Friday
August 30
RIGHT
TO EDIT: A video store chain that edits profanity, violence
and sex from films asked a judge Thursday to rule the practice
is legal, despite protests by such directors as Robert Redford
and Steven Spielberg. Nando Times
(AP) 08/30/02
- Previously: WE
WANT OUR SEX AND VIOLENCE! Hollywood directors are looking
into the possibility of legal action against a handful of Utah
companies which specialize in distributing video tapes and DVDs
of popular movies with all the bad language, sex, and graphic
violence stripped out for family consumption. The directors
say that such edits amount to censorship and leave the films
devoid of meaning. Wired 08/28/02
NOT
ABOUT QUALITY: Once upon a time (so legend has it), it was
thought that if you made good movies - no, really great movies
- more people would buy tickets and you'd make money. But "apparently,
that highly desirable and once elusive quality - the `must-see'
status that guarantees a film a huge opening weekend - can now
be synthesized using a carefully researched combination of ultra-aggressive
TV, print and partnership promotion, merchandising, `brand naming'
and super-saturation release patterns. But the result is a host
of movies that exist for no other reason than to make money and
are often free of content and conviction." Boston
Herald 08/30/02
WORLD
PERSPECTIVE: The Montreal Film Festival is so international
it's not even called the Montreal Film Festival - it's the Festival
des Films du Monde - World Film Festival. "The program is
the size of a Manhattan phone book, and the 'grille horaire' -
Montreal's combined schedule, map, and prayer guide - is as densely
figured as the Rosetta stone and nearly as multilingual. There
are films in and out of competition, of course, but also filmmaker
tributes, an international selection, and Latin American, Japanese,
Canadian, and African groupings. Throw in more than a hundred
experimental, television, and student works, and you have one
long suicide-by-pleasure for aficionados of world cinema."
Boston Globe 08/30/02
STAR
TURNS: Accountants and financiers have such a strong grip
on the British film industry that they dictate how movies get
made. And how they want them made is with recognizable big stars.
"If you're making your film for less than £2m, then
you've bought yourself a degree of freedom in casting. Much over
that, and the pressure from investors to use recognisable names
becomes intense." The Guardian
(UK) 08/30/02
Thursday
August 29
THREAT
TO WEB RADIO: So the US government has decided that webcasters
will have to monitor and report any music they play over the internet,
and pay a small fee. But if the ruling goes into effect, it will
effectively push many small stations off the air. "While
it sounds simple enough, the ruling would force low-budget operations
to add expensive hardware and software to comply with the order.
The stations that can afford the upgrades face the task of training
their unpaid volunteers to monitor and run the systems."
Wired 08/29/02
HOLLYWOOD'S
WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD: Hollywood makes movies to appeal
to demographic groups. Which groups? Simple. "The movie audience
has been reduced, for marketing purposes, to four identifiable
groups. They are: males under 25, males over 25, females under
25 and females over 25. That's it. You are a member of one of
these groups, whether you like it or not. No one can escape the
inevitability of being in one of these groups. Only death excludes
you from being in one of four quadrants, but give the marketing
geniuses in Hollywood a little time. They'll figure a way to make
movies for dead people." Hartford
Courant (OCR) 08/29/02
CBC
KEY FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY: For years the Canadian government
has been cutting the budget of the CBC, the country's public broadcaster.
Now a new poll indicates that 81 percent of Canadians consider
the CBC "important in maintaining and building Canadian identity
and culture. A strong majority (88 per cent) said they would like
to see the CBC strengthened in their part of Canada."
