The Wolf of Wall Street

In a follow up to my previous post about the Golden Globes winners and nominees, the SAG Awards have taken place and the much anticipated Academy Awards have since released their nominations for this year!

The Wolf of Wall Street received no recognition form the Screen Actor’s Guild awards, but that’s OK because the film, which I just happened to watch this past weekend, received the recognition it deserved scoring several nominations from the Academy.

In addition to being nominated for Best Picture of the year, actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are both nominated for their roles in the film and Director, Martin Scorsese also received a nom. My fingers are crossed for the wins of this deserving film, talented actors and amazing director!

Just in the first 5 minutes alone of watching The Wolf of Wall Street, you know that you are in store for a wild ride the next 3 hours. Not made for the easily offended, the film is not short of any nudity and drug use. The wild ride tells the story of a young man’s first experience on the job as a Wall Street broker learning the secrets of successful from a very coked up emaciated Matthew McConaughey. Leo’s character soon quits his Wall Street job and has his sites on building his own firm from the amount of insider knowledge he learned working for McConaughey’s character.

Rounding up some of his closest buds to work for him, Leo manages to team up the very funny Jonah Hill (who put on a hysterical Oscar worthy performance) and to my surprise, the lesser known actor/ comedian Henry Zebrowski-- who I just worked with on set for VH1’s Best Week Ever ! The team of “nobody’s” that were round up to make the start of Leo’s new business venture was a tight knit group of skeezy men trained to essentially talk poor people into giving them their money.

As the movie unfolds and the company steadily builds a ridiculous amount of success, the fast rise and slow fall of Leo’s newly built empire begins to crumble. Two hours in, the film has yet to lose any steam and the wild ride continues for another hour. As a viewer its like watching a train wreck about to happen—you can’t take your eyes away!

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/18/showbiz/sag-awards-2014-winners-list/index.html

http://oscar.go.com/nominees

The Kick off to Award Season

Last night the Golden Globes kicked off Award Season and recognized the best of TV and film. Hosted by the hilarious female duo, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the best of the best were awarded last night.

Like all major award shows there’s always some snubs expected, Such as Leonardo DiCaprio in almost any award show. But luckily one of the esteemed organizations finally gave Leonardo the praise and recognition many felt he’s deserved for past years. He won the best actor award for his amazing performance in the highly acclaimed film, The Wolf of Wall Street…. Now if only he can get the same recognition from the Academy Awards! Another exciting win was from the host of the show, Amy Poehler for her role in Parks and Recreation. Perhaps one of the least impressive wins was from another SNL alum, Andy Samberg.  Up against some major names on the TV screen, Samberg took home the award for Best Actor in the less than amazing comedic show Brooklyn 99.  It seems even he felt a bit undeserving, which showed through in his acceptance speech.

Typically, the top nominated films at award shows such as these are ones that fell under the radar or have not even been released yet. One film in particular, Blue Jasmine, which was directed by Woody Allen--the night’s lifetime achievement award recipient-- has yet to be released but it’s leading lady, Cate Blanchett took home the prize for best actress. Usually I’m one of the millions who are in wonder about this award winning performance that has yet to be seen, but thanks to a Jetblue flight home to Orlando I was able to watch the movie.  At the time I thought I was watching an older film but now feel I have bragging rights to finally being apart of a small percentage who can actually vouch for her award winning performance.

Of course, the Academy Awards reign as the queen of the awards circuit for film and it will be interesting to see which films and actors will be nominated. The golden Globes can be viewed as a precursor to the Oscars, but the reality is the winners are chosen from a total of 90 voters for the Golden Globes and over 6,000 registered voters for the Academy Awards! The nominees for the Oscars will be announced this week, January 16^th.

Entertainment Law Podcasts Review

Entertainment Law Update

         This podcast hosted by entertainment attorneys Gordon Firemark, Esq. and co-host Tamera Bennett is a monthly podcast where Gordon discusses the latest entertainment lawsuits including a variety of legal topics. Gordon is an attorney in the entertainment industry. In this podcast, they discuss each legal dispute and give their professional legal opinion on the case. By stating the facts in each case this podcast gives an unbiased view on court rulings from copyright infringement to trademark disputes of major entertainment brands.

This Week in Law

         Hosts Denise Howell and Evan Brown lead this podcast on the latest issues in technology law. As an intellectual property and technology lawyer, Denise Howell leads a weekly discussion on subjects in law such as digital copyright laws and lawsuits pertaining to open Internet rules. She often brings in special guests with expertise in specific areas of law to weigh in on hot topics and to provide their own legal advise on complex issues. Denise covers a lot of internet legal issues as it is an ever changing medium.

