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Post by crowblack on Jul 28, 2023 19:24:32 GMT
Minack (?) theatre garden on gardener's world right now
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Post by crowblack on Jul 27, 2023 10:44:32 GMT
Is there any likelihood of writers, actors forming their own production studios like early Hollywood's United Artists or UPA (the latter founded by animators in the 1940s after a strike)?
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Post by crowblack on Jul 26, 2023 15:34:46 GMT
Bit dusty in the basement here .. Tonight there's a novel piece on BB4 at 11.05, hopefully on the iplayer as well. Bertolt Brecht’s Baal, starring one David Bowie (from 1982) - it's only an hour long. There's also a 10-minute piece beforehand with Zoe Wanamaker talking about it. The Telegraph has a piece, probably behind a paywall (I posted a link before about how to circumnavigate). Wonderfully talented in so many respects, though acting wasn't one of them: www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/david-bowie-bbc-brecht-baal/Good to see some Alan Clarke getting an outing: I thought there were some nods to the 1970s David Rudkin / Alan Clarke film Penda's Fen in the first episode of The Sixth Commandment last week too. Looking at the Radio Times, Baal was originally shown at 9.30 on BBC 1 in the early 80s, not tucked away late at night as such films are now.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 20, 2023 19:58:35 GMT
Also seeing on Twitter a lot of anger about Universal studios apparently cutting back the leaves on trees by the studio that were providing shade for strikers (and nesting habitat for birds, which may mean this is unlawful).
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Post by crowblack on Jul 20, 2023 13:50:27 GMT
Popular tweets on this today: "Extreme tinfoil hat theory is that studios have been juicing their streaming numbers and they don’t want to pay residuals on a ton of fake views" "They’re in a bind. Admit to shareholders numbers are inflated. Lose value. Pay less residuals. Keep inflating numbers. Shareholders happy, have to start paying creatives more."
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Post by crowblack on Jul 19, 2023 11:14:08 GMT
Really surprised that it has had hardly any advertising and I could have easily missed it. True - I was aware of it because I follow the screenwriter Sarah Phelps on Twitter, but other than that I haven't noticed much in the way of publicity, though I've seen trailers for other BBC shows multiple times.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 19, 2023 8:47:03 GMT
I heard 'Johnny Cash sings Barbie Girl' on the radio yesterday. I was also wondering, how far off are we from a situation where we could simply scan in, say, some old 2000AD stories from the comics and AI would use them as a storyboard and create a movie? Or a novel - choose your actors, choose a directorial style: whatever wills and agreements hold regarding legal licences in the US won't mean much in a globalised world (for example, there's a Russian ad at the mo using a living Hollywood star's AI likeness).
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Post by crowblack on Jul 18, 2023 22:55:11 GMT
Indies like David Lowery's are being given the go ahead to carry on production.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 18, 2023 17:35:20 GMT
The Sixth Commandment is superb so far: we watched episode one yesterday, though all four episodes are already on iplayer. It's based on a real murder case but very sensitively done.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 18, 2023 9:03:46 GMT
gee some people are just vying for conflict all the time arent they. winging because they dont like the title. winging because they dont like the format. without even having seen it. This play is trying to stand up for a marginalised community. Go see it. Give it a chance. Open your mind. Learn something. Be challenged. Or stay comfortably ignorant. Your choice. I'm not whingeing about the title. As a sometime writer myself I am curious about its impact. It's an unusual, very atypical, spiky title - very noticeable but also potentially offputting to some. In my experience, the more youth-oriented or punky plays at the RX are staged in the studio space which it easily packs out. I'd like to see it but my health isn't good at the moment and a combi of that plus the shocking state of public transport (had several experiences pre lockdown of trains home from mancs being cancelled) means I haven't managed to make it to any of the shows I've booked since lockdown ended, when I used to see several plays a month.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 18, 2023 8:54:55 GMT
The AI issue kind of overlaps deep fakes. If you've ever used the Reface app, you know how easily and quickly your likeness can replace a film star on that platform. Like everyone else, I was bored out of my mind during lockdown, and played with Reface, shocked at how easily it transposed my face onto Elizabeth Taylor's and Julie Andrews' faces. The technology already exists. Corporate Hollywood is risk averse and looking to maximize profits. Using AI to create non-human background players is going to save money when it comes to paying performers. I'm sure they'll find a way to create templates for the bodies and costuming (pity the poor, overworked EFX people) to create more efficiencies at the expense of union/guild members. It won't happen, but Hollywood needs a clear out and reset: creatively much of it is a stagnant pond, hugely focussed on old IP. The remake culture will be screwed when we can simply do it ourselves through AI, which is probably not that far off. How many years before we can simply enter a storyline, setting, actors whose faces we like, even friends and family, into a film generator and up it pops? Just looking at all those 'Lord of the Rings if it was Wes Anderson' things a few weeks ago, or the current ad for the women's football refacing female players with male (it's a feminist ad - though one feels the same could be done with movies in those regions where women's faces are forbidden to be seen). To quote a line from the old cartoon LOTR, that's doom's footstep for a sector of the industry, the part that has relied so heavily on 'toybox' movies rather than the sort of serious fare for mature audiences that Hollywood was built on in the 20thc.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 16, 2023 20:16:00 GMT
Loads of empty seats so doesn't seem to be selling well Title maybe putting off an older crowd?
