Watched "McMillions" Episode 1 from HBO Max
Directed by James Lee Hernandez, Brian Lazarte. With Tim Adams, Mark Devereaux, Jan Garvin, Chris Graham. An anonymous tip to FBI agent Doug Mathews speaks of a con surrounding the much beloved McDonald's Monopoly game and its mysterious mastermind; a man going by the moniker of "Uncle Jerry."
I remember reading the sprawling article this documentary was roughly based on. While this first episode is generally entertaining, it feels a bit over-the-top in terms of its presentation. The main FBI agent is definitely a character and is entertaining, but it feels like this would have been better served as a three part thing rather than the six that I can see available. There’s almost too much re-enactment and the directing is a bit on-the-nose.

I’ll give the rest of it a shot, but for those who don’t have time, read the article instead.

I’ll also note that this documentary is a separate effort from the feature film that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are developing.

Read Back to Bollywood - Jottings (jot.pratikmhatre.com)
I watched 25 Bollywood movies this year. That’s almost a movie every two weeks. Only 4 of them were re-watches. Considering that I’m an Indian, you may think that doesn’t seem to be a lot. Admittedly, I watched many Bollywood movies when I lived in India (duh!), and even as a grad student in India, my roommates and I watched a ton, sometimes three movies in a night. But we were watching everything and anything. As I got older, my tolerance for bad movies declined, and I was no longer willing to put up with crap that Bollywood had started dishing out in the late aughts and early teens of this century.

An interesting take on the evolution of Bollywood.

Read Hollywood has a talent pipeline problem. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard have an app for that (Los Angeles Times)
Impact Creative Systems, an offshoot from Imagine Entertainment, is launching a new app called the Creative Network, a LinkedIn-meets-Slack for screenwriters and studio heads.
I’ll have to take a look at this, but I’m not really sure what the direct problem is that they’re solving for. The bigger problem is usually filtering through a load of crap to find the actual talent, and I’m not sure how this app is fixing that particular problem. They may be making the net wider which is good, but there’s still the filtering problem which is the bigger problem. 
 
Naturally getting talented people to help mentor people is a good thing, but it’s also the piece that almost never happens because it takes a lot of time and effort and doesn’t always pay off. I’m not sure where their system is adding value aside from a few links.
 
This definitely disintermediates the agent in the system, so perhaps the extra value is seen in circumventing them to take advantage of the unwary writer one is mentoring?
Read Madonna to Co-Write, Direct Her Own Biopic by Borys Kit ( Hollywood Reporter)
Diablo Cody is co-writing the "untold true story" that will be produced by Amy Pascal.

There are so many untold and inspiring stories and who better to tell it than me. 

Of course there will be a huge amount of bias from her perspective.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 12:18PM

Madonna being front and center to guide her own biopic should not be a surprise from anyone who has followed her career. But it is noteworthy since most biopics, when based on people or musical acts, tend to have their subjects as consultants and executive producers, involved mainly from rights points of view. This has been the case with recent hits Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody. 

And I think she’s learned from Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody that if you’re heavily involved in making and producing your own biopic, it’s unlikely anyone else will do one anytime soon and you’ll be able to control not only the immediate narrative, but also the long term narrative (at least within popular culture).
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 12:23PM

Read Disney Developing Original Movie Musical ‘All Night Long’ From Lionel Richie Song Catalog by Matt Donnelly (Variety)
Walt Disney Studios is developing an original movie musical based on the songs of American treasure Lionel Richie, Variety has learned exclusively. Tentatively titled “All Night Long,” …
Watched Don McNeill's Breakfast Club (Part 4) from YouTube
After watching most of an entire show on YouTube a few observations as relates to the broader picture of these sorts of shows.

Though I’m sure it originated more in vaudeville and even earlier forms, there’s a solid example of a sidekick/foil/straightman operating here, though the he operates almost more in the visual than he would have in the radio version which loses much in the translation without vision.

There is an early example of a request for monetary support for a respirator which is an analogue of modern day Patreon/Kickstarter sort of fundraising within a community to help a community member.

This is obviously a direct precursor to more modern morning shows both on the radio and on television including Good Morning America, the Today Show, Regis and Kathy Lee, etc.

There are examples of having callers put on the show, but in this version they didn’t use the telephone, but instead did it via mail.

There were lots of live musicians, an art form we don’t see in public as much, though the highest end talk shows still have them. I was intrigued that they were all wearing sunglasses so early in the morning, and perhaps the studio lights were on the bright side, but they may have also been up all night playing other gigs before showing up in the morning. Another woman mentioned this herself on the show which I found warming to have had my own thoughts pre-echoed.