Barely Legal Entertainment Law

         Joe Escalante hosts this weekly podcast on all entertainment related law issues. Joe answers questions from listeners and breaks down major legal disputes in the entertainment industry pertaining to major artists, such as Lady Gaga in his latest episode. He also explains how to go about certain legal requirements such as purchasing rights to songs and how to attain certain licenses. Joe is able to give his professional 

Film and TV Industry Liabilities

In recent film and TV legal controversies, Hollywood Reporter, Esquire has reported James Cameron in another legal battle in Avatar 2. Claims that his epic film were not original and that he ripped the idea off of Eric Ryder’s story called K.R.Z. 2068. The claim did not hold up in court, however, as the court decided that Cameron’s blockbuster series was in development prior to Ryder’s pitch. It was not copyright infringement that Ryder was filing, but he was suing for meeting with the entertainment company behind Avatar numerous times and discussing his story ideas. He was told he would be compensated had his ideas been used, but the company decided not to go with his story. In court, he had to prove that Avatar was similar enough to K.R.Z 2068, but he failed to do so and the case went in Cameron’s favor. This was one of many lawsuits filed again James Cameron so it does pose the question of how much of the Avatar story was original.

The network FXX just recently found themselves in a trademark lawsuit with a company in a completely different industry, Exxon mobile. The lawsuit came about because the new logo for the network includes the same use of interlocking double X’s as the gas giant.  Exxon claimed that the logo would cause confusion between the two brands and they actually won the battle for trademark infringement. Exxon ran an internet search engine and found that comments came about from people associating the two companies. I’m sure that the comments that came up on forums about FXX’s logo did not really think that a major gas company and TV network were teaming up together, but it obviously was enough evidence to hold up in the courts that the public could be confused by the logo.

In a copyright dispute, the original copyright of the film Raging Bull expired and major studios were receiving profits from DVD sales. The woman filing the lawsuit was an heir to the original owner of the copyright Frank Petrella, who wrote the original screenplay. Petrella died before the copyright expired and was supposed to have gone to his heirs but studios have been receiving the profits from the copyright instead. Although this lawsuit hasn’t been settled yet, the daughter of Petrella should be entitled to those earnings if she is indeed an heir. The problem is that the renewal of the copyright was not made in time but there seems to be some delay in the process that caused it to expire, which she is also using to her defense. 

Working with Talent at VH1

Just a few weeks ago, I got offered the amazing opportunity to work with VH1 as a talent intern and have had the pleasure of working on their latest show, Best Week Ever. Some of my duties working in the talent department are researching new talent that may be fit for upcoming projects/ shows in addition to my main responsibility of making sure the talent coming in each day to film Best Week Ever is happy and that they are taken care of during their time at our offices.

The talent who are on Best Week Ever are comedians who have had a substantial following and buzz locally in the New York area, and for some, this is their first time on television. Just as I was nervous to be starting my first week on a shoot for a major television network, so were some of the talent I was coming in to assist. Most of the comedians who came in to film I was familiar with because I had either seen them on TV from the previous season of Best Week Ever, or I had seen perform live at comedy clubs. The idea of interacting with these comedians was very exciting, even if they aren’t considered “celebrities” just yet.

Not knowing what to expect from them, I greeted each person coming in to shoot as if I knew who they were and tried to be as personable as possible in order to make them feel comfortable in the short time they have from make-up to on set. Some of the talent had been doing this for weeks before and it was obvious they were comfortable making requests and knew their way around, but for the talent who had not filmed before it was interesting to see just how lost they really were in the whole process. None of them knew this was my first time on the shoot and that I had no idea of what was going on ether, but I made it a point to be confident in the way I interacted with them and if I had been doing this for a long time. I knew that if I didn’t seem confident that the newer talent wouldn’t feel as confident either, and that was very important to their performance. Just the simple gesture of handing them a bottle of water while they wait in the green room or make sure they have their script to go over in make-up can go a long way.

The good thing I’ve noticed about working with comedians in particular, is that they have all been very down to earth and I have not had to deal with any “egos”. As the show continues to film, I look forward to getting to know the talent much better and forming some great working relationships with them. I want to be someone they can rely on during the run of the show who helped make their experience enjoyable, and after the show, someone they remember not just as that intern.

-Alyssa

Spielberg's Jurassic World Set to Release Summer 2015

Universal Pictures 4th installment of the dinosaur action/adventure film Jurassic Park, the newly titled Jurassic World has been set to be released for June 12, 2015. This major film is being filmed in 3-D and is sure to be another epic project produced by Steven Spielberg. The first Jurassic Park film was re-released earlier this year to theaters in 3-D for its 20th anniversary and left fans anxious for another Jurassic Park installment. The cast has yet to be selected but Deadline reports that along with Spielberg, Pat Crowley and Frank Marshall will also be producers for the film. Colin Treverrow, of 2012's Safety Not Guaranteed, will be directing. An interesting choice since Treverrow's directorial credits show that this will be his first blockbuster film... it will also potentially be the film to put him on the map as a major Hollywood director since his other films have been much more under the radar.

Just from looking at the success of the previous three films, it can already be predicted that Jurassic World will easily be a summer blockbuster and major contender for the big summer films of 2015. The re-release of the original Jurassic Park alone raked in an impressive $114 Million worldwide.

Previous stars of the franchise have included Sam Neil who has played Dr. Alan Grant in all three of the films and Jeff Goldblum, who appeared in the first two Jurassic Park films. Leading ladies of the past films have included Laura Dern, Julianne Moore and Tea Leone, raising the question of who will be the lead female role for Jurassic World?

My prediction based on her role as a strong leading female in action/adventure film the Hunger Games, is Jennifer Lawrence. She has just enough roughness to have to handle dinosaur manure, if needed, and confidence to outrun a ferocious T-Rex!