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Post by crowblack on Jul 14, 2023 15:28:59 GMT
And when the writers union is demanding 10-20 writers and a certain make-up in the writers room at one time, Hollywood is going to look at that and scoff at it. Too many cooks in the kitchen. Many of the most popular and well received shows were the result of one of two people's vision. And given the decreasing quality in film scripts over the past few years I have less sympathy for a lot of these writers. Inevitably the writing jobs will shrink and Hollywood is going to rely on a few writers who can deliver quality scripts. Agree on this to some extent - Hollywood now is a shadow of its former self creatively, mostly turning out films which could just as well have been written by AI: feed a bunch of old Star Wars toys or Marvel comics plus 'Save the Cat' into a script generator and away you go, or remake your cartoons as live action or vice versa. Barbie and Oppenheimer will likely be the tentpole films of the year and the first of them is yet another toybox movie.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 14, 2023 14:57:17 GMT
The film slate for the rest of 2023 will be unaffected They can't have the cast doing red carpet premieres, the round of publicity interviews, fan conventions and the like though. Would the studios want to launch them without that? And there's the whole employment knock-on from that of photoshoots, magazine interviews, fashion spreads...
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Post by crowblack on Jul 14, 2023 13:45:28 GMT
It might give some overlooked TV shows a chance to shine too - and I wonder if Netflix are now regretting their stupid decision to axe the UK-made Lockwood and Co after one, well received, series?
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Post by crowblack on Jul 14, 2023 13:34:47 GMT
They're halting filming on Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2 too, which has been filming on massive sets in Malta with a European/UK & US cast. They had already reportedly delayed the start date of filming to accommodate Mescal's Streetcar West End run. Given the heat round the Med right now, a pause might be a relief!
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Post by crowblack on Jul 6, 2023 14:47:58 GMT
Haven't heard anything, but did see another trailer from their Twitter account this week.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 4, 2023 20:51:42 GMT
The super BBC film 'Eric and Ernie' is repeated tonight on BBC4 (hopefully on ipleyer too)
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Post by crowblack on Jul 3, 2023 19:58:43 GMT
I interpreted it as clinical depression or a similar mental illness coming from within himself - he's very withdrawn and comes across as depressive, shown balancing precariously on a balcony rail, walks into the sea, and at one point says he's surprised he made it to 30. That the daughter has the treasured rug at the end suggests he's died and she has kept it as a memento
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Post by crowblack on Jul 3, 2023 8:41:18 GMT
Prompted by this thread, I've just watched Aftersun through Mubi. Great performances but agree that dialogue was hard to hear: this isn't an accent issue, but when dialogue is rare and supposed to be important, it helps if you can understand what's being said! It was atmospheric but tbh I found it slow until the latter half, when more of a sense of dread came in. We had many difficult holidays, and I know what it's like to be a kid stuck somewhere strange with a distressed parent and no money, but the scenario in the film didn't ring true for me: how many 11 year old girls are upbeat, chirpy and content sitting around a poolside at a budget hotel in the middle of nowhere for a week with their sad dad, away from friends, liveliness, music, telly, mags, news? And if the father is poor, too skint even for the budget hotel's perks, he will not have £850 for a rug. That's a lot of money now - even more in the 1990s. This feels like a plot element here is the rug in the woman's flat in the present day, an heirloom presumably because he committed suicide by a filmmaker who I presume doesn't know what it's like to really live, struggling, on a low income. It's good to see a promising new filmmaker emerge and glad a low budget film is getting a lot of fuss, and I'm interested to see what she does next, but hope it doesn't have Barry 'snail's pace = arty' Jenkins as producer again.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2023 11:41:32 GMT
Well, this is definitely telling me not to book a hotel unless I pay even more for a cancellable rate. I haven’t been down since Sept 21 and it’s looking like Miss Scherzinger might have to get through her run without me! If you're able to travel at very unpopular times of the day/weekday you may be luckier for cheaper tickets (sorry if that's stating the obvious).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2023 8:49:13 GMT
