#patrick goldstein

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If you mention Manohla Dargis' name, I would likely think of her complaining about how there are too much films to review.

Harry Croners Fotografien im Märkischen Museum Wenn was los war in Berlin, war Harry Croner dabei. Kennedy trifft Brandt, Claudia Cardinale hält Hof, Mitglieder der Gladow-Bande werden zu Zuchthaus oder Todesstrafe verurteilt – immer schaut der wendige Fotograf aus Wilmersdorf zu und drückt im richtigen Moment auf den Auslöser. Freitagabend wurde im Märkischen Museum an der Jannowitzbrücke in Mitte seine Ausstellung "Bühne West-Berlin" eröffnet.

Der „Dschungel“, Kneipen ohne Sperrstunde, Bundeswehrflüchtlinge: Nach der Ostalgie kommt nun die Westalgie. Mit Erinnerungen an den Westteil aus Mauerzeiten wird eine Ausstellung zum Publikumsrenner.

By Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Magazine (December 2013)

Remember how simple it used to be to stay informed? People in the entertainment business do. Every weekday morning Variety and The Hollywood Reporter—the trade papers that had been around since 1905 and 1930, respectively—would arrive, their glossy pages packed with the trends and tidbits that kept the industry on its toes. Box office would be tallied. Upcoming slates, both big screen and small, would be announced. If your pilot got picked up, the trades were where you trumpeted it. If your movie tanked or was put in turnaround, they were where your rivals found out about it. The duality of the journalistic landscape—just two trades, both battling for scoops—made for competition, yes, but also for a relative civility. Then everything changed. And I mean everything.

Have you ever seen a New York Times Pentagon correspondent publish a scathing indictment of the military reporter for, say, TheWashington Post? No, you haven’t, but not just because it would be rude or unseemly. Journalists who compete on matters of importance don’t tend to call one another out in print because, ahem, it isn’t news. But these days in Hollywood, a quartet of trades—two in print and all four online—are fighting daily over advertising dollars and who got which story first.

There is name-calling and trash-talking. There are threats and ultimatums. Increasingly the journalists have become the story, and none more so than Nikki Finke, the founder ofDeadline.com—the Web site that, for better or worse, upended the status quo.

“Earth To Penske,” Finke tweeted shortly before this story went to press. She was addressing Jay Penske, the businessman who owns her site as well as Variety, and as she loves to do, she was throwing down the gauntlet. “Hollywood tried and failed to intimidate me. Big Media tried and failed to intimidate me. I like to brawl, remember?”

Oh, he remembers, Nikki. How could he forget?

This is the story of how two once-thriving trade papers became the showbiz equivalent of Pravda and Izvestia, sclerotic mouthpieces for the studio party line: outdated, rigid, stuck in their ways. It is the story of the woman, Finke, who bested them, at least for a while, and who forced them to reinvent themselves. It is the story of how Finke’s site prompted a copycat site, TheWrap.com, and how that start-up’s founder, Sharon Waxman, tried to muscle her way into prominence. It is a story about an ongoing contest between dead-tree media and the kind that gets traffic. But at its core, this is a story about journalism in trouble. Because while it may seem difficult at first to ignore media outlets that regularly call one another pieces of crap, it gets easier day by day.

This week, another Hollywood succession battle began in earnest. Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes  pushed out longtime motion picture group chief Alan Horn, even though under his leadership, the studio has enjoyed record profits and remarkable stability. That clears the way for Horn’s successor, Jeff Robinov, who took charge on Friday, to step into a three-way race to become studio chairman when Barry Meyer departs in 2013.

It should be interesting to see who will take over Barry Meyer's post in a couple years and it will probably be decided by whoever's division is most profitable.