Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 227th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
Oscars’ Real Best Picture Winner: Which Contender Delivered Biggest Bang for the Buck.
Oscars: Consider the “For Your Consideration” Billboard.
Oscars: How Many People Watch the Ceremony Worldwide.
Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot: Voter Skewers ‘Revenant’ (“Road Runner Movie”), ‘Brooklyn’ (“Sentimental Drivel”).
Brutally Honest Response to Brutally Honest Oscar Voters: “Watch the F — king Movies”.
Meet the Oscar-Winning (Twice!) Rabbi Whose Blessing Hollywood Seeks Each Awards Season.
A Cat Predicts the 2016 Oscars.
Oscar Mistakes: 20 Classic Films Not Nominated For Best Picture.
‘The Big Short,’ ‘Show Me a Hero’ Win at USC Scripter Awards.
Athena Film Festival Honoring Paul Feig, Mira Nair Amid Increased Talk of Gender Issues in Hollywood.
The 2016 Athena List: Meet the winners of the female-centric Black List.
Berlin International Film Festival Winners Announced.
Never Mind the Oscars: The Spirit Awards Get Indie — and Diverse.
Hollywood Facing ‘Inclusion Crisis,’ New Diversity Study Finds.
Hollywood Is a ‘Straight, White, Boy’s Club,’ Blistering Study Finds.
2016 Hollywood Diversity Report: Busine$$ as Usual? Download.
The 20 Worst Examples Of Hollywood Whitewashing.
33 Hollywood Diversity Stats From All Those Studies You Probably Haven’t Read.
New Yorker Tackles #OscarsSoWhite In Latest Cover.
Oscar & Diversity: 5 Ways to Fix Hollywood’s Imbalance.
UCLA’s Hollywood Study: Diverse Content Is Crucial For Business.
Middle Class Films: The Demand for Diversity in Hollywood.
Movies With Diverse Casts Make More Money, Study Finds.
Inside man: The Black List’s Franklin Leonard on Hollywood, visibility, and #OscarsSoWhite.
Franklin Leonard weighs in on a Reddit thread about the Black List website.
Deadpool’s Influence Grows With Its Success.
Deadpool poised to surpass Passion of the Christ as highest-grossing R-rated film ever.
The Deadpool Moment: How He Went From Flailing Property to Silver-Screen Star.
Guess Which Movie’s 30th Anniversary Chicago Is Honoring With a ‘Ferris Fest’.
How screenwriters are ruining the planet.
Does Screwball Comedy Have a Place in Modern Cinema.
Stephen Chow’s ‘The Mermaid’ Makes Big U.S. Splash Despite Puzzling Lack Of Marketing.
’The Witch’ is a Hit, But Is the Horror Genre in a Healthy Place.
A24 Expands Credit Facility to $125 Million on Strength of ‘Room,’ ‘The Witch’.
The Real Story of ‘The Revenant’ Is Far Weirder (and Bloodier) Than the Movie.
Paramount’s Suitors: Here’s Seven Top Prospects.
Is ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ In Trouble.
‘Batman v Superman’ Will Have an R-rated “Ultimate Edition” For Some Reason.
AMC Theatres Being Sued for Discrimination Against the Blind.
Universal, China’s Perfect World Pictures Set 50-Film Financing Deal.
World Cinema Benefits from Film Resurgence in Ireland.
DreamWorks Animation Blasts Past Expectations, Stock Rises.
It’s Stan Lee’s Universe, So Why is His Legacy in Question.
Roger Corman: How I Made 400 Films, Mentored Coppola and Ended Up Fighting in Court for My Fortune.
‘WarGames’ and Cybersecurity’s Debt to a Hollywood Hack.
Here’s Where “Joy” Went Very, Very Wrong: Comparing Annie Mumolo’s script to David O. Russell’s.
Ava DuVernay to Direct ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ Movie Adaptation.
Jessica Chastain launches female-driven production company.
New Female-Driven Comedy Network Takes On Hollywood’s Gender Gap, One Laugh At A Time.
