Seven years ago, pioneering film and TV producer Debra Martin Chase was thinking about leaving Hollywood.
The first Black woman to ink an overall deal at any studio, she’d produced such genre-defining hits as “The Princess Diaries,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” While getting projects about women and people of color off the ground was never easy, suddenly prospects were stagnant.
“It was at a point where Hollywood just wasn’t interested,” she tells Variety, reflecting on the career crossroads from the living room of her apartment in New York, where she lives while her popular CBS series “The Equalizer” is in production. “You’d talk to people — particularly white men — and their eyes would just glaze over.”
As Martin Chase approached 30 years in the business, her passion was slipping away. She thought, “Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling me:...
The first Black woman to ink an overall deal at any studio, she’d produced such genre-defining hits as “The Princess Diaries,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” While getting projects about women and people of color off the ground was never easy, suddenly prospects were stagnant.
“It was at a point where Hollywood just wasn’t interested,” she tells Variety, reflecting on the career crossroads from the living room of her apartment in New York, where she lives while her popular CBS series “The Equalizer” is in production. “You’d talk to people — particularly white men — and their eyes would just glaze over.”
As Martin Chase approached 30 years in the business, her passion was slipping away. She thought, “Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling me:...
- 3/14/2023
- by Angelique Jackson
- Variety Film + TV
Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, Veep alum Dan Bakkedahl, Joseph Mazzello (Bohemian Rhapsody), Blair Underwood (Quantico), Kevin Pollak (Mom) and Patrick Fischler (The Right Stuff) are set for recurring roles in Impeachment: American Crime Story, Ryan Murphy’s upcoming FX limited series about the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, sources said. Reps for the network, Murphy, 20th Television and the actors declined comment.
The third season of American Crime Story is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Feldstein stars as Lewinsky, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones and Billy Eichner as journalist Matt Drudge.
Sorvino is believed to be playing Marcia Lewis, Monica Lewinsky’s mom. The role reunites Sorvino with Murphy, with whom she worked on his recent Netflix series Hollywood.
Bakkedahl would portray Kenneth Starr, independent counsel during the...
The third season of American Crime Story is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Feldstein stars as Lewinsky, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones and Billy Eichner as journalist Matt Drudge.
Sorvino is believed to be playing Marcia Lewis, Monica Lewinsky’s mom. The role reunites Sorvino with Murphy, with whom she worked on his recent Netflix series Hollywood.
Bakkedahl would portray Kenneth Starr, independent counsel during the...
- 8/16/2021
- by Nellie Andreeva and Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 20, 2012
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
James Carville campaigns in The War Room.
Directed by renowned cinema verité filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop) and Chris Hegedus (Kings of Pastry), the 1993 documentary film The War Room focuses on Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign.
The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House and changed the face of politics in the process. In their behind-closed-doors account of the campaign, Pennebaker and Hegedus follow the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants — especially the folksy James Carville and the preppy George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a fresh spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning.
Criterion’s DVD and Blu-ray editions of the acclaimed movie are highlighted by a restored high-definition digital transfer,...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
James Carville campaigns in The War Room.
Directed by renowned cinema verité filmmakers D. A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop) and Chris Hegedus (Kings of Pastry), the 1993 documentary film The War Room focuses on Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign.
The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House and changed the face of politics in the process. In their behind-closed-doors account of the campaign, Pennebaker and Hegedus follow the brainstorming and bull sessions of Clinton’s crack team of consultants — especially the folksy James Carville and the preppy George Stephanopoulos, who became media stars in their own right as they injected a fresh spirit and spontaneity into the process of campaigning.
Criterion’s DVD and Blu-ray editions of the acclaimed movie are highlighted by a restored high-definition digital transfer,...
- 1/3/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
The name of this show is The Good Wife, not The Good Cary, so it wasn't exactly a surprise that Alicia landed the job of junior associate at Gardner and Lockhart.
But events from "Unplugged" showed the lengths Alicia was willing to go to in order to assure herself of this gig, while setting things up for a fascinating second season.
