Reading Variety
By Tom Teicholz at 15 October, 2008, 10:28 am
I’ve always been intrigued by the conversation that goes on inside one’s head as one reads the Trades. In a cost-cutting measure I abandoned the Hollywood Reporter, but I still maintain my Varety subscription, although I am tempted to move to a online subscription (shared — shush! don’t tell anyone).
What is so strange about reading Variety is that there is a whole other narrative that occurs as one reads it. When you know the true facts of any story — you know that Variety had it late and wrong. For example, Vareity recently reported about someone taking a new post at a company. Turns out he;s been there seven months. Then you go on the next story and believe every word in it. And then there is the exercise of putting together the pieces, reading between the lines of what a story really reveals.
All of which is a rather longwinded way of saying that I’m going to try and offer up my reading of Variety every so often.
So let’s start with today;s Front page.
There’s a story about the departure of Colin Callender. As the article says this is not really news. Colin has been angling for his next step for a while. His problem is timing. A few years he would have been perfectly suited to run an indie unit. Now they have all been shut down.
When Callender started in NY, he really put HBO on the map. Personally in my few encouters with him, I found Callender a Mandarin sort — very cards close to the vest. He had a cold front but he could disarm you with warmth and charm if he wanted to. Several years after first meeting him, I found myself at a seder with him, it had never crossed my mind that he was Jewish (but my default is set not to assume people are Jewish — that’s just the way I grew up in New York) — but British Jews are famously a complicated sort and I guess this was true of Callender as well.
As HBO moved away from movies to series, Callender lost some of his shine, but the arrogance and power the had accumulated did not disappear, so as he leaves the scene at HBO seeming more like a relic of another era than a vital player. But at least as Variety notes he’s “itching to explore new opportunities.” I bet. Me too,
Also on the front page is the announcement that D. l. Hughley will do a show for CNN, and a teaser for a review of David Alan Grier’s Chocolate News. Perhaps it;s time to stage an IN LIVING COLOR REUNION?
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