Last week, I made a little mistake. I said that The Amazing Spider-Man was the type of film that would open on 3,000 to 4,000 screens. Actually, it opened on nearly 4,400 screens. Since there are roughly 40,000 screens in the US, this sucker took up space...
Summer is a time for daydreams. Bucolic months full of hopeful visions of the future.So why am I spending this summer sweating non-stop in periodic blackouts caused by severe storms in a massive heat wave while my phone is ringing off the hook with every political...
Just when I thought I was out of the obit business, Nora Ephron has pulled me back in. Not that she needs another eulogy. She has already received plenty and I would end up feeling that I'm at the end of a very long line...
I never wanted to be an obit writer. Certainly not after I saw that old flick with Richard Boone (I Bury the Living). But events this year seem determined to send me into this dour trade. The news of Andrew Sarris' death will not mean much...
It's official. The 2012 box office is up by 2 percent over the 2011 box office. Is this great news or what? I'm afraid its more "or what," since the 2 percent increase is a tad meaningless. Heck, 2011 had an overall drop to begin...
Just as I was settling down to work on this piece, I got the news that Ray Bradbury had died. Never having been a huge fan of his work (to be honest, I always leaned more toward Philip K. Dick), I was surprised at my...
There is an important lesson to be learned from the lackluster opening weekend for Men in Black III (depending upon who is doing the counting, it took in $55 to $70 million -- best real figures tend toward $55 million -- which wouldn't be too...
One of the problems in trying to create a rational model for film finance and production is that the entire industry operates mostly on blind hunches, untested assumptions and general notions that sound like something out of a fairy tale. Nowhere is this more obvious...
There are more than seven billion people on this planet just waiting to give you advice. If you are an indie filmmaker, it will feel more like fourteen billion. And I'm not even including your mother. With so many people handing out advice, you would think...
There is a general notion that part of the difference between major movies and indie films is that independent flicks operate outside of the cultural mainstream. The mainstream represents an overall cultural/institutional structure while the indie world operates in an oppositional state. Maybe they do. But...