Just think of the possibie storylines the show can now mine in the future:
Cary as an adversary of Alicia and the firm. Not a one-dimensional villian, mind you, but a well-layered, understandable nemesis who shows up now and again. Eli as a regular, important part of the show. We already knew Alan Cumming had been made a series regular - but now we know why and how his character will fit into both Alicia's world and Peter's world - and we couldn't be more excited about that. Alicia...
But events from "Unplugged" showed the lengths Alicia was willing to go to in order to assure herself of this gig, while setting things up for a fascinating second season.
Just think of the possibie storylines the show can now mine in the future:
Cary as an adversary of Alicia and the firm. Not a one-dimensional villian, mind you, but a well-layered, understandable nemesis who shows up now and again. Eli as a regular, important part of the show. We already knew Alan Cumming had been made a series regular - but now we know why and how his character will fit into both Alicia's world and Peter's world - and we couldn't be more excited about that. Alicia...
- 5/12/2010
- by matt@iscribelimited.com (M.L. House)
- TVfanatic
You know your show is popular when Washington power player Vernon Jordan makes an unbilled cameo--as himself. Such is the fortunate position of The Good Wife, which enters the last few episodes of its premiere season as the hands-down new drama winner of the year.
In this week's episode, "Unplugged," a rock star becomes the subject of a battle over his estate when he winds up in a coma, with his wife and mistress wrangling over whether to keep him on life support or not. (Get it? "Unplugged"--he's a musician ... ) Anyway, this genuine life-or-death decision is the foreground to what viewers consider the real story: Who will win the Alicia-Cary job smackdown? ...
In this week's episode, "Unplugged," a rock star becomes the subject of a battle over his estate when he winds up in a coma, with his wife and mistress wrangling over whether to keep him on life support or not. (Get it? "Unplugged"--he's a musician ... ) Anyway, this genuine life-or-death decision is the foreground to what viewers consider the real story: Who will win the Alicia-Cary job smackdown? ...
- 5/12/2010
- by editor@buddytv.com
- buddytv.com
Finally—some resolution in the latest episode of "The Good Wife"! Lockhart, Gardner’s junior associate bake off comes to an end in an episode that also features D.C power broker Vernon Jordan playing himself. The drama begins with a gaggle of the firm’s assistants keeping their ears to the wall—literally. “When they put in the sign, they left a hole in the wall,” a lunching coworker tells Courtney. “If you stand there, you can hear everything...
- 5/12/2010
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- The makers of The Black List call their documentary "a new kind of living, talking, evolving coffee table book," and that pretty such sums up its virtues and deficiencies.
Famed portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who made a docu about musician Lou Reed, and film critic/NPR talk show host Elvis Mitchell invited a number of prominent blacks to stand before their camera to offer a candid assessment of what being black in America is like today.
Although Mitchell conducted the interviews, his presence and voice are deliberately excluded, leaving each participant to deliver a monologue. This results in mini portraits that are rather brief, sometimes insightful, other times serendipitous, never uninteresting but often self-conscious. In other words, a coffee table book movie, which probably will work better as a show on HBO than on a screen at a film festival.
The format necessarily loses the connective tissue one ordinarily experiences in a docu. The people might or might not touch on the same topics, but no dialogue results. You wonder if Colin Powell would agree with what Rev. Al Sharpton says. You will continue to wonder. Without knowing the question being answered, you have no way to judge whether the subject is truly answering or evading the question. Politicians, and there are a few here, are infamous for doing the latter.
Consequently, what you take away from Black List are telling moments when a comment hits home. Filmmaker Keenen Ivory Wayans points out that blacks and whites are wired to react in completely different ways to the same stimuli. Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks remarks how black audiences react differently to theater, taking a more active role in the experience.
Sharpton describes how the church once was the social center of the black community but is no longer, which has resulted in the negative influences of gangsta culture. For basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, that social center was Harlem, serving as a "cradle" and "home" to blacks born in New York.
