BilmBlog500

I saw around 100 movies that opened in 2014, which is a pretty typical year for me.  Rarely less than 90, hard to see more than 120. Of those 100 movies. Boyhood is the best. Here are the next dozen or so movies that I consider to be my 90th percentile for the year: 2.  Whiplash This is the one other film from 2014 that I've seen twice, though it's possible there are one or two others I'd try to see again. JK Simmons won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and the film also won Oscars for editing and for sound mixing. Simmons is the leader of the top ensemble at a Juilliard-like performing arts school, and Miles Teller is a student who yearns to be playing drums in this ensemble.  And the two are both crazy.  Simmons might be an actual psychopath, or he might just take a little bit too seriously the idea that you've got to tear down in order to build up.  Which, just to say, is the entire premise behind boot camp for the US armed forces.  But what would dri...

The Oscars forced me to sit down with my print-out of the movies I'd seen that opened in 2014, and without further ado... 1.  Boyhood The very notion of the movie is crazy.  The challenges in making a film with a 12-year shooting schedule go far beyond anything.  You can't even compare it to the 7/14/21/etcUp documentary series by Michael Apted that has followed a group of kids from 7 until very close to today with films every 7 years.  It's one thing to just get together every seven years and see what's happened.  You don't have to worry about what happened in the intervening, you just have to report on it.  And in any event, Boyhood director Richard Linklater has already replicated that with his Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight series of films with Ethan Hawke and Juliette Delpy. Let's look at this: You can't sign a contract for longer than 7 years for an actor/actress, so for your primary cast members, there's the chance that you could be ...

12:23 AM: NY Times Oscar blog notes omissions of Roger Ebert and Joan Rivers from the in memoriam list. 12:09 AM: Or in the R-Rated words of @mattbilmes  GOD DAMN IT BIRDMAN WON BEST PICTURE GODDAMN IT SISOALEHFIWPALCKRKWKFNDGOOWOALNFNEOW 12:05 AM: AMPAS got it wrong.  Boyhood is Best! 11:49 PM:  Wait, wasn't that guy a seat filler? 11:47 PM:  And if you compare Graham Moore's speech to Patricia Arquette's you can understand why the editor in me gives Arquette's speech an A for content and a C- for organization. 11:45 PM: Sigh.  The highlight of Graham Moore's speech followed by my disappointment over Best Director. 11:43 PM: me not happy.  wrong director win Oscar. 11:35 PM:  Another mild surprise with Imitation Game winning for Adapted Screenplay.  It is based on a book represented by our friends at the Zeno Agency. 11:30 PM: So the Rivoli Theatre where The Sound of Music premiered.  It was located at 49th and Broadway, with a ornate facade...

Chuck Wendig just did a Terrible Minds post telling authors not to "pre-reject" their work, i.e., to finish their novel, say it's not good enough, and then dump it into the drawer or the trunk on top of all the other not good enough thing.  And maybe I'm reading too much into what Chuck says, or maybe I should understand that it should be implied that Chuck is taking a position really far on one side as a counterweight and not as an actual "position" position.  But as I'm reading his post, he doesn't say it's ever right to take a manuscript and put it into the pile inside the drawer inside the trunk. And that's wrong. I'm going to reject his thesis in two ways that are flip sides of the same coin, the you coming to me, and the me taking your manuscript to the world. In both instances, I note the old, true and wise saying "you've got one chance to make a first impression." If I as an agent look at three or four bad books by ...

So Hachette was having a cocktail reception this afternoon for literary agents to show off their beautiful new open plan offices. To which I RSVPed on December 15. Now, I'm curious as I walk up what kind of security thing they'll have, because having dozens or hundreds of agents waiting in line for their building passes would be kind of silly. So they have this check-in desk with a little Hachette sign and people holding scads of pre-printed bar-coded building passes.  And we're told that these are under the agency names, and I say I'm there from JABberwocky, and like half the people on line, I'm told "we don't have your badge; you'll have to check in with the main desk" where you need to get a nice individual photo guest barcoded badge. And I just didn't feel like it. Did they have the badge under my name even though I was told twice it should be under the agency's name?  The email signature on my RSVP did just have my name on it and not t...

Did you know that Uber drivers get to rank you, just like you get to rank them? And when you summon an Uber, drivers can decide not to pick you up based on your passenger rating? In theory, ratings and reviews are always a good thing, but I'm not always sure. Generally, I've had good rides with Uber, but when I took an Uber from my hotel to LAX a few weeks ago, it wasn't a very good ride at all.  The driver decided to park across the street from my hotel rather than in the hotel's carport, even though we needed to make an easy right turn out of the carport, there was no obstacle to turning into the carport, and no obstacle in the carport.  The driver didn't offer to help wheel my luggage across the street to his car, which would be a nice thing to do if you're deciding to park across the street for no reason.  Then when we ran into traffic and the "10" looked really really backed up, the driver had little awareness of the alternate routes.  When we got...

I am extremely happy that the Washington Nationals got drummed out of the NL playoffs early, and for as long as Stephen Strasburg is playing baseball, I want for them never to advance to the World Series. Stephen Strasburg himself?  If he goes to another team in a trade or free agency, he can win all the World Series rings he wants.  Just none with the Nationals. Why? So two years ago, the Nationals has Stephen Strasburg on an innings limit because he was recoving from Tommy John surgery, and when the Nationals advanced to the playoffs, they refused to let Stephen Strasburg pitch because of this innings limit.  This was a controversial decision, and a decision that I disagreed with strenuously. It's not that I am opposed to any innings limits for pitchers.  My 16-year-old nephew has been playing a lot of baseball in both spring and fall leagues from Little League on.  I've never noticed my brother to be one of those fathers who wants for his son to win at all co...