Canada Moviefone on Huffingtonpost

Ellen DeGeneres: Lady Be Good

2012-02-23T13:29:28Z

Ever since my cousin Kate Middleton became a duchess, I've been more interested in my British roots. So I saw The Iron Lady. Now I know almost as much about the United Kingdom as I do about England.

If I've said it once, I've said it 18 times, Meryl Streep is brilliant as Margaret Thatcher. I said it would earn her an Oscar nomination and it did. I can't believe how unbelievably believable she was.

I don't know how she did it. Not only does she sound and act like Margaret Thatcher, Meryl also plays her across a few decades. I always knew she was good, but after watching this performance, I think she might be a witch.

Whenever someone asks me who should portray me in the movie of my life, I always say the same person -- Taylor Swift. We're practically the same person. But I'd also love to see Meryl Streep play me. She's so good with accents and physicality. Let me tell you, dancing up a flight of stairs isn't as easy as it looks.

She really is the greatest actress of our time, and this may be her best performance yet. I can't wait to see what happens on the big night!

New 'Brave' Trailer: More From Pixar's First Heroine

2012-02-23T12:54:49Z

Last November, audiences were introduced to Pixar's first heroine, Princess Merida, in the trailer for "Brave." She was feisty, she was witty and she was, um, brave! In the newest clip from the film, fans get a quick and important lesson: When it comes to archery, don't test Merida's skills.

The two-minute video features a competition to win the hand of the Princess. Unfortunately for the participants, Merida would rather take her destiny in her own hands by showing the suitors a thing or two about shooting a bow and arrow. This leaves her mother, Queen Elinor, none too pleased.

"Brave" tells the story of Merida, who, after defying an age-old custom, hopes to undo a beastly curse. The film, starring Kelly Macdonald, Julie Walters, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson and Craig Ferguson, hits theaters on June 22.

[via Apple]

Was Sacha Baron Cohen Banned From The Oscars?

2012-02-23T12:36:26Z

Has Sacha Baron Cohen been banned from attending the Academy Awards on Sunday night? After word spread quickly on Wednesday that Cohen was planning to arrive on the red carpet for the ceremony dressed as his character from "The Dictator," Deadline.com's Nikki Finke reported that the prank-happy star had his tickets revoked.

The Academy later refuted those claims, telling the Los Angeles Times that no decision had yet been made about Cohen's credentials. (Finke later refuted that claim, writing that the Academy was backpedalling in the face of public outcry.) The comic was/is set to appear at the Oscars to help support "Hugo," where he co-stars as The Station Inspector.

Of course, whether Cohen ever intended to show up on the red carpet dressed as General Aladeen, the ousted North African despot at the center of "The Dictator," remains to be seen.

"Friend tells me Sacha Baron Cohen never had any plans to attend Oscars dressed like 'The Dictator' & he's loving the free publicity 4 the film," Variety reporter Jeff Sneider wrote on Twitter.

Tune in on Sunday night to see if Cohen actually shows up. "The Dictator" is in theaters on May 11.

[via Deadline.com, LAT/24 Frames]

PHOTOS: A Look Back At The Acadamy Awards Through The Years

2012-02-23T01:01:36Z

It's a night of glitz and glamour, honors and upsets, obvious wins and outrageous snubs. The Academy Awards has become one of the most anticipated nights in Hollywood, but this Super Bowl of award shows has a history far longer than the train of Halle Berry's 2002 gown. There are 83 years of red carpet wonders and blunders that have made the Academy Awards what it is today.

In 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out the very first Oscar statuette at a brunch held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Films released between Aug. 1, 1927 and Aug. 1, 1928 were up for top honors, with "Wings" taking home the now-coveted Outstanding Picture award (check out the rest of the winners from the first Academy Awards at Oscar.com.) That May 16 ceremony marked the very first Oscars, and although it was far from what we now know award shows to be, the ceremony packed the same A-list star power that will hit the red carpet on Oscar night.

