Lemony Snicket

Let's try some free association, when I say "Miramax" what comes to mind? Hopefully great titles like Gangs of New York, No Country for Old Men, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 1&2, Gone Baby Gone, Chicago, City of God, Trainspotting, Chasing Amy, Clerks and even Chocolat. Pretty important pieces of cinema, no?

Not to mention the star power behind those names like legendary directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Gus Van Sant, Kevin Smith, and The Coen Brothers. If any of those names mean anything to you then you know you're a major patron of cinema and thus have a strong affinity to at least one of those titles and or directors, and you know that having a strong collective of films and directors under one name is nearly impossible due to most of the talent demanding artistic freedom in their projects and most studios not giving it to them. So, even if you don't know much about cinema you know the people behind Miramax at least have an appreciation for talent and the art.

Who are these people? Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

They created the studio specifically for "art-house" style independent films back in the 70's, until the early 90's when Disney acquired it. The name Miramax was created by using elements of their parent's names; respectfully. So, yes such films like Pulp Fiction is technically considered a Disney film.

It wasn't until 2005 when the Weinsteins left Miramax due to some disagreements with Disney on the distribution of the film Farenheit 9/11. Thus, the company The Weinstein Company was created as its own entity away from the ever so powerful Disney sphere of influence.

Ok, that was a quick history lesson, let's fast forward to now. Over the past couple months Bob and Harvey have been negotiating with Disney to buy back Miramax for $600 million dollars the company they helped create from the ground up and this pleased me for the Weinsteins know their shit when it comes to film, atop of the obvious fact that the company is named after their parents so anyone would figure, why not?

Sadly, as it most often happens in Hollywood Disney decided to be total morons and sell the company off to some construction mogul by the name of Ron Tutor for $660 million. WTF does he have anything to do with cinema? I am sick and tired of irrelevant people with money acquiring things they don't deserve. So what if the Weinsteins are hard to work with and slightly out of whack? What genius isn't?

I am tired of corporate influence in art, it really depreciates it value and often times misses out on great opportunities because at the end of the day the people in power only care about one thing, money. Hard work apparently isn't enough nor is $600 million. If you ask me this was a deliberate "fuck you" from Disney to the Weinsteins. To sell such a renowned studio to an irrelevant figure in the world of rich people for a chance to make $60 extra million dollars sickens me. I know Disney doesn't need the money since they are out hunting down everything i.e. 2006's purchase of Pixar for $7 billion making Steve Jobs a board member of Disney and if that's not enough who can forget last years purchase of Marvel for $4 billion? Owning Pixar and Marvel is a surefire way of making money...forever and yet they still have to fuck over the Weinsteins over $60 million? Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye and I hope so, but from the information that's open to the public all I see is a series of unfortunate events...haha

Speaking of movies have you seen the trailer for Sucker Punch?





-DK