Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts

The New York Times List of the Best Movieson HULU Handpicked Hysteria!

You’ve probably seen plenty of Victorian-era serio-comic dramas, many featuring much of this prestige cast, which includes Hugh Dancy, Rupert Everett, Felicity Jones, Gemma Jones and Jonathan Pryce.

But this is no starchy tale of class conflict or simmering romance; no, this is the story of how Dr. Mortimer Granville (Dancy), while pursuing treatments for “hysteria” (a onetime catchall medical term for troubles that affected women), invented the vibrator.

The director Tanya Wexler and her stiff-upper-lip cast clearly get a kick out of their randy subject matter and adjust their playing accordingly, while Maggie Gyllenhaal delights as a proto-feminist who seizes on this development and the power it contains.

A Very Special Interview: Shades of Love and Ken Atchity with Amanda Reyes! Happy Valentine's Day

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Unearthing great television... one program at a time

This podcast is dedicated to made for television movies and other forms of classic TV! Brought to you by Amanda Reyes (Made for TV Mayhem), Daniel R. Budnik (Bleeding Skull: A 1980s Trash Horror Odyssey), and Nathan Johnson (The Hysteria Continues), plus a few special guests who appear from time to time. With reviews, retrospectives and more, this podcast is your best source for classic television love!

11 of the best New York films

The Sweet Smell of Success (Credit: Alamy1. The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

If one film cries out New York, it's this classic, with Tony Curtis as the wily, ethically challenged publicist Sidney Falco and Burt Lancaster as the unscrupulous, powerful gossip columnist JJ Hunsecker. Set against what are literally the bright lights of Broadway and Times Square – gloriously shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe – Hunsecker lives in a sumptuous apartment, holds court at a nightclub, and makes and breaks careers. With a jazz soundtrack, The Sweet Smell of Success has it all: fame, ambition, backbiting – the very qualities that make the city so alive. Hunsecker's attempts at wielding political power give the story a timely resonance, and the chiselled dialogue includes the classic line from Hunsecker to Falco: "I'd hate to take a bite out of you. You're a cookie full of arsenic".

Do The Right Thing (Credit: Alamy)

2. Do the Right Thing (1989)

Spike Lee may be the quintessential New York director. His brilliant depiction of an ordinary Brooklyn neighbourhood on a blistering summer day remains a galvanising immersion into everyday New York with all its problems. Sadly, it is even more relevant as it depicts the racial tension that erupts between the black residents – including Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin Out and Lee as Mookie the pizza delivery guy – and Danny Aiello as Sal, the Italian-American pizzeria owner. The scene in which police choke Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) to death is terrible to watch because it seems so real. Jessica Green, curator of the New York museum's series, calls it "the definitive New York film because it's contesting with transforming neighbourhoods and questions of class and race".

The Naked City (Credit: Alamy)

3. The Naked City (1948)

Jules Dassin's crime noir, which follows two detectives trying to solve a young woman's murder, starts with an overhead shot of the city, and never loses it connection to the pavement those detectives pound and the neighbourhoods they traipse around, right through to a spectacular chase scene on the Williamsburg Bridge, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. The hokey voiceover is hilarious today, ending with the line, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them," but the film is a delight to watch. Goldstein, Film Forum's curator, has made a fascinating short, Uncovering the Naked City, following Dassin's authentic locations, and points to the texture of the film as its essential New York quality. "If you take those vignettes [of the setting] out, all you have left is a pot boiler," he tells BBC Culture. "You put them in, and it becomes this beautiful love letter to the city."

Breakfast at Tiffany's (Credit: Getty Images)

4. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

The image of Audrey Hepburn in pearls, sunglasses and Givenchy, sipping coffee outside the window of Tiffany's after a long night out, is as iconic as the Statue of Liberty. But while the statue stands for freedom, Hepburn's Holly Golightly is New York glamour itself. The dark side of her life as a woman to whom men give $50, supposedly to tip the ladies' room attendant but really for more, is glossed over of course, as the film makes her life of parties, champagne and fabulous clothes seem carefree and tantalising. Mickey Rooney's role as Holly's neighbour Mr Yunioshi now lands as an unforgivable ethnic stereotype, a blight on the movie. But Hepburn's performance as the backwoods Lula Mae, who came to New York and reinvented herself as Holly, is enduring. There may be no film that has attracted more people to New York, shown here as a glittering city of transformation and possibilities.