Resurrecting this thread. What the actual F is going on with Avanti West Coast? Do they want people to use their trains or not? Just doing some experimental searches in Trainline for 12 weeks in the future to see prices for Manchester/London to see what to expect when I book for Sunset Boulevard in November. You can’t book a return ticket and even singles are showing as limited availability three months ahead of the date of travel. What’s going on? Travel experts… help! Note: don’t suggest a coach. I can’t do 5 hours on a coach 😕 I haven't been able to attend any of the London shows booked since the pandemic, almost all thanks to Avanti (one was Avanti plus flu). When they are running, the weekend timetables have been very last minute and there don't seem to be any cheap seats, or if there are they must go instantly (I signed up to notification emails but didn't get them).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 28, 2023 9:38:55 GMT
A reverse example is that Arthur Miller was ignored in USA for many years around the 1970-80s and found it hard to get his new plays produced while his reputation was still high in UK. It was wall-to-wall Arthur Miller in my all-girls school (I'm still p-ed off about this: other 20thc dramatists are available!).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 27, 2023 16:44:19 GMT
Howard Brenton another but I don’t think either are quite as lionised in Europe as Bond is. At one time the RSC used to champion that type of British playwright who had limited purely commercial appeal, Peter Barnes, John Whiting. Now no-one does. Yes, I just missed the RSC Red Noses, but saw the War Plays in the Barbican pit when I was a teenager with Ian McDiarmid and Gary Oldman in the cast (it was the production film director Alex Cox saw when casting Sid and Nancy).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 19, 2023 11:34:56 GMT
I think Norris has done a decent job in difficult circumstances. It's a very changed landscape, with obvious pressures like Covid and austerity plus social media cancel culture and pile-ons meaning that constant looking over your shoulder with both new and old work that is impacting the arts these days, and operating at a time of 'peak TV' which is taking some great established and upcoming actors away from theatre. Fwiw I am glad we are hearing more diverse voices, and I don't come away from plays at the NT that deal with difficult complex topics feeling I've been hectored and lectured for 2 hours rather than seeing a well constructed and entertaining play, in the way I do from some other London theatres.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 17, 2023 15:31:44 GMT
I think NT Live and NT at Home have really taken off under Norris. Was a time, in the recent past, the only recorded material went into the V&A archive and you'd have to book a computer screen in west London to watch it. Yes, it's been very welcome. I remember having lengthy arguments on this site where posters kept telling me how very unlikely an at home streaming NT Live scenario would be, but then along came Covid and here we are! Friends and family with limited mobility and/or income have been able to see plays they would not otherwise be able to access physically at all, and living in the NW of England and with soaringly expensive and very unreliable transport to London it's been a godsend. We've watched and discussed plays together on 3 continents for our international book group. It's no doubt introducing a new generation to plays through the chance to see TV and movie star actors in earlier roles, and hopefully will encourage these youngsters to make real theatre visits in the wake of that.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 11, 2023 9:48:34 GMT
I wish we did have ID cards in the UK - Blunkett tried to bring them in in the early 2000s but was thwarted. Almost all other European countries have them and it would be less intrusive than being asked to show the ticket office a letter detailing your health issues as I have sometimes been asked to do when going into a theatre or gallery (it would also make human trafficking and exploitation more difficult!).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 2, 2023 19:36:43 GMT
[Deleted because it was personal about my experiences as a disabled person and the blanket notion of privilege]
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Post by crowblack on Jun 2, 2023 19:20:12 GMT
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Post by crowblack on Jun 1, 2023 22:36:58 GMT
Not working for me either, but you can google it and it comes up.
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