Advertisement
My Life As a Blog
My Life as a Blog: Elia Kazan & Roman Polanski: Two Moral Tales
A few months ago I wrote a post about Elia Kazan and the blacklist and discovered that I had hit a raw nerve. Some people felt that I had let Kazan off the hook for some terrible crimes, while others were filled with rage that I would take it upon myself to judge Kazan. A long-time friend took her name off my mailing list. A respected critic wrote only three words (“Who are you?”) followed by a list of all the books he’d written, the festival juries he’d served on, etc. His point, as I understood it, was this: Where did I, a total nobody, get off making a judgment on Kazan, one of the greatest film artists in history?
April 11th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: Tom Cruise Gets Sheened
This is a video I did of Tom Cruise’s famous Scientology video with commentary from Charlie Sheen, taken from his Good Morning America interview. Which of these two men is the most disconnected from reality?
March 7th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Taking Madonna to the Amadeus Party and Other Tales of Madge’s Early Days
My friend Tim Ransom wrote a few comments to my last blog on Madonna. His words were so impassioned that Kenneth M. Walsh wrote a post on his own blog about Tim’s comments, followed by another one by Matthew Rettenmund on his blog. Sharing correspondence with Tim made me think of a photo of Tim, the Divine Ms. Madge and me taken by another well-known photographer I introduced to Madonna, Patrick McMullan.
February 28th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: The Desperately Seeking Susan Poster and the Day Madonna Met Herb Ritts
“Is he gay?” asked Madonna. “Gay men take good pictures of me.” “I have no idea if Herb Ritts is gay, Madonna,” I said. “But I promise you will like his pictures.” As usual, Madonna was busting my balls, but the important thing was that she and Rosanna Arquette were willing to give up an entire Saturday of shooting Desperately Seeking Susan to do the special photography shoot.
February 22nd, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: Donald Rugoff: In Memory of a “Wild Genius”
In my blog last week I said I’d never worked for anybody like Harvey and Bob Weinstein, which was literally true. But I failed to mention that there was a razzle-dazzle showman in the art film business long before the Weinstein brothers turned up. I just never worked for him. His name was Donald Rugoff.
February 14th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Harvey and Bob Weinstein: The Early Days
The King’s Speech is the most recent example of what Harvey and Bob Weinstein have done countless times: Produce or acquire a film that their instincts tell them has Oscar potential, and then vigorously promote it as if their lives depended on it. Their connection to this particular film is only of the moment because they have done it so many times before and will no doubt do it many times in the future. New year, new film.
February 7th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Six January Days That Shook the Media World
The 2011 Sundance Film Festival ends today, and I have this to say about it. Actually, I have nothing to say about it as I wasn’t there. But I do have a question. What percentage, do you think, of the films screened for the first time at Sundance will be seen for the first time via DVD, VOD, Blu-Ray, Netflix Instant Watch, rented from iTunes or Amazon, seen on a free-with-ads site like SnagFilms or Hulu, or perhaps more significantly, downloaded as a torrent or from a Rapidshare-type service? If that question intrigues or concerns you, then Sundance wasn’t the only significant film-related event of January 2011. Here are six others that will play a major role in the way people watch movies in the future.
January 31st, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: (Not) Waiting for Robert Redford
It was the end of the summer of 1986. I’d only been back in New York City a short while after spending a good portion of the year out of town on publicity jobs. I wasn’t looking for work until I got a call from legendary publicist Lois Smith. “Hello ducks,” she said. “Bob Redford is making a movie in New Mexico. It’s called The Milagro Beanfield War. I’ve told him about you and I’d like to set up a meeting. Are you interested?” So much for my plans. I was going to meet with Robert Redford, and maybe even work with him! Woohoo!
January 24th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Logic and the Myth of the Ticket-Selling Movie Star
One of the biggest misfortunes of my life was being taught logic in high school. It provided an impractical and counter-productive foundation for the illogical world I’ve lived in ever since. In logic class, I and my fellow ill-fated classmates were taught a series of formulas called tautologies, which are the basic rules of logic. There is no possibility of negating them. Ever. One is called post hoc ergo propter hoc. This means that it is always a fallacy to assume that because one thing happened, followed by another thing, then the first thing caused the next. In other words, if I clap my hands just before dawn, that’s not why the sun came up. My primary will be exploring the logical foundation (or lack thereof) behind the myth of the Ticket-Selling Movie Star.
January 17th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: In Praise of Non-Award-Winning Acting
What criteria do we use to define the “best” acting? Do we describe these performances with words like bold, inventive, brazen, adventurous, commanding, fearless or tour-de-force? Or…If we are taken out of our immersion in the story by a conscious awareness that we are watching a great, Oscar-worthy performance, is anything lost? What is the purpose of acting? If we notice it, is it gone? I don’t know the answer to this, and maybe there isn’t one. But it’s a question worth exploring.
