#Lynda Obst

[lightofraye]

Glen Powell Update

I hadn't realized Lynda Obst had passed away. Glen posted a sweet tribute to her on Twitter.

[trendynewsnow]

Lynda Obst: A Pioneering Producer and Advocate for Women in Hollywood

Lynda Obst: A Trailblazer in Hollywood Lynda Obst, a dynamic New York journalist who made her mark as a Hollywood producer, passed away on Tuesday at her Los Angeles home at the age of 74. Her brother, Rick Rosen, confirmed that the cause of death was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Renowned for her distinctive booming laugh and her unapologetic honesty, Ms. Obst was a vibrant personality…

[idrils]

kip thorne concepted interstellar in the first place (with producer friend lynda obst)!! he not only ensured it was hard science, the movie wouldn't exist without him!

and a lot of these tantrums that nolan threw ended with a compromise - he would say okay, so that's impossible. FIND ME a set of circumstances in which this would be reasonable - it's a bit like the mythbusters procedure. first, we find out if it works. if we didn't get the results we were looking for, we experiment to figure out HOW to get those results. this is how we got the wobbly football shaped planet with the forty-foot high waves

nolan needed the crew to land on a planet with 60,000x time dilation (7 years on earth = 1 hour on "miller's planet"), so that coop's daughter would grow to adulthood in a relatively (ha) short time, for drama and plot

for this enormous time dilation to be possible, miller's planet needs to be perilously close to the black hole gargantua - close enough that the tidal gravitational forces should tear the planet apart. instead, the planet sits JUST on the edge of that peril, close enough that instead of being ripped asunder, the tidal forces of gargantua's gravity deform the planet instead

(image description: figure 17.3 from kip thorne's book the science of interstellar. the image shows an incredibly oblong blue planet, twice as tall as it is wide. arrows push inwards on the skinny sides, and outwards on the long sides, representing the force of the black hole's gravity. end ID)

the planet is tidally locked to gargantua (meaning the same part of the planet always faces the black hole, like earth's moon does to earth), because if it rotated, the deformation would constantly shift, pulverizing the mantle and making the planet red hot - instead of the sexy tall waves nolan wanted for the movie. so, to make the tall waves work, kip thorne said well. i guess the bastard's tidally locked! ALMOST:

(Image description: another excerpt from the science of interstellar. the heading reads "Giant Waves on Miller's Planet." the text reads:

What could possibly produce the two gigantic water waves, 1.2 kilometers high, that bear down on the Ranger as it rests on Miller’s planet (Figure 17.5)?

I searched for a while, did various calculations with the laws of physics, and found two possible answers for my science interpretation of the movie. Both answers require that the planet be not quite locked to Gargantua. Instead it must rock back and forth relative to Gargantua by a small amount, from the orientation on the left of Figure 17.6, to that on the right, then back to the left, and so on." end ID)

kip thorne experimented with the wiggliness of the planet and did all his calculations and computations to determine the amount of Wiggle he could give miller's planet without pulverizing the mantle. "When I computed the period of this rocking, how long it takes to swing from left to right and back again, I got a joyous answer. About an hour. The same as the observed time between giant waves, a time chosen by Chris without knowing about my science interpretation."

sometimes, there was beautiful happenstance like that. other times like OP mentioned, kip thorne had to really dig his feet in about FTL travel being impossible

ty for allowing me to geek so thoroughly out about this, i absolutely LOVE the book the science of interstellar and how accessible it makes really extremely complicated scientific topics!! if you liked interstellar and science communication i absolutely recommend it

I do give almost all the credit for my love of Interstellar to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne who bullied Nolan at every turn into keeping the science as realistic as possible even when Nolan threw tantrums abt it because he wanted to sacrifice what was plausible for what was exciting and Kip Thorne just kept being like sorry is the theoretical capabilities of spacetime travel not exciting enough for you? Grow up.

[rwpohl]

wonder woman 1984, patty jenkins 2019

[sgiandubh]

A book

In a sea of #silly and contentiously politicized Hollywood memoirs, Lynda Obst's Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business is a glaring, very useful exception.

