Movies

This week, Editor & Publisher asked readers what their favorite journalism- or newspaper-based movies were. It got us thinking. Lots of our favorite movies revolve around newspaper writers and their lives in and out of the newsroom. From Citizen Kane, to His Girl Friday, to All the President's Men to Runaway Bride and 27 Dresses.

Magazines get a lot of play, too, as magazine offices were considered quite glamorous pre-recession. Just look at The Devil Wears Prada, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days or Confessions of a Shopaholic, to point to a few recent favs.

As journalism evolves, the journalism-related movies will evolve as well. Just look at Julie & Julia, a movie based on a book that evolved out of a blog. The movie, which opens today, is based on a book of the same name written by Julie Powell, who started a blog to track her year-long quest to cook every recipe in Julia Child's quintessential cook book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Back in December 2006, Powell spoke on a mediabistro.com panel about turning blogs into books. "I got really, really lucky," Powell said about her book deal.

"I found blogging was a really freeing medium for me," she went on, "because of the feedback, because of the fact that I didn't have to worry about -- for me, endings are really difficult for me, and with blogs I didn't have to worry about that."

You can check out the whole panel, or just watch a little preview featuring Powell, here.

"Julie & Julia" is getting some good and some mixed reviews. Will you be going to see it this weekend? What are some of your favorite journalism-related movies?

The movies love the media industry. Just this year, we had Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams playing investigative reporters in "State of Play," Isla Fisher pratfalling in the office of a business mag for "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds finding love at a publishing house in "The Proposal."

Now, Drew Barrymore is returning to another role in journalism (remember she played a reporter in "Never Been Kissed"?) and she's taking over the Associated Press' New York headquarters to do it.

This week, Barrymore is shooting scenes at the AP's offices for her upcoming film "Going the Distance," in which she plays an "older-than-usual newspaper intern" at the fictional New York Sentinel, the AP reported. The filming will also take place in the offices for The New York Daily News which is in the same building as the AP at 450 West 33rd St. The Daily News will serve as a rival paper.

The movie also features Barrymore flame Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis of "SNL" and Christina Applegate.

If you work for the AP or Daily News (or any other company in the building) and have any good stories about the stars' taking over your stomping grounds, send us an email or leave a note in the comments.

(Photo by David Shankbone)

Recently, Lifetime Television was adapting a Candace Bushnell novel called Trading Up into a movie. Now that the market has crashed, however, the network is reconsidering.

"Overnight, it was like the script had been written two years ago," Arturo Interian, Lifetime's vice president for original movies, told The New York Times. While the movie will likely still be made, the plot will be altered and production may be delayed. (Can you say "silver lining"?)

Elsewhere, other movies based on the Wall Street boom times are feeling the pinch as well.

continued...

University of California, Los Angeles recently held a series of semi-secret meetings for low level Chinese movie executives. The speakers included Ron Meyer, president of Universal. and MGM CEO Harry Sloan.

Due to "security concerns," the clinics were kept under wraps until they concluded. Officials were concerned about the safety of the travelers, who were selected by China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

So why were they here again? And Kung Fu Hustle really needed four rewrites?

continued...

Oil-rich Abu Dhabi, which has more money than it knows what to do with, will spend $1 billion to produce up to eight films a year over the next five years.

imagenation abu dhabi, part of Abu Dhabi Media Company helmed by chairman Mohamed Khalaf Al-Mazrouei, will be based in the Arabian country but work with Hollywood and Middle Eastern studios.

"We are bringing Hollywood and the international production community to Arabia," former Disney executive and imagenation chief executive Edward Borgerding told the Telegraph. "Our aim is to make award-winning films which are commercially successful and appeal to audiences across the world."

Not everyone is happy about yet another bloated production company coming to Tinseltown. "The world needs new sources of energy and cures for diseases, but another set of eight films? Who cares?" media analyst Harold Vogel, said to the Los Angeles Times.

So who gets to make Saw VI?

With that in mind, and in honor of TVNewser's sighting earlier today, we bring you this. Seriously, Miley has nothing on Ralph. By the way, if you happen to be looking for some new direction in your own life, you should go check out our job board.

Literally. It's starting to feel like there is not a story to be written at the moment that in some way doesn't have something to do with the SATC movie. It's like wearing really large, rose colored, tunnel-vision glasses. But is it a last hurrah for print world?

While Carrie et al. are currently cash cows for many magazines, if not the retail industry, over at Folio Dylan Stableford is speculating that they may be the last of the red-hot cover girls. In the show and now the film Bradshaw is all about about print, with nary a cell phone in sight (which brings us to this: A pay phone! Does she also use subway tokens?), however at a party the other night in honor of one of the film's stars Kristin Davis, Stableford says the hosts could barely give away a magazine,

continued...

Sex in the City is pissing off more than Gotham's finest. Jerusalem and Petah Tikva banned outdoor advertising of the film, citing the use of the word "sex" in the title. A representative for Forum Films, the distributor of SATC called the news "a great shock."

We have not asked to advertise nudity, or messages that may be offensive to the general public and the ultra-Orthodox community in particular. Nevertheless, this is the name of the movie. We feel that it is ridiculous to prohibit us from advertising the brand without naming it.

If you ask us, the less advertising the better.

In other SATC-related news, Heavy.com has brilliantly parodied the Fab Four as bodybuilders. Clip after the jump.

continued...

Woody Allen's next film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is skipping London for Barcelona. It's also stars Allen muse Scarlett Johansson and two newcomers to the auteur's world: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. And if that wasn't enough... word is that the movie will include a Penelope Cruz-Scarlett Johansson sex scene and a threesome with Javier Bardem.

But despite all that salaciousness, the movie's first controversy is a linguistic one.

Authorities in Barcelona are forbidding The Weinstein Company from distributing the film in Spanish. Barcelonan audiences will have the choice of either watching the film in English with Catalan subtitles, or viewing a version that's been dubbed into Catalan.

Both Cruz and Bardem, of course, are Spanish speakers. Elsewhere in Spain, the movie will be shown in English with Spanish subtitles. It's all due to the Catalan-promoting policies of the regional government:

The regional government recently announced a E7.4m (GBP5.9m) film fund to promote Catalan cinema. It also gave a grant of €15,000 to a soft porn producer for three "erotic films" as they would promote the Catalan language. But despite generous public funding, the 12 Catalan language features produced last year were watched by just 0.8 percent of the region's 24 million cinemagoers.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona's co-producer, Jaume Roures, is a dedicated Catalan nationalist.