In Contention

Tag: Peter Bart

  • 5/21 Web Round-up

    Sasha Grey• AFI launches its own YouTube channel. [YouTube]

    • Robin Sanders reports on the Stephen Frears event from Cannes. [indieWIRE]

    • The wars continue: Patrick Goldstein lays into Peter Bart (and Variety) once again for being soft on the industry. [The Big Picture]

    • Lionsgate launches an impressive new website for festival Sensation “Precious.” [WeAreAllPrecious.com]

    • Chris Lee talks to “The Girlfriend Experience” star Sasha Grey. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Kim Voynar, meanwhile, dissects Grey’s character and wonders whether the film objectifies women. [Movie City News]

    • The publicity floodgates open for “Terminator Salvation,” starting with Irina Aleksander’s interview with the film’s rookie producers. [New York Daily News]

    • Todd Gilchrist, meanwhile, corners director McG. [Cinematical]

    • And finally, headline of the day, from John Anderson’s review of the film: “Hasta La Levity, Baby.” [Washington Post]

    • Aha, headline of the day #2: “Tarantino ‘Basterd’-izes Cannes. Such sweet truth. [USA Today]

  • Changes at Variety

    Congrats to Tim Gray, who will be stepping up to take vacating editor-in-chief Peter Bart’s job at Variety.  Bart “will assume a new role as vice president and editorial director of Variety,” this staff article reports.  “[He] will continue to contribute his weekly column as well as his blog and serve as Variety’s ambassador in public venues, on television, on the web and at industry events.”

  • Waiting on the blog-o-rage

    BloggingI’ve been kinda, sorta keeping up with some Twittered reactions to the recent blogger smack downs by Cynthia Littleton, Michael Fleming and editor-in-chief Peter Bart, but curiously, no reaction from the peanut gallery…yet.  It’s a lazy Sunday, after all.

    In a nutshell, it seems with this trinity Variety has called for us all to get along.  The usual names are brought up in connection to incessant, unbearable cyber-squabbling: Jeff Wells, David Poland, Nikki Finke, Patrick Goldstein.  Sharon Waxman’s name is tossed into the hat as well, but why can’t anyone just say it?  Finke and the traffic she has generated as a result of questionable (and certainly grating) practices has put the fear into industry professionals and competetive journalists.  She is the 21st Century bad apple and she’s spoiling the bunch.

    Sadly, some smart people seem to consistently be taking her lead when it comes to sand box tactics.  If smart, longtime journalists like Goldstein and Waxman are being pulled down to her level, what can we expect of other naturally competitive and snarky writers?

    I’m in no position to stand on a soap box so I won’t.  I’ve been in my fair share of online spats and felt stupid afterwards.  Usually my bone of contention will stem from a beef on a writer’s representation of a film, hardly a fight for it’s own sake or a competitive drive to amp up the hits.  But I do hate what Finke is and has been doing and it should be brought up in a certain light.

    All of that said, I think Variety is putting itself in a precarious position by unleashing three editorials on this issue in the same day, one of them from an old media type who is widely (and wrongly) known as “hating” bloggers.  So far, no reaction, but I expect it to come soon.  And I don’t think it’ll be pretty.

    (A few greatest hits from the three pieces after the jump.  And click the pic for a larger version, by the way.)

    (more…)

  • Bart’s ‘non-Oscar’ list

    Variety’s Peter Bart is spinning his Oscar wheels at his new blog. The post is a efw days old at this point, but his “non-Oscar list” is a cute little aside worth a look. He chalks actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Sarah Jessica Parker up as being on the list by sheer fact that they’re in bona fide hits (to say nothing of bias against the former and quality of the latter, of course).  But the move toward the unpopular is the point he’s driving at, and a look at the Oscar telecast’s ratings the last few years tells that tale clear enough.

    Here’s a glimpse at his logic:

    A generation ago, Oscar voters were tolerant of success — witness such best picture winners as “The Godfather,” “The Sting,” and, god forbid, “The Sound of Music.” However, a curious bipolar behavior has set in lately. Members of the Academy serve dutifully as professionals in the industry throughout the year, going about their tasks of producing, acting, editing, composing, etc. Then Oscar time sets in and they all think they’re members of a festival jury. “Art” is in and “commerce” is out.

    Lately, several important studio executives have met with the Academy to review these trends and also propose possible changes in the Oscar show. They advocated a tighter show, fewer awards and a greater stress on entertainment value.

    They hit a stone wall. The bipolar Academy is sticking to its ways.

    Read the rest here.

  • Great idea

    I was glad to see yesterday that Peter Bart has launched a daily blog at Variety. Hearing all those overblown and uneducated declarations that Bart “hates the internet” has been taxing in my time as an adjunct employee of the trade (and I’m the first to admit I’ve been one of the voices in the crowd in the past). But the truth is, Peter has always had a more progressive view of the Web than people seemed to think. That’s always the impression I got, in any case.

    This decision is a step in the right direction.