Congratulations to Bingham Ray for landing a new gig as marketing and acquisitions chief for Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, and apologies for not raising my glass yesterday along with everyone else. A smart and shrewd indie veteran tying in with a successful like-minded operation… clink.

Kimmel, 69, has been financing films since the late ’70s, and has a distribution deal with MGM, although Focus, Paramount Vantage and Universal have also cut deals with him. Ray’s new division. And he seems to have good taste in the films that he’s financed so far. These include Breach (an above-average espionage piece that I found more involving than The Good Shepherd), Married Life, Boot Camp, Lars and the Real Girl, Talk To Me, Death at a Funeral and Charlie Bartlett.

There’s only one slightly uncool thing about this whole arrangement, and that’s the fact that the name “Sidney Kimmel Entertainment” — no disrespect intended — sounds like a company that distributes pinball machines. It sounds like an entertainment company run by a New York gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion who made his money in the clothing business. (Wait…Kimmel did make his money that way.) The company needs to sound less 20th Century ethnic and more 21st Century digital.

A clothier named Samuel Goldfish realized he needed a makeover when he got into the movie business almost a hundred years ago, so he changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn — same difference.

Ray is reportedly in charge of a “new division,” according to Dave McNary‘s Variety story, so why don’t they come up with a new name that’ll spritz things up?

11st Century digital