The Business of Film: For Love of Money or For the Power of Love (Avatar vs Crazy Heart)

By Mark Monchek − January 25, 2010

Why am I writing about a film in a blog about business? Because this is also a story about the movie business. Lately the film business is more about business than film. As Avatar, a cynical, fake spiritual blockbuster threatens to become the highest grossing movie of all time, Crazy Heart is the underdog movie that almost didn’t get made. Crazy Heart was plucked from the scrap heap by the love of its producers, directors, writers and Bridges, who took a serious pay cut to make the movie. And Jeff Berg, an agent, who’s only supposed to care about money, cared enough to make a small film and make it big.

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Elections, Buffet & the railroads and the legacy of Amelia Earheart

By Mark Monchek − November 04, 2009

Mark Monchek ruminates on the recent local elections, Warren Buffet’s railroad dealings and the new Amelia Earheart biopic.

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Give the Dog his Due-If You Are Jealous of Malcolm Gladwell…Get Over It and Read ‘What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures’

By Mark Monchek − October 20, 2009

Janet Maslin, reviewing Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book in the NY Times, shows a lack of appreciation for a writer with a special talent: an extraordinary ability to make extremely technical and complex subjects accessible and fascinating. Gladwell approaches his subjects Gladwell does, with the innocence of a child and the discipline of a scientist. He reveals how you can find the extraordinary in the ordinary and understand what previously seemed beyond understanding.

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Jay misses an Opportunity

By Mark Monchek − September 17, 2009

Jay Leno had an opportunity to redefine prime time television and missed it. The result? New viewers will get bored and drop off and we will be left with the same slow death of network television.

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