Saturday Hot Links
Time for the 222nd installment of Saturday Hot Links, your week’s essential reading about movies, TV, streaming, Hollywood, and other things of writerly interest.
They Will Survive: Why Oscar Loves Tales of Perseverance.
Academy Considering Changes To Best Picture Nominees & Expanding Acting Categories To Address Diversity Issue.
Update: Academy to Double Number of Women and Minority Members by 2020.
Why New Oscars Rules Mean More Diversity, Mad Members.
Hollywood Conservatives Defend Oscars Voting: Racist Accusations Are ‘Insulting’.
Here Are the 2016 Critics’ Choice Awards Winners.
Critics’ Choice Awards: ‘Spotlight’ Holds Court, ‘Mad Max’ Claims Most Prizes (Analysis).
‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Crashes Screenwriters Choice Award Nominations.
Your Complete Guide To The 2016 Sundance Film Festival: Premieres.
Sundance Programmer Previews Films Tackling Gun Control, Talks Virtual Reality.
The Best Things Robert Redford Said on the Opening Day of Sundance 2016.
Sundance Film Festival 2016: An Insider’s Party Guide.
The 30 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
The Sundance Hot List: 10 Films Most Likely to Sell.
10 Sundance Movies With Heat.
Attack of the Sundance Listicles!
Sundance 2016: Titles That Have Buyer Attention.
Movies Sold at Sundance 2016: A Complete & Updated Guide.
For Your Consideration: Sundance is Still the First Place Next Year’s Oscars Happen.
See What Last Year’s Sundance Acquisitions Grossed In Theaters.
What We Learned From Last Year’s Sundance Box Office Successes.
The Best Movies of Sundance Film Festival History: 1985–1999.
The Best Movies of Sundance Film Festival History: 2000–2015.
Sundance: How Netflix Is Spending Huge and Annoying Studios.
Critic’s Notebook: Here’s Why You Should Care About the Sundance Film Festival.
Slamdance Film Festival Unveils 2016 Juries and Digital Bolex Lineup.
Slamdance Continues to Challenge Indie Film Orthodoxy.
50 Brilliant Screenwriters to Watch Out For.
Four Female Filmmakers are This Year’s Horizon Award Winners.
The Complete Lineup For The 2016 Berlin Film Festival.
China Box Office: ‘Star Wars’ Loses Weekend to Chinese Film ‘Boonie Bears 3’.
Ticket Prices Hit Record High in 2015.
Box Office: Massive Winter Storm to Inflict a Chill on Northeast Theaters.
LA Film, TV Production Flat Overall in 2015 Despite Tax Credit Boost.
An unbiased look — er, Mad Max fever pitch perspective — at the Best Picture nominees of 2016.
Paramount’s Risky Bet on ‘The Big Short’ Pays Off.
Why the young Han Solo movie is a bad idea.
‘Good Dinosaur’: Analyzing Pixar’s First Box-Office Disaster.
How Would the Ordeal in “Room” Affect a Kid in Real Life?
Elaine May to Receive WGAW’S 2016 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement.
Nick Hornby Discusses the Joy and Pain of Adaptation.
Quentin Tarantino Explains the Quentin Tarantino Universe.
Award Season 2016: Read The Scripts Of 18 Films By Women Screenwriters.
24 Movies That Were Written By People You’d Never Expect.
Luke Skywalker’s blaster from The Empire Strikes Back goes on sale for $300,000.
Hannibal Lecter Quotes Used to Prank Unwanted Suitor, Texts Go Viral.
A brief history of swearing in movies.
Here Are All the Movies Opening This Weekend.
Indiewire Acquired By Penske Media Corp.
Indie No More? Indiewire Acquired by Penske Media.
Billionaire Charles Cohen Builds Art House Empire.
Upstart Distributor A24 Is Making Indie Films Exciting Again.
Not a Joke: Univision Invests in The Onion.
32 Top Network Execs Dish on the Shows They Really Want, ‘Jinx’ vs. ‘Making a Murderer’.
Scripted Players Split on “Peak TV” and Streaming Deals, Bemoan Broadcast.
If The 30-Second TV Ad Is Dying, TV Networks Are Helping To Kill It.
