Saturday Hot Links

Time for the 267th installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.

Critics’ Groups Weigh In: Your Oscar Frontrunners Are ‘Manchester,’ ‘Moonlight’ and ‘La La Land’.

Report: Jimmy Kimmel To Host 89th Academy Awards As ABC’s Influence Grows.

The IndieWire 2016–17 Awards Season Winners Guide.

2016 British Independent Film Awards: Full Winners List.

LA Film Critics Association Names ‘Moonlight’ Best Film of 2016.

WGA Awards: ‘Lion,’ ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ Among Films Not Eligible.

‘Newsroom’ Creator Aaron Sorkin to Get Writers Guild TV Honors.

David Edelstein: The 10 Best Movies of 2016 — and 6 More.

David Ehrlich: The 25 Best Movie Moments of 2016.

The Best New Movie Characters of 2016.

The Best Film Performances of 2016.

The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2017.

The 10 Best Undistributed Movies of 2016.

How to Make a Ten Best List in Five Easy Steps.

Lionsgate Completes $4.4B Acquisition of Starz.

Disney’s Best Year Ever: The Numbers Broken Down by Brand.

Star Wars 9 to start shooting early in April in anticipation of epic climax.

How the Universal Monsters Movie Universe Will Emulate Marvel Over DC.

Pixar’s Coco reveals cast, plot details.

Pixar’s Coco Is a “Love Letter to Mexico” in the Age of Trump.

Disney, Paramount, Sony Ink Deals With Spanish-Language Movie Dub App MyLingo.

Why This Year’s Animated Oscar Race Has Become the Most Competitive Ever.

The Hollywood Reporter’s 2016 Women in Entertainment Power 100.

Megan Ellison to Be Honored With Visionary Award by Producers Guild.

Sherry Lansing, Dawn Steel and Sue Mengers: When the Broads Faced the Raging Bulls in ’70s Hollywood.

The (Longish) Short Version of Why ‘Silence’ Took Three Decades to Make.

Suspenseful Animation: Morten Tyldum directs Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt in intimate sci-fi thriller ‘Passengers’.

How Do You Direct a Sex Scene: 10 Directors Tell Their Secrets.

How to make an acclaimed feature film for 10K, in ten easy steps.

6 Filmmaking Tips From Damien Chazelle.

Johnny Depp Tops Most Overpaid Actor List for Second Year in a Row.

7 Cinematic Trademarks of the Master of the Spaghetti Western: Sergio Leone.

Mark Duplass Says Therapy Has Made Him Okay with Not Being a Coen Brother.

Inside Llewyn Davis ‘Topps’ cards.

What It’s Like To Be A: Producer.

Film, TV Shoots Adopt Environmentally Friendly Practices.

Is the Euro Art House Dying?

Atom Tickets and AMC Theatres Team on Pre-Order Concession Service.

WME Names 18 New Partners.

Announced: WGA TV Nominations.

CBS Unveils Participants for 2016–17 Directors & Writers Mentoring Initiative.

‘Chicago Fire’ Co-Creator Looks Back on 100 Episodes: I “Thought We Were Dead in the Water”.

The Progress and Pitfalls of Television’s Treatment of Rape.

Showrunners Are Fighting Back Against Using Rape As a Plot Point.

The 17 best upcoming TV shows of 2017.

TV Premiere Dates 2017: The Complete Guide.

JJ Abrams, HBO Team Up for Space Drama ‘Glare’.

Frank Marshall, Peter Berg, Mandalay Sports Team for Olympic Channel Docs.

Peter Bart: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Taking Aim At Hollywood.

Ted Sarandos Says Netflix Will Roll Out ‘About 20’ Unscripted Series in 2017.

Netflix Has 30 Original Series Today, Will Double That In 2017.

Binge and a Breather: Netflix Finds 36% of TV Series Watchers Turn to a Movie Next.

More Than Half of All Video Viewing Now on Mobile, Tablet Viewing Flat.

Turner Inks Deal With Snap, Inc. to Create Original Series.

PewDiePie Hits 50 Million YouTube Subscribers, Says He’s Deleting His Channel.

The 10 Best Theater Events of the Year.

32 Writing competitions for 2017.

Grammy Awards Voters Embrace Diversity, But Black Is Their Favorite Color.

The 10 Best Songs of 2016.

YouTube Reports $1 Billion Paid to Recording Industry Through Advertising This Year.

