For the past two years, I’ve been having face-to-face discussions with highly placed individuals in the Chinese government about my production company, Nuclear Family Films. Last year, these representatives invited my husband and me to serve on the jury panel for the International Children’s Film Festival. In that capacity, we screened more than a dozen films that represented a spectrum of entertainment offerings made by filmmakers from all parts of China, including Mongolia. I was amazed by the thematic content of their stories: strong single mothers, teen suicide, reconciliation with an estranged father, unemployment, rebellious teenagers, civil service, young couples in love, and even a culturally indigenous version of “Home Alone.” I discovered that many parts of China resemble neighborhoods in Sherman Oaks. I was also surprised to see that many of the young actors were wearing tee-shirts that had English language logos and slogans.

While Western media chants the term “censorship” in all of its negative connotations, there is a more accurate interpretation. Respected individuals have been charged with the responsibility of supervising the foreign content to which Chinese citizens will be exposed. In essence, they are balancing the complexities of an ancient culture with the gradual introduction of new ideas.

It is also necessary to understand that the Chinese government holds its own filmmakers to exceptionally high standards. In order to make films, Chinese citizens must be graduates of officially sanctioned film schools. Unlike Western cultures that allow anyone to upload anything to YouTube, China strives to maintain a level of quality. It is a precious element of their culture and nothing less than we might expect after viewing the discipline demonstrated in the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

If you are going to do business in or with another country, you have to begin the exchange with respect. It is inappropriate to approach the business venture for the sake of money. Every filmmaker should be asking themselves what THEY bring to the table in a co-venture. What VALUE does a project bring to the Chinese people? Will it illuminate the human condition in a way that Chinese filmmakers cannot? More important, will the resulting film serve to enlighten Western audiences in the subtle details of Chinese life in the 21st century?

Anyone approaching either governmental sources or individual Chinese investors ought to begin the process by seeking to understand the sociopolitical environment of the country and how it reflects their nationalistic goals. Whether or not anyone on our side of the Pacific opts to believe the idea, the Chinese are very interested in “Westernizing” their films in order to participate in the global market. Last year’s “The Flowers of War” was an effective (although unprofitable) step in this direction. The epic scope was reminiscent of a David Lean film: it used spectacular cinematography to weave a compelling story with fascinating characters we could care about as they underwent an arc that lead them from selfish to heroic. Ironically, the weakest point of the film may have been the decision to cast Christian Bale in the lead role.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair wrote and starred in “BFF,” which we found to be so original and hilarious that we had actually started looking forward to seeing it every week, keeping it stored on our DVR for a special viewing a few days later. Something to be savored and enjoyed with our full focus, much like we do with “New Girl.” Now, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until the next funny show debuts, so we can fill that void with a nice 30-minute bit of humor. The way things have been going lately, though, we’re not exactly counting on NBC to give that to us.

We don’t believe a whole network can be snake bit, but you have to admit, NBC has been having a pretty rough go of it these last few years. When a network places such high hopes on a single show to save it, and that show is a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of a Broadway show, it’s not hard to imagine that something’s wrong. It seems like no matter what it tries, NBC can’t win, which implies to us a systemic issue pervading the whole place.

When a network can’t get anyone to watch quality TV, the problem can no longer be blamed purely on poor programming. It’s evident that there’s an inability to get those eyes on programs of any kind, which means a change has to be made and new things need to be tried.

There’s an old saying about failure, something along the lines of there being a certain comfort from being at the bottom, because there’s no farther to fall.

Somehow, we think that doesn’t really apply here. In this world, there’s always farther to fall.

The rising trend is that digital content companies are finally stepping up to the plate to deal with tweens as a unique demographic with specific needs and goals. Research findings pinpoint specific details in a way that will enable content creators to design and market meaningful products with greater expectations of success. The biggest sigh of relief came from attendees when it was disclosed that tweens place a high importance on their relationship with their parents.

The digital industry has placed a premium on the preschool market. Their lead story is the now-infamous video of a toddler who knows how to use an iPad but cannot figure out how to make a magazine work. This is the new reality. We have given birth to the iBaby generation. It is a shocking revelation when you look at the numbers. Digital content engagement is documented as beginning by nine months of age. Young mothers are completely open to using digital content as a reliable, electronic “babysitter” because her generation was born cable ready and grew up with a game console controller in hand. So, given the eventuality of an iPad in every diaper bag, the challenge is to reach this mom with digital products that will both entertain and teach their youngster.

