohibited that he was not to be portrayed in films in his will. I've been looking for a source and this is the only one I could find.

Something must have recently changed because Amazon Studios also has a Fred & Ginger biopic in the works. 

Tom’s young for the role but he does have the talent to pull it off. 

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Trini

Trini

32 minutes ago, Dani said:

Tom’s young for the role but he does have the talent to pull it off. 

Definitely talented; but a little short maybe? How tall was Fred? I've thought that Grant Gustin would be perfect for an Astaire biopic.

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27 minutes ago, Trini said:

Definitely talented; but a little short maybe? How tall was Fred? I've thought that Grant Gustin would be perfect for an Astaire biopic.

I thought the same thing at first but Tom is 5’8” and Fred was 5’9”. He just gives the impression of being taller. I feel like Tom’s ballet background will help him to pull it off.

Grant is another really good choice and it would work better age wise. 


Interestingly, Jamie Bell is playing Fred in the Amazon movie. The two biopics are going to be dueling Billy Elliot’s to see who is the best Fred. 

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Trini

Trini

11 minutes ago, Dani said:

I thought the same thing at first but Tom is 5’8” and Fred was 5’9”. He just gives the impression of being taller. I feel like Tom’s ballet background will help him to pull it off.

Grant is another really good choice and it would work better age wise. 


Interestingly, Jamie Bell is playing Fred in the Amazon movie. The two biopics are going to be dueling Billy Elliot’s to see who is the best Fred. 

Okay, well now Grant is too tall - lol! He's at least six feet -- however, that's never stopped Hollywood before!

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Guest

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6 hours ago, xaxat said:

Has China allowed the domestic release of any US made movies this year?

Yes. Mainly action and family movies. It’s sporadic with big delays. For example, Jungle Cruise and Snake Eyes were both July releases but only released in China last month. 

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Ms.Moon

Ms.Moon

My sister and I were watching a YouTube channel where they brought up the casting for Marvel’s Fantastic 4 movie.  The rumor is that John Krasinski was cast to play Mr. Fantastic and his wife Emily Blunt Sue Storm.  I had suggested Lee Pace to play Reed but my sister said that every woman would just want to rip his clothes off and ravish him (Pace’s Thranduil really left an impression).  I had heard rumors of Justin Timberline but I don’t know if he’s young enough to play Johnny Storm.  He’s still very attractive but Johnny Storm is a contemporary of Spider-Man’s so I am thinking of someone in their very early 20’s.  I could not see Timberlake cast as Reed Richards I would not take him seriously as a Very Serious Scientist at all.

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absnow54

absnow54

10 hours ago, Ms.Moon said:

 I had suggested Lee Pace to play Reed but my sister said that every woman would just want to rip his clothes off and ravish him (Pace’s Thranduil really left an impression).

It hasn't stopped them before, but Lee Pace was already in the MCU as Ronan the Accuser.

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Raja

Raja

1 hour ago, absnow54 said:

It hasn't stopped them before, but Lee Pace was already in the MCU as Ronan the Accuser.

As when Gemma Chan went from a Kree soldier to an Eternal

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Ms.Moon

Ms.Moon

On 1/17/2022 at 1:47 PM, Raja said:

As when Gemma Chan went from a Kree soldier to an Eternal

True.  I have seen on a couple comic related YouTube channels that John Krasinski was in talks with Marvel so it just might be him in as Reed Richards.  I think he’s old enough and has presence to carry the role in the MCU.

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magicdog

magicdog

I found this video from one of my favorite youtubers and I can't help but agree with the trend he describes.

It's why I rarely watch current entertainment now for TV or film.  The business is broken and  don't know if it can ever recover.

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Guest

Guest

(edited)
5 hours ago, magicdog said:

I found this video from one of my favorite youtubers and I can't help but agree with the trend he describes.

It's why I rarely watch current entertainment now for TV or film.  The business is broken and  don't know if it can ever recover.

Interesting that he picked three current movies that were heavily criticized from the moment they were released. Also all the example of his current trend are projects that feature female leads. It sounds more like he can’t relate to those stories and is extrapolating that to represent a failure of all cinema. 

