Salon.com > Steve Ramos http://www.salon.com Fri, 24 May 2013 11:51:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 When Don Draper toppled a dictator http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/how_an_ad_man_helped_topple_chiles_dictator_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/how_an_ad_man_helped_topple_chiles_dictator_partner/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:10:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13230226 Hyperallergic

Close your eyes and picture America’s most famous ad man, the fictional Don Draper of the cable TV hit Mad Men. Now push aside your favorite scenes of Don’s bedroom antics, bourbon-fueled lunches, and persuasive client pitches and think: over five seasons of storytelling, what has the dashing ladies’ man done that’s truly made an impact on the world outside his agency office suite?

In the cinema, however, the story is different. Set in Chile in 1988, the recent Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee No features the equally handsome Santiago ad man René Saavedra (played by Gael García Bernal, no less), who heads a campaign against Augusto Pinochet. The impetus is the Chilean military dictator’s call for a referendum to decide his permanence in power. The opposition responds by persuading Saavedra, a young advertising executive, to take on its “No” — meaning no Pinochet — campaign.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/15/how_an_ad_man_helped_topple_chiles_dictator_partner/feed/ 0 Five things Sundance can tell us about the future of film http://www.salon.com/2013/02/21/five_things_sundance_can_tell_us_about_the_future_film_industry_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/21/five_things_sundance_can_tell_us_about_the_future_film_industry_partner/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13207592 The deal making begins weeks before the celebrities touch down in Park City, Utah, a pop-up center of the universe for the culture industry during the ten-day run of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Open Road Films buys the Steve Jobs biopic jOBS, starring Ashton Kutcher as the Apple co-founder, long before audiences clap, yawn, or both at its Sundance Closing Weekend premiere. Other movies including Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey, and No, featuring Gael García Bernal, also arrive with deals intact. The pre-fest deals, as well as decisions by filmmakers from former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl (Sound City) to Shane Carruth (Upstream Color) to take on a DIY release model, lead to an inevitable question: with the ability to build communities of fans and supporters 24/7 on digital platforms, are the time, energy, and money spent getting in and getting to Sundance still necessary?
Hyperallergic

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