The woman knows her trade and she really has nothing to prove, after a very rich career as a cinema and TV producer, that took her from Flashdance to Sleepless in Seattle to Interstellar, one step (and sometimes even one flop) at a time.

Having just started to read it in earnest, I was pleasantly surprised to find perhaps the best explanation for ***'s insistence to promote BOMB as a viable project after OL is over. The roots of the problem are not limited to its particular situation (future merger/acquisition, post-strike context, etc.). They are much older and have everything to do with a business model that has been used since at least the early 2010's, first in the movie business and (more and more) now in TV productions.

You will forgive the long quote. It's worth it:

In other words, expect less and less quality content, in a business landscape looking more and more to milk an already captive audience of their hard-earned buck. And invest less and less in script and talent, precisely because the recipe for success is not unlike those three-ingredient cookies Tick-Tock is apparently so fond of.

The simple fact Disney was one of the main proponents and promoters of this (abysmal) business model is, of course, a coincidence. As is the very insistent use of the term 'tentpole', when directly referencing OL, in ***'s shareholder reports.

This confirms my prior analysis and I take no pride, nor joy in writing it. OL is (still is) ***'s strongest asset and main sale argument. I should only hope Season 8 will not completely bastardize what started as something that could really have reached for the stars. And this has nothing to do with S and C: they went above and beyond what was expected. Because magic is magic, even if you try to dim or mutilate it.

[lonesomedreamereccentriclover]

On April 11, The Fisher King by Terry Gilliam will be upgraded to 4K UHD Blu-ray!

Special features:

New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Terry Gilliam, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack

One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

Audio commentary featuring Gilliam

Interviews with Gilliam, producer Lynda Obst, screenwriter Richard LaGravenese, and actors Jeff Bridges, Amanda Plummer, and Mercedes Ruehl

Interviews with artists Keith Greco and Vincent Jefferds on the creation of the film’s Red Knight

Interview from 2006 with actor Robin Williams

Video essay featuring Bridges’s on-set photographs

Footage from 1991 of Bridges training as a radio personality with acting coach Stephen W. Bridgewater

Deleted scenes, with audio commentary by Gilliam

Costume tests

Trailers

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

PLUS: An essay by critic Bilge Ebiri

Cover by LA2

[nebris]

Lynda Rosen Obst (April 14, 1950 – October 22, 2024)

[whirlwindchick]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Fisher King (DVD, 1991).

[agendaculturaldelima]

 #ProyeccionDeVida

🎬 “INTERSTELLAR” [Interestelar]

🔎 Género: Ciencia ficción / Drama / Aventuras / Futuro Post Apocalíptico / Película de Culto

⌛️ Duración: 169 minutos

✍️ Guion: Jonathan Nolan y Christopher Nolan

📕 Historia: Kip Thorne

🎼 Música: Hans Zimmer

📷 Fotografía: Hoyte van Hoytema

💥 Argumento: Al ver que la vida en la Tierra está llegando a su fin, un grupo de exploradores dirigidos por el piloto Cooper y la científica Amelia emprenden una misión que puede ser la más importante de la historia de la humanidad: viajar más allá de nuestra galaxia para descubrir algún planeta en otra que pueda garantizar el futuro de la raza humana.

👥 Reparto: Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Mackenzie Foy, Timothée Chalamet, Matt Damon y Michael Caine.

📢 Dirección: Christopher Nolan

© Productoras: Warner Bros., Syncopy Production, Paramount Pictures, Legendary Pictures & Lynda Obst Productions

🌎 Pais: Estados Unidos

📅 Año: 2014

 📽 Proyección:

📆 Sábado 28 de Setiembre

🕗 8:00pm.

🎦 Cine Caleta (calle Aurelio de Souza 225 - Barranco)

🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ Ingreso libre

🙂 A tener en cuenta: Prohibido el ingreso de bebidas y comidas. 🌳💚🌻🌛

[loptrlab]

Who Inspires You?

How FAR Would YOU GO 2 Save Your Family?

