Published Feb. 12, 2010

For those wondering where Joe Johnston would take his re-imagining of 1941’s “The Wolf Man,” the answer comes early. “The Wolfman” (one word, like Batman or Darkman) opens with a guy waving a lantern around a Victorian-era English wood, his onscreen life lasting just long enough for him to shout, “I know you’re out there,” before being promptly disemboweled. Johnston, directing from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, is serious about gore. Sadly, that appears to be all he’s serious about. Treating story as an unhappy chore to be rushed through—like foreplay or washing the dishes—Johnston wastes no time bringing Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro) home to the creepy estate of his equally creepy father (Anthony Hopkins). There, Lawrence attends the funeral of his little brother—revealed in that first scene to be a man of real guts—and falls on cue for the dead man’s sweetheart (Emily Blunt). Then he gets bitten by a werewolf—and if history has taught us one thing, we know what happens next. Full moon–triggered bloodbaths follow, each one loud and grisly enough to command even a torture porn–era audience’s attention. (more…)

Published Feb. 4, 2010

“My name’s Temple Grandin. I’m not like other people. I think in pictures, then connect them.” So begins the HBO biopic “Temple Grandin,” with Claire Danes announcing herself as the titular character—her shouty, unselfconscious voice reinforcing her “not like other people” status. Grandin, we soon learn, was diagnosed with autism back when doctors offered such news with a cigarette and the name of a nearby institution. But Grandin’s mother was not the institutionalizing type and instead devoted herself to molding her daughter into a productive member of society. Mission accomplished. Grandin would eventually become a celebrity in an obscure corner of the world: professional livestock handling. She would design a humane system for slaughterhouses through which almost half the cattle in North America now shuffle on their way to our grills. She holds a Ph.D. in animal sciences, teaches at Colorado State University, and has written two New York Times bestsellers. She is inspirational TV-movie gold. (more…)

Published Feb. 3, 2010

How noir is “Terribly Happy”? So noir that when the cigarette-smoking blonde with sex in her eyes explains where the bicycle-shop clerk ran off to, she says, “He just disappeared, the way people disappear around here. I’d better not say any more.” She then shuts up and skedaddles. That, friends, is pretty damn noir—just like the rest of “Terribly Happy,” a brisk ride from director Henrik Ruben Genz. Folks in Denmark liked it enough to make it their selection for the Academy Awards’ best foreign language film category, and there’s little reason to argue with the Danes over their choice. (more…)

Published March, 2010 (to open, double click on larger image after the link)

Tracy Morgan enters Bar Breton, a Flatiron District bistro known best for its haute burger, wearing a walking cast. The rest of his outfit is less than subtle. Besides the moon boot, Morgan sports a gray hoodie, a black do-rag, the dirtiest white sweatpants in the long and storied history of white sweatpants, and a leather bomber jacket with faux-fur collar and cuffs. Even if he weren’t the most famous black man on network TV, he’d draw some attention from this lunch crowd, smugly pleased to be eating comfort food from a Michelin-star chef. Morgan isn’t even at his table before one of these folks, a suit-clad, bespectacled man in his 30s, bellows, “Yo, what happened?” and motions to the leg. The question is not appreciated. “Why don’t you say hello first?” Morgan asks in a more subdued, nearly dread-inducing version of his trademark delivery. It has the desired effect. “I’m sorry,” the guy says. “Hi. How are you doing?” (more…)

Published March 17, 2010

Type the word “student” into Google, and the first option that comes up in the 10-deep list of autocomplete suggestions is “student loans.” Third down is “student loan consolidation.” Keep going and you’ll pass “student loan forgiveness,” “student loan calculator,” “student loans without cosigner,” and something called “studentloan.com” before you hit bottom. For the Internet age’s first generation of college graduates, the words “student” and “loan” have become nearly inseparable. In 1996, according to a U.S. Department of Education study, 58 percent of U.S. students graduated with debt, and those debt holders owed an average of $13,200. By 2008, the percentage of grads in the red had climbed to 66 percent and their average debt to $23,200. But the cost, according to Edie Irons, spokeswoman for the Project on Student Debt, extends even beyond those numbers. (more…)

Published March 10, 2010

“Hollywood East” isn’t the most imaginative nickname that Massachusetts’ burgeoning film and television industry could have been tagged with, but the Bay State media have made it stick. And goofily optimistic though the title may be, Massachusetts has worked hard for it. In 2005, under Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, the commonwealth was part of the first wave of states to institute film and television production tax credits. Romney’s Democratic successor, Gov. Deval Patrick, expanded the credits two years later. The program now offers a 25 percent tax credit on all in-state spending—more generous than nearby New York, which offers a 30 percent credit only on below-the-line costs, but less generous than competing states such as Michigan, which offers a 40 percent credit. (more…)

Published Feb. 24, 2010

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists will hold its monthly national board meeting Feb. 27. There, a subcommittee created last month is expected to recommend whether AFTRA should re-enter joint bargaining with the Screen Actors Guild on its prime-time television contract. AFTRA broke away from joint bargaining in 2008, when Alan Rosenberg, a vocal critic of AFTRA, was president of SAG. But since then, changes in SAG’s leadership have reopened the door to closer cooperation between the two unions. Ken Howard, who was elected SAG president last year on a platform that promoted the eventual merger of SAG and AFTRA, told Back Stage in January that a return to joint bargaining “will be a huge step toward mending a lot of fences.” (more…)

Published Feb. 17, 2010

The National Endowment for the Arts’ wealthiest days came courtesy of a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. For the 1992 fiscal year, Congress and President George H.W. Bush allotted $176 million to the agency—pocket change by federal budget standards, but still the largest haul the NEA has ever enjoyed. A few years later, Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich would declare war on the organization, succeeding in having its budget slashed from $162.3 million in 1995 to $99.5 million in 1996, and very nearly killing the agency altogether. (more…)

Published Jan. 28, 2010

Mark Zimmerman and John Connolly spent the last few years carrying on the work of their late friend Patrick Quinn. When Quinn stepped down as president of Actors’ Equity Association in 2006 to become executive director of the union, Zimmerman, then Equity’s 1st vice president, stepped into the vacated position. After Quinn died of a heart attack that year before he could assume his new role, Zimmerman helped recruit Connolly, a former president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, to take the directorship. Quinn, Zimmerman, and Connolly had been close, going back to their days as young actors on the Philadelphia stage. For a grieving organization, it felt appropriate to place Quinn’s legacy in the hands of his trusted friends. (more…)

Published Jan. 21, 2010

“I think viewers are going to be happy to see this lineup of great new shows that will truly fit the NBC legacy of quality, culturally defining shows.” (more…)