Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 by Bill Swadley.

First published on The Huffington Post February 23, 2011

With the Oscars in the offing it’s become much more of a challenge for those of us who feel we must at least have seen all the Best Picture noms before the big day now that there are ten instead of just five. Many of us make sure we see at least the films that have a chance of winning and/or have significant possible wins in other categories. This means that some films get cut from the list of “must see before Oscar” when the deadline is near because of a complete lack of any possible wins. Winter’s Bone is one such film. Even though it has earned 4 Academy Award nominations, Winter’s Bone is unlikely to win any of them, so last minute Oscarheads will likely make the mistake to skip it.

Winter’s Bone is of those films a movie buff knows is a “must see” for many reasons, but often doesn’t want to because you everything you know about it says it’s not going to be “fun” to watch. It’s not. It’s painful. A painfully wonderful film, fully deserving of all the accolades it has received so far and more. Winter’s Bone redefines “gritty reality” by taking you to an unfamiliar place of chilling harshness that is impossible to escape.

Set in a crank-cooking community in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone is the story of a young woman who must find her father in time for a court hearing or face losing her family home and only means of survival. When she boldly bursts into the unknown world her father has inhabited most of his life, she is confronted and hindered by people one might think would do all they could to help her cause.

On one hand there’s the family (almost everyone is related), on the other there’s the code. Don’t break the code and all is well, step outside the line, even a little, and a world of pain can descend so fast the was never time to even think about running. This reality is one 17-year-old Ree (the amazing Jennifer Lawrence), is just learning, and her uncle, Teardrop (brilliantly under-played by John Hawkes), knows all too well. In this tribe, blood my be thicker than water, but the code trumps all.

In the population of the cast one can see the innocence of the very young still fully intact in Ree’s baby sister, but already being stripped away from her 9-year-old little brother. You can see in the faces of every age in-between the harsh lessons life has taught and continues to teach, and the scars those lessons have left. Fear is the dominant emotion on the faces of many of the characters Ree asks for help as they refuse. When she persists, fear is replaced by distrust, anger, and finally vicious self-preservation. Winter’s Bone is about stark survival and it’s not a pretty picture. Everyone does what they feel they must to survive and make no apologies even when the results are tragic.

Last year The Hurt Locker took the best picture prize and so it doesn’t seem as unlikely as it once did that a “smaller film” can get the attention of The Academy in a meaningful way. Like a few others this year, though, Winter’s Bone seems lost in the shuffle amid all the hype surrounding the front-runners, but it’s one of the very best on the list.

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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 by Bill Swadley.

First published at The Huffington Post, July 13, 2010

On Saturday night I attended A Beatles Celebration at the Hollywood Bowl, and while this isn’t a review of the performance but rather of the attendees, I would be remiss not to say a word or two about the show itself.

Todd Rundgren was the big name associated with these three nights at the Bowl, but by far the night belonged to Betty LaVette and Rob Laufer. Not to belittle he who was once referred to as “Todd is God,” but even God would have to rehearse a significant amount were he to spend three nights at the Bowl with the LA Philharmonic for close to 70,000 people. Todd was very enthusiastic and when he sang softly that sweet old voice was still there, but overall his performance was sloppy. He can shred on the guitar with the best of them, and he did, I just wish he’d taken more time to work out some licks.

On the other extreme, Rob Laufer’s vocals and masterful guitar work was the first time in the show that the Beatles’ presence was truly felt on stage. In his loving performances of “Something” and “Across the Universe,” it was as if he were channeling all four lads at the same time. Todd brought Rob back during his set and the two guitar virtuosos laid “Let it Be” out for the brilliance that it is. There wasn’t a dry seat in the house.