Interstellar

Produced by

Emma Thomas

Christopher Nolan

Lynda Obst

Starring

Matthew McConaughey

Anne Hathaway

Jessica Chastain

Bill Irwin

Ellen Burstyn

Michael Caine

Production companies

Paramount Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures

Legendary Pictures

Syncopy Inc.

Lynda Obst Productions

Distributed by

Paramount Pictures (North America)

Warner Bros. Pictures (International)

Release dates

October 26, 2014 (TCL Chinese Theatre)

November 5, 2014 (United States)

November 7, 2014 (United Kingdom)

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction drama film directed, written, and produced by Christopher Nolan and starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Caine, and Matt Damon. Set in a dystopianfuture where humanity is embroiled in a catastrophic blight and famine, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humankind.

[seanhowe]

Amazing! Where did this come from? It’s from a party for Lynda Obst, who I’m sure would love to see other photos from the party if they’re around...

Stan Lee And Wife Joan Lee

[absolutebl]

So I know the point of your blog is BL but do you think with the increase in BL we'll start seeing more GL? There has historically been decidedly less GL (once you filter out the porn made for straight dudes) and as a queer woman I want more!! Western media doesn't seem to do the same kind of storytelling as Asian BL. Even if Asian BL

aren't always telling queer stories, they are doing romance in a way I haven't seen over here yet (like give me a queer romcom or a queer crime drama Western media! Does it exist)? And I want that for GL.

ASIAN GL

OMG another ask for me to spin into stats. WEEEEEEEEEE!!!! (Thank you!) 

SO

I REALLLLLYYYYYY hope so. I WANT THIS SO BAD. 

I actually love GL as much as BL, but there just isn’t very much of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to see much in the future either. So sorry to say, but I can explain. I have data! 

But I’ll need to talk about the source materials and why the lack first. 

So ready... here we go... 

History of GL - Popularity Struggles 

So BL comes from Yaoi manga. There is a female version of this, Yuri. Historically, in Japan it is MUCH less popular than Yaoi. 

On the other side of the globe at round the same time (late 90s early 00s) there are lesbian-centered queer indie films from the USA, also historically less popular than the gay stuff. Although both really struggled. (There are series too. One could contrast the ratings and viewer numbers of say, Queer as Folk against The L-Word.) 

Now, let’s look at the romance literature industry because it is a demographic bellwether for romcoms and romantic films, TV, and web series in general. (More on that in the next section.) 

F/F, lesbian, and non-gay queer focused romance novels sell the least within the romance genre. If we divide that genre purely on sales lines, it goes: het, m/m or gay, f/f or lesbian, other forms of queer. 

There are exceptions, especially when popular romance het authors branch into ff. But this is not the norm. 

Sales Demographics for BL 

I’m talking broad brush stroke sales demos here. Please don’t take it personally. This is just following the eyeballs, to the numbers, to revenue generated. The entertainment industry is a commercial industry. It desires to make money first and foremost. 

Yaoi, BL, and gay romance has been historically consumed almost entirely by women of a specific age demographic (25-65). Hollywood will occasionally refer to this demographic as the Apple Pie demo (see Lynda Obst’s book Sleepless in Hollywood.) I personally think this demo is skewing younger right now, but I haven’t tunneled into the data because, frankly, there is no point until we return to normal (this post from 2020). I specialize in predictive analysis and what we have right now is a non-predictive culture state. (It definitely skews younger for BL because of the technological barrier to entry - AKA the general need to consume online or illegally.) 

Anyway, Apple Pie is ALSO the demo that consumes romcoms and romance novels. This is a powerful consumer demographic for material objects (they do most of the shopping for most households in terms of goods) but historically not a very powerful demographic in terms of entertainment. The Apple Pie has a habit of doing pretty much anything else instead of stopping their lives to watch or read. 

When they do get obsessed with a piece of pop culture Apple Pies move mountains, see Twilight. (Which is one of the reasons it’s SO VITAL to have positive representation in these kinds of films, even if only as side characters, Apple Pie is also a powerful voting demographic when it comes to culture change like marriage equality. When I talk about being pro-normalization this is that angle.)