25th Hour (Credit: Alamy)

5. 25th Hour (2002)

This may be one of Spike Lee's least personal films, based on a 2000 novel by David Benioff (later co-creator of the television adaptation of Game of Thrones) but Lee transformed the story into one of the most eloquent yet subtle evocations of New York in the aftermath of 9/11 ever put on screen. The story follows Edward Norton as Monty, a convicted drug dealer on his last day before reporting to prison, but his regrets and fears play out in the shadow of a mournful post-9/11 moment that Lee establishes throughout. From the haunting blue lights of the Twin Towers memorial tribute rising in the sky to a Wanted poster of Osama Bin Laden, the background touches are uncommented on but part of the city's fabric, along with the simmering ethnic tension that is a constant in New York's history. Monty's and the city's sense of loss become inseparable. One of Lee's most underrated films, 25th Hour is evidence that he really is the best of New York directors.

It Should Happen to You (Credit: Alamy)

6. It Should Happen to You (1954)

Movies are filled with young women who come to New York to make their names, but none as effervescent or funny as Judy Holliday in this classic. Decades before the concept of "famous for being famous", Holliday played Gladys Glover, a model who wanted people to know her name, and rented a billboard in the heart of the city to do just that. Without explanation, it just said Gladys Glover, a sight that tickled her, confused the pubic and annoyed her romantic interest, whose on-screen credits read "Introducing Jack Lemmon". Goldstein says that when the film was shot, "They actually had a billboard in Columbus Circle that said 'Gladys Glover'. And people wondered, 'what the hell is Gladys Glover?'" The film offers a sly, sophisticated take on the hunger for fame, even if it ends with Gladys's unsettling – and today unlikely – choice to go back to being an ordinary person.

Taxi Driver (Credit: Alamy)

7. Taxi Driver (1976)

Sure, Travis Bickle could have driven a cab in some other city, but it wouldn't have been the same. Robert De Niro is seared into our memories as Bickle standing in front of his mirror saying "You lookin' at me?" But don't forget the atmospheric city he drives through in Martin Scorsese's dark vision of New York in the crime-filled 1970s. The night streets are full of bright lights piercing ominous shadows, a place where Jodie Foster plays a child prostitute whom Bickle decides to save, and Cybill Shepherd is the wholesome campaign worker he takes on a date to a sleazy 42nd Street porn cinema. Scorsese's direction and Paul Schrader's screenplay create the precise gritty landscape where Bickle's past in the Vietnam war and his disturbed present, haunted by PTSD, can flourish and grow, until his disgust with the city turns into violence.

Hester Street (Credit: Alamy)

8. Hester Street (1975)

The late 19th-Century neighbourhood of Jewish immigrants on New York's Lower East Side might stand in for all immigrants coming to the city over the centuries. Carol Kane was nominated for an Oscar as Gitl, a traditional young mother who arrives in the US from Eastern Europe with her young son to join her husband, only to find that he has changed his name from Yankel to Jake, and is having an affair with a more modern woman. Through Kane's eloquent portrayal, director Joan Micklin Silver's sepia-tinged period piece, much of it in Yiddish, raises a question that goes to the heart of immigration, then and now: "how can you retain your identity yet fit into this new world?" And in its own quiet way, it is a feminist work, as Gitl comes to determine her own future, a trope that plays into the bedrock idea of New York as a city of possibilities.

Moonstruck (Credit: Alamy)

9. Moonstruck (1987)

When Cher, in her Oscar-winning role as the widowed Loretta Castorini, tells Nicolas Cage, hopelessly in love with her as Ronny Cammareri, to "Snap out of it!" it is just one of those iconic moments in a romantic comedy that is as funny and charming as ever. The film takes full advantage of its authentic New York locations, including Loretta's Brooklyn neighbourhood, with the hair salon that transforms her from ordinary to glamorous, and the corner restaurant where she and her close-knit family are regulars. A date with Ronny takes her to Manhattan and Lincoln Center, where they meet at the fountain outside and where, inside at the Metropolitan Opera, she discovers the wonders of the building's grandeur and of La bohème. Moonstruck embraces the city's small corners, family feeling, unexpected romance and its internationally famous sites close to home.