From Oscar party images of Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis in 1939 to red carpet shots of Audrey Hepburn in 1954 -- the year she won Best Actress for "Roman Holiday" and old blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, won Best Supporting Actor for "From Here to Eternity" -- Hollywood's biggest night is full of the boldest and most beautiful stars of all time. Take a look back at photos from the start, when Old Hollywood was present day and glamour was timeless.

For the ultimate guide to everything Oscar, head over to Oscar.com for a timeline of nominees and winners from the past 83 shows.

PHOTOS:

Oscars Made Easy: 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'

2012-02-22T23:11:37Z

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

Nominated For: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Max Von Sydow)

What's It About: Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" follows Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), a young boy who -- after losing his father (Tom Hanks) in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 -- finds a key in his dad's closet. With the help of a mysterious older man named "The Renter" (Von Sydow), Oskar travels around Manhattan looking for the lock that the key belong to, convinced it was left behind as a sign from his father.

Why You Should See It: Despite having some of the worst reviews ever for a Best Picture nominee, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" isn't all bad. Hanks, Von Sydow, Sandra Bullock and Jeffrey Wright all give wonderful performances, and while Horn's Schell is an irritating lead character, the film still hits the right emotional beats. Those concerned about the 9/11 factor, shouldn't be; "Extremely Loud" handles the national tragedy as best can be expected.

It's Kind Of Like: "Hugo" mixed with "The 25th Hour," but not as good as either.

How You Can See It: Out in theaters now.

Movie Theater Showing 'Shame' Dubbed 'Den Of Sin'

2012-02-22T22:31:15Z

An NC-17 rating is often the kiss of death for a movie, but one South Carolina theater is seeing boffo business for "Shame" after fliers that condemn the film started popping up around town. The fliers dub the Nickelodeon theater a "den of shame" and caution people not to see the movie, which features ample sex scenes and full-frontal nudity from lead Michael Fassbender. The 75-seat art-house theater (no relation to the kid-friendly network) has seen business go up since the flier controversy.

Two locals interviewed by WLTX Channel 19 admitted the negative ad, which warns that the film will "offend your sensibilities," only made them want to see the movie more. Since the flier lists the exact address and dates the film is playing and is posted right outside the "den of sin" in question, could it be the Nickelodeon itself is behind the campaign? See the video above and decide for yourself.

[via Movieline]

Who Is Jessica Chastain's Oscar Date?

2012-02-22T21:59:05Z

Jessica Chastain never stops giving us more reasons to love her. The latest? Her date for the Academy Awards!

"I'm bringing my grandma to the Oscars," the first-time nominee told me at Vanity Fair and Juicy Couture's Vanities party. "She started crying when I told her.

Xaque Gruber: 25 Years After Anna, Sally Kirkland Reflects on the Oscar Race for Best Actress

2012-02-22T20:25:29Z

This year's Academy Awards reunites Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) with Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) for the third time in the Best Performance By An Actress in a Leading Role category. The first time they faced off for Oscar was 1988. The prize went to Cher in Moonstruck, but the Golden Globes earlier that year bypassed the superstars (Streep, Close, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway) to honor a lesser known independent film veteran, Sally Kirkland, with Best Drama Actress for Anna. In Kirkland, a star was born -- in her forties. Kirkland's Anna, a faded Czech star stumbling into Manhattan striving for a new beginning, is just as stunning 25 years later.

Appropriately, she also collected one of the first Lead Actress Independent Spirit Awards for the role the L.A. Times called "one of the five best performances by an actress in the 1980s."

Without the machinery of big studio dollars, expensive publicists, or even tapes being sent out to voters (not allowed by the Academy at that time), Kirkland's award show glory was the result of her own tireless campaign launch. With very little capital, Kirkland and friends spread the word, grassroots-style, to garner attention for the little seen indie.

Sally Kirkland Career Film Clips:

Sally Kirkland Sizzle Video from Jill Jucarone on Vimeo.

XG: How did the Anna campaign begin?

