Easy and Breezy

It's not every day that one's boss gives a public exhortation to undergo a medical procedure but today's Friday, so why not? In fact, our boss makes the procedure sound so nice we wouldn't be surprised if people started doing it recreationally.

Save the Date

It's official: Columbia Pictures will be releasing We Own the Night wide on October 12th. (image courtesy of our aptly named French distributor Wild Bunch)

Shills

The 2929 Productions website now features super-convenient links to the Amazon.com pages where you can buy our movies. Buy movies like the incredibly underrated Turistas or the liberal thriller (and conservative horror flick) Good Night, and Good Luck.

A propos of nothing

The Albanian eBay site is about to feature a certain presidential timekeeper.

'Tragic Indifference' Developments

On our slate is an adaptation of Adam Penenberg's book about the Ford-Firestone scandals from a few years ago Tragic Indifference (bad title, great book), whose main protagonist, attorney Tab Turner, is in the news today: He's taking on Ford again, arguing that Ford marketed its roll-over-prone Explorer specifically to safety-conscious soccer moms. In this article from the Sacramento Bee, our project gets a brief shout-out. Look for it in theaters, 2008 (with a new title). Buy the book here.

Enhanced Laziness Through Technology

Note to all unsolicited submitters out there: Send us an MP3 of your script and it'll get to the top of the slush pile. A new service at iscript.com will turn any screenplay into an MP3 audio file. This reminds me of the urban legend about a certain super-heroic Warners-based producer who, rather than read scripts himself, would have one of his assistants read the script into a tape-recorder.

A TED conference highlight

An artifact from the bleeding edge technology conference, TED:



How long until someone uses this to render a CG environment from this communally derived cache of photos? Maybe the next Pixar movie can be set in a photo-real environment? But the biggest story here is that throw-away comment that the presenter makes about how the Notre Dame composite isn't on the internet because of "the lawyers." How does one track down and license millions of people's photos?

Landmark opening

Our bosses opened a new Landmark Theatre at the Westside Pavilion over the weekend and, apparently, it did huge business. It isn't hard to see why--this is the kind of cinema that raises the filmgoing experience from mere habit to full-blown spectacle. We always thought it was strange that the high-end multi-plex treatment was reserved for the younger less discriminating filmgoers--whereas 'arthouse' usually meant 'crappy legroom.' Now the adults who actually care about the amenities and the gourmet cuisine are finally getting it.

Click here to buy tickets. The excellent Away From Her and Once are both playing.

In addition to singing...

He also gets singled out (or rather duo-pentagoned out) for his screenwriting. From the forthcoming "10 Screenwriters to Watch" feature in Variety:

MICHAEL BACALL, "Psycho Funky Chimp"
DANA FOX, "What Happens in Vegas"
KELLY FREMON, "Ticket to Ride"
EVAN GOLDBERG & SETH ROGEN, "Superbad"
JESSICA GOLDBERG, "Absent Hearts"
JASON DEAN HALL, "Rodney on the Roq"
CHRISTOPHER LANDON, "Disturbia," "The Flock"
PETER STRAUGHAN, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People"
DANNY STRONG, "Recount"
JOSH ZETUMER, "Villain," "The Infiltrator"

And as bonus, Michael Bacall is working on 2929 project "Generation Dead." So we're two for ten (and this is without the $90 million/year that Warner Bros spends on development).