Yesterday, A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson ruffled some feathers (and inspired a round of huzzahs from any writer, reader, or producer who's been slipped a screenplay by a friend-of-a-friend) by publishing a manifesto in the Village Voice decrying the widespread practice of asking acquaintances for free script notes. Today, Movieline takes a cue from Olson's welcome service to Hollywood's put-upon and exploited professionals, inviting someone from a different part of the industry to vent similar frustrations. Enjoy. (And learn.)
We know you've been working very hard picking out your headshot, but before you go looking for some professional feedback, you might keep in mind the following piece by All About Steve casting assistant James Overland.
I will not help you pick out your f*cking headshot.
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This week The Cold Case remembers Elvis & Anabelle, the 2007 indie that links Gossip Girl, the Weinsteins and Edgar Allen Poe.
If Prince Charming brought Sleeping Beauty back from her deathly slumber in the media-saturated 21st century, then he'd be plastered across the tabloids as a necrophiliac perv while she'd be hounded by Oprah for a tell-all interview. And that's precisely what happens in 2007's Elvis & Anabelle, a dark and dreamy slice of Southern gothic romance that's not too far removed from our previous Cold Case, Lawn Dogs.
Playing like a cross between Six Feet Under and Sixteen Candles, writer-director Will Geiger's indie pairs Max Minghella's mortician Elvis with Blake Lively's bulimic beauty queen Anabelle. When she snuffs it at the very moment she's crowned Miss Texas Rose, her body winds up on the slab of his family's funeral home, which he's had to run singlehandedly since his widower -- and hunchbacked -- father (Joe Mantegna) was rendered simple by redneck stupidity. Struck by Anabelle's beauty, Elvis gives her the kiss and she comes back to life. But this ain't Gossip Ghoul, rather an earnest exploration of an idea as readily found in kids books as tabloid newspapers.
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Unafraid of the holiday weekend that scared his premium-cable competition into reruns, Don Draper uncapped a virgin bottle of bourbon and made us all a fresh round of old-fashioneds on Sunday, shaming the diminutive, over-enunciating vampires and generously beschlonged man-whores who took the night off. Join us as we undertake our weekly examination of who's up and who's down in the Sterling Cooperverse with our Mad Men Power Rankings:
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The holiday weekend, during which we'll all hop from BBQ to BBQ to celebrate the memory of the labor we used to perform before prosperity disappeared down a black hole, is nearly upon us, and a long, difficult summer is finally drawing to a close. And so we pause to take a quick inventory of the thoughts that have been piling up in the corner, clearing out some mental cobwebs before we return on Tuesday, ready for whatever magic Hollywood has in store for us this Fall...
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Ever since Jeremy Piven was felled by his decades-long devotion to an all-fish diet so constitutionally disastrous that it would make even the heartiest Great White consider beaching itself for a restorative steak dinner, the celebrated Entourage star has had to defend himself against widespread allegations of goldbricking his way off of Speed-the-Plow each time he's had to hit the talk show circuit to promote a new project. Roughly five-thousand TV appearances later, Piven took to David Letterman's couch last night and finally convinced us to buy his story and see him as the helpless victim of a crippling toro-roll addiction.
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It was quite a busy week both in and around the offices of Sterling Cooper, a time filled with parties, petty larceny, and recreational drug use. So how did this night of jitterbuggin', pickpocketin', and weed tokin' affect the individual fortunes of Mad Men's always-compelling cast of characters? Join us below for this week's Power Rankings. You may be shocked at what you see! (Or perhaps not. The 60s, man. The 60s.)
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Earlier today, some new posters hawking Roland "I Don't Get Out Of Bed For Less Than Three Utterly Decimated Global Capitals" Emmerich's upcoming disaster epic 2012 were unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace like, er, a tidal-wave-buffeted battleship being dropped onto the Lincoln Bedroom. And, somewhat surprisingly, they're quite effective in raising our interest level for the film, even though we've already seen, and mostly forgotten about, the so-so trailer they released a few months ago. Why does this three-pronged one-sheets assault work so well, besides the reason it's the last Friday afternoon in August and we're ready to be excited about anything that doesn't involve flaming 3-D racecar parts flying through the screen to virtually cave in our heads because we once cheated Death? Let's break it down and find out!
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Exhausted the classic canon? Fed up with the current cinema of remakes, reboots and reimaginings? This week The Cold Case talks to Sam Rockwell about one of his most underappreciated career gems -- of which he's had more than a few.