For every criticism I feel like you could easily pick a lot of past movies that have the same issues. Even some of the past movies he held up for their morality share some of the things he criticized current movies for. It’s just a matter of perspective. 

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magicdog

magicdog

1 minute ago, Dani said:

Interesting that he picked three current movies that were heavily criticized from the moment they were released.

Yet he was in praise of the original Mulan and had no problem with her as female lead.  It was the lesson we are getting from recent films.  That message seems to be reverberating in our current culture of entitlement.

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Guest

Guest

(edited)
On 3/12/2022 at 9:55 AM, magicdog said:

Yet he was in praise of the original Mulan and had no problem with her as female lead.  It was the lesson we are getting from recent films.  That message seems to be reverberating in our current culture of entitlement.

There’s a difference between an animated lead and a live action one. As there is between a movie clearly designed as a princess movies vs one that is supposed to be an action movie. Also past movies with female leads are a whole different ballgame than current ones for a lot of reasons.

He largely undermines his point by only picking current projects that fall into particular categories to make a point about a deficit in all movies. It easy to pick one type of movie you don’t like and point out all the flaws. It really only says that you don’t like certain movies, which is obviously fine. But it doesn’t make some large point about movies as a whole. I rarely watch entertainment analysis videos on YouTube so I’m not familiar with him but just from that video I would guess that he is someone who decries “woke” media. If he isn’t than including other movies would have made a stronger point. If he is then I guess he got his point across and it’s just one I don’t agree with. 

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Guest

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(edited)

'Turning Red' is a turning point for Asians in film. Why is it seen as unrelatable?

I wasn’t sure if this fit better here or in the race thread but it highlights what I posted earlier. A Cinema Blend reporter actually wrote what I have long believed happens in professional critiques in movies with non-white, male leads. 
 

Quote

CinemaBlend's managing director Sean O'Connell wrote that he couldn't connect with the film, calling it "limiting."

"By rooting 'Turning Red' very specifically in the Asian community of Toronto, the film legitimately feels like it was made for Domee Shi's friends and immediate family members. Which is fine — but also, a tad limiting in its scope," O'Connell wrote.

In a since-deleted tweet, he also called the movie "exhausting."

Some people who are so used to being in the group that most mainstream media represents they genuinely can’t fathom that all movies are not supposed to cater to them. If they can’t see themselves in the movie it is declared a failure. The viewpoint doesn’t surprise but I am surprised that someone would actually put it in writing and not realize that minority groups have been forced to see aspects of themselves primarily in people who don’t look like them. That he really believes that only the creator’s friends and immediate family can relate to a Asian Canadian coming of age story. It shows that improving diversity in the entertainment business has to include changes within reviewers. 

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"A lot of this is based on the fact that people have no point of reference to when it comes to an Asian story because there are so few... so when something like this comes along, it feels like some kind of aberration because you're forced to reckon with something you rarely experience in a movie," Yu said.

The relatively invisible nature of Asians in films affects the "dehumanizing" of Asians off screen too, Yu said: "Everything from just random street attacks to racist policies."

"There's just this level of empathy that is not there, the kind of empathy that comes from being able to relate to somebody's stories, somebody that you have no connection to," Yu said.

 

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Trini

Trini

3 hours ago, Dani said:

It shows that improving diversity in the entertainment business has to include changes within reviewers. 

THIS so much.

 

3 hours ago, Dani said:

Some people who are so used to being in the group that most mainstream media represents they genuinely can’t fathom that all movies are not supposed to cater to them. If they can’t see themselves in the movie it is declared a failure. The viewpoint doesn’t surprise but I am surprised that someone would actually put it in writing and not realize that minority groups have been forced to see aspects of themselves primarily in people who don’t look like them.

Also the fact that he said this about a Disney animated film, of all things. Yes, specifics may change, but nothing gets out of development without it being able to get a big an audience ($$$) as possible.

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Athena

Athena

"Inside Hollywood's Visual Effects Crisis":

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One coordinator I spoke with said the show he was working on was using 15 different effects houses at the same time. One former VFX producer told us that his house would routinely outsource their own assignments to other shops without telling the client they were doing so, a practice that they say is common within the industry. It’s just not that you can’t see how your effects have been sourced, but that many of the people in charge of the movie you’re watching can’t see it either, until it’s already been released and they feel free to mock it. 