El Super (Credit: Alamy)

10. El Super (1979)

There are dozens of under-the-radar gems about New York. This small and frankly hard-to-find indie about a Cuban immigrant family adjusting to a new life is among the best, a drama with a light touch, vivid characters and the feel of detailed reality. Roberto (Raimundo Hidalgo-Gato) is the superintendent of a large building, whose working class residents' lives are similar to his. He, his wife and their Americanised daughter left Castro's Cuba a decade before, a fact that shapes their desire for freedom as well as their inability to go back. But their story is also timeless as it reflects the ups and downs of living in a different, unsettling world. Exhausted and tired of the snowy streets, Roberto calls New York "the land of work and cold". He says, "This city is killing me, little by little," a potent reminder that even when New York is a dream, it is not always easy.

My Man Godfrey (Credit: Alamy)

11. My Man Godfrey (1936)

Nothing could be less authentic than this madcap Depression-era comedy, in which an indulged Fifth Avenue heiress named Irene Bullock, played by Carole Lombard at her most antic, falls for Godfrey, played by William Powell at his most urbane. She discovers him in a homeless encampment while looking for a "forgotten man" during a scavenger hunt, hires him as the family butler, and the film drops us into the reckless, thoughtless, comically disorganised lives of the empty-headed rich. The film's touch of social commentary about the underclass is diminished when it turns out Godfrey is highly educated and also from a wealthy family, but the Bullocks in their grand apartment, dressing for dinner, capture the cosmopolitan, aspirational image of New York that the movies did so much to foster. In reality, the Bullocks' fictional address would have put them on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the costume institute's annual gala proves that the frothy rich are still a captivating part of the city's story.

via BBC Culture

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Ken Atchity

Author

Awards & Accolades

Amazon Best-Selling Author

About

I believe we can change the world through stories. ‘The universe,’ says Muriel Rukeyser, ‘is not made of atoms, but of stories.’ I believe in making a difference in the lives of others through the power of storytelling, both as a story teller myself and as a “story merchant” who enables other storytellers to make a difference.”

Dr. Ken Atchity loves being a writer, producer, teacher, career coach, and literary manager, responsible for launching hundreds of books and films. His life’s passion is finding great stories and storytellers and turning them into bestselling authors and screenwriters–and making films which send their stories around the world.

His books include, most recently, novels THE MESSIAH MATRIX and SEVEN WAYS TO DIE (with William Diehl) and nonfiction books for writers at every stage of their career. Based on his teaching, managing, and writing experience, he’s successfully built bestselling careers for novelists, nonfiction writers, and screenwriters from the ground up.

Atchity has also produced 30 films, including “Hysteria” (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy), “The Expatriate” (Aaron Eckhart), “The Lost Valentine” (Betty White), “Gospel Hill” (Danny Glover), “Joe Somebody” (Tim Allen), “Life or Something Like It” (Angelina Jolie), “The Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes,” “Shadow of Obsession” (Veronica Hammel), “The Madam’s Family” (Ellen Burstyn). Full film bio at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0040338/

He was born in Eunice, Louisiana; and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, where he attended Rockhurst High School (and was editor in chief of The Prep News). After undergraduate work at Georgetown (A.B., English/Classics), and getting his Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale, he served as professor and chairman of comparative literature and creative writing at Occidental College and Fulbright Professor at the University of Bologna. He was Distinguished Instructor, UCLA Writers Program, and a regular columnist-reviewer for The Los Angeles Times Book Review.

As CEO of www.storymerchant.com, his Story Merchant companies, www.aeionline.com and www.thewriterslifeline.com, provide a one-stop full-service development and management center for commercial and literary writers who wish to launch their storytelling in all media–from publishing and film and television production, to Web presence and merchandising & licensing.

PRESS:

Newtopia Magazine Interview

Mongrel Patriot Review: Producer and Writer Kenneth Atchity by Tamara Spivey

A dreamer who realizes his dreams and helps others do the same, Ken Atchity has impressive credits in the worlds of film, television and publishing.

Published Book

Your VIP Biography: How to Write Your Autobiography to Land a Hollywood Deal

Amazon best-seller

Discover the not-so-secret Hollywood formula to a movie-worthy story! There’s a big market that’s hungry for a wide variety of personal stories.Yet for all the memoirs that grab Hollywood’s attention, many, many more fail to make a mark. Why do some stories get passed over while others are snatched up by Hollywood producers? This is what you’ll find out in Your VIP Biography!

On iTunes and Apple TV: Joe Somebody NOW PLAYING!

