In case you haven’t noticed recently, the movie industry is in a bit of a slump.

The celebrities are off stuffing themselves with carbon-neutral soy turkey and suchlike, and the rest of us are still in a shallow coma from eating Grandma’s cooking for like three straight days since Thursday.  News is in a bit of a slump, so I’m gonna wax philosophical.  Because it may be a holiday, but the blogging got to go on, baby.

So I’m looking for some background noise whilst playing flash games and trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to write about since all my news haunts are deader than disco thanks to Thanksgiving.  It’s a great holiday–unlike a lot of people I don’t really have any problems with my family and a big free meal that lasts two days AND involves leftovers to which all I have to contribute is a seven-dollar pie from the local grocery is welcome any time of the year.  The pie, in case you wondered, was blueberry.  And it was AWESOME.  But anyway.

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Remember the last time I wrote about the antics of the Screen Actors’ Guild, plotting to go on strike in the face of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression and said this would be funny if it weren’t so sad and if the AMPTP weren’t also staring down a lawsuit from the Writers’ Guild of America as well?

Well, it’s about to get EVEN FUNNIER.

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Why, you ask?  Why is this not a huge surprise?

Why am I not even vaguely surprised that the Weinsteins are hemorraging jobs, dumping fully eleven percent of its total work force (cutting 24 out of 224 jobs)?

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So it’s clear by now that Twilight is well on its way to being one of the biggest vampire movies in a long time, roundly kicking the ass of 30 Days of Night, which proves you should never underestimate the power of fangirls in large groups.

What should be equally clear, especially after I mention it, is that the leads will be getting a POTLOAD of money to come back for the sequel, said potload representing a five hundred percent raise.

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Robert Downey Jr. is an actor who likes to speak his mind. Or someone else’s mind. I’m not actually quite sure where he gets his ideas from, like when he decided to diss DC a few months ago by claiming that he didn’t understand The Dark Knight. I really don’t know what there was to “understand” about The Dark Knight. I’m honestly not sure that RDJ does either.

His life and career have been a roller-coaster of ups and downs, from stardom to prison and back again. He’s on one his ups now, and hopefully it’s a permanent one - while many were skeptical at his casting (and Jon Favreau’s direction) for Iron Man, fans have fallen in love with his pitch-perfect portrayal of the alcoholic billionaire. While his snarky remarks about The Dark Knight were undoubtedly just pandering to fans - the guy has probably never picked up a comic book in his life - recently, he dealt out some much-appreciated honestly about the future of the Iron Man/Avengers franchise. [Read more →]

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Most reports suggest that this weekend is going to be a much-needed financial shot in the arm for the theatres, and for a panoply of reasons.

The first, of course, is that most everyone’s got at least some time off here.  Thursday, a federal holiday, is mostly a given for any business that doesn’t want to show up in the newspapers.  The only real exceptions here are emergency services, infrastructure things like the power company, or retail.  Friday is less of a given–people used to talk about how some big name or another–possibly Milken or Boesky–used to make people show up on the day after Thanksgiving, not do so himself, but call the office on a semi-hourly basis to make sure people showed up.  So basically, most everybody’s got either a four-day weekend or a modified three-day, and since the shopping is going to be like DEATH if you believe CNN’s relentless pronouncements, it means people are going to be stuffed full of turkey and not too interested in anything requiring either moving a lot or spending money.

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Thanksgiving is here! And yes, I know that “Over the River and Through the Woods” is not necessarily a Thanksgiving song, but it doesn’t mention Christmas, so by default it must be. Also I am pretty sure it refers to pumpkin pie. And yes, there are actually some Thanksgiving movies. If you find yourself lacking in holiday spirit, pop in one of these DVDs and bask in the holiday tradition.

“Hannah and Her Sisters” is one of those movies that has everyone. Within the first half hour, you’ll spot Woody Allen, of course - he directed it, after all - John Turturro, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Sam Waterston, Carrie Fisher, Mia Farrow, and even Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter. The one who grew up to marry Woody Allen. Yeah, that’s perfectly normal.

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So I was watching CNN tonight–I’m crazy about CNN, really–and they had that Eric character from Google on.  He was talking about how the Internet is becoming more and more a part of people’s lives

But this isn’t a business blog, so you KNOW I’m gonna link movies to this somehow.  And how I’m going to do it is via the simple and joyful expedient of horror film.

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We’ve seen it with Twilight, and with most of the studios’ planned releases for the next three months or more–it’s sequels and remakes until things get better, and everything else can go hang.

But the recent and shocking success of Slumdog Millionaire in theatres is putting a bit of a wrench in that operation, and with very good reason–it’s a good, original movie that people want to see.

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You know, a lot of unpleasant things have been said about Scientology.

Allegations of mind control, embezzlement, and even death have swirled around the organization for years now, and show no signs of relenting.  But when armed security guards shoot a guy out in front of their “celebrity center”, it definitely doesn’t help Scientology’s case one bit.

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