January 10th, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: Thoughts on the New Year
When 2009 passed into 2010, I didn’t have time to celebrate the new year. I spent those hours focused on a business project I finally was about to launch--a website called SpeedCine.
January 3rd, 2011 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Why I Want a Golden Globe
When people dream of the awards they’d like to receive, some of them think of the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony, the Pulitzer, the SAG or AFI Award, the Golden Palm, the Sundance Jury Award, the Gotham, the Independent Spirit, the National Board of Review, the Booker Prize, the People’s Choice, or the Nobel. Not me. I want a Golden Globe.
December 20th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Elia Kazan and the Blacklist
The release of the new 18-disc Elia Kazan box set, which includes Kent Jones and Martin Scorsese’s new documentary A Letter to Elia, has got me thinking about the evolution of my thoughts about the director of such classic films as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden and America, America, the interpreter and informal dramaturge for great American playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, and the elicitor of legendary performances from Marlon Brando, James Dean and so many others. Kazan is all these things, but he is also a source of deep resentment from many, an anger that is dimly understood by a younger generation of movie fans.
December 13th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: The Media Bonfire Around Ronni Chasen
I hesitate to add another syllable to the cluster of gossip, conjecture and rumor surrounding Ronni Chasen’s murder. Though I worked with her on a few movies some time ago, I didn’t know her well. But it’s definitely more shocking when someone you knew even slightly becomes a victim to something as heinous as this. I keep flashing back to what she was like, her unstoppable positivity. Why her, of all people?
December 6th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Dayton, Ohio Part III—Media House
They called it Media House. Built in the twenties, the building had been the lavish home of the owners of a posh downtown hotel, until bad times turned it into a boarding house. Luckily, or unluckily, even worse times made its real estate value plummet to the level that filmmakers Jim Klein and Julia Reichert could buy it, and fill every inch of it with young people hungry to do grassroots political media work.
November 29th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Dayton Part II—Twyman Films
His name was Tony Heriza. Like me, he was a very recent college grad, from Antioch College in Yellow Springs. Julia and Jim were teachers there, and now Tony and a lot of their students and others were living as a collective in this home. They called it “Media House.” They all worked straight jobs and contributed their salaries to the collective, and were mutually involved in political projects in their off-hours. And in a weird fluke, Tony was also starting a job at Twyman Films the next day, just as I was.
November 22nd, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: Knockin' on Dayton's Door
Hitchhiking wasn’t supposed to be like this. In the movies you get out of one car, stick out your thumb and before long the next car comes along, the driver says, “jump in!” and you’re Kerouac-ing your merry way. Yeah! That’s the glory of the open road! You aren't supposed to be standing for three hours on some deserted highway at some unknown location outside Toledo.
November 15th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Errol Morris—Connecting the Dots
There’s a pattern of critical judgment in festival reviews of Errol Morris’ new film, Tabloid, that is manacling itself to the film as tightly as its heroine, Joyce McKinney, trussed her Mormon ex-boyfriend to a bed. It’s the notion that because the subject of Tabloid isn’t a subject of monumental historical significance like The Fog of War and Standard Operating Procedure, then it is somehow a throwaway, a mere Snickers bar amidst the strong meat of his career. I can imagine two reasons why they might think this.
October 25th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: AT&T 3—My Phone Call from the Office of AT&T CEO Randall L. Stephenson
This week I received a call from Nina Barnett, in the office of Randall L. Stephenson, the Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of AT&T Inc.
At no point in our conversation did Nina broach the subject of my anti-AT&T blog post going viral or my being invited by the FCC to speak at a press conference on “Bill Shock” in Washington, D.C.
She offered me a 50 percent refund on my bill and made it clear it was that or nothing. So I took it.
October 18th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: The Ethics of Blogging
This week I was a bit stressed out and I started thinking about the worst experience I ever had in the publicity business. I wrote about a certain film and I thought it was really funny. Lots of what I thought were amusing stories about depressed people doing absurd things they shouldn’t do. And me in the middle wallowing in all that delicious failure. I took all the names out so it wouldn’t be mean, of course. The problem was I wrote it far too quickly and didn’t take the time to see how easy it would be for some film-savvy folks to identify the film. Of course, someone figured out the title of the movie right away.
October 11th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: AT&T 2—Phone Call from Roger Goldblatt of the FCC
Some interesting developments since my last post.
I was contacted yesterday by Roger Goldblatt of the FCC, who asked to take part in a press conference in Washington next Wednesday and speak about “Bill Shock.” (There’s more information about the FCC event at the bottom of this post.) I don’t think I’ll be able to go, but it’s fascinating—or scary?—that my blog got into the hands of the FCC within days, don’t you think? I think it’s most likely because Andrew Sullivan linked it. I hope that I will be able to contribute to the FCC’s effort in some way. There should be laws against phone companies selling a few cents of data for thousands of dollars.
