Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 211th installment of Saturday Hot Links!

Oscars: Why This Year’s Race is Still Unclear.

Oscars: 11 Under-the-Radar Performances that Deserve Buzz.

Oscars: 16 Films Enter Animation Race.

Studio Executive Roundtable: Friedman, Horn, Langley, Moore, Rothman, Snider.

Next Gen 2015: Hollywood’s Up-and-Coming Execs 35 and Under.

Secret Assistant Past: Hollywood Players Who Used to Fetch Coffee and Dry Cleaning.

Student Academy Award Winners Pick Favorite Films, Dream Team.

Box Office: ‘Spectre’ Needs to Make $650 Million to Break Even.

This Was the Worst Domestic Box Office Weekend of 2015.

Hollywood Studios Wade Into Virtual Reality.

Hollywood Studios Finalize Distribution Contract With China.

How Pixar Rescued The Good Dinosaur From Creative Extinction.

Bing Bong’s Death in Inside Out Was Supposed to Be Sadder, But Even Pixar Has Limits.

Ex-Paramount Exec Adam Goodman Reinvents the Production Company.

Activision Creates Film, TV Studio to Make Skylanders Series.

Former BBC Execs Build Bridge Between U.S. and U.K. With Bad Wolf.

7 Highlights From The 2015 British Independent Film Award Nominations.

Chernin’s Otter Media Aims for More Than $200M Revenue This Year.

AFM Staying Put in Santa Monica, Opening Amid Cautious Optimism.

Trend Watch: Why Woodlawn and Other Faith-Based Films are the Low Risk, High Reward Bet to Make.

Show Business is Returning to a Glitzier, Taller Hollywood.

Turner Classic Movies to Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Milestone Film Distributors.

‘Star Wars’ Fan’s Dying Wish to See ‘The Force Awakens’ Early Receives New Hope.

Dying ‘Star Wars’ Fan Sees Early Cut of ‘The Force Awakens’.

In Place of Giving Her a CGI Cover-up, Disney Will Reportedly Stop Making Slave Leia Toys.

Universal Exec Reveals Colin Trevorrow And Steven Spielberg Have Ideas For Next Two ‘Jurassic World’ Movies.

100 Women Directors Hollywood Should Be Hiring.

5 Dumb Reasons Why Hollywood Won’t Hire Women Directors.

How Women Executives and Producers are Changing the Status Quo.

Examining Hollywood’s Gender Swap Trend And Where It Needs To Go Next.

Disney’s 4 Years: The Women Centric, Directed and Written Films to Await.

Sony might lose its grip on James Bond.

Elaine May to Direct Mike Nichols Doc.

Police Boycott of Quentin Tarantino Expands to National Level.

Quentin Tarantino Breaks Silence on Police Boycott: ‘All Cops Are Not Murderers’.

Largest Police Union Cautions Quentin Tarantino: We’ve Got a Surprise Coming for You.

‘Steve Jobs’ Editor on the ‘Rush’ of Working With Aaron Sorkin Dialogue.

Aaron Sorkin Once Envisioned a Pixar Movie About Office Supplies.

Neill Blomkamp’s Alien Prequel Officially Shelved.

Jerry Bruckheimer Predicts U.S. Film Will No Longer Dominate Internationally.

Lost Disney Film from 1928 Rediscovered.

20th Century Fox Theme Park in the Works in Dubai.

Hollywood Moves Back to Demonic Possession Stories.

The 50 Best Opening Credit Sequences Of All Time.

The 13 Indie Films You Must See This November: ‘Carol,’ ‘Spotlight’ and More.

The 9 Indies to Watch on VOD This November: ‘The Hallow,’ ‘Entertainment’ and More.

The 5 Best Movies to Buy or Stream This Week: ‘Inside Out,’ ‘The End of the Tour’.

50 Essential NC-17 Films.

17 Banned Films and What They Tell Us About the Power of Cinema.

10 Essential Movies By Blacklisted Hollywood Writers.

The Unflinching, Beautiful Armor of Light Isn’t Afraid to ‘Go There’.

The Chicago Philanthropist Behind Some of Your Favorite Indies.

Here’s How the New Crowdfunding Rules Will Change Indie Film Financing.

Richard Linklater on the Promising Future for Film Distribution.

Harmony Korine’s $120,000 Painting Has Been Stolen.

After ‘Amy’, Chorus Grows for Hot for Music Documentaries.

