Tennessee Williams's Formative Gay-Repression Years Subject Of New Biodrama

Seth — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:05:00 EDT

· Taylor Hackford is set to direct Tenn, about Tennessee Williams's formative years. It's being financed by the same company that brought you Capote, the second part of their planned Great Sissies of History trilogy that will conclude with the harrowing fitness-empire biodrama, Simmons. [Variety]
· Author Plum Sykes is co-writing a sitcom pilot for NBC called Mogulettes, about young, beautiful she-captains of industry. No one remotely suspects what they're hiding in their pantyhose! [Variety]
· The End of Ideas: We Can't Even Really Be Bothered To Type Out The Rest of This Etc. Etc. Edition: A TV version of The Witches of Eastwick gets a pilot pickup at ABC. [Variety]
· Starz's Vongo and Morgan Freeman's ClickStar both shutter their internet-movie-download operations. [Variety]
· Oh, for the love of God: "CBS is saying aloha to a new installment of the Hawaii Five-O franchise from Criminal Minds exec producer/showrunner Ed Bernero." Aloha means goodbye in this instance, we hope. [THR]

Oscar-Nominated Working Class Stiffs Join MPAA's Lobbying Effort

Mark — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:51:30 EST

The NY Times rounds up the highlights from yesterday's "The Business of Show Business" symposium, for which the MPAA took some of the entertainment industry's brightest little achievers on a field trip to Washington to lobby Congress, hoping sympathetic, star-struck reps will officially declare a global War on Movie Piracy and immediately close down the U.S.-Canadian border to halt the further loss of renegade film shoots to the production-pilfering commie hinterlands to our north. A crucial component of the MPAA's lobbying strategy is to put a human face on the glitzy, hot-tub-pruned, coke-dusted world of Hollywood, stressing that dozens upon dozens of "real," hard-working people make movies, like the gaffers who are forced to relocate to Vancouver to chase work and the underemployed, recently Oscar-nominated directors who are barely making ends meet:

It's not just me and Tom," said [Will] Smith, referring to Tom Cruise, one of his peers who can command $20 million a picture. He said his latest film, "I Am Legend," was employing 1,000 local crew members and actors on location in New York.
The director Paris Barclay told of trying to hire one of his favorite technicians recently, and learning that the man had moved his wife and three children to Vancouver, because that is where the work is.

And Taylor Hackford, the director of "Ray," in establishing his credentials, added: "I'm working class." [...]

The conversation often turned to piracy, the existential issue that dominates the association's agenda. Mr. Hackford, who spent more than a decade developing "Ray," told of finding a bootleg DVD of the movie on the day of its theatrical release, and said 42 million illicit copies were sold within five months.

That meant millions of dollars in lost revenue — "and DVDs is how people get their money back," he said of movie financiers. "If they don't, will I be able to sell a hard-to-sell picture like 'Ray'? No."

The down-on-his-luck helmer then continued, enrapturing his audience, "Because of the millions in lost residuals from the rampant piracy of Ray, I may have to wear a rented tuxedo to the Oscars this year. [pause for audible gasps] I hope that the esteemed members of Congress will think of the worldwide humiliation I'll be subjected to when the camera lingers upon my substandard garment after my wife wins Best Actress and realize that something must be done to protect me and my working class peers from the pirate menace."

Hollywood Takes Its Concerns About Piracy and Taxes to Washington [NY Times]
Previously: Mr. Smith Goes To Washington To Charm The Panties Off Star-Struck Politicans [Defamer]

Gawker: defamer, taylor hackford

Tennessee Williams's Formative Gay-Repression Years Subject Of New Biodrama

Oscar-Nominated Working Class Stiffs Join MPAA's Lobbying Effort