Posts Tagged ‘Mike White’

Sixteen years after co-authoring The Sex Revolt: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock’N'Roll, cool LA journo couple Simon Reynolds and Joy Press are still going strong. He just had a piece in The Guardian about the explosive expansion of the U.S. electronic dance music scene, while she was promoted Wednesday to a choice new LA Times position.

Per the memo from editor Davan Maharaj and assistant managing editor Alice Short, Press has been tapped to replace Jon Thurber as the paper’s books and culture editor:

Joy has been Calendar’s pop culture and deputy television editor for two and a half years. During her tenure, she developed a Sunday TV page and played a major role in growing our successful Show Tracker blog, which doubled its readership and has become a key site for television news and series recaps…

In addition to her editing duties, Joy has written about some of the talked-about shows on TV, including Girls and Game of Thrones. She has profiled Chloe Sevigny, Mindy Kaling and Enlightened creator Mike White, and recently reported on the art activities that preceded the London Olympics.

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Christmas is a Ground Hog’s Day of reruns, repeats and rehearsed tales. The same familiar stories often reheated, repackaged and re-purposed to feel more traditional, more uniform with what we’re used to. Example: Jim Carrey, star of The Grinch in yet another Christmas Carol. Yeesh.

Anyway, our favorite new/old story – an epic story of Santa comes from This American Life, it ran last year. It’s titled “Santa Fight Club.” Listen here.

According to Peter Sciretta at SlashFilm.com Paramount Pictures hired School of Rock writer Mike White to adapt the story into a feature.

Happy Holidays! Enjoy!

Evidently, idea theft abounds in Hollywood. Laura Kightlinger is suing Mike White. She’s the creator of Jackie Woodman, and this whole thing sounds like an episode for that series.

Kightlinger wrote a screenplay about a woman who rescues cats. White, best known for Nacho Libre and Chuck and Buck, wrote a screenplay about a woman who rescues dogs, which became the Molly Shannon vehicle, Year of the Dog.

The two were friends–she even offered to punch up his script, which in retrospect, maybe he should have accepted that offer, and shared the credit.

All this only matters because the stakes are so low: Year of the Dog has made $1.5 million at the box office. White emailed the Times:

I never cared if they thought I was weird or uncommercial or an acquired taste or whatever. That Laura is seeking publicity for herself by trying to damage what I have spent my career trying to create seems cruel.

Let’s review: his movie made $1.5 million and he thinks she’s trying to glom on the glory?