Saturday Hot Links
Time again for Saturday Hot Links!
Today: The Gore Vidal Memorial Edition!
LAT: Gore Vidal’s colorful career behind (and in front of) the camera.
Watch The Wizard of Oz in its entirety synched up to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”.
Indiewire: A dozen reviews of new indie releases.
Hey, all you U.K. based writers: BAFTA screenwriting series to be broadcast on Sky Arts 1.
35 modern words recently added to the dictionary.
Some news on Pixar’s upcoming untitled Día de los Muertos movie including video with John Lasseter.
Pixar fan builds a real-life Wall-e.
Infographic: The greatest books of all time.
Damon Lindelof talks about Prometheus.
Will Ferrell breaks down over StewPat breakup [video].
Yum! It’s National Sandwich month!
Post Aurora shootings: 20% of people still leery about going to the movies.
The only known footage of Mark Twain [video].
The 10 low-budget surprise movie hits of the last decade.
Brain images predict how smart you are.
About that Stacey Snyder to Universal rumor…
7 schools where streaking is an organized sport.
TV’s top 50 sci-fi characters.
The Austin Film Festival now accepting applications for internships.
Amazing story about an Alzheimer’s patient and what music did for him [video].
Jim Emerson asks of all those Greatest Films of All Time: Where’s the funny?
Scott Barry Kaufman: Geniuses are made, not born.
Gavin Polone takes on Nikki Finke.
Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” to debut on CW.
6 filmmaking tips from Alfred Hitchcock.
George Clooney to auction his $100K electric Tesla Roadster for charity.
THR: Which summer franchise films will get another chapter.
What comic book movies are on deck?
TIFF List 2012: An updated list of all films at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Read an unpublished 1936 F. Scott Fitzgerald story.
Average movie ticket price rises to $8.12.
The flying Pinto that killed its inventor.
How the Bourne franchise was reborn.
How much gold is in a gold medal?
Mike DeLuca back with On The Slate.
This just in: Embedding videos is not a crime!
Have A-list directors [Cameron, Jackson, Bay] become too married to their franchises?
The Hobbit to be three movies.
Warner Bros. files mass litigation against Amazon resellers.
Nielsen sued for billions over allegedly manipulating TV ratings.
Did the movie 12 Angry Men get it wrong?
12 knock-offs that will knock your socks off.
River Phoenix’s final film finally gets a release date.
10 suggestions for raising creative kids.
Ted Hope: 16+ thoughts on picking a producer’s rep.
Cardboard bicycle can be built for $15.
Variety: Cable biz struggles with divergent online strategies.
How do magicians know what cards you’re thinking of?
New Academy president: Hawk Koch.
Bob Dylan premieres new song on Cinemax’s “Strike Back.”
Steve Carell: “I’m not driven by stardom in any way.”
Here are 6 radio appearances by Christopher Nolan on KCRW’s “The Treatment.”
The five C’s of cinematography.
The 20 best opening scenes in TV.
The Producer’s Guild unveils jobs board.
J.K. Rowling building a Hogwarts style treehouse in her backyard.
Armory Films to finance $3M and under genre films.
How an 18th century mutiny may explain migraine headaches.
Will there be a prequel to The Shining?
Sidney Reznick, writer for Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson, dies at 92.
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: In almost every movie, the single most important character is the Protagonist. So guess what? You need to create one that grabs a reader’s attention and keeps it for 100 pages.
Question: How to do that?
That’s what we will be exploring in my brand new 1-week online class “Create a Compelling Protagonist”. Go beyond writing a ‘sympathetic’ Protagonist. Dig deeper than giving your Protagonist a ‘flaw.’ That is surface level writing. In this class, you will learn an approach that will help you craft a Protagonist worth writing… and reading.
Seven lectures, forum feedback, teleconference, and the opportunity to workshop your story’s Protagonist [or Protagonists].
It all starts Monday, August 13th. You can learn more and sign up here.
Don’t forget: Core II: Concept, a 1-week online class covering how to generate, develop and assess story concepts, begins this Monday, August 6. Your choice of a story concept is the single most important decision you make in any script project. This class offers a comprehensive take on the process. To sign up, go here.
And if you’re interested in TV writing, Tom Benedek has a new class: Write Your Own Original TV Pilot Script. That 10-week workshop starts August 13. For information, go here.