October 7th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Swindled by AT&T—My $1723 iPhone Bill for working on Tabloid
I’m sorry, but this isn’t a film post, a memoir or a musing, and it’s definitely not funny.
October 4th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>My Life as a Blog: Angelina Jolie—When Does a Legend Become?
I had just flown back Saturday night from a week swatting mosquitoes on a movie set in Georgia, so I wasn’t over-excited when a guy from my PR company called to tell me I was going to another movie set on Monday.
'What’s it called?'
“Hackers. It’s about a group of young computer hackers, trying to stop a virus or something.”
August 9th, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: Sonya Thomas is The Black Widow
Years ago, I wanted to make a documentary on the 105-pound competitive eater Sonya Thomas, a.k.a “The Black Widow.” Here was a tiny woman who kept beating all these huge men in contest after contest. Of course, the idea of me actually doing a movie about Sonya was preposterous. Who would ever give me the money to do it? And even if somebody did, I didn’t really want to spend a year or two of my life traipsing around to the world’s eating contests. But I felt there was a really good feature there if somebody else would do it.
August 2nd, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
My Life as a Blog: 6 Reasons Steve Jobs is Like Kim Jong-il (And Why That Might be a Good Thing)
I don’t think there is anybody around who is more of an Apple admirer than me. I’ve owned four of their computers, three iPods, one iPhone, Final Cut, Logic and lots more. I pressure everybody I know to make the Apple switch, because I think that would make their life better. When Bill Maher recently said on his show that what this country needs is “Jobs,” as in Steve Jobs, I called out “Yesss!” But then I thought about it. Really? Would our government be better if it was run by a genius like Steve Jobs? It sure would seem that way. But still, Steve Jobs? The man does have has a few pesky qualities, to say the least.
1. Secrecy: Guarding against industrial espionage is a high priority for all sorts of companies, as is controlling the timing of new product announcements until the most advantageous time. But I believe it is fair to say that no company protects its secrets more than Apple. Workers are forbidden to talk to outsiders about what happens at work, including relatives. In Cupertino, California (home to Apple headquarters) most Apple employees aren’t allowed to go to other areas where other projects are in development.
Today, North Korea is one of the most secretive countries in the world—it guards its borders tightly and no travel is allowed without a Soviet-style “escort.” People from South Korea are rarely given visas and no journalists are allowed in on tourist visas. Still, you’d have to score this one for Kim, because there are North Korea tours and no Apple office tours—even for the people who work there.
2. Antipathy to Journalism: When secrets are vital, then journalists must always be the enemy. There can be no other way. Within what is possible in your world, you must do everything to stymie them or stop them outright. The North Korean Constitution theoretically protects freedom of the press, but only if serves the interests of the government. Journalists aren’t allowed into North Korea with tourist visas. Despite this, some western journalists have managed to cover the country. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were only near North Korea when they were jailed, setting off an international incident. Kim was setting an example and discouraging others.
Nearly all requests for interviews with Jobs are refused, and it’s fair to say that the ones that are accepted aren’t particularly hard-hitting. Recently, Time Magazine sent a non-journalist, British actor/writer Stephen Fry to cover the iPad launch. Apple super-fan and 13-year-old Nicholas Ciarelli created a Website, “Think Secret,” dedicated to finding out about Apple’s hidden plans. Over the years, Ciarelli received numerous cease-and-desist letters from Apple, until they filed a lawsuit against him and he was forced to shut the site in 2005. As has been widely reported, Gizmodo.com recently ran a story revealing the new iPhone after an Apple employee left one in a bar. Days later, California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team entered editor Jason Chen’s home without him present, seizing four computers and two servers. So what we have is a journalist who has presented all his information in a public way to the world, being treated in the same way as a hacker, a terrorist, a collector of child pornography—all people who are engaged in heinous illegal activities. The point is to make an example.
3. Cult of Personality: Per the current North Korean constitution, Kim is now the “Supreme Leader,” although he is also referred to as the “Dear Leader” and the “Great Leader.” He receives the standard totalitarian dictatorial goodie bag enjoyed by Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Hussein and so many others—giant posters, massive statuary, military parades, the whole shebang. His image is familiar the world over: Big glasses, Eraserhead haircut, and Mao-chic matching gray pants and shirts.
Jobs’ personal power comes first from being brilliant and creating some of the most wonderful products ever. He has an adoring following because he totally deserves it. As far as I’m concerned, anybody who disagrees with that is either uninformed, a moron, a jerk or all three. I am not joking. Bart Simpson deserves a spanking:
Secondly, you don’t see or hear from him much, and that adds to his mystery and our excitement when he does appear. There are very few photos of him for a man of his stature. We generally see him when he’s onstage presenting a new Apple product, which he does with such skill that you want to sign on to all the secrecy that enabled the show. His uniform is a black turtleneck, jeans and sneakers, which he wears at every Apple presentation, and legend has it, every day period. But I’m not trying to make cheap shot, comparing his outfit to totalitarian garb, as it is not an unusual thing for highly focused creative types—Stanley Kubrick did the same thing.