Toronto Star 08/29/02
MONTREAL
TO BUILD WORLD'S LARGEST MOVIE STUDIO: Montreal investors
are set to announce they will build the "largest film studio
in the world" in Quebec. The project "will create 300
direct and indirect jobs in the short term and 1,200 in the long
term." Toronto Star 08/29/02
Wednesday
August 28
NICE
TIMING: PBS is forever being exhorted by critics to take more
chances with its programming. Well, here's some risky behavior
for you: the public broadcaster will air a new documentary whih
portrays Taliban fighters in Afghanistan as sympathetic figures
and the U.S. as an international bully only two days before the
one-year anniversary of 9/11. The film may make some good points,
but is unlikely to score many points with viewers as the nation
gears up for what will certainly be an ultra-patriotic anniversary.
New York Post 08/28/02
BYE
BYE BETA: Who knows how these things happen? When VCRs first
became all the rage in the '80s, the format fight began between
Betamax, which offered high-quality pictures and superior sound,
and VHS, which had, well lower-quality pictures and inferior sound.
Naturally, VHS won the battle, and this week, it was announced
that Betamax machines, which have remained popular in Japan and
with a small worldwide cult following, will finally be phased
out entirely. BBC 08/28/02
PLEASE
DON'T TELL JESSE VENTURA: "Lawyer-turned-actor-turned-United
States senator Fred Thompson is becoming an actor again before
his term officially expires, with NBC confirming that the Tennessee
Republican will join the cast of "Law & Order" this fall, playing
the role of the New York district attorney. In a surprise, Thompson--who
had previously announced that he would not seek reelection in
November--is beginning production on the show this week, meaning
he will be featured when the series opens its 13th season in October,
while he's still in the Senate." Los
Angeles Times 08/28/02
WE
WANT OUR SEX AND VIOLENCE! Hollywood directors are looking
into the possibility of legal action against a handful of Utah
companies which specialize in distributing video tapes and DVDs
of popular movies with all the bad language, sex, and graphic
violence stripped out for family consumption. The directors say
that such edits amount to censorship and leave the films devoid
of meaning. Wired 08/28/02
Tuesday
August 27
MOVIES
- A MAN THING: Why is Hollywood so closed to women directors
- 96 percent of commercial movies are directed by men. "At
a time when film schools are graduating almost equal numbers of
men and women, why is the movie business still such a closed shop?
Many women from every stratum of the directing world - established
Hollywood types and shoestring independents, celebrated art-house
stars and creators of light teen comedies, film school deans and
movie historians - tell remarkably similar stories of deep-rooted
prejudices, baseless myths and sexual power struggles that litter
the path to the director's chair with soul-wearing obstacles."
Salon 08/27/02
TAKING
ON HOLLYWOOD: Is a grassroots movement beginning to organize
over the internet to fight old-line media's grab to control creative
works? "The entertainment industry and its supporters are
threatening free speech and innovation in their zeal to protect
an outdated business model. A movement is beginning to stir in
America, an overdue reaction to the predations of a cartel that
is bidding to control how digital information may be created and
used." San Jose Mercury-News
08/26/02
Monday
August 26
OSCAR
- PLEASE DON'T GO: New York officials asked the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to consider holding part of next
year's Oscars in New York - splitting the telecast between LA
and New York for one year only. But California State legislators
are considering a resolution asking Oscar to stay put. "California,
like New York and many other states, is suffering an economic
downturn and cannot afford the loss of the Academy Awards to another
location." Nando Times (AP) 08/23/02
MAKING
THE CUT: Movie fans no longer have to sit through movies the
way directors shot them. Fans are taking digital copies of movies
they like and re-editing them to remove parts they didn't like
or to change the story line. Fan edits of movies like AI have
downloaded hundreds of thousands of time over the internet. And
about the copyright... Toronto Star
08/25/02
LIKE,
UPDATE THIS: "Why is there such a dearth of Britons adapting
their own literary classics in anything other than period dress?
Because if nobody gets to grips sharpish with our literary classics
and adapts them for new times, the Americans, in a nice piece
of reverse cultural colonialism, will cherry-pick the whole canon.
It's not just Shakespeare who has been plundered by Hollywood..."
