Exclusive: Producers Peter Saraf and Eddie Rubin, who are in Park City to premiere the Sundance buzz titles Out of My Mind and Winner, have joined forces to create Optimistic Pictures, to develop and produce film and TV properties with an independent sensibility.
Saraf is the co-founder of Big Beach, the producer/financier responsible for one of the greatest successes to break at Sundance, the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. After a massive bidding battle that was won by Fox Searchlight ($10.5 million and 10% gross), the film got four Oscar noms including Best Picture, won two Oscars and grossed $101 million, on an $8 million production budget.
After their first teaming on The Farewell, Saraf and Rubin are reuniting with that indie hit’s star Awkwafina. She’ll produce and star in an adaptation of G, the Ling Ma short story which is included in her National Book Critics Circle Award winning collection, Bliss Montage.
Saraf is the co-founder of Big Beach, the producer/financier responsible for one of the greatest successes to break at Sundance, the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. After a massive bidding battle that was won by Fox Searchlight ($10.5 million and 10% gross), the film got four Oscar noms including Best Picture, won two Oscars and grossed $101 million, on an $8 million production budget.
After their first teaming on The Farewell, Saraf and Rubin are reuniting with that indie hit’s star Awkwafina. She’ll produce and star in an adaptation of G, the Ling Ma short story which is included in her National Book Critics Circle Award winning collection, Bliss Montage.
- 1/19/2024
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
Every October, New York Comic Con transforms the humble Javits Center into an epic gathering place for cosplayers, stars, authors, and fans. But any New Yorker can tell you that the city is possessed by magic year-round—some secrets found tucked into corners or beneath bridges, or sparkling in plain sight across the five boroughs.
These 10 novels span New York’s mythical past, alternate present, and potential future. Attend Jay Gatsby’s endless parties out on Long Island, or put your ear to the walls of the Bramford to catch an occult ceremony. Seek out the entradas to the underworld in Prospect Park, or listen for the Old Ones beneath the Gowanus. But more than the place, it’s the people who give the city its spark: musicians and magicians, assassins and jinn, brujas and avatars and even humble office workers.
Here are the best horror and fantasy novels set...
These 10 novels span New York’s mythical past, alternate present, and potential future. Attend Jay Gatsby’s endless parties out on Long Island, or put your ear to the walls of the Bramford to catch an occult ceremony. Seek out the entradas to the underworld in Prospect Park, or listen for the Old Ones beneath the Gowanus. But more than the place, it’s the people who give the city its spark: musicians and magicians, assassins and jinn, brujas and avatars and even humble office workers.
Here are the best horror and fantasy novels set...
- 10/6/2022
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.
In light of a catastrophe large enough to refract our entire lives through its prism, every piece of pop culture is suddenly revealed to be a nostalgic reminder of what we’ve lost or a prescient roadmap of how we got here. From movies like “Contagion” to novels like Ling Ma’s “Severance” and even video games like “Death Stranding,” the last few years alone have equipped us with a diverse and eccentric curriculum for making sense of our current moment. But Alex Garland’s “Annihilation” is one of the few recent films that actually points the way forward.
Of course, it also offers an uncanny view of the here and now, in its own Tarkovsky-inflected way. Adapted from Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name,...
In light of a catastrophe large enough to refract our entire lives through its prism, every piece of pop culture is suddenly revealed to be a nostalgic reminder of what we’ve lost or a prescient roadmap of how we got here. From movies like “Contagion” to novels like Ling Ma’s “Severance” and even video games like “Death Stranding,” the last few years alone have equipped us with a diverse and eccentric curriculum for making sense of our current moment. But Alex Garland’s “Annihilation” is one of the few recent films that actually points the way forward.
Of course, it also offers an uncanny view of the here and now, in its own Tarkovsky-inflected way. Adapted from Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name,...
- 5/1/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
With film and television productions shutting down, concerts and other major events being canceled, and venues from amusement parks to select movie theaters closing their doors temporarily amid coronavirus concerns, there is one tried and true place to which to turn for entertainment and escapism: books.
From Stephen King’s “The Stand” in 1978 to the more recent “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel, there have been quite a few stories written over the years that depict dystopia in a way that may feel educational now. But if that is too on-the-nose for the current climate, there are lots of recently-released options that let readers immerse themselves in slightly more optimistic, even if often still somewhat surreal, worlds.
Combining those ideas, here Variety has compiled a list of books to binge-read when you need to take a break from your family, roommates or constantly refreshing news about the state of the epidemic.
From Stephen King’s “The Stand” in 1978 to the more recent “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel, there have been quite a few stories written over the years that depict dystopia in a way that may feel educational now. But if that is too on-the-nose for the current climate, there are lots of recently-released options that let readers immerse themselves in slightly more optimistic, even if often still somewhat surreal, worlds.
Combining those ideas, here Variety has compiled a list of books to binge-read when you need to take a break from your family, roommates or constantly refreshing news about the state of the epidemic.
- 3/17/2020
- by Danielle Turchiano, Meg Zukin and Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
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