Saturday Hot Links
Back for another installment of Saturday Hot Links!
Today: The Crazy Ending Of Football Games Edition!
We begin with a high school game in Kentucky:
Speaking of football, there are four movie studios who have plunked down millions to buy ad time in the Super Bowl. Can you guess which ones?
Need to wash the holiday toxins out of your system? Here are 7 L.A. juice bars to do just that.
Or better yet, you can watch one of 10 great movies for free on YouTube.
Ever wonder what the most common words are in English? Here they are.
Here are the top 250 movies in terms of domestic box office in 2011.
You can read Jack Kerouac’s letter to Marlon Brando asking him to star in “On The Road” here.
Pentagon scientists use ‘time hole’ to make events disappear.
More science: World’s smallest wire may lead to quantum computers.
Lions Gate buys Summit Entertainment for $425M.
Want to be involved in a short film written by Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams, Babel)? You can by kicking in some funds on KickStarter.
“Sesame Street” to go interactive.
Steven Spielberg and John Williams mark their 40 year collaboration.
Guy walks into a Wal-Mart and tries to buy a vacuum cleaner and microwave oven with a… million dollar bill.
TotalFilm with 50 trailers that ruined the movie.
Relativity hit with a lawsuit by novelist’s family about the movie The Unborn.
More legal: Ben Stein sues company for $300K for backing out of a deal when they found out his beliefs about global warming.
eReaders are dead. Long live eReaders.
Melancholia and Tree of Life top the National Society of Film Critics awards.
Vintage Tolkien book covers from around the world.
Paramount acquires worldwide distribution rights to James Cameron’s 3D Cirque du Soleil film.
China to lower movie ticket prices [their 2011 B.O. numbers below].
Holy crap! A new song from The Doors [audio]!
This reviewer really didn’t like The Devil Inside.
And the movie got an F-rating through Cinemascore.
Just what the doctor ordered: 15 incredible dog costumes inspired by the movies.
Tom Hanks explains why he’s producing his latest project with Yahoo.
11 insane features of the human body.
Universal outlines its plans to celebrate 100th birthday.
Who can forget the classic ending to the Cal-Stanford game in 1982:
In screenwriting news, Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) to receive WGA Laurel Award.
Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) lands a gig, selling the drama adaptation “L.A. Noir” as a pilot to TNT.
Universal is talking with Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel (Hot Tub Time Machine) to write a sequel to Bruce Almighty.
Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) tapped to write Deep Water for Fox 2000.
Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) hired to rewrite Thor 2.
John Logan (Hugo) sings his way into a gig writing Jersey Boys.
Meanwhile David Seltzer (The Omen) dances his way into writing Kiss and Tango, also for Fox 2000.
Disney hires Dan Harris (X2: X-Men United) to rewrite Hovercar.
Alexander Payne (The Descendants) has a father-son road pic in the works called “Nebraska”.
The Drew Goddard-Joss Whedon movie Cabin in the Woods selected to kick of this year’s SXSW Fest.
Darren Lenke (Jack the Giant Killer) to script Goosebumps.
The WGA announces its New Media and Video Game nominees.
Here are the nominees for the 24th USC Libraries Scripter Awards.
Did the Supreme Court finally lift the ban on TV’s seven dirty words? $#%@* no!
Three simple rules for shooting exteriors with available light.
Here are some movies that should not have been remade.
THR with their book deals of the week.
While overall domestic movie ticket sales were down in 2011, not so with indie chains Alamo Drafthouse and Landmark which went up 2.6% and 4% respectively.
And international markets continue to grow: China hit $2B in box office revenues and Russia hit $1B.
Could newspapers go the way of such business dinosaurs as Sears and Kodak?
Flavorwire: Terrifying superstitions in horror cinema.
Hulu now has 1.5M subscribers.
But Pandora now has 125M registered users.
A&E developing a Psycho prequel TV series called “Bates Motel”.
Here are 10 great documentaries about famous films.
A first-person essay from an SNL writer who no longer fears for his job.
Tired of the mainstream Presidential candidates? Here are 11 less well-known Prez wannabes.
Can small theaters survive in a digital age?
Finally nothing tops Trinity (TX.) vs. Millsaps in 2008 featuring 15 laterals:
SCREENWRITING MASTER CLASS TIP OF THE WEEK: Movies are primarily a visual medium, but that doesn’t mean we can slack off when it comes to dialogue. Hollywood script readers especially respond to a writer who knows how to craft compelling, authentic and entertaining dialogue. The 2-week online SMC course Core V: Dialogue gets all over this subject while teaching you the 5th Essential Screenwriting Principle: Dialogue = Purpose. The next session, taught by Tom Benedek, runs from January 30-February 12. And we’ve reduced the price to make the Core courses more available to you. For more information, go here.
Also it’s the last chance to sign up for the 1-week online course I will be teaching starting on Monday covering six types of story summaries: Logline, Synopsis, Breakdown, Treatment, Scriptment, Beat Sheet. You can learn more here.
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