The Guardian (UK) 08/26/02
Sunday
August 25
FREE
RADIO THAT MAKES MONEY: What if your radio spewed out all
the music you wanted, there was no talking and no commercials?
And it was free? A service now delivered to satellite TV subscribers
does this. And it even makes money. Do traditional radio station
employees need to fear for their jobs? The
Globe & Mail (Canada) 08/24/02
KPIG
BACK ONLINE - FOR A PRICE: After webcasting radio stations
were told they would have to start paying royalties for the music
they play, many went off-stream this summe, including KPIG, one
of the first and most popular webstreamers. Now the Northern California
station is back online, after making a deal with RealNetworks
to be part of a pay-to-listen service. But will anyone be willing
to pay a subscription to listen in? Los
Angeles Times 08/24/02
Friday
August 23
NO
SEX PLEASE - WE'RE THE SEATTLE TIMES: When Spanish director
Julio Medem's art film Sex and Lucia played at the Seattle
International Film Festival last spring it packed houses, "audiences
voted Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes for the film, and
judges bestowed 'Emerging Master' and a Golden Space Needle Award
on Medem." But when it came time for a regular theatre run
in Seattle last week, the prudish Seattle Times refused
to carry an ad for the film. "A Times spokeswoman says simply
that the movie 'did not fit [the Times'] guidelines for adult
entertainment,' pointing to the fact that it is un-rated."
The Stranger 08/22/02
WHAT
RIGHT DO YOU HAVE? The digital revolution has created a demand
for content. And Hollywood would love to cash in. But finding
and clearing rights to many shows is a mind-numbingly difficult
and mundane chore. "The hodgepodge of record-keeping systems
makes it difficult to track even pedestrian deals with video chains
and broadcast and cable networks. Newfangled electronic distribution
deals with Internet outfits and cell phone makers will add another
layer of complexity." Forbes
08/21/02
RENT
FOR DISPLACING THE HOMELESS? Activists in Vancouver, Canada
have sent film production companies a letter demanding that the
companies compensate street people who the companies chase out
while filming on location. "Sex trade workers must be compensated
for displacement they experience at your hands in the same manner
you would compensate a business if you were to use their locale
during operating hours. The same must hold true for homeless people
you push from beneath a bridge or doorway and drug users you move
from a park." Nando Times (AP)
08/22/02
Thursday
August 22
HOLLYWOOD
GOES TO CHINA: Forget Canada, "foreign film-makers are
discovering that China is a good place to make movies. And just
as makers of everything from washing machines to wigs learned
before them, lower costs are a big draw. Shooting a movie here
can cost half, even a third, of what it might back home, industry
executives say, with savings on everything from crew salaries
and construction of sets to catering fees. Far
Eastern Economic Review 08/29/02
MEXICAN
MOVIE RECORD: The Catholic Church has strongly condemned the
Mexican movie El Crimen del padre Amaro. But in its opening
weekend, director Carlos Carrera's film broke Mexican box office
records and "earned 31 million pesos ($5-million) and reached
an audience of 863,000 people in 365 movie theatres throughout
Mexico." The Globe & Mail
(Canada) 08/22/02
SMOKIN'
JOE (NOT ANYMORE): Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas's "latest
work - published by the New York Times - is a savage polemic against
tobacco, which has caused more sharp intakes of breath than anything
he has done since Basic Instinct. Writing as a reformed smoker
who is 'alive but maimed' after losing much of his larynx to throat
cancer, he declares that tobacco 'should be as illegal as heroin'.
With God at his side, he vows, he will end nicotine's long relationship
with cinema." The Telegraph
(UK) 08/22/02
Wednesday
August 21
IS
CITIZEN KANE BEST? A recent poll of film critics and
directors named Citizen Kane as the top movie of all time.
No movies of the past 20 years made the top ten. "Does this
gap indicate a widespread belief that the cinema is in decline?
