My Publicist Note Book

Lights, no camera, action:  the joy of live film readings Seth Rogen as the Big Lebowski? Mindy Kaling as the Princess Bride? Live reads of these films, plus Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, are proving a sellout success. They make for a great night of theatre A week ago, if you were lucky enough to snag the hottest ticket of the week in Los Angeles, it meant you got to see 12 people sitting around on a stage clutching scripts and talking into microphones, shooting one another with finger guns, fake projectile vomiting, fake punching each other in the face, or playing dead for extremely long periods. Conducted under the stewardship of director Quentin Tarantino, and under the auspices of Film Independent at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and its curator Elvis Mitchell, this was the world premiere of his new movie, The Hateful Eight . Or, rather, an enhanced "live read" of his screenplay, or to be more precise,...

Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award(R)-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award(R)-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles--dead or alive.  Tuesday's premiere in Los Angeles was scheduled to have a red carpet and party, but instead will be a private screening with no media coverage. Hollywood studios have cancelled the premiere for a third major film release of Tarantino's ultra-violent Django Unchained, in the wake of Friday's gun massacre in Connecticut. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the tragedy in Newtown, CT and in this time of national mourning we have dec...