Unfortunately, the Apple Pies are easily distracted and easily placated. Historically they will go along with media that other demographics would rather consume (those demos being children, teens & college age, men age 25-55, and retirees). Teens, college age, and men 25-55 often share similar tastes, they also spend the most on entertainment, and historically dominate the entertainment field’s focus. (See superhero tent pole movies etc...)

Okay so, this means BL is most popular with the Apple Pie demographic. (Particularly over the last year and a half because Apple Pies have been less distracted from pop culture than in prior years. I anticipate watch numbers going down when C19 has been dealt with.) I liken this to the popularity of lesbian porn amongst straight men. There’s fetishization, fantasy, exotic appeal, distancing from an act that one cannot participate in oneself, and whole lot of other psychological things going on here. (No shade. This is a pro sex, pro kink, pro self analysis and self understanding space here.)

BL is also popular with gay and queer identified individuals but there just aren’t as many of us to significantly tilt the scale of watch numbers when pitted against the majority of viewers. Sad but true.

Sales Demographics for GL 

GL/lesbian film watchers and Yuri/lesbian/queer romance readers are ALSO members of the Apple Pie demographic. But, in broad brush strokes the only people who actually regularly consume this kind of pop culture are an even smaller wedge of that demo. They are:   

women/female identified individuals who identify as lesbians, bisexual, or pansexual 

gender non-conforming individuals who identify as queer or within the LGBTQ+ culture 

In other words, GL is not consumed by straight identified women and they make up the vast majority of Apple Pie. Yet the Apple Pie is already one of the hardest demos to market to. So GL watchers are the smallest wedge of an already difficult target wedge. 

So this is a VERY long way of saying that GL doesn’t have the demographics to be profitable. There just isn’t a big enough audience for it to sell well at volume. There’s basically no market. 

Which is not to say we won’t get some GL. It just a long way of saying I don’t see GL ever going the same way as BL. 

I would LOVE to eat these words - as if they were apple pie. But I can’t see how a surge in GL popularity and production, demographically speaking, would be possible in the current social make up of consumers. 

Here endith the market analysis lesson for today. 

All that said...

Some GL that DOES exist 

Couple of Mirrors (Chinese - sad end, censored romance) 

Dear Uranus (Taiwan - cliff hanger ending) 

Friendzone 2: Dangerous Area (Thai - subplot) 

The Handmaiden (Korea) THIS MOVIE IS A MASTERPIECE (it comes from Fingersmith, which is also great, and the same author as Tipping the Velvet which is fantastic) 

Handsome Stewardess (Taiwan - sad ending) 

Hormones 2 (Thai - subplot)

Nevertheless (Korea - subplot) - warning the surrounding het characters are unbearable 

Pair of Love (Taiwan) 

Pearl Next Door (Pinoy) 

Ride or Die (japan) VERY DARK murder lesbians 

Transit Girls (Japan) - stepsisters trope 

Triple - Do You Want? (Korea) - experimental one act where 3 couples (BL, GL, het) each perform the same first love scene with the same dialogue 

Very Complicated (Thai - subplot)

Water Boyy (Thai - subplot) 

Yes or No 1 & 2 (Thai)

Ones I haven’t managed to watch yet or dropped 

Afraid Of (Korea) 

Albino (Japan) 

Between The Seasons (Korea) 

Butterfly (Hong Kong) 

Chasing Sunsets (Pinoy) 

Club Friday The Series 12 (Thai) 

Diary of Tootsies (Thai) 

Girls Love (China) 

He's a Woman, She's a Man (Hong Kong) 

i STORIES (Thai) 

Intimates (Hong Kong)

Jellyfish (Japan)

Joshi-teki Seikatsu (Japan) 

Legend of Yun Qian (China) 

Life is Peachy (Korea) 

Lily Fever (Korea)

Love My Life (Japan) 

Love/Juice (Japan) 

Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (Thai) 

My Dear Friend (Korea) 

On Air (Korea) 

Our Love Story (Korea) 

Out of Breath (Korea) 

The Painter of the Wind (Korea) 

Spider Lilies (Taiwan) 

The Substitute (Taiwan) 

We Are Gamily (Taiwan) 

White Lily (Japan) 

X-LOVE (China) 

GL Trends by Country

Like with BL I’d be wary of the stuff out of Japan and China as it has a tendency to go dark. 

