Movies Not Movies

The best movies from around the world that don't exist and the people who don't exist that made them. Irreverent discussion, clips and interviews, hosted by the author of the Official Dictionary of Sarcasm, James Napoli, and the author of the LaLa Pettibone book series, Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

Go Martian, Go! 05/01/2019

Unemployed Screenwriters Tired of Constantly Revising Outdated Technology in Their Scripts 04/29/2019

Unemployed Screenwriters Tired of Constantly Revising Outdated Technology in Their Scripts Remember floppy disks? So does screenwriter Paul Unguent, whose 1999 unproduced high-tech thriller spec script East of the Grid relied heavily on references to these data storage units. Only trouble is, we are now in the 21st Century, and that means Unguent is tasked with the job of going into his old script, which he still shops around Hollywood, and replacing every appearance of the term floppy disk with the term flash drive. “My screenplay still contains a timeless, viable story, but the technology in it has evolved, and it’s a total pain in the ass,” sighs Unguent. Indeed, the results of a study commissioned by an independent writer’s advocacy group reveals that a staggering 98.8 % of unemployed screenwriters are completely fed up with how many times they have to go back into old spec scripts and change references to outdated technology. “It’s beyond annoying,” reports Santa Monica based movie scribe Earl Kitella. “The conventional wisdom is that you never know when one of your scripts will hit, so you have to keep them all around. Only problem is, the ones you wrote a while back still have payphones, and the ones you wrote in the early 2000s don’t have enough references to social media.” As a result, says Kitella, “A perfectly good writing sample has to be gone through with a fine-toothed comb, just so you can make sure people are using cell phones and Facebook enough.” “That’s only the beginning of the hideous grind,” affirms Joy Dunton, a New York-based screenwriter. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to go through and change he flips his phone closed to he hangs up his phone? I mean, damn, I wrote this really strong script back in 2006, and now my agent won’t even show it until I get rid of all the flip phones.” And it doesn’t end there. “Can you say video rental store?” asks Norman Willoughby, Chicago-based television writer. “I had a whole scene set in one of those places, in this great script I wrote in 2003. Now what do I do? Move it into an apartment where they’re doing a search on their Roku? The inherent dynamism I was going for with the interaction in the video store is completely lost.” The list of complaints goes on. From scenes in which people are stumped by trivia that must be altered in order to depict them Googling the answer on their handheld devices, to portable cameras needing to be replaced with smartphones that take selfies, to entire suspense movie plots which disintegrate now that people can share photos on Instagram. “I had to scrap an entire storyline because it involved the extra eleven seconds it took to send photos as a jpeg email attachment,” Kitella snorts. “No one would believe that crap anymore.” Similarly, searching one’s document for a phrase such as Match.com in order to replace it with a trendier pop culture phenomenon like Tinder is commonplace. “And you just know that a month from now we’ll be bumping Tinder for the next hook-up app that we’ll need to include to keep our material on the cutting edge,” adds Dunton. “And by the way, don’t get me started on apps, or tapping your card at the cash register instead of swiping it, or using an actual flashlight instead of the one on your phone. Yeesh. They don’t pay me enough for all these revisions. Come to think of it, they don’t pay me at all.” Perhaps the granddaddy of all pre-early 21st century technology that did not appear regularly in prior scripts is text messaging. “Oh, hell, yeah,” Willoughby opines, “Heaven for-freaking-bid your script should have anyone under 30 actually using their cell phones to talk anymore. And, my God, it is insanely difficult to make text exchanges exciting on screen — people go to movies to watch them, not read them! It’s a visual medium! Hitchcock would be completely f**ked in 21st Century Hollywood.” The study reveals that it could be another ten years before every spec script’s reference to a DVD or Blu-ray is replaced with a reference to a streaming service; before every use of a map is replaced with an on-board navigation system; before every external answering machine is finally replaced with voicemail. And by then, things could have changed completely once again. “Most of these unemployed screenwriters have day jobs,” the study’s lead researcher observes. “They just don’t have time to go into every one of their old masterpieces and make sure it is up to date.” Many have considered leaving their screenplays alone and simply choosing to keep their stories set in the previous two decades. “But that’s a slippery slope,” says Joy Dunton. “Those were some pretty boring years.” Listen to Movies Not Movies on ! /episode/index/show/moviesnotmovies/id/9575345