Interview: Director Lexi Alexander on Supergirl (and Lots More).
The Original Six: The Story of Hollywood’s Forgotten Feminist Crusaders.
How Does One Get a Job as a Writer’s Assistant.
Steve Martin Performed Stand-up for the First Time in 35 Years.
Funny Or Die Hires Former President Obama Speechwriter to Head Up DC Staff.
Startup MasterClass Raises $15 Million, Launches Kevin Spacey Acting Tutorial.
How Randy Newman and His Family Have Shaped Movie Music for Generations.
Too Many Comics, Too Many Comics, Too Many Comics…
Why TV Is Finally Embracing the Realities of Race.
How TV beats film in giving women and minorities greater opportunities on screen.
How the $100 Million ‘NYPD Blue’ Creator Gambled Away His Fortune.
‘The X-Files’ Exposes Complex Truths of Trusting in TV Revivals.
How Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events Bring Classics to Your Local Theater.
TCM Running Festival of Films Once Condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.
HGTV Becomes Scripps’ First $1B Revenue Network.
HBO’s High-Class Problems: $100M ‘Vinyl’ Disappoints Amid ‘Westworld,’ David Fincher Woes.
The TV-Novel Complex.
Why Netflix Doesn’t Release Its Ratings.
The Best Movies and Shows Coming to Netflix in March 2016
Making ‘Love’: Why Judd Apatow’s Rom-Com is Netflix’s Next Big Thing.
Amazon Studios Paid Staggering $15M for Woody Allen’s Next Film.
Why Woody Allen’s New Movie Went to Amazon.
Forget Bigger Screens: Virtual Reality Is the New Sales Pitch for Mobile Phones.
How to Get Morgan Freeman on Your GPS.
Snapchat Video Ads to Be Measured by Nielsen.
Seven Artists “Won” the Chance to Make Art on a Cargo Ship.
Paul Simon announces North American tour, new album expected this spring.
Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history.
New York Times: Don’t Turn Away From the Art of Life.
Scott Frank: Answers some writing questions.
Chuck Wendig: Scream It Until Their Ears Bleed: Pay The Fucking Writers.
Broken Draft: Vomit Draft 6.
Chicks Who Script: Episode 77.
Scriptnotes: Episode 238 (Dana Fox).
Listen: NPR feature on screenwriter Meg LeFauve [audio].
Watch: Indiewire’s 2016 Oscars Bible: 89 Interviews and Reviews From This Year’s Nominees [videos].
Watch: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver — Hollywood Whitewashing [video].
Watch: 400 Fourth Wall-Breaking Moments in Movies [video].
Watch: Tom Bernard and Michael Barker Recall Sony Classics at 25 Years [video].
Watch: The Magic of Mike Nichols [videos].
Watch: The Eyes of Hitchcock [video].
Watch: “Hello Academy” — 2016 Oscar commentary [video].
Douglas Slocombe, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Cinematographer, Dies at 103.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: You hear it over and over and over again in Hollywood development circles. Agents, managers, producers, execs, talent. All looking for writers with distinctive voices.
If you think voice just means character dialogue… think again. Voice also involves scene description. You know, that boring stuff you write to set up and play out a scene.
In my 1-week Scene Description Spotlight class, you will learn about:
* How Genre + Style = Narrative Voice
* Memorable ways to introduce characters
* The crucial importance of ‘editorializing’
* Using tempo and pace to make scenes spark to life
* The freedom screenwriters have to break grammatical rules
* Directing action through line management
* Imagematic, psychological, and action writing
And much, much more!
The class includes dozens of examples from notable movie scripts as well as some of the most recent selling spec scripts to give you a clear sense of how to use scene description to give expression to your voice and make your script worthy of one of Hollywood’s highest compliments: It’s a good read.
I’m really excited about this class and you should be, too. Take something as seemingly simple and mundane as scene description… and use it to show off your voice.
To learn more and enroll, go here.
The class begins Monday, March 7. As always, I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!