Hong Kong seems particularly interested in exploring cross dressing and gender identity. 

There are more from Korea than I expected and less from Taiwan. Sadly, the Korean stuff is particularly difficult to get hold of internationally. 

The Thai stuff is all over the place but sometimes can be cute and sweet. 

Here’s @heybisexuals Asian WLW Media Masterpost which is full of tasty links and more information.  

This post and list date 2021, GL occurring after this will not appear but MAY be in the comments. 

(source)

[antoine-roquentin]

from 1992

Since the turn of the century, when Katherine Tingley established her exotic Point Loma Theosophical Community near San Diego and became known as the Purple Mother, Southern California has been a magnet for prophets promising to unlock the secrets of the metaphysical and the occult. From Krishnamurti to Aimee Semple McPherson to the so-called I AM cult, they found easy acceptance in a land populated by migrants eager to rid themselves of their ties to the past and exorcise "the nameless fears which so many of them had acquired from the fire-and-brimstone theology of the Middle West," as journalist Carey McWilliams wrote in 1946....

Slim and stylish, with dark shiny hair, flawless skin and angular features, Williamson now hopes to add "best-selling author" to her list of accomplishments. Her just-published, "A Return to Love," recently got a big boost when Oprah Winfrey snapped up 1,000 copies and told her television audience she had experienced 157 miracles after reading it. Norman Lear was scheduled to host a party last week in Williamson's honor.....

Williamson is such a powerful communicator, said movie producer Lynda Obst, Williamson's roommate at Pomona College, that "I tell her she could be working off the telephone book."

Instead, this self-described "Jewish unwed mother" has become the foremost interpreter of "A Course in Miracles," the 1,200-page tome she first noticed on a friend's coffee table about 15 years ago, not long after it was published. "Students" of the course, which has sold 750,000 copies, are told that it was dictated by Jesus Christ himself over a seven-year period to an emotionally tortured psychologist named Helen Schucman.

The course offers a variation on so-called New Thought, the American metaphysical movement that dates back to the 1880s, said J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara. Resting on the belief "that the only reality is God, and that negative things like poverty, sickness and fear are unreal," as Melton put it, the course advocates "surrendering" to God's plan and approaching life in a loving, non-judgmental way. The change in perception is said to produce miracles....

At the same time, disenchantment is widespread and building, especially since Jan. 7, when former West Hollywood Mayor Steve Schulte became the Los Angeles' center's third executive director in five years to be dismissed. Although Schulte was fired by the board of directors, it is widely believed that the decision was Williamson's and she concedes she was eager to see him go.

Like some of the others who have clashed with Williamson, Schulte did not buy into her spiritual program--a factor widely believed to have increased tensions between them.

Rallying around the popular Schulte, the staff has called for his reinstatement to the $60,000-a-year post and for Williamson's resignation as chairman of the board of directors. A majority of the 18-member work force has voted to join a union. They also want the current board--all Williamson loyalists--replaced by people without ties to her. Several complained that last September's elaborate and time-consuming "Divine Design" auction, although it netted $700,000, fell considerably short of its goals--an assertion Williamson does not dispute.

[scifigeneration]

Avengers: Endgame and the relentless march of Hollywood franchise movies

by Daniel White

Jeremy Renner and Robert Downey Jr. as Hawkeye and Iron Man Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK

Avengers: Endgame smashed box office records in the days following its release, becoming the quickest film ever to break the $2bn barrier and ranking as the second-highest-grossing film in history after only 11 days. The Marvel epic is still creeping towards Avatar’s top spot and, with the recent announcement of a strategic theatrical re-release including unseen footage, looks very likely to overtake it any time now.