As one post-production manager told Defector, “I think that this is a pinch point economically for studios where you can achieve savings by, honestly, mistreating employees.” 

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This means that it becomes a visual-effects team’s problem. Movie studios and the Hollywood press might have you under the impression that a film with a large budget and crew—crews that can number into the thousands—means you’re going to get bigger and better spectacles than you would see otherwise. But the truth is that a $200 million film is subject to the same amount of bureaucracy and waste as any other product made by any other massive conglomerate. And, as with those other conglomerates, it’s the low-end workers who suffer the most.

Good or bad, almost everything is digital now and post production is done by this VFX houses and sub contractors. Like most emerging technologies and industries, there is little regulation and a big disconnect to how movies use to be made. Directors are not VFX artists and must rely on these workers (largely whom are nameless or faceless to them) to achieve the final work. The article focuses primarily on Marvel and Netflix.

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Trini

Trini

I don't work in VFX; but I went to school with people who are in that career, and you can create almost anything - if you have a clear idea of what's needed, and give enough time to do it. It sounds like these bigger studios are doing neither.

A couple other articles about the working conditions of VFX artists:

A first person account at Vulture: 'I’m a VFX Artist, and I’m Tired of Getting ‘Pixel-F–ked’ by Marvel'

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The other thing with Marvel is it’s famous for asking for lots of changes throughout the process. So you’re already overworked, but then Marvel’s asking for regular changes way in excess of what any other client does. And some of those changes are really major. Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act. It has really tight turnaround times. So yeah, it’s just not a great situation all around. One visual-effects house could not finish the number of shots and reshoots Marvel was asking for in time, so Marvel had to give my studio the work. Ever since, that house has effectively been blacklisted from getting Marvel work.

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... Things need to change on two ends of the spectrum. Marvel needs to train its directors on working with visual effects and have a better vision out of the gate. The studio needs to hold its directors’ feet to the fire more to commit to what they want. The other thing is unionization. There is a growing movement to do that, because it would help make sure that the VFX houses can’t take bids without having to consider what the impacts would be. Because a lot of the time, it’s like, you get to work on a Marvel show, and you’ll work on that for cheaper just because it’s cool.

And another investigative piece with quotes from artists/etc. at Gizmodo: 'Abuse of VFX Artists Is Ruining the Movies'

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... This isn’t a fluke; this is part of the process. Many sources stated that Marvel deliberately shoots their films in such a way that they are able to change details, both big and small, up until the very last minute. Very little is shot practically, and even the stuff that is practical goes through touch-ups. “When you get a plate of just someone’s face against a poorly lit screen, there’s really nothing you can do to make it look realistic,” explains H. A plate is the untouched frame, exactly what was captured on camera, mocap suit and all. “That’s something that never gets commented on. Everyone just goes, ‘Oh, the visual effects look shit.’ And I’m like, No, you should have seen the plate. You should have seen what we were given, because that’s what was shit.”

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“It just becomes a blame game,” said H. Artists blame coordinators who blame producers, who blame executives, who blame artists. “It all just goes back to the top. Because we don’t have enough time or money to actually do the work in a way where you don’t have people who are missing their children’s birthdays. We’ve had teams sleep at the office because driving home takes too long.” H said that it’s not as easy as finding a studio with better working conditions, because eventually all artists will work on a project that has these overwhelming demands. The responsibility, H said, ultimately rests on the production houses. “Especially a company as big as Marvel, you know? Why can’t you give people a realistic schedule and budget instead of just forcing this race to the bottom? I know we’re living in late-stage capitalistic hell, but they’re creating such a toxic environment for people.”

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Athena

Athena

On 8/10/2022 at 1:14 AM, Trini said:

I don't work in VFX; but I went to school with people who are in that career, and you can create almost anything - if you have a clear idea of what's needed, and give enough time to do it. It sounds like these bigger studios are doing neither.

Agreed. Another problem is that studios are using VFX to fix things or make things possible on a low budget. For example, scripts are being written without thought about how long it could take to achieve the results or movies are shot either hastily or without much thought but "the effects people will fix". The blame game is going downstream to this industry for not making it look "good". This isn't even high effects film; VFX is used to touch up actor's faces, bad cinematography, etc.