Comic-actor Chris Rock notes that true integration didn't come to Major League Baseball when Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers; it came when mediocre black ballplayers made it to the big leagues. Only then did blacks have the "license to be bad and come back and learn."
Attorney and political maven Vernon Jordan declares, "There is a definition of black America but no definition of white America." Actor Louis Gossett Jr. relates that no one called him to play a role for a year and a half after winning an Oscar.
All interesting comments, but the randomness in which they are delivered allows no theme to develop or drama to build to a climax. The last interview could have swapped places with the first.
It is edifying, though, to witness so many dynamic personalities -- ranging from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons to rock guitarist Slash and rap impresario Sean Diddy Combs -- speak of the continuing challenges of being black in America, of living through what Powell calls "the second Civil War." Which makes Black List an invaluable document for the time capsule.
THE BLACK LIST
HBO
A Freeemind Ventures Prod.
Credits:
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Writer: Elvis Mitchell
Producers: Elvis Mitchell, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Michael Slap Sloane
Executive producers: Christopher McKee, Scott Richman, Payne Brown, Tommy Walker
Director of photography: Graham Willoughby
Music: Neal Evans
Interviewer: Elvis Mitchell
Editor: Lukas Hauser
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- The makers of The Black List call their documentary "a new kind of living, talking, evolving coffee table book," and that pretty such sums up its virtues and deficiencies.
Famed portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, who made a docu about musician Lou Reed, and film critic/NPR talk show host Elvis Mitchell invited a number of prominent blacks to stand before their camera to offer a candid assessment of what being black in America is like today.
Although Mitchell conducted the interviews, his presence and voice are deliberately excluded, leaving each participant to deliver a monologue. This results in mini portraits that are rather brief, sometimes insightful, other times serendipitous, never uninteresting but often self-conscious. In other words, a coffee table book movie, which probably will work better as a show on HBO than on a screen at a film festival.
The format necessarily loses the connective tissue one ordinarily experiences in a docu. The people might or might not touch on the same topics, but no dialogue results. You wonder if Colin Powell would agree with what Rev. Al Sharpton says. You will continue to wonder. Without knowing the question being answered, you have no way to judge whether the subject is truly answering or evading the question. Politicians, and there are a few here, are infamous for doing the latter.
Consequently, what you take away from Black List are telling moments when a comment hits home. Filmmaker Keenen Ivory Wayans points out that blacks and whites are wired to react in completely different ways to the same stimuli. Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks remarks how black audiences react differently to theater, taking a more active role in the experience.
Sharpton describes how the church once was the social center of the black community but is no longer, which has resulted in the negative influences of gangsta culture. For basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, that social center was Harlem, serving as a "cradle" and "home" to blacks born in New York.
Comic-actor Chris Rock notes that true integration didn't come to Major League Baseball when Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers; it came when mediocre black ballplayers made it to the big leagues. Only then did blacks have the "license to be bad and come back and learn."
Attorney and political maven Vernon Jordan declares, "There is a definition of black America but no definition of white America." Actor Louis Gossett Jr. relates that no one called him to play a role for a year and a half after winning an Oscar.
All interesting comments, but the randomness in which they are delivered allows no theme to develop or drama to build to a climax. The last interview could have swapped places with the first.
It is edifying, though, to witness so many dynamic personalities -- ranging from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons to rock guitarist Slash and rap impresario Sean Diddy Combs -- speak of the continuing challenges of being black in America, of living through what Powell calls "the second Civil War." Which makes Black List an invaluable document for the time capsule.
THE BLACK LIST
HBO
A Freeemind Ventures Prod.
Credits:
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Writer: Elvis Mitchell
Producers: Elvis Mitchell, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Michael Slap Sloane
Executive producers: Christopher McKee, Scott Richman, Payne Brown, Tommy Walker
Director of photography: Graham Willoughby
Music: Neal Evans
Interviewer: Elvis Mitchell
Editor: Lukas Hauser
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/30/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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