"I remember being very influenced by Taxi Driver, and also Tommy Lee Jones in Coal Miner's Daughter a little bit," Sam Rockwell told me Thursday from his Boston apartment where he'd wound up after spending a day -- as he described it in his laid-back tone -- "mellowing out." "I remember thinking about those two particular performances for some reason," he continued. "I think because every guy struggles with loneliness, and being an outsider, it's tough. It was a really nice part to play." He could've been talking about Moon, this year's stellar, one-man sci-fi show for which, if there's any justice, he should receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination. But at the moment we were talking all about Trent, the sensitive redneck at the heart of 1997's criminally underseen Lawn Dogs.
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We've recently overcome our fear that Hollywood is the smack-addicted, childhood-ruining uncle who, after a bad run of luck at the dog track, occasionally shows up to rummage through our closets to find things to hock for his next fix; maybe it's just the exhaustion of being robbed, maybe it's that we're less protective of our toys as we age, whatever. So when we awoke to the news that Heathers, the beloved black comedy that taught us the best way to solve our high school problems was through creative homicide, is being revived for a TV treatment, our reaction was to resignedly throw open that closet door and point out the best stuff rather than lock ourselves inside and clutch our treasures to our chests while softly sobbing. To that end, Movieline is helpfully offering its suggestions on the casting of the series, hoping to speed along the project, giving us more time to prepare for the next time Uncle Hollywood finds himself a little short on cash.
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Say what you will about the British tabloids' record of accuracy in "reporting" Hollywood news (and you will likely say: "They will be correct the day that Big Ben hurtles into the sun straddled Dr. Strangelove-style by a tiara-swinging Queen Elizabeth") but they show a reliable flair for above-the-title moves so flashy that the average, risk-averse casting director dare not consider them without risking instant death by aneurysm. Squeezing off a tiny, nourishing drop of wholly invented bullshit into the parched mouths of movie and pop-culture bloggers who've been wandering the late-August news-desert in search of something, anything, to sustain them, the Sun today "reported" that comely Transformers robot-bait Megan Fox has "signed up" to play the next Catwoman. Great fake news! In the interest of keeping this particular nonsense-ball rolling, Movieline breaks down some other people who, like Megan Fox, also will not be playing Catwoman in the next Batman movie:
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Join us, if you will, for another leisurely stroll around the Sterling Cooper offices to see who's up, who's down, and who's running in place, pausing occasionally to chat with the gals in the secretarial pool or to press a highball glass against a closed door to get some insight into what's actually going on. Without further ado, your Mad Men Power Rankings for Week Two:
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Like millions of my fellow Americans obsessed with Bravo's Flipping Out, basic cable's searching portrait of how a man afflicted with the crippling one-two punch of Obsessive-Compulsive and Narcissistic Personality Disorders can parlay said handicaps into a lucrative career in short-term real estate and interior design, I had been breathlessly awaiting the premiere of the new season. Indeed, Jeff Lewis -- its star, its all-consuming center, its creator and destroyer of harmonious living environments -- haunted my dreams to such a degree that I often awoke in the middle of the night, tape measure in hand, to make sure I hadn't accidentally nudged the coffee table an inch too far away from the couch; failure to do so meant another night of Lewis's voice passive-aggressively hissing, "Well, if you want the entire room to be totally out of whack, I'm not gonna stop you. But I wouldn't be able to live like that. Like an animal, really," through a fresh nightmare.
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Julie & Julia opened with a $20 million box office weekend, Oscar buzz and the added bonus of a sales boost for Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Just like past film cancer clusters Armageddon/Deep Impact and Dante's Peak/Volcano, it won't be long before a studio rolls out another project with a celebrity chef/normal person pairing. Fortunately, the Julie & Julia recipe allows for easy substitutions. Here are a few ideas for the next course.
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Exhausted the classic canon? Fed up with the current cinema of remakes, reboots and reimaginings? This week The Cold Case talks to Peggy Cummins, the star of a stylish, gritty noir classic made 60 years ago this summer.
While film noir detectives, desperados and dames are known for their direct dialogue, the titles of their capers are surprisingly soft-boiled: Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Where The Sidewalk Ends... they're all pretty oblique. Not so one of the greatest -- yet least seen -- of the species. As a title, Gun Crazy hits you right between the eyes to describe its protagonist, Bart Tare, played by John Dall, who since childhood has been obsessed with firearms. Equally vivid, though, is the original-release title Deadly Is The Female, which perfectly fits the femme fatale of the piece, Peggy Cummins' sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr.
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Not to be outdone by studio rivals like DreamWorks, who recently looked inside a View-Master and found a new movie with each click of its slide-advancing lever, Warner Bros has just announced it's getting in on the potentially very lucrative toy-to-film game, partnering with Lego on a big-screen adaptation about every kid's favorite interlocking blocks and the sallow-complected, button-headed drones who maintain the structurally suspect edifices clicked together by delighted children. But what will the Lego movie look like?
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