SK: When I first read the script by Agnieszka Holland, I thought whoever plays this role has a shot at the Oscar. It was just intuition. In the earlier days when we didn't have any publicity, I called friends including Andy Warhol (Kirkland's first director in 1964's 13 Most Beautiful Women) who put me on his TV show. Joan Rivers did too. At Cannes, I ran into Rex Reed in an elevator and begged him to see it. e did, and he lent me this quote "Sally Kirkland devours Anna like a raw steak and emerges a major star." Then Norman Mailer gave me a quote. We had pooled enough money for a black and white ad trade campaign. Dale Olson, Shirley MacLaine's publicist, encouraged me to go for the L.A. Film Critics Awards. So I wrote them all letters, and said this is a tiny little film but I hope you'll see it, and I ended up tying with Holly Hunter (Broadcast News) for that. Then we screened it for the Hollywood Foreign Press and their response was extraordinary. At the Oscars, there were all these movie stars emerging from their limos, and then there was me. I felt like Cinderella. The greatest part was the feeling to be in the same Oscar category of these women that I was a huge fan of -- Meryl, Glenn, Holly Hunter and Cher, who I used to rollerskate with in the '70s.

ABC Commercial for the 1988 Oscars Best Actress race:

XG: How did actors' respond to your homemade Oscar campaign?

SK: Gena Rowlands said, "I voted for you, Sally, but I have to confess something, I never saw the film, but I wanted you to win so much because of that campaign."

XG: As an Academy voter, give me your thoughts on this year's Best Actress category. Let's start with Rooney Mara in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

SK: Her physical strength, scene after scene, getting beaten up, the nudity -- very courageous. Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady in a word -- magnificent. In the first five minutes, you see this old woman shopping for groceries. I whispered to the person next to me, "Who is that?" I'm pretty good at knowing actors, and I quite literally had no idea it was Meryl.

XG: Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn.

SK: It's not easy to take that on much less capture the essence of this icon. I couldn't believe it was Michelle Williams, this little tiny flower of a woman -- she was wonderful -- vulnerable. And Glenn Close was outstanding. She did Albert Nobbs so well on Broadway and it was a real tribute to her abilities becoming that gentle but strong, androgynous being. Very touching.

XG: Viola Davis in The Help.

SK: She moved me to tears. I had a black nurse growing up, Louise, who taught me about God, and everything. I was closer to her than anyone. To see Viola play this character that, to me, was Louise, was heart breaking. This is one of the strongest years ever for the Best Actress category.

XG: Do you think your 1987 grassroots Oscar campaign could happen in today's world?

SK: Yes, my friend Melissa Leo from Frozen River is a testament to that. If you're in independent films, and worked hard for years, and you don't happen to be part of the mega-billion dollar system, and you've got the chutzpah to stand up and say this is who I am, it takes all the humanity out of Hollywood not to appreciate that.

Sally Kirkland & Polina Porizkova in Anna:

Liz Kozak: A Mom's Oscar Cheat Sheet

2012-02-22T20:02:10Z

When I was pregnant, the single best, most specific piece of advice I received was this:

"Go to the movies a lot now, because once you have a baby, paying a babysitter when you can rent the same thing at home in a few months isn't worth it."

I wish I'd listened.

I wish I could call up every single person who told me, "Sleep while you can!" and inform them that their advice was terrible.

I wish I had used all that nap time to go to the movies, because I miss it a whole lot.

Now the Oscars are almost here, and if you also have a new baby, then you most likely haven't seen any or most of the nominated films, either. Allow me to do my best to break down the Best Picture contenders for you... to the best of my limited ability.

War Horse:
Steven Spielberg made it, right? It must be epic/heartwarming/tragic/expensive. I am wary of horse movies and of horse folk. I really hope that my daughter isn't one of those horse-riding gals like Lindsay on The Bachelor. Now THAT'S something I DO watch!

Hugo:
What kind of a person would leave their kid at home to go see a kids' movie?

The Artist:
The first movie I tell people I would absolutely go see if I could!!! Actually, that's a lie. I did go to the movies once since the baby was born, and I chose The Muppets. So I guess I answered my own question.

Midnight in Paris:
On-Demanded at the highest recommendation of my father-in-law. So charming! So quirky! Actually, all I remember was that Rachel McAdams rocked a lot of shirtdresses, and then I fell asleep. There are now four shirtdresses in my madewell.com shopping cart that I will never buy.

