‘Informant!’ Refreshingly Apolitical, Highly Entertaining

Mark Whitacre had a boring job as a scientist and executive at Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest food-processing companies. Trapped in small-town Illinois hell with his wife and kids after previously living with them in the capitals of Europe, he still loved to drive fast cars and pursue as much luxury as his rural life could afford, all the while reading Michael Crichton and John Grisham novels that he believed were all too realistic in their depictions of corporate and governmental intrigue and malfeasance. 

Stir all those factors together with his insider knowledge that ADM was colluding with overseas food companies in one of the planet’s biggest price-fixing schemes ever, and the fact that Whitacre became both one of the FBI’s best informants ever may not have seemed all that surprising. But the fact that he also hid a highly unstable tendency to lie or leak information as well also made him one of the Feds’ most nerve-wracking and unreliable head cases ever – and it’s this dichotomy that forms the center of director Steven Soderbergh’s head-spinning and comically offbeat take on the ADM scandal, “The Informant!”  (more…)

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Tags: Archer Daniels Midland, FBI, Joel McHale, John Grisham, Mark Whitacre
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 8:59 am in Featured Story, Reviews | 22757454 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2009/09/18/informant-refreshingly-apolitical-highly-entertaining/%27Informant%21%27+Refreshingly+Apolitical%2C+Highly+Entertaining2009-09-18+15%3A59%3A15Carl+Kozlowski

Heroic Hollywood: The Moral of the Story

Jurassic Park – a family-friendly nature preserve featuring 7-ton prehistoric carnivores.
What could possibly go wrong?

If you’re a writer struggling to put together a screenplay, but it’s a big mess and you don’t know where to begin, this is the post for you. I’m going to explain the easiest way I know how to bring structure to your screenplay and solve the problems you’re having.

In my last post, I suggested that “doing the right thing is worth the struggle” is a common inspirational message found in many of the most stirring Hollywood movies. However, each individual film has it’s own particular moral theme that it wants to get across to the audience. And it’s this moral theme that will be your guide to figuring out how to solve the problems in your screenplay. (more…)

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Tags: Heroic Hollywood, jurassic park, Michael Crichton, screenwriting
Posted Apr 7th 2009 at 4:24 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 9797036 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rdvonch/2009/04/07/heroic-hollywood-the-moral-of-the-story/Heroic+Hollywood%3A+The+Moral+of+the+Story2009-04-07+23%3A24%3A56Russ+Dvonch

Little Press Respect For Michael Crichton

The Nov. 4 death of novelist Michael Crichton took most people by surprise. Who knew the best-selling author of “Jurassic Park” was even sick?

Crichton, 66, died the day of the U.S. presidential elections, so news coverage of his passing was muted. That’s understandable given the gravity of the election – and its historical implications.

So it wasn’t unreasonable to expect the year-end media tributes to make up for the lack of coverage. After all, the man directed major motion pictures (”Westworld, “Coma”), co-created one of the longest running, most beloved TV shows of all time (”ER”) and wrote some of the best page turners of the past three decades.

Wrong again.

(more…)

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Tags: Global warming, Michael Crichton
Posted Jan 8th 2009 at 5:00 am in Media Criticism | 766973 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cftoto/2009/01/08/little-press-respect-for-michael-crichton/Little+Press+Respect+For+Michael+Crichton2009-01-08+13%3A00%3A22Christian+Toto