Cinemarcia

Late September marks the start of a wonderful time for television: the summer reality shows wrap up (for the most part), and the good old-fashioned TV narratives return (except for Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones – we still have a long way to wait for those three to come back).

Since “premiere week” was officially two weeks ago, I thought this would be a good time to check in on my favorite shows, and discuss some of the new additions this season.

New Shows

The Mindy Project – I am loving this new show created by Mindy Kaling, best known as Kelly Kapoor from The Office. She wrote some of the best episodes of that show, including “Diwali” and “Michael’s Last Dundies,” as well as a hilarious autobiography, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). The first few episodes of The Mindy Project show that Kaling’s unique blend of absurd humor, poignancy, and self-possession will make this one of the new shows to watch this season. I am already hooked on Mindy’s klutzy doctor alter ego, and witty banter with her office nemesis Danny Castellano.

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Rio2012 from Marcia Nunes on Vimeo.

I’ve spent the last week at the Rio Film Festival, which is one of my favorites not only for its programming, but because it also means I get to see my family and old friends. This year, I was asked to be on a panel about independent producing in the United States, along with Darren Goldberg, Rose Ganguzza, Bent-Jørgen Perlmutt, and Summer Shelton. The panel was moderated by Steve Solot, president of the Rio Film Commission.

We all spoke about the importance of developing universal stories if one’s aim is to distribute the film throughout the world. This excerpt is in answer to a question about the difference between working within niche genres, such as horror, which do quite well commercially, and picking universal stories.

I’m writing this in between episodes of Homeland, this year’s winner of both the Emmy and Golden Globe for Best Drama Series. A couple of years ago, I started watching Modern Family right after it won its second Best Comedy Emmy, plus the writing, directing and most of the acting awards in the category. I’m sure I’m not the only one who goes for the “Emmy bump” every time a new show comes along that steals everyone’s thunder; but while by the first commercial break of the pilot episode of Modern Family I was already completely hooked, I’ve finished the third episode of Homeland and am still unsure of my feelings. The story is gripping, yes, and there’s no question that Damian Lewis, Claire Danes, and Mandy Patinkin all give tour de force performances, but I’m not having the same visceral reaction that I did when I first started Mad Men or Breaking Bad.

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Early September brings to mind many things: the end of summer, back-to-school shopping, and, for film buffs, the Toronto Film Festival. As always, the festival marks the informal beginning of “awards season,” as most of the films that will eventually make it to the Golden Globes and Oscar races will debut sometime between now and Christmas.

Every year a couple high-profile films at the festival grab the attention of even the most mainstream filmgoers – this year the big three are Cloud Atlas, Looper and Argo. But what about the movies that don’t star Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, or Ben Affleck? These are the ten films I’m most excited about seeing once they come down from Canada:

10. The Iceman

I love both serial killer movies and mob movies, and this combination of the two is sure not to disappoint. Michael Shannon plays Richard Kuklinski, who spent over 30 years as a hit man for the Gambino family while committing serial murders for his own pleasure on the side. With Winona Ryder playing his wife and the mother of his three children, this film isn’t just about the violence, it’s about reconciling one man’s heinous crimes with his other life as a loving father and devoted husband. The fact that it’s based on a book by one of my favorite writers, Anthony Bruno, is just “icing” on the cake.

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As the summer wistfully comes to an end, we begin to say goodbye to many things: long beach weekends; evenings spent without a jacket; and, a summer staple for many people, blockbuster movie season. Since the 70s, the summer has been the time for big movie releases. Starting with Jaws in 1975, audiences have been flocking to movie theatres from May to August to escape the heat and immerse themselves in a fantasy world infinitely more exciting than their own. Through the years, summer blockbusters have been everything from purely mindless fun like Animal House (1978), to high budget concept pieces such as 2010’s Inception. What they all have in common, however, is providing a shared experience for their viewers.

I’ve just come back from a month in Europe, where I watched The Dark Knight Rises. There really is nothing like being in a packed movie theatre filled with strangers who don’t speak your language or share your cultural background, and knowing that, as the lights dim, you are all eagerly anticipating the exact same thing. This shared experience is more prevalent than ever today, when people all over the world can watch the same movie starting on the same day.

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I finally saw Beasts of the Southern Wild this weekend, and I was completely blown away.  I’d read all of the reviews, and had heard enough from friends who’d seen it to know I was in for a treat. All the reviews in the world couldn’t prepare me for just how impressive young Quvenzhané Wallis is as Hushpuppy. Even after seeing it with my own eyes, I’m not entirely sure I believe this was a real 6 year old. Her performance is so focused, so driven, that it would almost be easier to believe that she is 90.

Writer-director Behn Zeitlin’s choice to tell his story from a child’s eye is an inspired one. Beasts is a film about a community most of us would find exotic, even misguided. It is a group of people who live in The Bathtub, an area of the Louisiana bayou forsaken by civilization. It’s not entirely clear whether they are legally allowed to live there, though it becomes increasingly obvious that they have been repeatedly encouraged to leave as the film goes on. To say that this film was inspired by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would be reductive. Though the landscape is similar, the film is at its core about defining what is a life worth living.  It is for this point that introducing us to this world through Hushpuppy is so crucial. We cannot judge her for having chosen to stay there, she is a child. But she seems happy enough, even as we see the adults in her community engage in some questionable choices. If we had been introduced to this world through her “Daddy,” or even through Miss Bathsheeba, the teacher, we would have probably judged them all for putting their children in such precarious conditions, and denying them the comforts and technology we hold so dear.

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In honor of America’s independence, here are my top five movies about the 4th of July:

5. Jaws

Taking place over the 4th of July weekend, this movie created a lifelong fear of sharks in most of the world’s population. Not to mention that there will never be a better theme song (or theme couplet) for a villain.

4. Born on the Fourth of July

This one pretty much goes without saying, but its message that sometimes the most important way to show love for your country is to fight to change it for the better is always worth remembering.

3. The Patriot

OK, this movie is technically neither great, nor historically active. But two Australians pretending to be Americans fighting for independence? How can you not love it despite its flaws?

2. Independence Day

Arguably the best 4th of July movie ever – and also the first movie to use its title as its release date – this is a must-see today.

1. Brokeback Mountain

Though this isn’t truly about the 4th of July, it is a painfully beautiful love story, and punctuated by a really intense 4th of July picnic….

About a month ago, a friend of mine sent me this incendiary article from the Forbes Tech blog. We have long engaged in a discussion about piracy, which I call “stealing content,” and he calls “economic protesting.” It’s not surprising, then, that he and I focused on completely different aspects of Kain’s argument. While he was stuck on Kain’s assertion that HBO has brought these illegal downloads on themselves by not offering a standalone service, I was more interested in Kain’s exploration of why people are pirating in the first place.

Cord-cutting, Kain explains, is not a short-lived phenomenon. It is a trend, and one that just keeps on growing. There is an entire generation of content consumers coming up who will go their entire lives without ever watching linear programming. And as cable providers charge increasingly unrealistic amounts for access to content, it is not surprising that many people, who would happily pay a couple dollars per episode, end up pirating material that is not readily available on a piecemeal basis (using a different strategy, AMC has had huge success in making new episodes of Mad Men available on iTunes and Amazon for $2.99 the day after they air on television). I pay about $100 a month for my cable access (not counting what we pay for the broadband connection). Why do I pay this much? Mostly because I really love HBO shows, and to get HBO I need to choose the most expensive option offered by Verizon Fios. However, if I didn’t work in the entertainment industry, and wasn’t painfully aware that any pirating I do is essentially stealing from my future self, I would probably also cut the cord and join the pirates.

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Over the past decade, we have seen the rise of a powerful new consumer class in the entertainment space – Latinos are increasingly becoming one of the most important demographics on the market.

According to the annual Multicultural Economy report produced by the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Latinos have experienced a 108% gain in disposable income over the past ten years, a large part of which has been used towards entertainment spending. In fact, Latino households boosted their yearly entertainment budgets by 23.9% in the previous 10 years, while most other demographic groups tightened discretionary spending. The current Latino buying power in the United States is at $1 trillion, making it larger than the national economies of all but 14 countries in the world.  Moreover, this buying power is expected to grow another 50% in the next three years, to $1.5 trillion in 2015.

What this means for the film business is a huge amount of unexplored potential. The Latino market has not been directly catered to until quite recently, and the possibilities are only beginning to be tapped. In the past couple of years, demographic studies have all shown the Latino population as the most voracious moviegoers. While overall admissions in the United States were down 4% from 2010 (according to 2011’s MPAA Theatrical Market Statistics report), Latinos were more likely than any other demographic group to go to the movies. They report the highest annual attendance per capita, seeing an average of five movies a year. And while Latinos only represent 16% of the country’s population, they represent 24% of all frequent moviegoers (those who attend at least one movie per month), a group that drives 50% of the country’s yearly box office intake.

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This is an excerpt from a panel I did at this year’s MBA Entertainment Conference at Stern, along with Gregoire Gensollen from FilmNation, John Sloss from Cinetic, and industry vet Ted Shugrue.

This is the answer to a question about how the rise of Netflix in Latin America impacted the previous sales model for the region.

MEC 2012 Panel from Marcia Nunes on Vimeo.