A question about Netflix and ads; Emmy Rossum is Angelyne, a person non-Angelenos may never have heard of; how Michelle Williams became Steven Spielberg’s mama; the Brooklyn Film Festival goes hard. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.
But First: Here’s why Drive My Car looked so blue — with one notable exception.
Ads Ads Ads: Netflix has told employees that ads may begin on the streaming platform by the end of this year, the New York Times reports. This doesn’t mean ads will start popping up during Stranger Things for existing customers — what it means is that Netflix will introduce a new lower-priced version with ads, like rivals HBO Max and Hulu does. Netflix’s most popular plan now costs $15.49 a month, and the new version will cost less.
May I Editorialize: Call me old-fashioned but I really don’t want something that carefully tracks my likes and dislikes also serving me ads. The internet already does that, and it sucks. Will Netflix offer any privacy protections to make sure ads aren’t relentlessly invasive? Or is the the invasiveness of potential customer data-mining a selling point to advertisers? My concern isn’t just about Netflix, but all streaming-service advertising. Those of us who still (perhaps naively) look at movies as a break from the world of hard-sell, manipulative commerce don’t welcome the idea of advertisers knowing what narratives most move us the most emotionally. Just imagine how well a political advertising firm, for example, could utilize information about what we watch and how often (Nature docs? True crime? Children’s shows?) to craft manipulative messages that play on our fears, doubts and dreams. Not enough is said about the joyful anonymity of the theatrical experience.
‘Intensity Is Not Something I Struggle With’: Here’s an interesting Hollywood Reporter feature on Emmy Rossum’s transformation into Hollywood billboard queen Angelyne for a Peacock miniseries that begins May 19. The story opens with a lot of executives waiting for Rossum to show up at an important meeting, and a mysterious blonde woman arriving instead.
Spielberg’s Mama: This Variety profile of Michelle Williams includes the moment Steven Spielberg reached out to her about playing a crucial role in his next, very autobiographical film, The Fablemans. ““I couldn’t comprehend that he might want to work with me. I thought he had a question or something. Then he got on the Zoom and told me that he wanted me to play this person, his mama,” she told Variety‘s Brent Lang.
Which Brings Us To the Obvious Question: Who would you want to play your mom? Let us know in the comments. I’m going with Barbra Streisand.
Brooklyn Film Festival: The 25th edition of the festival — one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee — just announced its latest lineup, which has “Unthinkable” as its provocative theme. It will include 29 world premieres, including the opening night June 3 debut of Signs of Love, a coming-of-age crime story written and directed by Clarence Fuller, and produced by David Michaels, and starring Hopper Jack Penn (Flag Day), Dylan Penn (Flag Day, Elvis & Nixon), Zoë Bleu, and Rosanna Arquette, who happens to be Zoë Bleu’s mother. The festival will include more than 140 features and shorts. Full details on the festival, running June 3-12, can be found right here.
More Brooklyn: Please find, immediately following this paragraph, a song that I like. Did you know Santogold is named for an infomercial star who once put on a wrestling extravaganza called Blood Circus that featured aliens, “screams bags” and a “three-headed Munga Magoon”? He’s actually a pretty important figure in the MovieMaker Extended Universe.
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