Media Manipulation Sony Hack: The wage gap revealed Fallout from the Sony Hack continues, and it’s no surprise that the news is bad. The people at Sony would probably love it if just once a released cache of data revealed email exchanges about funniest cat videos. But Sony doesn’t have that kind of luck and so By Sarah • Dec 15, 2014 10:23 am
TV Updates Marco…Polo I had high hopes for Netflix’s new period drama Marco Polo. With a $90 million dollar budget—making it the second-most expensive show on TV behind only Game of Thrones—and being co-produced by The Weinstein Company, the table was set for something interesting, maybe even special. I sat By Sarah • Dec 12, 2014 11:48 am
Business of Hollywood The Sony Hack, somehow, gets even worse At this point, it shouldn’t be surprising that the leaked emails from Sony have taken a turn for the worse. They started bad, so it wasn’t like the bar was all that high to begin with. But the latest emails between Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin aren’t By Sarah • Dec 11, 2014 03:26 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Choose Top Five This weekend there are two new major releases in theaters: Exodus: Gods & Guyliner and Chris Rock’s Top Five. If you’re going to the movies, go see Top Five. Ridley Scott thinks he couldn’t make Exodus without white leads, but we have a chance to empirically prove By Sarah • Dec 11, 2014 03:01 pm
Media Manipulation Sony Hack reveals budget drama on Bond 24 Fallout from the Sony Hack continues, and this time it’s the new Bond movie, Spectre, caught in the crosshairs. Emails between the president of MGM, Jonathan Glickman, Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, and Sony executives, including co-chief Amy Pascal—is anyone having a worse week than Amy Pascal?—reveal that By Sarah • Dec 11, 2014 11:55 am
Media Manipulation No interviews at The Interview Tonight is the premiere of Seth Rogen’s and James Franco’s new movie, The Interview, in which they play entertainment reporters attempting to assassinate Kim Jong-un. North Korea is unhappy about the existence of this movie, and many people assume it’s the impetus behind the Sony Hack, but By Sarah • Dec 11, 2014 11:16 am
Business of Hollywood Sony Hack Part Eleventy Billion: Actors are greedy whores The newest wave of leaked emails from the Sony Hack, dutifully combed through by Gawker, reveals a conversation between Sony co-chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal, and Clint Culpepper, head of Sony subsidy studio Screen Gems. The email is about Kevin Hart, who has a multi-picture deal with Screen Gems, By Sarah • Dec 10, 2014 04:28 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Leaked Sony emails: Jobs is a mess The Sony hack is the gift that keeps on giving. First it was a laundry list of reasons why making Adam Sandler movies was slowly crushing people’s souls, and now it’s a series of email exchanges between Sony co-chief Amy Pascal, producer Scott Rudin, Aaron Sorkin, and some By Sarah • Dec 10, 2014 08:57 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Why isn’t George Lucas feeling Star Wars? The first trailer for New New Star Wars came out a couple weeks ago and is crushing records on its way to being the most viewed trailer of all time. Trailers are still the #1 indicator for a movie’s potential audience, and based on the stats for New New By Sarah • Dec 09, 2014 11:38 am
Music Actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf Shia LaBeouf frustrates me. On the one hand, I think he’s a very talented actor. On the other, he’s a plagiarist with a plagiarist’s obnoxious “everyone steals because art” lack of understanding of what appropriation and repurposing really are. But, with a major movie out this year, By Sarah • Dec 08, 2014 12:59 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Diversity in Film: The media reacts Last week we talked about Hollywood’s (ongoing) diversity problem in context to Rupert Murdoch’s and Ridley Scott’s outright offensive attitudes regarding the whitewashing controversy surrounded Exodus: Gods & Guyliner. This week, we’re taking a look how the media covers stories like this. I don’t want By Sarah • Dec 08, 2014 11:49 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Jeremy Renner’s London year Jeremy Renner has been in and out of London all year. Avengers: Age of Ultron filmed there over the spring and summer, and following that, he’s been there working on Mission: Impossible 5 – Presumably There’s A Bomb throughout fall and winter. Here he is once again at LAX By Sarah • Dec 08, 2014 09:25 am
Movie Reviews and Previews The Batch is Strange, for real this time After a long, rumor-filled casting process—easily a top-three roughest go round— Marvel has finally announced their Dr. Strange and it is, for real, Benedict Cumberbatch. He’s been rumored for years—I first mentioned it in 2012—but the timing never worked out, and Marvel would go look at By Sarah • Dec 05, 2014 10:49 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Terminator: Ridiculousity The first trailer for the next Terminator is here, and it is some seriously silly sh*t. I refuse to deal with the movie’s real title, Terminator: Genisys, because it’s dumb, but it does seem to fit what looks like a highly stupid movie. There are ways to By Sarah • Dec 04, 2014 03:24 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Seth Rogen is coming back to TV Kind of. Rogen and his creative partner Evan Goldberg have finally gotten their pilot order from AMC for an adaptation of Preacher, a 1990s comic about a Texan preacher who is possessed by a heaven-baby and goes looking for God with his ex-girlfriend and a drunk vampire. It’s an By Sarah • Dec 04, 2014 12:22 pm
Chris Rock Chris Rock on Hollywood: “It’s a white industry” Chris Rock is on a roll. First, he was in New York Magazine talking about race and politics, and now he’s written an editorial in The Hollywood Reporter in which he straight up calls out the industry’s ongoing and increasingly depressing diversity problem. Rock is speaking from experience, By Sarah • Dec 03, 2014 04:10 pm