Women are five times more likely to suffer sexism on television, research suggests.
Hollywood’s Diversity Problem Begins In The Writing Room, New Study Shows.
Whatever happened to television’s most famous couples.
Every ‘X-Files’ Episode Ever, Ranked.
Vulture’s Winter-TV Commitment Calculator: How Many Hours Will You Spend Watching.
HBO Now Airing 7.5-Hour ‘The Godfather Epic’ Featuring Unseen Footage, Cut Together Chronologically.\
Most Consumers Would Dump ESPN to Save 8 Bucks.
Netflix Hits 75 Million Streaming Subscribers.
Nielsen to Measure Online TV Chatter from Facebook Too.
First Two Films From Ava DuVernay’s Film Collective Array Come to Netflix.
Forget Hollywood: Vimeo Will Just Fund Female Filmmakers Itself.
Why Wikipedia Is in Trouble.
Wild West Novels Have Suddenly Gotten A Whole New Exciting Lease on Life.
How a City in France Got the World’s First Short-Story Vending Machines.
John August: What screenwriters mean by IP and YA.
Richard Brody: The Oscar Whiteness Machine.
Chicks Who Script: Episode 72.
Scriptnotes: Episode 233.
Watch: The Trailers for the Best Foreign Language Oscar Film Nominees [videos].
Watch: See the Biggest Blockbusters of 2015 Recreated in LEGO Form [video].
Watch: Short Films from the 2016 Sundance Film Fest [videos].
Watch: The Most Beautiful Shots in Movie History [video]. HT @Thepadtech
Watch: Four Films Race ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ at Breakneck Speed in Fastest Editing Supercut [video].
Watch: Go, Go, Go! The Engine Trouble Supercut [video].
Watch: 11 Memorable Glenn Frey Musical Performances [videos].
Watch: 5-Minute Supercut Takes A Journey Through The History Of Steadicams In Film [video].
Watch: 9-Minute Video Essay Counts Down The Top 10 Opening Shots Of All Time [video].
Watch: 11-Minute Video Explores James Bond’s Relationship With Women [video].
Watch: New Feminist Frequency Video Dissects the Trope of “Strategic Butt Coverings” [video].
Watch: 32-Minute Speech By Idris Elba About Diversity In The Media And Films [video].
Watch: 75-Minute Video Essay Breaks Down The Making Of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ [video].
David Bowie’s Son Breaks Social Media Silence to Share Letter from Palliative Care Physician.
10 Fantastic David Bowie Interviews.
Eagles Guitarist Glenn Frey Dies at 67.
Glenn Frey’s Death: Hollywood Remembers Eagles Legend.
Glenn Frey Honored by Jackson Browne With ‘Take it Easy’ Performance [video].
Screenwriting Master Class tip of the week: Some excellent upcoming courses aimed at upgrading your practical understanding of the writing craft.
January 25: Craft: Pixar and the Craft of Storytelling
presented by Scott Myers
February 1: Craft: The First 15 Pages
presented by Tom Benedek
February 8: Craft: Story Summaries
presented by Scott Myers
February 15: Craft: Writing the Low Budget Script
presented by Tom Benedek
February 22: Craft: Handling Exposition
presented by Scott Myers
March 7: Craft: Scene Description Spotlight
presented by Scott Myers
March 14: Craft: Character Driven Screenplay — Alexander Payne and David O. Russell
presented by Tom Benedek
March 28: Craft TV: Writing the Original Pilot
presented by Tom Benedek
April 4: Craft: Character Development Keys
presented by Scott Myers
April 25: Craft: Joss Whedon — Creating Characters
presented by Tom Benedek
May 2: Craft: Create a Compelling Protagonist
presented by Scott Myers
May 16: Craft: Write a Worthy Nemesis
presented by Scott Myers
May 23: Craft: Writing Scenes — Sorkin to Tarantino
presented by Tom Benedek
May 30: Craft: The Coen Brothers and the Craft of Storytelling
presented by Scott Myers
Each is a 1 week online class geared for people with busy schedules so you can do almost everything on your own time. You can also save nearly 50% and select any 8 as part of the Craft Package.
So check us out and learn to be a better writer!