One of the more interesting announcements came from a Disney executive in the interactive division. In discussing the success of mobile games, he noted that Angry Birds has reached 800 million downloads. Disney’s goal is to reach one billion. Beginning with a newly created character, the plan is to use the “Where’s My Water” app to build on Rovio’s model. That is, to find a game that a five year-old can play well enough to want to keep doing it, while at the same time holding the interest of a 60 year-old. As Exhibit A, I will offer my own inability to get past a particularly treacherous level of Angry Bird RIO … but that may be TMI. Look forward to more grazing about presenting companies in future columns.

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

But if you look at the overall picture, it was his insistence on cross-promotion and connecting the dots that are the different divisions of the Walt Disney Company that was more of his undoing. It stopped being about movies and started being about properties. While it’s true that this is an epidemic that long ago swept through Hollywood, Disney seems especially guilty, or have we forgotten that one of the last things Ross did as President of Walt Disney Pictures was greenlight a movie about (ahem) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?

Sadly, our biggest surprise about this news was that the ride was closed down at the Orlando Disney outpost some years back (it’s been a few decades since we last visited the Magic Kingdom) and only exists in Anaheim, not that it was being done at all. Things like that are symptomatic of a rotten and cynical attitude at the top.

Look, Disney brought this on itself when it appointed a guy who had little film experience as the head of its film division. For instance, do you think it’s a coincidence that Warner has been so successful lately? Jeff Robinov worked his way up the film division ladder and earned his place at the table. Rich Ross came from TV. What did we think was going to happen?

As of this moment, Disney only has one film in production, and it’s the gigantic and overblown “Lone Ranger,” featuring yet another Johnny Depp-Gore Verbinski collaboration. It’s more than a little sad that this is the case, mighty Disney only making a single movie at any given time, but we have a feeling that will change soon. As soon as someone like John Lasseter or Sean Bailey (for example) takes the reins.

Y’know, someone who actually has experience making movies and wants to make that — the actual making of movies — a priority. Crazy talk, we know.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

I’ve been watching The Hallmark Hall of Fame for as long as I can remember. In fact, it began in 1951 (long before I was born, she said, insecurely) with “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” While I was growing up, there were few times throughout the year that I could stay up until 11 on a school night. Those late nights were limited to when The Hallmark Hall of Fame was on. In essence, it was an event, a family experience that my family chose to share.

In the early years, many of the productions were inspired by classic literature or stage plays. Often, books or true stories were the genesis of a project. Social issues have shaped the modern Hall of Fame productions. The stories include positive depictions of regional and ethnic diversity. If there is conflict between two characters, that conflict revolves around a philosophical difference or relationship dynamic – not race, not religion, not gender. The conflict is authentically presented and managed so as to present a model of positive behavior.

Recently, Hallmark has moved into some edgier territory. This Sunday, April 22nd Hallmark will present “Firelight,” based on a true story. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr., but it is the three remarkably talented young woman who co-star with him that elevate the conversation we should all be having: When young girls make tragic mistakes that push them into the prison system, is redemption possible? Clearly, this is not a topic that one might equate with a greeting card company. And yet, because it is a Hallmark presentation, the characters are alive with hope. Their emotional life draws us in to their experience and MAKES US FEEL SOMETHING for them. How many times can you say that about a television program?

In today’s market, the average Hall of Fame production is watched by 10 million to 20 million viewers. In an era where diminishing real-time audiences have catapulted shows with 8 million viewers into the category of “hit,” the question arises: why isn’t there a line of producers following the Hallmark model?

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

Now, having said that, we will admit to no small amount of schadenfreude about the ongoing issues each man has, especially when some of those issues are with each other. Any time Mad Mel makes the news with more tales of woe, we can’t help but smile, but then we read his nonsense and we get sad. There’s nothing funny about referring to Jews as “oven dodgers” or “Hebes,” nor is there anything funny about making false claims about the contents of the Torah, especially when those claims involve the sacrificing and eating of Christian babies.

No, we’re not kidding. According to Eszterhas, that’s exactly the kind of foulness Gibson likes to spew. You can read it yourself if you want to inspire nausea, or you can do what we do, which is shake your head and wonder how a guy who is clearly smart and not uneducated could exist in a world like this.

He’s not a drooling backwoods redneck out of “Deliverance,” after all. He’s a guy who has thrived in Hollywood for decades, apparently in spite of it being dominated by the self same “Hebes” he so despises. Self-loathing Hebes, too, it would seem, since they continue to want to employ him in one form or another.

Look, Eszterhas ain’t no bargain either, but he’s kind of small potatoes next to Mel. The continued, unmitigated hate that streams forth from him can’t only be explained away by the deluded, Holocaust-denying father who raised him. There’s something else going on, something much deeper and more sinister, and while the great part of us doesn’t want to hear anything more about it, or him, there is a small part of us who wonders how, exactly, it keeps coming back to this. Over and over and over again, it keeps coming back to this.