Moneyball:
We rented this one too, and it lost me in the first 10 minutes. There was way more math than in Angels in the Outfield. It does have Brad Pitt, but something happened between Kalifornia and last week. Have you realized he's almost 50? How old does that make you feel? Old enough to be someone's mother! And the kid from Superbad will now instead be referred to forever as "The Oscar nominated kid from Superbad."

Tree of Life:
I do know it also has Brad Pitt. Perhaps with a crew cut. I do not know what it's about. But I bet it would make me cry.

The Help:
Here we go! We're all familiar with this one! If you're reading this column, there is a 70 percent chance that you're in a book club, and if so, there is an 98 percent chance that The Help was one of the books you read. This one was actually designed in a science lab to punch vulnerable moms in the solar plexus. I'm going to search Etsy for a cross stitch that says, "You is smart. You is kind. You is important." to hang in the nursery.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:
I don't personally know one single person who's seen this, which makes it my cinematic equivalent of Rizzoli & Isles.

The Descendants:
I heard it's funny, but it's super sad. I guess this movie should be called "The Full Length Mirror in My Hallway," because that's what I feel when I gaze upon myself these days. Who would want to put themselves through that for two sustained hours? Someone who wants to eat Milk Duds in the dark, that's who.

Happy Oscar Weekend!
What films are you rooting for?

What Will Win More Awards: 'Hugo' or 'The Artist'?

2012-02-22T20:00:00Z

On Sunday February 26, the biggest stars in Hollywood gather to bestow Oscars on the best movies of the year. With Billy Crystal hosting the festivities once again, movie fans will be watching how many Academy Awards are racked up by "The Help," "Hugo" and more.

And since we won't know who wins the big gold until that 8pm ET start-time on February 26, this is your chance to test your award show expertise.

Every weekday between now and February 24, we'll post new questions about what will happen on Hollywood's big night. (Right there on the right side of your screen) Submit your best guesses and you'll automatically be eligible for a daily prize of two free movie tickets. The grand prize -- a YEAR'S worth of free movie tickets -- will be awarded to a user with the most correct predictions.

Want to Win Free Movie Tickets For a Year?
Keep Playing Awards Show Challenges

Click here for rules.

First Look: 'American Reunion' Trailer

2012-02-22T19:23:51Z

High-school reunions let you relive all the awesome (or completely horrible) moments you had as a teenager. It makes sense, then, that "American Reunion," the latest film in the "Pie" franchise, would take a trip down awkward-sex-memory lane to revisit some of the jokes from the first movie.

In official trailer for "Reunion," Jim (Jason Biggs) stops by his childhood home, where he and his father (Eugene Levy) take a look through Jim's old stack of nudie magazines (one of which has a Y2K cover!). Then, of course, there's a scene where the guys make a toast at a bar, a moment where Stifler discusses his high-school dream of keeping "the party going with his boys," and plenty of other shenanigans inspired by the original "American Pie."

You can check out the trailer above. "American Reunion," starring Biggs, Levy, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Mena Suvari, Alyson Hannigan and Tara Reid, hits theaters April 6.

It's James Bond All Weekend Long

2012-02-22T19:14:57Z

Do you live in Canada? Do you subscribe to MGM's digital channel? Are you a James Bond fan? If so, you're in luck for Oscar weekend.

The MGM Channel, via Hollywood Suite, is putting on a special showcase of the "James Bond" films this weekend, just in time for the Oscars. The channel plans to air 10 classic Bond films over the weekend -- and no matter if you prefer Connery, Moore or Dalton, they're all making an appearance.

Friday February 24:
8 p.m. "Dr. No" (1962)
10 p.m. "From Russia With Love" (1963)
12 a.m. "Goldfinger" (1965)
2 a.m. "Thunderball" (1965)

Saturday February 25
8 p.m. "For Your Eyes Only" (1981)
10: 10 p.m. "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977)
12:20 a.m. "Octopussy" (1983)
2:35 a.m. "A View To Kill" (1985)

Sunday February 26
9:05 p.m. "The Living Daylights" (1987)
11:20 p.m. "License To Kill" (1985)
(All Times Eastern)

To see if you have this channel, please contact your local cable provider.