It's resulted in a lot of shoddy looking work or the soulless feeling in high VFX films because cheap studios couldn't pay for more time or effort.

There is this feeling by the general public that the bigger studios like Disney have in house or only a few studios who do their VFX but the reality is an endless list of subcontractors with no or little benefits. This is why actors, directors, writers and other professions in the industry had to unionize. They were also being abused when the industry was younger.

I use to know a couple of animators and they left their job for similar reasons. Only a few animators can get good paying jobs in bigger studios. Animation has been outsourced outside of North America and Europe for decades and a lot of low budget animation (e.g. kids shows) are outsourced to Asian countries like China, India, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam where labour laws are lax and wages are lower. This is already happening to VFX but it'll only increase in the next few years.

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supposebly

supposebly

1 hour ago, Athena said:

but "the effects people will fix". The blame game is going downstream to this industry for not making it look "good". 

Isn't this the job of a director? See what's possible, budget for VFX and then film the script or make the necessary adjustments.

I'm sorry to hear that there is yet another field where people get exploited all for the almighty dollar that they won't see much of.

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Athena

Athena

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

Isn't this the job of a director? See what's possible, budget for VFX and then film the script or make the necessary adjustments.

I'm sorry to hear that there is yet another field where people get exploited all for the almighty dollar that they won't see much of.

Digital film making means the role of the director has changed. In the past, they and the editor and cinematographer would control much of the visuals based on the analog system. Nowadays, most directors can leave it running continuously so there ends up being a ton of footage which other people in post production deals with later.

A lot of studios are cheapening out by not using supervisors on sets who do a lot of this coordination.

Most directors do not understand or know what VFX entails. They see it as a means to an end and so if their work doesn't look "good", it's not their fault, they can blame the VFX studio and ask for reworkings since it's cheaper than reshoots:

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Then there is Netflix, which one show coordinator told Defector was, by far, the “worst” company any effects person could work for. On a Vanessa Hudgens Christmas movie called The Knight Before Christmas, at the behest of director Monika Mitchell, who was irrationally hellbent on perfecting it, the coordinator’s effects team had to redo a single shot of a castle dozens of times after they had completed 90 percent of the film. (Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment.)

...

When del Toro turned his attention to Cabinet, he wanted to put his “fingerprint” on that episode, leaving the VFX team to re-work its visuals months after they had been finished, and with barely any time to spare. Because of del Toro’s curveballs, the coordinator and their team were still, as of our interview in June, working on effects that should have been finished back in February.

I'm not anti-digital but I have noticed that the over use of VFX in the last 15 years has really changed how movies look and how the industry behind the camera is changing.

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Shannon L.

Shannon L.

Ryan Reynolds' Clue Remake Gets The Lost City Writer

Ryan Reynolds will head up the cast of

Clue, a remake of the movie based on the game Clue, and the film has a new writer on board.

I have mixed feelings about this one.  I love Clue and think it's in the category of movies that don't need to be remade.  However, I love both Ryan Reynolds and The Lost City, so.......I guess I'll withhold judgement until I see trailers.

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Trini

Trini

6 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

Ryan Reynolds' Clue Remake Gets The Lost City Writer

I have mixed feelings about this one.  I love Clue and think it's in the category of movies that don't need to be remade.  However, I love both Ryan Reynolds and The Lost City, so.......I guess I'll withhold judgement until I see trailers.

I'm looking at it as another movie based on the board game, not a re-do of the original film adaptation, so I'm open to see what someone else comes up with.

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Kel Varnsen

Kel Varnsen

On 8/13/2022 at 3:00 PM, Athena said:

Digital film making means the role of the director has changed. In the past, they and the editor and cinematographer would control much of the visuals based on the analog system. Nowadays, most directors can leave it running continuously so there ends up being a ton of footage which other people in post production deals with later.

There are interesting stories like how in Avengers Endgame they started shooting before the time travel costumes were finalized (probably because they had to make the release date I would assume). So they just put everyone in motion capture suits and added the suits after shooting was done.

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