Showbiz Sandbox 438: The Oscars Play It By The Book
February 26, 2019
In a year when diversity took center stage at the Oscars, with people of color and women taking home some of the major prizes, the Academy awarded Best Picture to “Green Book,” a film partially about race relations that has been faulted by some as being whitewashed. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large, attended the Oscar ceremony and joins us to discuss all the winners, including how “Green Book” managed to overcome a number of obstacles to walk off with the top award.
Though “Roma” was a frontrunner throughout the Oscar race, and wound up winning three awards including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron, it didn’t win Best Picture to the relief of some in the industry who did not want to reward a film which shunned a traditional theatrical release. The film caused quite a stir when it took home the top BAFTA award earlier in the month.
Meanwhile, in China, the Lunar New Year box office was extraordinary but it came at a price: record grosses and record ticket prices were matched with record piracy.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including the layoffs at Activision Blizzard, why Celine Dion parted ways with her long-time agent and millions attend a virtual concert on the video game Fortnite.
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Showbiz Sandbox 436: A Wealth in Diversity at Sundance
February 5, 2019
This year’s Sundance Film Festival was more diverse than it usually is in every way one might imagine. Sure, there were the usual crop of independent films and documentaries, but the predominance of women and people of color and queer voices was more notable than ever. In fact, female filmmakers took home most of the festival’s top prizes.
Sundance also proved to be a feeding frenzy for independent distributors with Amazon swooping in to spend more money than any other studio has ever spent during a single year at the festival. Usually, if one selection sells for over $10 million it makes headlines. This year there were at least three films that fell into that category.
Meanwhile the Super Bowl weekend proved to be a bust both at the box office, which was reached a 20-year-low, as well as on television, where the broadcast of the big game fell to a 10-year-low.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary, Hulu raises its prices and Spotify turns on a feature that allows users to turn off artists.
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Showbiz Sandbox 336: Telluride and Toronto Reaffirm the Importance of Film Festivals
September 20, 2016
With an ever increasing number of high profile movies competing for awards at the end of each year, film festivals such as those in Telluride and Toronto have never been more important in helping promote a release. Anne Thompson, Indiewire’s editor-at-large, has just returned from both festivals and gives us a complete rundown of all the films creating the most buzz.
And just as the number of movies worth seeing has grown, so too has the number of television shows. There’s so much good TV these days that in fact, the Emmys are more and more like the Academy Awards, where viewers haven’t even seen most of the Best Picture nominees. Maybe that’s why the Emmys keep honoring the same old shows year-after-year.
Meanwhile, the number of books on offer has grown at least 21% recently thanks to self-publishing. That includes both e-books and print. The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has been responsible for thousands of titles, enough to make them the unofficial fifth largest publisher in North America.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including why Argentina is sending school-aged children to the movies, how the Rio Olympics proved profitable for NBC after all and the Lady Gaga is booked for the Super Bowl half time show.
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