The amazing blues singer Betty LaVette gave us awe-inspiring interpretations of “Blackbird” and “Here, There, & Everywhere” to the point where, except for the lyrics, the songs were literally unrecognizable as Beatles tunes. LaVette was the only performer without a strong Beatles influence in her life and career (in her intro to “Here, There, & Everywhere” she said the first time she’d heard the song, Frank Sinatra was singing it!) Even so, on her lips “Come Together” should become a blues standard. There’s no doubt that her astonishingly visceral rendition of that enigmatic song could have brought John and Paul to tears.

The entire show was backed wonderfully by the LA Phil and conductor Thomas Wilkins who was also an appropriate emcee. So it would have been a perfect evening of music and memories had it not been for the unbelievably rude and unconscious people in my immediate area.

I’ve attended over one hundred concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in all musical genres, and I’ve come to understand that there are generally three types of shows and three types of audiences at this one-of-a kind Los Angeles landmark.

The first concert/audience type is the classical. The music is Mozart, Vivaldi, Chopin, etc. and the patrons bring their wine and bread and cheese and sip and munch before the concert starts. Once the conductor strides out onto the stage, they put their picnics at their feet and, if they continue to partake, they do so quietly out of respect for both the music and their fellow concert-goers. I love these people.

Second are the rock/pop shows. Just like any concert at any venue, this audience drinks too much, makes incessant noise, sings with all the songs, and generally are out to have a good time. The music is usually very loud so you barely notice them. Everyone behaves as they’re expected to. I love the freedom of these shows so unless someone is literally throwing up in the row behind me, it’s anything goes.

Third are the in-betweens. “In-between” both in the nature of the concert and the people who attend them. The concerts are always “special” shows like A Beatles Celebration, where you get quiet ballads and heartfelt jazz in addition to loud rock, while in the audience you get the classical and the rock/pop audiences who know how to behave based on the particular song being performed. But there’s a third element. This third element is the people who probably have never been to the Bowl before and, maybe because of the bench seats or the beer, behave as if they’re at Dodger Stadium.

So during the first half of the show Saturday night, which was mostly quiet jazz and heartfelt ballads by Patti Austin, Rob Laufer, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, I had the couple to my immediate left across the aisle who just had to finish off an entire large bag of Tostitos before intermission and did so during every song, crunching and rustling the bag with every note.

Then I had the two young women behind me who couldn’t shut themselves up long enough to listen to one song all the way through. I always wonder about these sorts. What they could possibly have to say to each other that’s so important that they miss the reason they’re there in the first place?

But those who took the cake that night were the drunken family who not only talked and took pictures of each other during every song, but insisted on loudly mis-singing the lyrics completely off-key when no one else was. They were across the aisle and two rows up from me, and that’s what really got me about this particular group. They were surrounded by people who weren’t with them and as far as I could tell, not one person in close proximity to these idiots told them to STFU, behave themselves, and watch the show. An usher spoke to the group at one point, but it did no good. As soon as she went back to her post they started up again. What’s necessary in these situations is for the people sitting with the disturbers to teach them how to behave. But that never seems to happen. Not in LA, anyway.

The Hollywood Bowl is a fantastic venue. I have wonderfully fond memories there and will treasure them forever, but from now on it’s loud rock or strictly classical. No more in-betweens for me.

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Thursday, November 12th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

First published at The Huffington Post on November 12, 2009

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes a compelling case for the notion that the “self-made man” is a rare exception at best, but more often than not, a complete myth. Nowhere is this more true than in Hollywood.

Several months ago I started working with a group of actors on what it takes to find consistent success in that vocation. The general principles apply to many chosen careers in the entertainment industry, but I wanted a challenge and seeing as how, in my mind anyway, acting is one of the most difficult professions to produce consistent results in, I felt that if any sort of road map could be developed it would be revelatory.

Anyone who wants to make it in the arts is confronted with an overwhelming number of “realities” (most of them harsh) that they must overcome in order to one day quit the Coffee Bean job and do their art full time. The first reality is this: No one, and I mean NO ONE, makes it all by themselves. This truth begins with the decision to pursue a career rife with roadblocks and remains so regardless of the level of success one achieves.