It’s really a shame he won’t just go away, but as long as he continues to show up like the bad penny he is, we’ll feel obligated to belt out our disapproval to the back row. Someone has to.

In the most recent reboot, Vampires resurrected before Zombies. Yet, Zombies have saturated enough screen stories to run neck and neck toward a photo finish. Whether the stories focus on the traditional attack/flee relationship of “Walking Dead” or move into the newer diversity/tolerance model of “True Blood,” the underlying theme remains the same: we are at the mercy of monsters. There’s nothing we can do about it, so we just have to deal with it.

There is probably no coincidence in the fact that the last great resurgence of the monster genre began in the post-WWII paranoia that Communists were living among us for the sole purpose of destroying our country. Now, we are in a similar post-9/11 paranoia, worried that terrorists are living among us for the sole purpose of destroying our country. While stories that present a factual representation of the paranoia might be more beneficial to our social development, an exploration of the true depth of the subject matter would be socially unacceptable. That’s where the Third Oozing Zombie comes in handy. By transplanting the same emotional experience into a fantastical presentation, we allow the vicarious release of fearful emotions in our audience. Of course, we all know, humans will triumph over the monsters. Yet, when we allow the representation of this fear-driven scenario to take the form of mythical creatures, it perpetuates the notion that anyone who is different from us is, indeed, a monster.

History demonstrates that when a genre reaches the saturation point and becomes ripe for parody, it is on the downward cycle. As the only member of my household that does not pre-set the DVR for every Zombie/Vampire/Ghost driven series, I am anxiously awaiting a new project that is brewing at Sony. “The Kitchen Sink” tells the story of a teenaged trio — a Vampire, a Zombie and a Human — that unite in spite of their differences to fight Space Aliens who want to destroy our world (presumably, before prom night). Perhaps we can finally see the end of a long, dark, monster-filled tunnel that will lead us to the 21st century version of those dark, brooding conspiracy films of the 1970’s. Yippie!

Something we’ve discussed with people for quite some time, and an answer for which we’re still looking, is how this super-secret cabal of fogies decides which film is rated what, and why. Kirby Dick’s famous 2006 documentary about the ratings board just scratched the surface, as far as we’re concerned. What we don’t understand is what the qualifications are for which rating, and how anyone came to such conclusions.

The way it works now, near as we can figure, is if there are more than two f-bombs in a movie, it’s rated R. If there is even one bare breast? R. A bare ass? Apparently, still a PG-13, but not always. A sexual thrusting of one’s pelvis? Probably an R, but … well, maybe not.

How about violence? Lots of gore? Bodies riddled with bullets? Children killing children? All those things get an R, right? Uh … nope. Not even remotely.

Does context matter at all? Clearly, it doesn’t. Violence is fine, sex and language are not. And don’t even try to argue.

But it wasn’t always thus. Remember the Michael J. Fox movie, “Doc Hollywood”? It came out 21 years ago, in the summer of 1991. About 25 minutes into the movie, Julie Warner erupts from a North Carolina lake completely naked. She walks calmly to shore, not covering herself at all. The scene is a good, long shot of classic, semi-exploitative female frontal nudity.

The rating? PG-13.

Yup. Really.

So now, as our society has become more hyper-sexualized, wherein people become famous just for releasing a sex tape (and we don’t need to name names, do we Paris? Kim? You agree, right?), and wherein randy language is spoken on just about every network not featuring “Sesame Street,” suddenly now there is a higher standard?

When something like this “Bully” nonsense happens, and a film that is incredibly valuable and clearly needs to be seen by anyone affected by bullying — directly or indirectly — it makes you wonder why an organization like the MPAA exists at all. When the only thing that comes from its decisions is controversy, then it’s pretty obvious a change needs to be made, and tout suite.

When the season ended and we still didn’t know, another bomb dropped, but this time it was one of anger and betrayal. How dare the producers not reveal the identity of the killer before the end of the first season? Don’t they have any respect for their viewers? There was lots of crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and we’re not shy about saying we were among those involved in self-flagellation.

We’ll admit it. We were pissed. We did feel the show’s producers betrayed us, and got even angrier when we read an interview with showrunner Veena Sud, who said she didn’t pay any attention to what viewers said or thought about her show. We’ve covered this once before, so we won’t delve too far into it, but that level of pretentiousness, self-absorption and presumption was something we just found incredibly galling. We then vowed we were done — Yes, DONE!!! — with the show forever. We’d show them! Who cares who killed Rosie Larsen? This show would be dead to us!

But then, well, curiosity got the better of us and we sat down to watch the new season last night because, truth be told, we do still care. And that’s how it should be.