Sundance and Jaunt are looking for VR filmmaking visionaries.

Watch: How to Light a Scene on a Budget.

TV Premiere Dates 2016: The Complete Guide.

Showrunners Moving in Front of Camera as Hosts of Their Own Shows.

No TV shows canceled? It’s another sign of how the industry is changing.

New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series a Go at CBS All Access.

Why New ‘Star Trek’ Series is Boldly Going to Streaming, Not Broadcast.

Disney Adds ESPN, ABC, More Channels to PlayStation Vue.

5 Ways Apple TV is Revolutionizing Streaming.

Fred Armisen and Bill Hader to Receive Smithsonian Magazine’s American Ingenuity Award.

Jon Stewart Seals 4-Year Deal with HBO.

Showtime’s ‘Twin Peaks’ Revival Pushed to 2017.

BBC to Launch Shakespeare Online Festival.

Streaming Smackdown: Comparing the 10 Top Services, Costs and What They Offer.

Next Gen 2015: YouTube’s Top 30 Influencers.

Facebook Now Has More Than One Billion Users Every Single Day.

Twitter Ditching Stars Is All About Snagging New Users.

Twitter Data Chief Defends Decision to Switch Stars to Hearts.

Hamilton Is the Most Popular Cast Recording in 50 Years.

Nearly Two-Thirds of Theater Productions Written by White Male Playwrights.

Keira Knightley on the Lack of Women Playwrights on Broadway: “There Are Very, Very Few” Interesting Roles”.

Grantland: In Memoriam.

Pandora Picks Up “Serial,” “This American Life” With Streaming Exclusive.

Amazon: The Bricks & Mortar-ing.

Why Amazon built a bookstore.

Looking for Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles.

Terrible Minds: Writing Advice Is Bull Shit.

The Bitter Script Reader: Saluting the end of Amanda Pendolino’s blog.

The Bitter Script Reader: The wrongness of “No one knows anything”.

Writers’ Room 101: TV Writing in the Internet Age.

Scriptnotes: Episode 222 (Live from Austin Film Festival).

Vulture: Fargo and the Art of Adaptation.

Women In Hollywood: Episode 19.

Melissa Mathison, ‘E.T.’ Screenwriter, Dies at 65.

Colin Welland, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘Chariots of Fire,’ Dies at 81.

Watch: The Anarchy of Influence: On ‘Fight Club,’ ‘Mr. Robot,’ and ‘The Leftovers’ [video].

Watch: The Significance & Importance of Movie Props [video].

Watch: Here Are Six Big Movies That Recycled Footage from Other Movies [video].

Watch: 9-Minute Video Essay Explores How Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ Changed Post-WWII Cinema [video].

Watch: Detailed 16-Minute Supercut Highlights Every James Bond Gadget Ever [video].

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: Nearly everything I’ve ever read on the subject of ‘theme’ in relation to screenwriting has felt either confusing or impractical.

What does theme mean? How should we understand it? How can we use it in our writing?

The ironic thing is theme is incredibly important:

* Important in helping us find the focus of our story.

* Important in mining the story’s emotional and psychological depth.

* Important in elevating the impact of the events that transpire in our story.

That is why I created Core VII: Theme. And starting Monday, November 16, I will be teaching this unique one-week online screenwriting class.

The course consists of six lectures I wrote, 24/7 message board discussions, insider tips, and an optional writing exercise to workshop one of your stories. All of those you can do on your own time, everything from downloading and reading lectures to posting comments.

There is also a 90-minute teleconference between class participants and myself where we discuss the course content and anything screenwriting related.

In this class:

• You will learn a coherent take on theme, how it relates to the overall story, and tips on how to weave thematic material into your scripts.
• You can put to use what you have learned by workshopping one of your own stories.

Scripts we will study in the class: The King’s Speech, The Silence of the Lambs, Tootsie, The Shawshank Redemption, Bull Durham, As Good As It Gets, The Dark Knight, The Social Network among others.

When I introduced this class, the response from participants was hugely favorable, the major sentiment that this approach to theme not only clears up a confusing subject, but also provides practical tools a writer can use to work with themes in their own stories. Like this testimonial:

Your “Theme” class for aspiring screenwriters is not just helpful, it is essential. From the personal attention to the numerous “A-Ha!” moments throughout the class, I was thrilled to simply KEEP LEARNING. How many teachers can boast about that with their students? — Heather Thompson

So sign up now!

I look forward to working with you!