Like the old joke that the success of a musician is measured by his girlfriend’s take-home pay, short of getting someone else to cover the bills, anyone who wants to act must find a way to survive whilst knocking on doors that open only erratically. So most will need a “regular” job that allows enough flexibility to go on auditions during the day and attend classes and the occasional play in the evenings and on weekends. There are only a tiny handful of jobs that fit this description, so most soon find themselves the beneficiary of an understanding boss or helpful coworkers.

And so it begins. No lone gun ever traded shifts to make it to a last-minute Pop Tarts audition.

Once basic survival is covered with the help of those mentioned above, there’s the task of finding an agent and getting work. An actor can forward the ubiquitous headshot and resume to every agent, producer and casting person in town, but the likelihood that any of them will respond is slim-to-none unless someone else’s name is attached to their humble request for a meeting or audition. This is because the amount of blind requests these people get each week is so voluminous that the time it takes to sift through them all is just not available.

It’s all about filtering and it’s done all the time in many professions, but nowhere is filtering more pervasive than in Hollywood. Agents filter requests from new actors by requiring that they have certain types of credits, training and/or be referred by a current client. Likewise, producers and casting directors will often restrict audition submissions to actors with agents, sometimes only certain agents, or they may require that the actor be a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild. This is done to limit the number of submissions they receive from being in the thousands to being in the hundreds. Filtering as I’ve described is random and certainly unfair, but necessary lest the machine grind to a complete halt.

So in the beginning, before the actor’s name is a door-opener in and of itself, the game is less about who you are and more about who you know (which is the truth behind the old adage). So while it’s nice when an actor’s resume includes “University of Southern California” under Education, a note from esteemed USC alumnus, Will Ferrell will get everyone’s prompt attention.

This doesn’t mean that if one didn’t go to school with a famous comic actor or their father didn’t direct Apocalypse Now that there’s no hope. It also doesn’t mean that an actor needs to harass famous people all over the city for an introduction to the big time. This will likely only result in restraining orders. In fact, the process of being assisted by others in one’s career in this town is most effective and reliable with one’s peers. They’re the people who get together for a beer after work or class. The ones who are equally committed and driven to succeed. Those who might make it big one day and possibly become a “name” for you just as you will do for them if you get there first.

In my work I call it one’s “Personal/Professional Network,” but really they’re friends. More specifically, friends who happen to be pursuing a dream similar to one’s own. Remember that opportunities come not only from meeting people in the business and making professional connections as anyone pursing any worthwhile career does, but from developing deep, authentic friendships with like-minded individuals along the way.

Trace the path of any successful actor in Hollywood and it becomes clear very quickly that the many opportunities afforded to them came because someone they knew liked them enough to extend a hand. In turn, most of them reach back every now and then and give a lift to others who need a step up.

This is the way it’s always been, and how it will continue to be in Hollywood.

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Friday, October 2nd, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Facebook is a good way to find people with whom you’ve unintentionally lost touch (if there is such a unintentionally losing touch) and keeping track of people with whom you’d rather not lose touch.  It’s also fun to look at photos of people on the other side of the world, their kids you’ve never met, the friends that aren’t you, etc. Some take a particular sick pleasure in seeing exes who haven’t aged well. The problem with Facebook is that the people who swear by it think it’s much more than this, like a good way to communicate with your friends. Here’s why it’s nothing of the kind.

Let’s say you’re an active Facebook user who has 100 “friends.” Of those 100 friends, lets assume a generous 10% of them check Facebook once a day or more. Further, let’s say that another very generous 40% of them check at least once each week without fail. On the other side, lets assume that 30% check irregularly, maybe once every two weeks or so, another 20% once a month, and 10% never return after creating their account. (I would assume  that last 10% is more like 30%, but we’re being generous here with presumed Facebook participation. Your results may vary.)

