As we begin the new year, I strongly believe we are entering a period of great danger and even greater uncertainty. Events are unfolding within and without the movie industry that are extremely threatening to our studio. Some of you might be surprised to read these words. After all, wasn’t Disney number one in 1990? […]
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Pat Dollard’s War on Hollywood
In 2004, having made his name as Steven Soderbergh’s agent, Pat Dollard was the stereotypical Hollywood operator: coked-up, Armani-sheathed, separated from his fourth wife, and rapidly self-destructing. But when he hit bottom, Dollard didn’t go back to rehab; he went to Iraq, embedded with the Marines, and filmed a pro-war documentary, which has the industry […]
The Code of the Winklevii
More people now recognized the Winklevosses as either themselves or a recently cloned Armie Hammer, and Felipe assumed the proprietary grandeur of a Victorian circus impresario before some engagingly deformed beast. “These are the ones who came up with the idea for the Facebook, but had it stolen from them,” he explained to one and […]
What She Said
From the moment Kael began as a film critic at The New Yorker, at the start of 1968, she presided over the movies in the manner of BĂ©la Károlyi watching a gymnast on the balance beam—shouting directives, excoriating every flub, and cheering uncontrollably when a filmmaker stuck his landing. She spent much of her career […]
A Long Day at ‘The Office’ With Mindy Kaling
When she joined the show, Kaling was 24, new to Los Angeles and the only woman on a writing staff of eight. As she recalls in her comic memoir, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns),” to be published by Crown Archetype this November, she rented a small apartment on Fairfax Avenue and […]
Excerpt: The Hollywood Producer Who Survived Catastrophe
This is a Hollywood story, and it starts simply: A car drives through the streets of Los Angeles. It is March 2, 1994, and behind the wheel sits a man who has found a level of success that eludes the desperate majority here. Simon Lewis is a film producer and, at 35, an accomplished one. […]
Writers in Hollywood
To the writing of his detective stories Raymond Chandler brings the experience and the skepticism of a newspaper reporter, the narrative gifts of a born storyteller, and a mastery of pungent American dialogue. His leading character, Philip Marlowe, is a professional detective who has held the spotlight thus far in four novels, all of which […]
Blow-Up: An Oral History of Transformers Director Michael Bay
In 1998, a national magazine asked in an article “Is Michael Bay the Devil?” Thirteen years later, you can still buy T-shirts that answer yes. The 46-year-old director has long been treated by cineastes as the macho spawn of Ed Wood—a testosterone-sweating embodiment of everything that is wrong with modern Hollywood. (Those quotes up there […]
Don’t Have a Cow, Man
From an exchange of emails in fall 2001 between Judd Apatow, the creator of the sitcoms Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and a successful writer of Hollywood screenplays, and Mark Brazill, the creator of That ’70s Show. Topher Grace is one of the stars of That ’70s Show.
Hollywood Shadows: A Cure for Blocked Screenwriters
The writer was in despair. For a year and a half, he had been trying to write a script that he owed to a studio, and had been unable to produce anything. Finally, he started seeing a therapist. The therapist, Barry Michels, told him to close his eyes and focus on the things he was […]