Joe Somebody

- Sem Classificação
- Common Sense Age10+
- HD
- CC

- Comedy
- 1 Hour 38 Minutes
- 2001

Everybody wants to be somebody and Joe Scheffer (Tim Allen) is no exception. But Joe feels like he's a nobody. A talented video specialist at a Minneapolis pharmaceutical company, he regularly has been passed over for a long-promised promotion. And Joe is faring no better in his personal life, as he still pines for ex-wife Callie (Kelly Lynch). But when Joe's parking space is snatched up by a bullying co-worker who then humiliates him in front of his daughter, Joe decides it's time to make a change. A complete makeover brings him newfound success, a striking new look and a quick climb up the corporate ladder. But will Joe's friends and family be able to love the new Joe as much as they loved the old one?

- Rent USD 3.99
- Buy USD 9.99

Steven Spielberg On Uncertainty... Listen to the Whisper of Your Dreams

Dreams always come from behind you, not right between your eyes. But when you have a dream, it doesn’t often come at you screaming in your face “this is who you are, this is what you must be for the rest of your life”. Sometimes the dream almost whispers.

And I’ve always said to my kids: the hardest thing to listen to – your instinct, your human personal intuition – always whispers, it never shouts. Very hard to hear. See, you have to, every day of your life, be ready to hear what whispers in your ear; it very rarely shouts.

And if you can listen to the whisper, and if it tickles your heart, and it’s something you think you wanna do for the rest of your life, then that is going to be what you do for the rest of your life, and we will benefit from everything you do.

~ Steven Spielberg

It was 26 years ago this month that the seed that would become the MEG franchise took root in Steve Alten's mind!

I was thirty-five at the time and living in West Boca Raton, Florida in a rented townhouse with my second (and present) wife, Kim, her daughter Amanda (age 10), son Chad (age nine), and our six month old daughter, Kelsey. I had moved down to South Florida four years earlier to open a Water Resources distributorship, hiring and training sales reps to sell whole house water treatment systems. We struggled to break even and I eventually closed up the office, running reps out of the townhouse. After a year I was the only one left and began searching for a new career. I tried several MLMs but never made a dime. And then, in August of 1995, I read the cover story of this issue of TIME magazine which introduced me to hydrothermal vents and the Mariana Trench, the deepest most unexplored location on Earth. I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if that prehistoric Great White shark I read about when I was a teen was still alive down there… hell, I’d read that book! Better yet…” I drove to the library in West Boca and found the picture of six nerdy scientists seated in a giant shark jaw. Researching Megalodon produced very little other than the fact that they were not like the marine reptiles that went extinct 65 million years ago, these sharks were super predators that only disappeared 2 million years ago or less…

As a sales manager and (before that) a basketball coach, I believed in the power of setting a goal (read THINK & GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill). Convinced I had a great story to tell, I set the goal to become a best-selling author. I would complete a week of extensive research at my local library (no internet back then), create an outline, and then begin writing the manuscript to “White Death.” Water treatment home demos ran from 4pm to 10 pm on weeknights and all day Saturdays, so the only time I could write was in the morning when I watched my daughter (Kim worked in a doctor’s office from 9am to 4pm) and late at night. Every morning I’d feed Kelsey breakfast, then pop on Barney while I wrote, editing the previous day’s 2-4 pages before working on new pages. At the time I did not own a p/c, the original 450 page (single space) manuscript was written on a word processor that could only save 3,000 words per file… ugh. Kim got home around 4pm and I’d head out to try and sell water systems door to door to pay the bills. Each night upon returning home, I’d say goodnight to my wife and worked from 11pm to about 3 am – often falling asleep on my keyboard.

QUESTION: How do you eat an elephant? ANSWER: One bite at a time. Same for writing a novel – you write a 400+ page manuscript a page at a time. By January I had completed the first phase of my goal (the manuscript); phase-2 was to get it to a publisher. With no connections or a clue, I purchased a book: How To Get Published which said I needed a literary agent.

Following the instructions, I wrote a 2-page query letter and sent it to every literary agent in the book that handled fiction. Of the 60 to 70 letters sent, I received about 30 rejection letters. The only interested agent was Ken Atchity at AEI in Los Angles. Ken believed my story had the potential to be a great book and movie – only it needed a ton of editing. He would assign an editor to work with me and teach me and then Ken would represent my manuscript to publishers, but his fee ($6,000) had to be paid up front. I didn’t have the money, but I did own a 1971 Chevy Malibu convertible my Dad had bought for me when I was eighteen. So I sold my car and borrowed the rest from a side job I had been working on and under the tutelage of my agent and editor, rewrote the book.