GamesRadar+: Westworld, Episode 10.

The Hollywood Reporter: Westworld, Episode 10.

Indiewire: Westworld, Episode 10.

The Nerdist: Westworld, Episode 10.

New Yorker: Westworld, Episode 10.

Variety: Westworld, Episode 10.

The Week: Westworld, Episode 10.

The Wrap: Westworld, Episode 10.

Westworld Drops Its Full First-Season Soundtrack.

Critic’s Notebook: How ‘Westworld’ Saved HBO.

The Trippy Theory of Consciousness at the Heart of Westworld.

‘Westworld’: 17 Burning Questions After the Season Finale.

The Regressive Heteronormativity of Westworld.

There Are Two Westworlds.

4 ‘Westworld’ Fan Theories About Season 2.

Westworld season 2 starts filming 10 episodes in July.

‘Westworld’ Website Hints That This Character Survived.

‘Westworld’ Showrunners Explain Violent Finale, Set Up Season 2’s Expanding World.

Read: Endings are the new beginnings.

Listen: Scriptnotes (Episode 278).

Watch: Hitchcock & De Palma Split Screen Bloodbath.

Watch: 12 devilish sexual innuendos in Hitchcock’s VERTIGO.

Watch: Westworld: A Supercut Of Every Mysterious Question.

Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week

2017 will be the 7th year in which Tom Benedek and I have offered our unique curriculum through Screenwriting Master Class. It will also be the 16th year Tom and I will have taught in an online learning platform.

In fact, I totaled up some figures:

• I taught 31 online courses through the Writers Program at UCLA Extension. By the way, my average student evaluation was an 8.9 on a 9.0 scale.
• I have taught 77 one-week courses and 50 six or ten week writing workshops through Screenwriting Master Class.
• All told I have taught 158 online classes.

That is a lot of teaching! It should be no surprise that I wrote the handbook on online teaching for new UCLA Extension Writers Program teachers AND in 2005 won the program’s Outstanding Online Instructor Award.

Combine that experience with the 60+ years Tom and I have worked in the movie and TV business, I doubt there is anybody who can match us in terms of knowledge about the craft and business of screenwriting and the ability to convey that knowledge to writers in an online learning environment.

But what are the advantages of online education? Here are some:

• You can do pretty much everything on your own time. Download and read / listen to lectures. Track and respond to other writers in 24/7 online message board forums. Complete and upl0ad writing exercises and assignments. Quite literally, you can be dressed in your pajamas, sipping coffee in bed, and engage your online course.
• You can access your online course site anywhere, any time, and on any device such as a computer, tablet, smart phone, etc.
• You don’t have to drive anywhere to attend class, instead it’s right there at your fingertips.
• You don’t have to frantically scratch down notes from lectures since they are written or recorded for you.
• The feedback you receive from Tom or myself, and that of your fellow writers is much more thoughtful because people have time to compose their observations, rather than just speaking off the top of their heads in an on-site class setting.
• Your classmates come from all over the world. I counted it up and I have worked with writers from over 40 countries. This is a wonderful benefit in interfacing with people from widely diverse cultural backgrounds.
• You would be amazed at how much of a community writers form in our online classes. Indeed dozens of writers groups have emerged from SMC courses, some stretching back to 2002 when they began.

It’s not surprising that distance learning continues to grow in popularity, offering a winning combination of accessibility, flexibility, and affordability.

Given the experience Tom and I have both as professional screenwriters and educators, it’s clear to see why writers who have worked with us have achieved success in the business:

Screenwriting Master Class alumni have set up projects at major studios including Paramount, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures, TV networks including ABC, AMC, HBO, and USA, and signed with top agencies including CAA, The Gersh Agency, UTA, Verve, and WME, as well as managers including Circle of Confusion, Grandview, Lee Stobby, Madhouse Entertainment, Mosaic, and MXN Entertainment.

Indeed just this week, Pat Connelly who is one of my Quest writers, set up a Will Ferrell comedy at Legendary Pictures.

All of which is to say as you move into 2017 and look to upgrade your understanding of the craft, consider Screenwriting Master Class. If you’ve never taken an online course, try one of our one-week classes to ‘dip your toe’ in those waters. I can almost 100% guarantee you will LOVE Screenwriting Master Class courses.

In next week’s Saturday Hot Links, I will answer this question:

How do I best make use of the resources available at Screenwriting Master Class?

Until then, keep writing!