The Oscars Honor The Future

By Lars Trodson

The most significant event of Oscar night was not Kathryn Bigelow winning an Oscar as Best Director. The fact that this happened in 2010 is not something to be celebrated as much as it is something to be slightly embarrassed by. A woman wins an Oscar for making a movie 90 years after she gets to vote? Wow, America, don't go crazy.

“The Hurt Locker” wasn’t my movie anyway. I liked it, but I thought it was a series of sketches -- it had no narrative thrust, which is what a movie is supposed to do. James Cameron, with “Avatar”, proved once again he can keep a huge piece of machinery chugging along without leaving the audience behind, which is what a good director should do. But my movie was "A Serious Man", which I think was basically shut out from any wins.

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Two Adult American Comedies, Seventy Years Apart

By Lars Trodson

In 1940 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer spent a little money on an adult romantic comedy called “The Philadelphia Story.” It was, at least partially, a story of the very rich; the Lord family at the center of the farce was the kind of family that Grace Kelly came from. It’s the kind of family that probably still exists but doesn’t command the front page of the society section any more.

It was also a comedy aimed at adults. This was a mature comedy -- it wasn’t Andy Hardy or a Gene Autry western.

What got me thinking about “The Philadelphia Story”, oddly enough, was a movie that is about to be released called, simply enough, “She’s Out Of My League.” This is the story of a fella, we would call him a nerd, who suddenly finds himself vying for the affections of a very beautiful young woman.

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Seeking Illustrators and Photographers Who Worked With Bill Gold

Bill Gold is doing a book on his 60+ year career as a movie poster designer. The book will be approx. 450 pages and focus on the finished posters as well as the art that no one, except studio marketing departments, has ever seen. The roughs, comps and finishes.

Over the course of his career he has worked with many illustrators and photographers. Unfortunately, a lot of the fantastic work was never signed and Bill can't remember who was responsible for what on all the work. We are doing our best to find out the names of illustrators and photographers, but sometimes it's just impossible. We want to give credit to these men and women for the incredible work that they have created.

Anyone that has ever done work for Bill Gold Advertising please contact us at either sgold21@optonline.net or call us at 203-698-7775. We are almost in our final stages of design and are getting ready to go to press in May.

Thank you,
Susan Gold

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The Other Massachusetts

By Lars Trodson

 

Today marks an unusual event in movies. Rarely do you have two movies released on the same day that are directed by two legitimately legendary figures. It’s one thing if Michael Bay and McG release a movie on the same date, but quite another when its Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski.

 

And each of their films take place in Massachusetts, oddly enough. One, “Shutter Island”, helmed by Scorsese, was filmed at least partially in the Bay State. The other, “The Ghost Writer”, was made by Polanski. I read that Polanski had to shoot his film in Germany because, of course, he can’t visit America.

 

And while Scorsese shot some interiors and exteriors in Massachusetts, the trailer makes it look like some of it was also filmed off the coast of Transylvania, if Transylvania had a coast. I don’t recognize those high black jagged rocks that I see in the trailer. I expect to look up and see Dracula’s castle.

 

It reminds me of the time when I went to see a Jackie Chan movie called “Rumble in the Bronx.” There was a scene where these guys were playing golf on a course somewhere in or around that borough of Manhattan. Just behind the golf course were these huge, plush, tropical mountains. I thought, hmmm, I’ve never seen those before.

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Roundtable Pictures Wants To Review Your Movie

Have you made a short or a feature in the past two years that was virtually ignored by everyone except your local paper and your family? Still think the film deserves an audience, or at least a fair review? We'd like to help.

Send us your short or feature -- as long as it was made after Jan. 1, 2008 -- and we'll post a review. We're not going to promise we'll like it, but if you've read the kind of reviews we do here, you'll know that we're thoughtful and considerate. We're not snarky -- and, anyway, we know how hard it is to make a film and then have it dismissed. We've been there.

We're not going to review any porn, or torture porn -- simply not interested. But if you feel you've made something unique, or even just simply entertaining, send it to us, and we'll post a review not long after we get it. We're not promising we'll review each and every movie, but we'll do our best.

If you're still trying to sell your DVD, provide contact info (preferably a website) and we'll post that so people can get in touch with you.

Roundtable Pictures has been around for almost three years now, and we've got a pretty wide readership. We'll help to get your film a little attention if we can.

Send your DVD to:

 

Roundtable Pictures

2 Washington Center

Suite J-1

Dover, NH 03820

Thanks,

Mike and Lars

 

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The Rarest Gift

By Lars Trodson

There is a profile in the latest issue of Vanity Fair of a writer who, for a brief period of time, tapped so deeply into the psyche of the American teenager that he virtually defined the experience. He then walked away from it all but kept writing and writing and writing, mostly for himself, it seems, until he died.

The writer was John Hughes, leader of the Brat Pack, mentor to Molly Ringwald, scribe of “Home Alone” and creator of a trio of definitive teenaged movies: “The Breakfast Club”, “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Hughes directed his final movie in 1991, and went on to produce some curious remakes, such as “Miracle On 34th Street” and “101 Dalmations” -- and then he seemed to lose interest in the process. But he kept writing volumes of material, apparently right up until the day he died last year at 59.

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The Coen Brothers' 'A Serious Man': Personal, Jewish and Very Beautiful

  By Lars Trodson

One of the most exciting aspects of the Coen Brothers latest film, “A Serious Man”, is the debate that surrounds it. The fierce protection of the film by its admirers and the outright disdain from its detractors is a rekindling of the movie discussions of earlier decades. Is the film a profound discussion about the meaning of existence, or is it another misanthropic exercise from these sleek cinematic jokesters?

This is what people talked about when “Blow-Up” was released 45 years ago, or when Kubrick unleashed “2001” and “A Clockwork Orange.” It’s what cinephiles yakked about over beer and coffee when Peckinpah made “The Wild Bunch” and “Straw Dogs.”

Movie debates of late have centered on a reduction of that: those people that could not stand “Transformers 2” were yelling at those who lined up to see it; and those who lined up to see it simply gave the finger back.

It wasn’t very enlightening, and the paradigm had gotten tired long before that anyway. The debate wasn’t about the content of the movie, it centered on the question of how a movie so awful could generate any ticket sales at all.

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