Quora: What Do Directors Think When People Make a Torrent for Their Movie?

2012-02-22T18:27:00Z

This question originally appeared on Quora.

Heather Ferreira, film director, 90s H'wood combat vet

As someone directing a feature right now, but who has been forced at certain times to consider downloading music otherwise made distinctly unavailable by the startlingly small cabal of corporations who now own all media in the US, and who dislikes monopolies, I agree with Quora respondent Mr. Lipkowitz. But my feelings are not mixed.

Things are getting better, but I've never been rich. I understood for years what it feels like not to have enough cash in pocket to purchase a listen or a view. I also know what it feels like to contact media companies, beg them to make now-forgotten artist or soundtrack XYZ available for purchase so I and others could spend our money on it, and then be met with either bemused surprise "that we even owned that property" or a stonewalling, bewildering "f--k off." The MPAA and RIAA tell audiences large media companies invite purchases of the movies and songs both organizations claim they are "protecting", and that finding whatever audiences want to buy is easy for the audience. That's not true in all cases.

For instance, I chased a certain 1980s science-fiction movie soundtrack the right way for more than a decade, tracking down and phoning all who had rights to the recording, and begged them all to sell a copy to me. I offered hundreds of dollars for the recording. It originally retailed on vinyl for less than $15.99.

After being ignored for years, talked to rudely by record label and motion picture score licensing executives and their assistants, told "I didn't know we owned that recording..." and directed in circles leading absolutely nowhere, at the end I found a dedicated aficionado who blogs about rare movie soundtracks because they are the passion of his life, and who can tell you every Prokofiev composition John Williams has, er, homaged, because movie music is his life's passion, whose blog serves as a public resource to inform audiences of great movie soundtracks the large corporations are not making them aware of, and to make them available to those who want to learn about and love them -- and the gentleman sent me a copy of my desired soundtrack, which he had, free.

Is what I did wrong? Or is what he did?

After fruitless years of searching and begging the rights owners "the right way"?

Here's how it affects me, directing: If my next film fails to be mediocre enough to satisfy the taste of those delicate little former intern studio execs who sip lattes, name their babies "Brooklyn" and "Max," and take spinning classes at Crunch, and because it is violent it is not made available to mass audiences; and if those audiences however loved it at the tiny festival that ran it; and then can't find a DVD of it because I was too stupid or lazy to make it available -- and then, in frustration at me and the studios they find and download a torrent of it, and love it all over again, does that make those audiences "criminals"?

Come now, folks; come on.

We're all familiar with recent attempts by former Senator Chris Dodd, lobbyists for his Motion Picture Association of America and for the Recording Industry Association of America, and certain not at all well-meaning congressmen, to enact and get passed two terrible ideas, SOPA and PIPA. We've been told these two bills are harmless to the internet, and that their lamblike only intent is to stop piracy, because the movie and music industries are desperately losing blood, and only the MPAA and RIAA exist to heroically save them.

Here's my problem with that.

I am directing a movie. I've written a B movie that got made by an actual studio.
(Cue pimp voice.) "Chris Dodd, where my money at?"

The MPAA has six major studios, such as Warner, Disney and others, listed as "members" of it. But a little research reveals the MPAA started as the MPPDA, or the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. MGM and two other studios formed the group in 1922. They chose a former Presbyterian minister, Will Hays, as their chairman. Unlike Chris Dodd, who's no prize, Hays was a Republican: in fact for three years he was Republican National Committee chairman. This guy became the head of the MPAA with their blessing. (Indie producers at the time disliked him and the MPAA, and sued them, calling them a "trust" -- which now, like then, they still are.) Hays enacted what we call the Hays Code, which drafted draconian rules censoring what movie directors like me, and some of you out there reading this, could show or say in a movie.

One of the rules the MPAA gave us was we could never show homosexuality in a picture. They called it "the sex perversion." (Google and Wikipedia this for extra credit.)

Another thing our friends the MPAA told us we could not depict were interracial relationships. Their term for this was "miscegenation."

(Visit www.mpaa.org/about/history for a great belly laugh at how frantically today's MPAA tries to spin this era in their history.)

