Amazon to open a new centre in London to spearhead a global push into film and television delivery services.
by Katherine RushtonThe US firm is headquartered in Seattle but said London was “the obvious choice” for the “digital media development” centre, because Britain has led the way in pioneering on-demand services which allow users to rent films and television over the internet. Amazon’s existing on-demand services, LoveFilm and Pushbutton, were both founded in the capital.
The retail giant has taken an eight-storey, 47,000 square foot office near Barbican tube station, and close to the technology hub around Old Street, dubbed “TechCity” or “Silicon Roundabout”.
Mayberry and the Decline of America – Or Not?
Once upon a time, Frank Rich was a brilliant TV critic. Now he’s a brilliant, full-fledged social/political observer and just about the smartest guy we know. (Except maybe for Stephen Colbert?) Here, he combines both his obsessions:
Mayberry R.I.P.
by Frank RichAndy Griffith was a genial and gifted character actor, but when he died on Independence Day eve, you’d have thought we’d lost a Founding Father, not a television star whose last long-running series, the vanilla legal drama Matlock, expired in 1995. The public tributes to Griffith were over-the-top in a way his acting never was, spreading treacle from the evening newscasts to the front page of the New York Times.
LB: Actors Have Feelings Too
by Larry Brody
Actually, actors have Very Deep Feelings, so much deeper than those of writers that we can’t possibly fathom what’s going on. Yes, years of experience being overwhelmed by the stars and not-stars I’ve worked with have taught me this. Which is why the following makes me so sad:
Rachel Ward Reveals She Left Acting After Bad Reviews for ‘Thornbirds’
by Marisa Guthrie (The Hollywood Reporter)Rachel Ward — who starred in the wildly popular 1983 miniseries The Thornbirds with Richard Chamberlain — appeared at the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour Sunday and admitted that it was the critics that drove her out of acting.
RIP Frank Pierson
A sensational writer. If you love great, funny, serious films and TV (yes, that’s intentional) you probably already love Pierson’s work even if you didn’t know he was the writer.
Former President of Motion Picture Academy Dies — He Wrote One of the Movies’ Most Iconic Lines Deadline
by TeamTVWriter Press Service
A veteran TV and movie screenwriter, director and producer who served as president of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Writers Guild-West has died, Deadline.com reports. Frank Pierson was 87.
You Don’t Need to be Rich to Develop Your Own Series
Robert Glenn Plotner, one of LB’s students, has been working like a sonufabitch on his own lilve-action self-created TV/web series, LET’S GET SPUNKY!
How’s it going? Hey, glad you asked. Here’s what RGP has to say: