warner independent pictures

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Who Wants To Be A ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Distributor?

3:55AM Kyle Buchanan | Though Warner Independent Pictures no longer exists, it’s comforting to know that WB’s deeply boneheaded decision to let Fox Searchlight snatch Slumdog Millionaire away is still immortalised on their website. More »
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Friday, August 29, 2008

‘Towelhead’ Apologies Break New Ground in Studio Cynicism

3:10AM STV | If it’s the last thing it ever does — and it probably will be — Warner Independent Pictures is bound and determined to wring every last bit of notoriety out of the $1.5 million it spent last year on Alan Ball’s merde du jour directing debut Towelhead. And almost a full 12 months after the film met its Toronto Film Festival premiere audience with a splat heard ’round the world, the doomed mini-major’s quest to culturally salvage what’s left of the rape-and-racism coming-of-age drama has tapped into yet another free-publicity boon: The Council on American-Islam Relations finally came around the other day to condemn the title Towelhead and urge a name change. We know nobody saw that coming.
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Saturday, May 10, 2008

Guilt, Blame and Other Wreckage From the Picturehouse/WIP Crash

3:05AM Defamer Hollywood | The eulogies are on following Thursday’s twin killing of Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures by the executioners at Warner Bros. — or perhaps more accurately, by hooded, high-ranking Time Warner axeman Jeff Bewkes, to whom some today are attributing the death penalty that ended in nearly 75 lost jobs between the two mini-majors. While we still suspect that WIP’s demise in cosmically linked to its acquisition of the poisonously atrocious Alan Ball film Towelhead (another blogger disagrees, citing Funny Games instead), at least a few other observers have more official diagnoses from the murder scene.
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Friday, May 2, 2008

Two Months After Its Oscar Win, Could Picturehouse Be Closing Its Doors?

7:51AM Defamer Hollywood | A few notes kicked under the door at Defamer HQ hint that the end may be near for Picturehouse, the Oscar-winning art house shingle plunged into limbo in February after its parent company New Line was absorbed by the Warner Bros. mothership. We have yet to hear where company president Bob Berney will wind up, though a popular rumour has him sharing power at Warners’ other struggling boutique outpost, Warner Independent Pictures, with current WIP boss Polly Cohen. We posit at least one more underdog alternative as well — plus a prognosis for the remaining Picturehouse output — after the jump. More »
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

‘Towelhead’ Trailer Conveniently Distills Repugnant Alan Ball Effort to Two Minutes

6:10AM Defamer Hollywood | We’ve survived our share of bad movies at film festivals, but nothing quite scrapes the all-time low of Towelhead, the directorial debut of American Beauty/Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball. Upon our viewing of the film (then titled Nothing is Private) at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, our disdain for Ball’s facile mishmash of pedophilia, racism and “edgy” suburban angst provoked us to level a bounty on the filmmaker’s pin head — a bounty we’d like to double after viewing the new trailer. Laugh! at the lukewarm tampon gags. Gasp! at Aaron Eckhart’s predatory one-liners. Cry! at Toni Collette’s decreasing selectivity. This is but a fleck of the steaming horseshit we expect will bury Warner Independent Pictures in its post-New Line fight for life with corporate cousin Picturehouse, but we still think it merits your suggestions for creative, affordable means of cosmic revenge we might exact in the months ahead. Towelhead [Warner Independent] More »
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