The culmination of the 22-film “Infinity Saga”, Endgame represents an impressive accomplishment – not only for Marvel but also for the franchising trend in Hollywood, which shows no signs of slowing down either.

I’ve been researching how the landscape of Western cinema has been undeniably transformed by a shift towards the production of film sequels. Looking at the raw data, I found that box office takings of the most economically successful films of the past 17 years are a good way to understand the dominance of franchising on the film industry.

Of the 100 highest-grossing films worldwide since 2001, 86 are part of a cinematic franchise (all figures taken from Box Office Mojo). Of this 86, eight were the first installments of their respective franchises, meaning 78% of the most economically successful films since 2001 have been sequels, follow-ups or new installments to existing series.

The number of franchises represented among these 86 films is 32, so each franchise has on average two or three episodes to its name within the top 100, though the Marvel Cinematic Universe boasts 12 films, the wizarding world of JK Rowling has nine (Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts) and Middle Earth has six (Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit).

Of the 14 non-franchise films within the top 100, three have sequels in planning or production (Avatar, Frozen and Maleficent), while two have had sequels rumoured (Zootopia and Coco). Three more of this 14 are remakes or live-action versions of existing films (Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book).

This leaves just six of the 100 most successful films since 2001 that are entirely original and not being franchised, extended or added to – Inception, Gravity, 2012, Inside Out, Up and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Look familiar?

These statistics indicate the extent to which major film studios may have defaulted to repackaging existing films for their audiences, following the same recipes and changing only one or two ingredients, or extending successful film series by creating sequels, prequels, midquels (filling a chronological gap in a previous film) and paraquels (happening simultaneously to a previous film) to keep cinemas filling up.

The economic motivations behind the move to franchise productions are clear – the risks involved in creating, marketing and releasing another story within a familiar world, with well-loved characters and reliable narrative structures, are significantly smaller than those in the creation of new and unknown film stories.

Producer Lynda Obst places some of the onus on the American writers’ strike, recognising that “the new projects, the big action franchises that could sell worldwide, were studio-generated, not writer-generated”. But did this shift coincide with the writers strike or has it always been this way?

The flooding of the market with franchise films. All data from www.boxofficemojo.com and true at time of writing.

This graph shows the increasing success of franchise films over the past few decades. Looking at the 20 highest-grossing films worldwide each year since 1989, the graph shows two clear spikes and a gradual increase in franchise films since 2001.

Although series such as Star Wars were already being reinvigorated prior to 2001, with Phantom Menace hitting the big screen in 1999, the large gap between the two lines at 2001 displays the high number of franchises introduced in that year (eight), including most notably Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

The increasing trend in the blue line in particular shows the gradual saturation of the market with sequels – peaking in 2011 when 18 of the 20 most successful films worldwide were part of a franchise. This 2011 spike may well be a delayed result of both the writers strike and financial crash of 2008, showing the studios’ increased reliance on franchise films for more secure revenue.

Clearly the global film industry, catered for predominantly by a closed group of powerful media conglomerates, has become dominated by the presence of tried-and-tested franchises.

Is originality disappearing?

In 2018 the failed introduction of a “Best Popular Film” Oscar showed an attempt to boost public interest after ratings for the Academy Awards night had dropped, which may also indicate a reduction of public interest in award-winning films themselves.

The more important question, though, is that of why we are going to the cinema. If we watched films in order to be challenged, moved or even confused, the Best Picture nominees would likely top the box office lists . But we don’t – we go to the movies to be reunited with friends, to return to places that feel like home, and to find out what happens next to Tony Stark and the gang.

In an era of increased social anxiety and political turmoil, is it any wonder that we might seek a sense of home and refuge in the film worlds we have grown to love and inhabit? The success of Endgame and the predominance of the film franchise is indicative of a shift in the mindset of the studios, but also in our minds as consumers. And if a 23rd Marvel film garners no critical acclaim, but provides a moment of joyful escape for its audiences, is that such a bad thing?

About The Author:

Daniel White is an Assistant Lecturer in Music at the University of Manchester

This article is republished from our content partners at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.