See, we changed our minds about the show when we stopped and realized that this is exactly the kind of television — the kind that really hits home and makes you madder than hell — that we should be watching. This is the kind of stuff that should be on TV. “The Killing” may have aggravated the heck out of us, but the fact that it had gotten so under out skin made us forgive it and, yes, tune back in to see what was going to happen.

But seriously, if they finish this season without telling us who the killer is … well, then we’re through. And this time, we’ll mean it.

Editor@filmnewsbriefs.com

Good gosh, are we hilarious, or what? Seriously, we kill us. We actually decided to do something we NEVER do, which is go to see an event film on Opening Night. It was unlike any experience we’ve had in the theater lately, because almost the entire audience had clearly read the books and was extremely reverential and respectful of the film. No people texting, no meatballs, no troublesome shushing, it was a pleasure. Full disclosure, despite the fact that the writer of these weekly missives is an adult male, when it comes to “The Hunger Games,” we’re kind of a 13-year old girl about it, so let’s just say we had been looking forward to this with no small amount of fervor.

But, like most things to which one looks forward, it passes, and then one is forced to ask, “What next?” There are certainly a fair number of Event Pics coming up, but as much as we are eagerly anticipating “The Avengers,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Prometheus” and “Step Up 4″ (ha!), there’s something different about this. We can’t put our finger on it, directly, but it might have something to do with feeling like a part of something bigger. There are so many fans of the books, like a kinship between their fans, that is different from being a part of the legion of comic book geeks so eager to see the latest superhero joint.

And, since we’re on record as being one of those aforementioned geeks, we find our own opinion of this a tad curious. We’re a bit at loose ends here, not certain of how we’re going to react when these other big movies come along. We just know that, for the rest of the spring and into the summer, we’re going to be doing a lot of shrugging and waiting a few days to see a bunch of movies for which we’d otherwise be fully charged.

Or maybe we’re over thinking it. Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?

We’re not sure how this happened, or why, but the way the media powers that be decided to attack the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation so long before it even saw the light of day has been calculated. Questions were raised back in the fall, criticisms were lobbed about the story, the movie’s budget (rumored to be about $250 million, but you probably already knew that) called into question, long before anyone actually saw the thing. It was called a failure before a single frame was shown to the public.

Well, you know what happens when you repeatedly tell the movie going public how awful a movie is for a long time before it comes out? If you keep ramming this fact down its collective throat? Do you know what happens then? The audience doesn’t come. If it’s convinced this will be a waste of its time, people will stay away in droves.

But the thing is, the movie is a LOT of fun. It’s an enormous spectacle of space opera and was a blast to watch. And it’s not like we were alone here, as it did make over $30 million its opening weekend. And yet, based on its budget (and how DARE Disney spend that kind of money on a non-sequel?), that is seen as a flop.

Did you also know that it had a huge opening overseas? That, while it’ll probably top out at about $75 million domestically, it will come close to $300 million internationally? And even with a cumulative gross like that, it will STILL be considered a bomb? A strange sort of cautionary tale meant to scare other studios from similar folly?

Maybe it’s an anti-Disney thing (and, by the way, the Mouse House ain’t blame free here, with a crummy marketing campaign and an ill-advised decision to change the title from the more evocative “John Carter of Mars” to the far more nondescript and bland “John Carter,” which might as well be about an ER doctor), or maybe the media powers that be just had a meeting and decided to be appalled at the enormous amount of money spent, or … jeez, we don’t even know. We’re just trying to figure out why a studio taking a chance on something like this would be met with such scorn.

Not that Disney needs to be defended by us, but it’s moments like this when we stop and wonder aloud if we know anything about this business at all.

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Our stalwart Thursday columnist is back with another fascinating look at the world of media, with a slightly different piece this week. To read the whole thing, sign up for the daily newsletter in the box to the right. It’s only $4.99 per month, which comes to less than 25 cents each day!

Our intrepid intern Andrew Hurley wants to play with the big boys, so he’s going to start writing a semi-regular column for us. Since he’s from Wales, and living in Brooklyn, the title of his column was a no brainer. If you’d like to read it in its entirety, please sign up for the newsletter in the box to the right. It’s just $4.99 per month, which comes to less than 25 cents each day.

As usual, our slightly off kilter Tuesday columnist has a unique take on things. To read on, please sign up for the daily newsletter in the little box to the right. It’s only $4.99 per month, which averages to less than 25 cents per day.

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As usual, our intrepid Thursday columnist has some interesting things to say about this, so if you’d like to read on, please sign up for the daily newsletter in the box to the right. It’s only $4.99 per month, which translates to less than 25 cents each day.