Thus what I see when I examine the MPAA is not a friendly guardian of feature film directors' rights, even at the studio level. Instead, I see a very large lobby that began as a Christian right-wing organization instituted to keep minorities off motion picture screens, promote racism and homophobia, and restrict creative freedom in America. That's how the MPAA began.

Now they are curiously interested in the internet.

This is the moment we would instruct the score composer beside us in the editing room to cue an ominous minor key double whole-note on the contrabasses and cellos.

The Motion Picture Association of America has never written me a paycheck for anything. They're not backing my picture. These are not nice guys. They are not in this business to help filmmakers at all.

They're censors waiting to pounce my film and yours with an NC-17 rating for violence or for showing two consenting adults laughing while enjoying sex (rape, however, is okay), while curiously no one censors the news media for showing my toddler second cousin Josh Powell's house burning down on daytime television with two toddlers just like her inside it, or informing me over breakfast that some Canadian guy sliced off a fellow Greyhound bus passenger's head and began to eat him while other passengers screamed, or showing eight-year-olds Paris Hilton's latest upskirt with very little pixelated out.

Isn't that pauseworthy? If there's no censors for the news, why for dramatic movies and television?

Anyway, I owe the MPAA nothing. They're not my or any other feature director's friends. They are a censoring organization not entirely dissimilar from The Parents Music Resource Center.

Cut, back to one.

Many musicians and singer-songwriters I know here in New York, and knew in Los Angeles, who never received a paycheck from the RIAA, feel the same. Where are the class action lawsuit award paychecks for these musicians from RIAA v. Jammie Thomas-Rasset? If either the MPAA or RIAA made actual financial support efforts towards filmmakers and musicians, e.g. the MPAA earmarking 10-30% of all anti-piracy legal victory awards towards funding independent filmmakers and their projects, or the RIAA making regular and substantial donations from their anti-piracy legal victories to musician-support foundations such as the JFA, or pointing portions of those awards towards funding music education in schools, then I might understand their philosophy. But the fact stands the MPAA and RIAA benefit nobody except their overhead and their attorneys.

There is profit in crusading. That's why there are so many charities. Do you really think Komen gave a real damn about saving women? As someone who has given to charities -- and I am sure you have too -- haven't you at times wondered why we still haven't found that cure, or gotten those children fed, after all this time and exhaustive money, really?

It might be because if these things ever did get truly done, the money to their charities would switch off. Think about it.

Crusading against others "fur die Kinder" has always been profitable. The MPAA and RIAA are using the same gimmick to line their pockets. "It's for the artists!" they claim. That's a very interesting claim.

Not one member of my industry I know has ever received dime one from them. They use us as hostages to strengthen their lobbies, as human shields to promote their fundraising campaigns (aka court cases), and alienate the audience against us with hysterical, hyperbolic legal jihads designed to make them and their professional paid lobbyists richer, but directors, musicians, songwriters, audiences, and American culture all the poorer.

And then they censor us.

What the MAFIAA fails to realize is p2p is not a black and white issue of "piracy is wrong; all of it; and if you didn't pay us, you're a criminal."

Lots of good people have been trying to pay to see lots of good films and hear lots of good music. But when those who moved aggressively to buy "ownership" of film and music are making aggressive efforts clearly designed to suppress public awareness of and access to quality entertainment and instead push, promote and force audiences to the mostly substandard media of this present era, and making few or no efforts to meet audience demand for the "good stuff," what is an audience to do?

If you want audiences to like your product, so make good, original new product, make it affordable in this economy, and turn the volume down on those movie trailers. Seems simple enough to me.

Mr. Lipkowitz is further correct when he says, "On the neutral side, unless the director has equity participation in the film, piracy does not directly impact their paycheck. Their fee is contractual." That's absolutely spot-on.

Piracy does not affect me at all, which is why, for example, Penelope Spheeris' stumble head-first into a hornet's-nest of online infamy and ridicule by openly criticizing something that does not affect her filmmaking future continues to confuse me and make me feel sorry for her. Spheeris apparently wanted notoriety, and believe me, she got it. I disagree with her and am fine with people downloading my films. People have downloaded mpegs of television material I've directed. They later came back and bought DVDs of it because they prefer DVD quality and that "hands to the touch" feeling of actual ownership. Most people do, and the MPAA pretends this isn't true and they don't understand this. If they like it well enough, they'll contact me for the real thing.