Meanwhile, I kept on writing every night and every weekend, and the new manuscript was amazing. In May, Ken and a producer associate (Warren Zide) optioned the first 100 pages of MEG and a treatment for the rest of the book on a first-look deal to Disney’s Hollywood Pics. And then, on Friday the 13th in September 1996 I went to work -- and was fired. Seems the Boys no longer needed me to babysit them. I drove home with no job and $45 in the bank. Kim was upset, but I said, “Don’t worry, hon – this is the best thing that could have happened - now I have more time to work on my next book!”

Steve with Ken Atchity and Joel McKuin signing his million dollar deal.

Four days later Ken started a bidding war between the top publishing houses in the U.S. for the pub rights to MEG and a treatment for a Mayan Doomsday story. We went with the second highest offer from Bantam-Doubleday, the pub who had published JAWS (a 2 book, $2.1 million deal) and the rollercoaster that has been my career over the last 25 years started up a steep slope.

In October, MEG was named book of the Frankfurt Book Fair, BDD optioning the pub rights to over 20 countries. In July of 1997 the hardback of MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror hit bookstores and in August the NY Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-seller list, buoyed by this interview:

What to read more? Subscribe to Steve's Newsletter at: https://www.stevealten.com/

Ben Wheatley on In the Earth and Why He Wanted to Direct The Meg Sequel

During the interview, Wheatley talked about where the idea came from, what it was like filming during a pandemic, what he learned from George Romero interviews about the horror genre, how he wanted to make something in relationship with Kill List and Field in England, how much he debates his opening and closing shots, why he doesn’t like deleted scenes, and more. In addition, he revealed the TV series he’d like to guest direct, his love of Blade Runner, and why he wanted to direct The Meg sequel.

For interviews, movie reviews, and more visit https://collider.com

#tbt - Hysteria

The truth of how Mortimer Granville devised the invention of the first vibrator in the name of medical science. Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy.

(Maggie Gyllenhaal) "For us it's mindless housework and doting on some halfwit."

(Hugh Dancy) "You can make some halfwit very happy."

(Maggie Gyllenhaal) "It's simply not enough for me, or for most women. Would it be enough for you?"

(Hugh Dancy) "Oh, I'm not most women."

#tbt - Life or Something Like It

"Destiny is what you make of it."

Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie), a feature reporter at a Seattle television station, leads the ultimate superficial life, even though she thinks she has it all, like a superstar boyfriend, a gorgeous apartment, and a shot at a big network assignment. Her perfect world starts unraveling after a homeless street seer (Tony Shalhoub) tells Lanie that she leads a meaningless existence, and will die the following week. When the savant's other predictions come true, Lanie begins to re-examine her life and priorities. Also, Starring Edward Burns as Pete Scanlon

Ken's Weekly Book Recommendation: Sell Your Story to Hollywood!

⁠

Through the expanding influence of the Internet and the corporatization of both publishing and entertainment, the process of getting your book to the big screen has gotten more complicated, more eccentric, and more exciting.⁠

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This little book aims to help you figure out how to get your story told on big screens or small. ⁠

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Available on Amazon

CMC Pictures Announces Future Movie Projects Featuring The Meg 2

CMC Pictures, a film company specializing in the production and foreign distribution of Chinese films, showcased its future projects including the upcoming "The Meg 2."

"The Meg 2" is the sequel to the successful 2018 Chinese-American co-production "The Meg." The original installment was directed by Jon Turteltaub, starred Jason Statham and Li Bingbing, and grossed 1.05 billion yuan in China, $143 million in America, and $530 million worldwide.

The follow-up will be directed by Ben Wheatley and may see the original cast reunited. CMC Pictures included the film in its annual showcase of upcoming movies as its key project, and will partner with Discovery to produce merchandise, develop animated content and conduct marketing for "The Meg 2."

In Conversation with Hollywood Film producer, Author, Literary Agent & Screenwriter — Ken Atchity.

The Entertainment Engine weekly podcast is providing helpful tips and information on navigating the entertainment industry across; Music, Film & TV for new bands, artists, actors, songwriters, and creatives.

With more than fifty years’ experience in the publishing world and over thirty years in entertainment, Dr. Ken Atchity (PhD Yale) has been called a “story merchant”—writer, professor, editor, producer, and literary manager. He’s launched hundreds of books and films, including New York Times bestsellers and Emmy-nominated documentaries, making over 200 films and television deals-with every broadcaster and every studio in Hollywood, and many independent film companies as well, including; HBO, Universal, CBS, Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, NBC, Discovery, Regency, and Fox 2000 Pictures.

More at The Entertainment Engine