There was an interesting cultural discussion about diet thrown in with an audience member. Not surprisingly it was aimed at a female guest who was asked about her regimen. Certainly an early example of social pressure put on women, especially as I recall that she appeared to be in better shape than her husband.

There was at least some effort at making audience participation here. Not as sophisticated as some that would be seen later on shows like Leno who took it to a higher art form. McNeill did bring up some visiting Brownies, but the segment was so pedestrian compared to those seen today.

I was a bit shocked that he took some time out to do a prayer live on the otherwise secular show. Definitely shows a precursor to the 700 Club and other religious-themed talk shows.

He ended the show with the sign-off, “So long and be good to yourself.”

Read Grand Guignol (Wikipedia)
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (French pronunciation: ​[ɡʁɑ̃ ɡiɲɔl]: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet") – known as the Grand Guignol – was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (at 20 bis, rue Chaptal [fr]). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in naturalistic horror shows. Its name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment, a genre popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre (for instance Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, and Webster's The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil), to today's splatter films.

Audiences had strong reactions to the new disturbing themes the horror plays presented. One of the most prevalent themes staged at the Grand-Guignol was the demoralization and corruption of science. The “evil doctor” was a reoccurring trope in the horror shows performed.

Development idea: Bring back the Grand Guignol, but have evil politicians instead.
Annotated on January 20, 2020 at 04:06PM

🎧 Sheila Nevins on Age, Sex, Love, Life, and Everything Else | Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Listened to Sheila Nevins on Age, Sex, Love, Life, and Everything Else by Alan Alda from Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Sheila Nevins has explored the human condition in the thousand or so documentaries she produced for HBO. From more than 30 years of telling us stories about ourselves, to her experience as a woman in the workplace, Sheila has plenty to say about communicating. And she never holds back. In this delightful episode, Alan Alda talks with Sheila about her life, how she feels about aging, the #MeToo movement, sex, divorce, documentaries, storytelling, and just about everything else! This episode is sponsored by Calm. Check out www.calm.com/alda for more details.

I always forget that Sheila is as old as she is. She does have a great sense of humor.

She makes an interesting point about humility that people with power (and especially within the entertainment industry) should be aware of and work to improve.

Most shocking was the story she tells about her me too moment and how she viewed it. Definitely a perspective I wouldn’t have expected.

Her perspective about looking at individuals as a way into human problems and making documentaries is similar to a philosophy I remember hearing from Masha Gessen in an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg did with her. The upshot is that, especially for righting wrongs and general atrocities, focusing a story on a particular individual has a lot more power than focusing on the nameless and faceless masses. Sheila’s example of the Holocaust survivor is a particular apt one. (As I think about it Masha would be a great interview for this podcast.)

In fact, I recently watched an immigration related documentary on Frontline and while I didn’t personally find the lead woman very relate-able or sympathetic, I was still pissed off at the process because her individual story was still so powerful.

This general ideal also reminds me of the gut-punch scene at the end of the film A Time To Kill (1996) [spoiler alert] which ends with the command to the jury “Now imagine she’s white.”

👓 ‘BH90210’ Showrunner, Multiple Writers Quit Fox Series Revival (EXCLUSIVE) | Variety

Read ‘BH90210’ Showrunner, Multiple Writers Quit Fox Series Revival (EXCLUSIVE) by Joe Otterson and Matt Donnelly
There is drama behind the scenes of Fox’s upcoming “Beverly Hills 90210” revival that is worthy of — well, “Beverly Hills 90210.” Showrunner Patrick Sean Smith and multiple senior-level writers have quit the six-episode series, which is titled “BH90210.” The exact reason for the exodus is unclear. One source said the dispute was over interference from two of the show’s lead actresses, while another noted that the writers were unhappy with one of the executives overseeing the project. Paul Sciarrotta has been named the new showrunner along with series’ creators Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler. Sciarrotta, a member of the show’s writing staff, is currently under an overall deal with CBS Television Studios, which is producing the series.

👓 Infographic Breaks Down Film Genre Popularity of the Past 100 Years | No Film School

Read Infographic Breaks Down Film Genre Popularity of the Past 100 Years (No Film School)
Check out this cool look into how Film Genre Popularity has evolved over time from 1910 - 2018.

👓 For the First Time in More Than 20 Years, Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain | Smithsonian Magazine

Read For the First Time in More Than 20 Years, Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain (Smithsonian)
A beloved Robert Frost poem is among the many creations that are (finally) losing their protections in 2019