Before The Stench, When We Were Happy 04/24/2019

Raiders of the Lost Generation 04/17/2019

Movies Not Movies Exclusive: Netflix to Share Viewers Fast-Forwarding Habits with Filmmakers 04/15/2019

Movies Not Movies Exclusive: Netflix to Share Viewers Fast-Forwarding Habits with Filmmakers Film and television content creators are bracing their egos for the latest innovation in streaming video technology. An anonymous source at Netflix has told MoviesNotMovies that the streaming entertainment giant will soon let makers of TV shows and movies know at what point viewers have given up on their lame-ass excuses for quality programming— and simply decided to stop watching, or to fast-forward through entire scenes or even entire shows or movies. “So much content is streamed now,” said the source. “We can monitor every aspect of our viewers’ behavior, including every time they clearly cannot stomach another millisecond of some reprehensible mediocrity, and have no option but to halt the viewing process, or fast-forward the living crap out of a movie or TV show in the hopes of making the pain stop a little sooner.” “Now is the time to share these extremely telling user viewing decisions with the very people who provided this obviously substandard entertainment,” the source added. “Only by showing the makers of the content exactly where a viewer has lost interest—exactly where the storyteller has bored the living sh*t out of everybody—can we hope to make the quality of our offerings improve.” “I’ve talked to the writers, directors and producers in this town, and they are terrified,” said syndicated entertainment reporter Thad Foucault. “I can’t name any names right now, but I’ve already received more than two dozen middle-of-the-night calls from content creators, all of whom are sobbing their eyes out.” According to Foucault, there are two basic blubbering fears expressed by the makers of television and film content. One is that they “knew the project sucked when they made it and now they will have to suffer the indignity of knowing the exact point at which everybody else realized it, too,” or the worry on the other end of the spectrum is that “I don’t expect my genius to be recognized, but that doesn’t mean I want hard data on how soon into my masterpiece everybody wrote me off as a pretentious douchebag.” But to movie and TV consumers, this is the mother lode of fan involvement in the making of their favorites. “It’s about time,” said Jennifer Teasdale, a retail clerk in Fairfield, Connecticut. “I’ve been posting my reviews on Netflix for, like, ten years and the only people who give a rat’s ass are the other sad little losers like me who want to try their hand at sounding like Manohla Dargis or whatever. Now, we’re going to hold all the power in our opposable thumbs and shut down these morons who keep wasting our time with below-average content.” “That’s right,” echoes Paul Unguent, a lawyer in Grand Rapids. “Let’s see how they like it, knowing when I’ve reached my limit with their unwatchable garbage. Which, in some cases, is, like two minutes in, by the way.” The ways in which viewers have been dictating digital programming have become fluid and far-reaching over the last few years, from Kickstarter to fans demanding reboots, but this, industry insiders say, is an entirely new and frightful prospect. “Just imagine some 12-year-old punk fast-forwarding through Chinatown because he think it’s boring,” posits Hollywood literary agent Maureen Shupen. “Or someone who has a grudge against a certain director repeatedly dumping out of his or her film after eight seconds, just to get the metrics on Netflix all screwed up. This isn’t simply about improving the quality of programming, this is a set-up for a total rewriting of film history through the remote-control whims of millions of brainless fools.” While some find Shupen’s views elitist, there is no denying that this revolutionary method of letting the people who make our entertainment know how soon and how often we have completely checked out of their unforgivable drivel will have far-reaching repercussions. There is no word yet on whether or not other streaming services such as Amazon Prime or Hulu will follow suit with this option of interacting with the filmmaking community. However, Netflix is reportedly planning to add a right hand sidebar to every subscriber’s home page entitled “You May Also Despise These Titles.” Visit Movies Not Movies on . /episode/index/show/moviesnotmovies/id/9394550

