As last week's Oscar ceremony fades from memory, it is useful to consider, as Marlon Brando's character in Last Tango in Paris says, when it's over it begins again. The "it" here is the Hollywood cycle from Sundance to the Oscar red carpet, awards, and after parties, the subject of a new book, "The $11 Billion Year: From Sundance to the Oscars, an Insider Look at the Changing Hollywood System." Veteran Hollywood reporter and "Oscarologist," Anne Thompson focuses on 2012, the game-changing year when declining sales in the movie business turned around. Examining the journey of the nine best picture nominees of that year toward the Oscars, and other key films, Anne Thompson begins with the news of indie film champion Bingham Ray's sudden death and puts together a picture of the industry's movers and matters, offering a glimpse of the personalities, the talent, the risks, the marketing, and a view to the future.
On Thursday night, Katharina Otto-Bernstein and Nathan Bernstein hosted a book party at their art filled East Side townhouse. This was not going to be your typical low-key wine and cheese affair. Calling in Peggy Siegal, herself no stranger to this business, the publishers ensured that movie insiders and a few novelists would fill the house: Eamon Bowles, Bruce Cohen, James Schamus, Jay McInerny and many others mingled. The room was abuzz with movie business: Otto-Bernstein, producer of Absolute Wilson, a documentary about Robert Wilson is set to make a feature based on the Galapagos affair soon to come out in a non-fiction form. A producer of Silver Linings Playbook, Bruce Cohen is slated to produce a film based on the graphic novel, The Fifth Beatle. And where are we in the cycle: from Sundance to Cannes to Toronto to New York, and the Christmas crush? Well, Cannes in May, of course.
A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.