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Greenlight Blackout: Trade Roughage, 02/28/08

Under discussion:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Under discussion:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Studios are refusing to greenlight pictures that can’t be completed by June 30, the deadline for the Screen Actors Guild to settle on a new contract. But Michael Bay, for one, is not afraid of a silly little actor’s strike. Says the Transformers 2 director, who claims he currently has three screenwriters “in Michael Bay jail” hammering out a script: “If there is a strike, we shut down, but shutting down isn’t that big a deal.” Expect the AMPTP to use this as a bargaining tool??????after all, why would they care about meeting the demands of human actors, when they can make a billion dollars off a self-professed captor of screenwriters and his imaginary robots?
Peter Debruge goes out of his way to defend The Last Emperor on the occasion of its Criterion release, but still longs for the Criterion treatment of “better” Bertolucci: “Witnessing the care and respect they pay The Last Emperor (going so far as to indulge Storaro’s controversial reframing of the film’s aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 2:1), it’s a shame Criterion didn’t handle restorations of either The Conformist or 1900 two of the director’s earlier epics that Paramount released from their vaults with minimal attention just over a year ago.”
Disney is launching its own version of Rock Band, called Ultimate Band. We’re told it’ll feature “more family friendly gameplay and song selection,” but the examples offered of songs sure to be involved are by The White Stripes and The Who. So by “family friendly”, they mean it’s a game for Jason Bateman-in-Juno style reluctant hipster parents, and embittered ex-hipie grandparents? That actually sounds really great.