Cops in Lofts 04/10/2019

The Shark Whisperer 03/27/2019

Bonus Content: An Asshole in Love Interview 03/22/2019

Bonus Content: An Asshole in Love Interview In the Movies Not Movies profile of the documentary , director and star Michael Zungolo behaved like an asshole around several citizens of towns named 'Love.' Two of those most deeply shocked and morally compromised by the documentarian were Mayor Strickland of Love, Mississippi, who endured insults and public urination, while Grandma Babushka from Love, Estonia got her borscht insulted big time. The two recently sat down with the Movies Not Movies team to share their experiences. Mayor Strickland and Grandma Babushka Movies Not Movies: Grandma Babushka, Mayor Strickland, thank you so much for traveling so far from home. How were your flights? Grandma Babushka: Plane was very nice. Mayor Strickland: I’ve never flown first class before. Our town doesn’t have that kind of budget. MNM: I’m not surprised. Strickland: What? MNM: Oh, sorry, nothing. And the hotel? Comfy, we hope? Grandma: Hotel is very nice. Strickland: I saw Jack Nicholson in the lobby. I waved, but he was in a hurry, I guess. MNM: Whatever you need to believe. Strickland: What? MNM: Oh, sorry, nothing. Did you both enjoy your VIP seats at The Ellen Show? Grandma: Oh, yes. Is nice show. I laugh. I cry. MNM: You cried? Grandma: They made wait in line five and a half hours. Hips gave out. Nice mayor here had ibuprofen, was good. Strickland: She sold thirty-eight jars of Borscht while we were waiting outside. Ellen's stage manager bought one. MNM: Wonderful. We’re so happy to have you here with us in Los Angeles. You’ve both traveled from your respective towns of Love, Estonia and Love, Mississippi, and, of course, filmgoers first met you when you appeared in the award-winning documentary “An Asshole in Love” by Michael Zungolo. Strickland: He is vile. Despicable. Incredible bladder capacity. Grandma: Is awful man. Awful. He insult my borscht. And leave terrible Yelp review for our family restaurant. Strickland: I can't imagine how tough that is, trying to run a restaurant these days and being at the mercy of Yelp reviews. They’re like the Rotten Tomatoes of the service industry. Grandma: Oh, so you insult my tomatoes, too? Strickland: Is Borscht made with tomatoes? I thought it was beets. Grandma: I see Mr. Bigshot mayor is, too, an asshole. Strickland: Yeah, sure. Eighteen hours in a plane with you, what do you want? Every time I tried to get back into the seat I’d be tripping over your orthopedic shoes. MNM: See what we did, there? Strickland: Oh, my goodness. Grandma: Look at us. We become assholes, just like in the movie. Strickland: We’re so sorry. MNM: No, no, it was fun. Please give us a good review on iTunes. Grandma: What’s iTunes? Strickland: It means they have a podcast, Grandma Babushka. Grandma: Oh. Like every other asshole. Click on the icons on the right to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Click on the microphone icon in the header to download on Apple Podcasts! /episode/index/show/moviesnotmovies/id/9100745

Oh! 03/19/2019

Rock 'n Roll Hospice 03/08/2019

An Interview with Casablanca: Age of Ultron Director Franklin I. McLeod 03/01/2019

An Interview with Casablanca: Age of Ultron Director Franklin I. McLeod Movies Not Movies sat down for a bonus interview with our in-studio guest from the , Franklin I. McLeod. The legendary director opened up about his career and his approach to filmmaking. Movies Not Movies: Franklin I. McLeod. You worked on some of the most iconic movies of Cinema's Golden Age, including Hey, Look at that Piker, Indiscreet Plush Toy and the long-running Unguent series of films featuring husband and wife private eyes Nick and Nora Unguent. What made you come out of retirement to direct a version of Casablanca in space? Franklin I. McLeod: You annoy me. MNM: I see. Did you find it difficult adjusting to a new style of directing, in which so much of the performance is dependent on motion-capture and interaction with green-screen technology? FIM: I kicked over precisely 62 video-assist monitors. Destroyed them. We went over budget replacing them. Every time they bought a new one, I kicked it over again and worked with the actors, not a video screen. MNM: You are known for your very particular working methods. Did today's young stars give you any push back? FIM: What the hell is "push back?" MNM: Well, did they find themselves in conflict with your more precise working methods? FIM: Why didn't you just ask me that, instead of this "push back" nonsense. Does everything have to be reduced to two words now, is that how it is? MNM: So, did the younger actors-- FIM: Younger actors can bend over and kiss my ass in the middle of FAO Schwarz. MNM: The film Casablanca: Age of Ultron is a remarkable synthesis of Computer Generated Imagery, or CGI-- FIM: I know what "CGI" is, you infant. MNM: Um. Hold on, I forgot what I was asking. FIM: Good. You're so full of shit. MNM: You certainly are everything your Hollywood legend promises. FIM: You're a pest. Click on the icons on our page to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and download us on iTunes! #MoviesNotMovies /episode/index/show/moviesnotmovies/id/8842628

Vampire, Abraham Lincoln Hunter 02/27/2019

An Asshole in Love 02/20/2019

Casablanca Age of Ultron 02/11/2019

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