4. Affection for 1984 Iconography:
5. The Will to Go it Alone: Kim Jong-il created devastation, including a terrible famine by cutting off relationships with long-time trading partners like China and Russia (and obviously, South Korea).
Steve Jobs has a tendency to create his own standards rather than use the ones that have been established by others. Legal MP3 downloads from all other companies will play on an iPod or iPhone, but nothing that’s downloaded from the Apple store can be played on a non-Apple product. The iPhone only is available from AT&T, so if I talk really fast, five percent of my calls don’t cut out—but that’s okay, I love my apps. Anybody can have a phone that makes calls. Currently, he denies users of the iPad access to nearly all the video on the web, by making it unable to function with Flash. It has been reported that he is developing a Flash alternative called Gianduia. Unless he budges on Flash, iPad users will go to their graves without ever having access to the Web that every computer has. But if any of them want to call me to complain about it, they should make sure they use my land line.
6. Hard-Knuckled Management Style: Both are pretty tough cookies. Suffice to say, neither of them have seen much point for carrots when there are so many sticks lying around.
The Contrast: Despite the six points I have enumerate above, there is an important difference between the two of them. Kim is a psychopathic monster who has brought devastation on millions of people, and with his nuclear arsenal, is one of the biggest threats the world currently faces. On the other hand, Jobs is a super-talented guy who has brought much wonder and joy into the world.
Despite everything I’ve written in this post, I wish my life had gone differently and I had had the chance to work for Steve Jobs. He might have yelled at me, but that wouldn’t have bothered me one bit. I’m a big boy, and I’ve worked in the film business for 30 years, for Christ sakes. But all my best teachers in school and life have pushed me to do my utmost. They accepted nothing less. I know that he would be just like that. I’m sure I would be a much better man today if I had worked for him, and it would give me a lot of pleasure to know that I had played a role in Apple.
I started this post attempting to sort out in my mind whether it is better to have democracy, or to have an effective, superb leader—even if kind of autocratic. You can disagree with me, but I’d go with Jobs any day. Democracy, as it currently exists in this country is an abject failure. What is going on in Washington today bears the same relationship to what the founding fathers created as acts of child rape do to Jesus’ words. Every single one of these “politicians” is corrupted by their weaknesses—for power, for money, for the adulation of the crowd, for the childlike need to have their egos constantly buffed and, increasingly, to manipulate their staff members to have sex with their ugly-ass selves. That is to say, they are all too human, and it just makes everything worse to have a big f*cked-up porridge of them. But how about one benevolent king?
Imagine going into the House and Senate and throwing every single one of the bums out. Then let Steve Jobs come in with his crew. I bet that in no time at all he’d have cleaned up the BP oil spill, provided Health Care with a public option, provided real reform for Wall Street and eliminated global warming. Plus there would be apps! Maybe he would be mean sometimes and make inexplicable decisions, and probably it would be arduous for everybody, but at the end of the day you know what? He would be right most of the time. And our country would be in much better shape than it is today.
It sure as hell would look better.
Reid Rosefelt is a veteran film publicist based in New York City. He has promoted hundreds of films, for such diverse moviemakers as Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar, Errol Morris, Ang Lee and Werner Herzog. His personal clients have included The Sundance Institute, IFC and HBO Films, as well as Harvey Keitel, Ally Sheedy and the late Adrienne Shelly. His production publicity credits include Desperately Seeking Susan, The Godfather: Part III and, most recently, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. His blog can be found at http://my-life-as-a-blog.com/.
May 23rd, 2010 | Category: My Life As a Blog | By Reid Rosefelt
Advertisement
' . $phpAds_raw['html'] . ''; } ?>
Categories
Adventures in Self-ReleasingJames Gunn: Behind the Screams
Moviemaking Contest
Cinema Law
Directing on a Dime
Association of the Week
Awards Watch
Exhibitor of the Week
Festival of the Week
Film School of the Week
I Found It At The Movies
Grassroots Moviemaker
Happenings
Just Crowdfund the $&*# Movie!
In Theaters Now
Marlett & Me
Mixed Reviews
Location of the Week
MM First Look
MM In The News
MM Remembers
Moviemaker of the Week
My Life As a Blog
News/Commentary
Notebook
Notes From Movieland
Notes from Overboard
Rus Thompson's Short Takes
Screenwriter of the Week
This Day in Indie History
Top of the Box Office
Video Views Pick
Website of the Week
Monthly Archives
February 2012January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
August 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS
Advertisement
