By: Mary Jo,
on 6/17/2015
Judd Apatow's lifelong passion for comedy burns brightly in this new collection of interviews. Many of the best-known comedians working today are represented here: Jon Stewart, Louis C. K., Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld. When Apatow was 15, he took a job washing dishes in a comedy club — just so he could listen to all [...]
By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 6/11/2015
From works by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Maya Angelou to Dave Eggers and Amy Bloom, writer/director/producer Judd Apatow buys lots of books.
While his shelves are full of books, he doesn’t always get to reading them all, he revealed in an interview with The New York Times. In the interview, the author of the forthcoming book Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy also disclosed his favorite comedy writers. Here is an excerpt:
I can make the Sunday Times twice as thick if I name all of the people I admire. I loved Jack Handey’s book \"The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure.\" I loved Bob Odenkirk’s book \"A Load of Hooey.\" Steve Martin is a great writer and great at everything. Adam Resnick’s book \"Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation.\" I think many of the great TV dramas are also comedies. So, David Simon (\"The Wire\"); David Chase (\"The Sopranos\"); Matthew Weiner (\"Mad Men\"); and David Milch (\"Deadwood\"). Garry Shandling’s work is unparalleled. James Brooks. Robert Smigel. Amy Schumer. Lena Dunham.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/24/2015
There’s snow on the ground here in Atlanta, and I can’t wait for Spring to finally arrive. Seriously.
Here are the big updates for this morning:
– This is not a big surprise, given that probably every actor that signs up for a superhero film these days has a multi-picture contract, but Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie has confirmed that she has one too. Get used to seeing lots of Harley Quinn in future DC movies, provide all goes well for the studio.
– Making the rounds yesterday was James Gunn‘s Facebook post regarding the awards-season/Birdman-birthed narrative that superhero movies are the death-knell of creativity in Hollywood, it’s pretty wonderful:
Whatever the case, the truth is, popular fare in any medium has always been snubbed by the self-appointed elite. I’ve already won more awards than I ever expected for Guardians. What bothers me slightly is that many people assume because you make big films that you put less love, care, and thought into them then people do who make independent films or who make what are considered more serious Hollywood films.
I’ve made B-movies, independent films, children’s movies, horror films, and gigantic spectacles. I find there are plenty of people everywhere making movies for a buck or to feed their own vanity. And then there are people who do what they do because they love story-telling, they love cinema, and they want to add back to the world some of the same magic they’ve taken from the works of others. In all honesty, I do no find a strikingly different percentage of those with integrity and those without working within any of these fields of film.
If you think people who make superhero movies are dumb, come out and say we’re dumb. But if you, as an independent filmmaker or a “serious” filmmaker, think you put more love into your characters than the Russo Brothers do Captain America, or Joss Whedon does the Hulk, or I do a talking raccoon, you are simply mistaken.
At this point, I have a hard time imagining that a comic-book based superhero film will ever win a live-action Best Picture Oscar (if The Dark Knight couldn’t even be nominated), but does it actually matter? Not really. Let’s just continue to hope for more Avengers, Dark Knights, Winter Soldiers and films with a nice personal stamp on them and less of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 variety.
– Telltale Games has, over the the past few years, sparked a revival of the adventure game genre with comics-based titles like The Walking Dead and Fables (along with Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands). Today, Lionsgate Films and Telltale announced the former’s investment into the burgeoning game developer. What does it mean for Telltales’ output? We may see some television and video game co-development soon, particularly in terms of an original property. At the very least more Lionsgate properties will surely be headed into the development cycle.
– Former Bat-Mite voice actor Paul Reubens is bringing his famous Pee-Wee Herman character back to television, as Netflix has announced that the feature, Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday, will be coming to the streaming service. The new film is co-written by Reubens and Paul Rust (Comedy Bang Bang), with John Lee (Inside Amy Schumer) directing. Judd Apatow will produce under his Apatow Productions banner.
By: Maryann Yin,
on 8/29/2014
PEN Center USA has unveiled some of the winners of the 24th annual literary awards. Each writer will receive a one thousand dollar cash prize.
At this point in time, the Graphic Literature Award winner and the recipient of the organization’s Award of Honor have not yet been revealed. The group will be honored at the 24th annual literary awards festival. Check out the list of winners below.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 6/23/2014
Filmmaker Judd Apatow has landed a deal with Random House.
The New York Times reports that Apatow will compile a collection of interviews with 25 comedians for a book entitled Sick in the Head. Some of the people he spoke with include Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Lena Dunham, and Amy Schumer.
According to the Comic’s Comic, the publishing house will release the finished project in 2015. Apatow (pictured with Dunham) plans to donate the proceeds to the 826LA creative writing nonprofit.
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By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 5/15/2014
You might think that eating at Chipotle Mexican Grill is a little bit low brow. But they want to change that. The fast food chain is now featuring original essays written by influential writers on its restaurant packaging. The author series is called “Cultivating Thought.” Jonathan Safran Foer curated the list of contributors. Participating writers will include: Judd Apatow, Sheri Fink, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Hader, Michael Lewis, Toni Morrison, Steve Pinker, George Saunders and Sarah Silverman. The pieces are all meant to be read in two minutes. The idea is to entertain people while they are scarfing down a burrito. Here is an excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's Two-Minute Barn-Raising: I grew up in Canada, in an area of Ontario where there is a large community of Old-Order Mennonites. “Old Orders,” as they are known, are a religious group who live as if the 20th century never happened. They avoid electricity, drive horses and buggies, leave school at 16, and bail hay by hand. They dress in plain black and white, with straw hats over clean-shaven faces, and when a neighbor’s barn burns down, they gather as a community to put it back up. When I was little, not long after we moved to Ontario, my father heard about a barn-raising down the road. He decided to join in.
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By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 7/28/2009
Last night I went to a reading for Benjamin Nugent's American Nerd. In the part-memoir, part-ethnography, Nugent defines the designation of "nerd" by two non-mutually exclusive types. The one marked by obsessive interests and the other social... Read the rest of this post
When talking about superhero movies getting snubbed, I think the same can be said for comedies. If the academy really put a value on performances, then Jim Carrey should have one an Oscar for Ace Ventura. Can you imagine any other human being on the planet being able to play that role? Oscars are for movies that make you feel bad when you’re done watching them.
I dunno Brian, I felt pretty alright after watching Argo. But you are right; few comedies, beyond those of Wes Anderson and Woody Allen, get much play with the Academy.
While just about any film can qualify for Best Picture, there are many genres and types which rarely make it, even with the enlarged category.
Documentaries have never qualified.
Genre? LotR:TRotK is the only winner for fantasy.
Foreign films and animated features most likely will never win Best Picture, as many voters will split their vote, letting those movies win BAF or BFF instead of Best Picture.
So, no, I don’t expect a superhero movie to win Best Picture. A graphic novel adaptation? Certainly.
Of the top 20 highest grossing movies of 2014, which was the best? (Ignore American Sniper… most of that box office came from 2015, post-nom.) Interstellar? The Lego Movie?
For me, it’d be Interstellar…while a decent enough argument could be made for Gone Girl or The Lego Movie as well.
It should be pointed out that while it wasn’t a live action movie, BIG HERO 6 did win an Oscar for best animated movie. So this makes BH6 the first comic book superhero movie to win a best picture Oscar.