Lipkowitz continues, "On the negative side, piracy causes investors and distributors to reduce their revenue projections for future films. This will result in fewer films getting made and reduced budgets for those that do. Fewer films means fewer jobs for all creative and crew. Reduced budgets (among other things) can result in lower fees for key creative." I would amend his otherwise spot-on commentary so that the final sentence reads instead,

"Reduced budgets (among other things) can result in lower fees for key UNION creative."

For independent non-shop filmmakers and key crew, reduced budgets should not impact production quality or quality of life reflected in salaries. What reduced studio budgets adversely impact are studio features made that cost $150MM, the standard A-list movie budget today. One significant reason for these obscene prices is union pressure.

When a picture becomes shop (union), you should multiply your budget by at least three, because in the case of directors, which you asked about, a union director is DGA. All DGA pictures must be "maintenanced": this means only union crew members can work on it. This is when you begin seeing crew end credits such as "assistant standby," and your location fills with people who will not even be moving things or working, but instead standing joking and chewing gum and eating craft services while not actually doing anything, and your budget must pay them all union wages, health and pension. That's bad for the unions and bad for us. It's insulting to unions.

At its worst, the set then becomes an exclusive little "club" of 1 percenters who readily claim they are 99 percenters off set, with a knowing wink to each other, and erect 2-story rubber rats to terrorize films and companies who won't lie down for the beatdown as commanded.

Unions are ripping moviemakers and studios off: not as individuals, mind you, because true union men and women work hard at their craft; but there are many freeloaders who get union cards because of luck or connections, and won't do a damned thing on set, but get paid for it -- and owing to the power of numbers and the threat of what together those numbers can do -- called by one side terrorism and by the other solidarity -- you can't escape being maintenanced, and the moment your film is, its budget inflates to seven, eight or nine figures.

As the individual workers themselves, unions are just awesome and that is all. As collective organizations, they are as nuanced and corrupt as the studios they despise, and absolutely 100 percent as greedy, and possibly more.

Bear in mind also that most A-list celebrities are members of Screen Actors Guild. Their top actors are also members of the 1 percent and make more in 45 days than any teachers in America will make their entire lifetime, and more than the GNP of many small developed countries.

They make $25MM+ per picture because their union, the Screen Actors Guild, is well-financed and extremely corrupt, and what SAG wants, SAG gets. They have rigged the industry so you virtually cannot make an A-list picture without kissing the ring of the capodecina and depositing a third of your little laundromat's income to their Mafia. Lowered movie budgets automatically point a bright Maglite of purity upon this dark, swirling cesspool of corruption.

I welcome reduced budgets for motion pictures. Lower budgets increase the creativity on location. More camaraderie often develops. Stories get smarter; tighter; better. The fat gets trimmed and we're brought down to the lean, the true grit of the story. That's what filmmaking's for. If torrent piracy causes this by forcing budgets to come down and fewer films to be made, then so be it.

If in retrospect we find that piracy is what it took to do that, it was long overdue, the industry was bloated and ill and frankly needed it, and then maybe tough love was the answer and it was worth it to save the movie industry and force a return in it to ingenuity, hard work and creativity.

So this rather long answer, at least from this movie director, is that my response to those who download a torrent of my current film is meh, with an addendum of:

"Thanks. I hope you enjoyed it."
"Please make the effort to track down my studio and contact me. Give me notes on what you liked or didn't about the film, so I can do even better."
"If you really liked it, please consider buying the DVD of it in the future, when your finances permit that you can. I promise to include cool easter eggs and other goodies you couldn't download, and make it worth it."
"Then, because of your support, I can make more of it."

That's all, really. Any further commentary to them would be shrugworthy. They're a potential paying future audience member. The technology has changed. The playing field is different now. We need to adapt to it, not it to us. The above is my adaptation. Thanks for asking me this fascinating question!