The Way We View Now

Welcome to MSNMoviola. In an age when what we see much determines how we are in the world, it stands to good reason that movies are gonna make much of us, mean much to us. Make us mean much. We cry, we laugh, we live, we love, we die, not because of the big screen, but because we are the big screen. The big screen is us.

In this business of movies, there's much ado about money, so money shall be mentioned. Box office figures, star and director mega salaries, back end, front end, how much to spend and spend. The economics behind the magic. If Warner's is showing a profit for the first time in 4 years, Moviola's gonna tell you. If they're laying off scads despite the blank ink, Moviola's gonna tell you that too. And we're gonna wanna know why.

But above and beyond all the myth and mystery of astronomical number crunching, Moviola's gonna get into the myth and mystery of the Craft. Who's doin' what with and to whom, yes, as well as who's doin' what, why and how. If Linklater thinks it wise to team with Clooney and draft Keanu and Winona so that they may do great good graphic to Dick's A Scanner Darkly, we will report it, in all its glory. If Cruise opted out, we will report that too. And who knows? Moviola may even crack a Why? outta that cat as well.

Most and more MSNMoviola is gonna unmask all the mad about movies, with a fever and a pitch and a passion that made 'em mad in the first place. And made us mad about 'em.

Happy Screening.

CSI Guy

Moviola will though give the Eye a prize for running CSI: Miami guy Corey Miller's writer's blog. Moviola digs Miami (it's our hometown), and that tropical CSI makes Miami look delish (despite the murders). We especially dig the fact that the spin-off got Caruso back on track where he belongs. After leaving NYPD Blue for Jade we thought he'd never get back, on any track.

Anyway, Miller's bloggery is a bit fan-friendly and simple, but it's on the simply smarter side of fandom. The ins and outs of trickin' together the kinda narrative that continues each week to Top the Ten Most Watched. The craftsman got his start with Lois and Clark, got his break with the Vegas version CSI original, and now bare bones it all for everyone, presumably direct from ultra-sunny SoFlo. Is it a bit of a shill? Sure. So is just about everything else. But this shill is a little thrill.

Small Screen Minds

The L.A. Times' irredoubtable Al Martinez blasted CBS for their scary airing of the apocolyptic yawner Category 7: The End of the World. Robert Bianco at USA Today slammed the series too, and reported that Category 8: The Universe Implodes will be here in May.

Moviola truly hopes Bobby was joking.

If you were one of the few unfortunates (and there were a few) to have had to sit through this waste of disaster (disaster of waste?), you'll know what we're talkin' about; if you one of the lucky many who didn't (and there were many many), you don't wanna know. The world doesn't need a low rent boob tube imagining of the Apocolypse, even -- or especially -- if it's at hand.

Get with it Eye Guys.

Even Smaller Big Pictures

And some mad rad form of Slacker anime might just be the next big thing in small. (Or is that the small thing in big?)

Today's NY Times tells a tale that's got gearheads jumping from Hollywood to Hong Kong. Seems the National Academy of Arts and Sciences wants to step up and be counted first when it comes to progress so they've announced plans to award Emmys for little pictures. We're talkin' small small screen here, or, "original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable."

Sure they're Daytime Emmys -- So what? An Emmy is an Emmy is an Emmy, by any other designation. Just think what the future holds when you hold in your hand award-winning programming. Emmy Award-winning content.

Dig it.

Scannered Darkly

Speaking of the future for Warner Independent Pictures, Moviola wonders what's gonna happen to the infinitely anticipated Spring flinging of A Scanner Darkly now that the indie head of the mainstream mass has been lopped at the neck. If anything, this is a flick which demands the likes of an Andreen to get it flicking.

As you may well know (if you've been anywhere near a Board lately), A Scanner Darkly is being helmed by Richard Linklater, scripted by Charlie Kaufman, banked by Clooney's Section 8, and stars the likes of Keanu and Woody and Winona. The book, one of utter Substance, was one of Philip K. Dick's finest. Pantheon is trotting out a companion graphic novel, Vintage is re-issuing the classic.

What stands to astound though is the adaptatist's genre-busting promise. Sci-Fi slacker anime, action adventure mystery, brought about by some of Hollywood's hippest minds, from a text by the word's most filmed authors. Perhasp there'll be a thaw after all.

Warner's Wilds

Yep, you heard correctly. Warner's is sending a few hundred troops back out into the wilds, where no studio operative dare to cash in an incentive.

Variety reports a slashing of 400 folk, mostly from Warner's Burbank studios, despite an increase in earnings, not to mention an earlier year bloodbath at parent Time Warner. According to the studio, the cuts are based upon a forecasted slowing.

Make sense to you?

Doesn't make send to Moviola either. Even less sense-making is the fact that Daddy Warner axed Warner Independent Pictures production chief Michael Andreen. Granted the cat was at the post during the debacling Kingdom of Heaven, but he also managed to scratch in and out March of the Penquins, the little movie that could and did. And then some.

Nothing like chopping off the head that earns for you.