Okay, now let’s say you’re in the top 10% of people who visit daily or more and you decide you want to let all your friends know about something really important, like you’re being evicted and if all your friends sent you $25 each you could forestall the sheriff one more month. In the old days, you would have made some phone calls or written an e-mail making your request (people with more money, you meet for lunch), with confidence that your request has been heard and (probably) ignored by all. But this isn’t the old days. Now you just throw a post up on Facebook with the delusion that all your friends will read it right away and come to the rescue or not.

Using my generous participation percentages, you’ve just reached about 10 of your 100 friends immediately, 40 more within a week, and the rest eventually or not at all. Eviction is imminent.

The problem with Facebook is that it gives one the illusion that anyone is listening other than the other fanatics like you who spend their days surfing the web and posting ad nauseum on Facebook, which is nothing close to all the people you’d like to be in touch with on a regular basis.  Aside from the emergency scenario above, if one treats Facebook as their primary means of staying in touch, then a whole boatload of people are potentially neglected. People who would like to be included, but aren’t because they don’t have the time and/or inclination to participate on Facebook.

I don’t know if this will happen, but it seems to me that at some point a critical mass of Facebook members will realize that most people aren’t listening and Facebook will be replaced by whatever time-suck is next in line that convincingly gives the illusion of interpersonal connection.

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Friday, August 21st, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

Today is the day of the big preview of Jim Cameron’s new film, Avatar . I was fortunate to get an early look at a special fifteen minute preview this morning and was completely blown away (in the interest of full disclosure, I work for the company responsible, 20th Century Fox).

I can’t say much because it really left me speechless, and words would fail miserably anyway. For Baby Boomers like me, think of the first time you saw Star Wars in the theater. Now multiply that experience by 1,000. That’s what seeing short bursts of Avatar felt like to me.  (For everyone else, maybe how you felt watching three other Cameron films: Terminator 2, Aliens, and Titanic.)

Whatever your frame of reference, I predict that the movies will never be the same again after Avatar hits the screens.

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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

First published at the Huffington Post on June 22, 2009.

Working for a major studio and having friends at other studios, it’s hard to ignore the doom and gloom talk that pervades this business when the topic turns to feature films.

“Why would anyone go to the theater when they have HD at home?”

“Movies have to be bigger than home theaters to get them to pay the ticket price.”

“It’s all about 3D!”

I shake my head and laugh to myself. Am I the only one who’s been paying attention to the last 50 years of film history? First television was going to kill the movies. Then it was color television that would be the end of feature films. Then people were going to stop buying tickets because of cable, then the VCR, the laserdisc, the DVD… and now… beware! HD is going to kill the feature the film!

And the only way to save it is big, loud , and, something new, 3D!

Oh, wait, but there’s this movie that just opened two weeks ago. A comedy that’s already raked in $153 million in the US alone. You don’t have to wear glasses and nothing explodes (unless you count the bellows of laughter from the audience).

The Hangover may be the funniest movie I’ve ever seen and I can tell you that Warner Brothers doesn’t need to spend another dime on marketing or advertising if they don’t want to, because an extremely high percentage of those 15 million or so people who have already seen it will tell there friends, coworkers, and family, “You must see The Hangover!” Now. Not when it’s on HBO or Netflix has it. Now!

So are all those execs at the studios wrong? Can they get away with not spending hundreds of millions of dollars on every theatrical release from now on? Well yes and no. They must spend that kind of dough on production and marketing if they’re going to continue to make crap (and even so, crap in 3D is still crap).

The Hangover is ridiculously successful for one reason and one reason only. It’s a good movie in every sense of the word. And I’ll bet there were plenty of executives, producers, and development people who turned it down or were certain it was destined for failure (and, in case you were wondering those are the people in the theater who are crying whilst everyone else is in hysterics).

The brilliant William Goldman’s assertion about show business that “nobody knows anything” is still true to this day. It’s both the frustration accompanying trying to work in this business and the hope that, as it always has, anything can happen.

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