To an extent. Certainly, the rapid ascent of films to the canon
in the '50s and '60s reflects the feeling of many cinema lovers
of the day that they were living through exciting times. A more
convincing explanation for the aging of the canon is simply that
film criticism has become institutionalized over the course of
the last three decades." Slate
08/20/02
EUROPE'S
MOVIE BOOM: Movie box office is up in Europe, just as it is
in the US. "European film fans spent 5.6bn euros (£3.6bn)
on more than one billion cinema tickets in 2001, according to
a report. More than three-quarters of European cinema admissions
were in just five countries - the UK, France, Germany, Italy and
Spain. But smaller countries saw the biggest growth." BBC
08/20/02
AFTER
A BROADER NICHE: There's not as much news on the news channels
anymore. Not as much history on the History Channel or trials
on Court TV. As these niche cable channels mature, they're going
after broader audiences, often by diluting their content. "It's
really a debate over some hypothetical mass market versus a quality
market." Los Angeles Times 08/21/02
Tuesday
August 20
LEADING
THE FOLLOWER: The BBC might be riding an updraft of popular
success, but the director of the Broadcasting Standards Commission
has lashed out at the public broadcaster for the quality of its
programs. He charges that "the corporation lacked originality
and was delivering a schedule filled with bland dramas in its
drive to attract bigger audiences. 'One begins to wonder what
really is the point of the BBC bringing this to us. Lets
have something a bit different. They have tended too much to try
to find out what it is people want ... what it is people have
enjoyed in the past, and give it to them'." The
Scotsman 08/20/02
PUBLIC
TV ICON STEPS ASIDE: Public television is changing quickly
in the US. So maybe it's appropriate that Peter McGhee, one of
public TV's icons, has decided to step aside. "McGhee has
shaped the course of the medium over his 32-year tenure at WGBH,
where he has risen from lowly producer to his current title, vice
president of national programming. One by one, he has initiated
or championed such nationally acclaimed series as Frontline,
American Experience, and Antiques Roadshow, the most
popular program on PBS." Boston
Globe 08/18/02
THE
DYING SOAPS: Soap operas have long been a staple of daytime
TV. But the form is ailing. Ratings are falling away quickly.
"The whole soap genre looks like a dinosaur, and it's dying
like one. It keeps lumbering forward in a space- age, In ternet-
savvy world, looking like an art form frozen in time, so stuffy
in content, so staid in appearance, so establishment in form.
There is a contingent of young people who get hooked on soaps
in college, so there always is a chance for a new audience. But
each year, the audience gets older and smaller. I have no doubt
that soaps are an endangered species." The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 08/20/02
Monday
August 19
THE
ART OF DIGITAL: "Without most moviegoers noticing,
digital technologies have been slowly supplanting film-based processes
that have been used since the 1920s." But most movies still
use film, and superimposing heady new digital effects is a delicate
balancing of color and tone. Technology
Review 08/16/02
Friday
August 16
AD-FREE
9/11? Many radio advertisers aren't running ads on September
11. "I think a lot of advertisers realize they have to be
very careful that day. They want to do something patriotic, but
they don't want to do something that comes across as crass.''
Boston Herald 08/16/02
ALIEN
NATION: Some of Hollywood's best new films are being made
by non-Americans. "The multinational nature of the industry's
present talent pool might be a wonder to US critics; but that's
just amnesia talking. Hollywood, after all, owes its very existence
to the mass immigration of the early 20th century. It was only
natural that this budding nation should seize on the infant medium
of cinema, a potent lingua franca based around the great equalisers
of melodrama and adventure, with a frequent bias toward heroic
but misunderstood outsiders." The
Guardian (UK) 08/15/02
WHY
I DOWNLOAD: The film industry estimates that in May, 400,000-600,000
films were being downloaded by Internet users per day. Is it just
rampant theft? "People who go through the trouble of downloading
these movies are die-hard fans who would buy it on DVD anyway.
. . . It's a way to sort through what I want to buy." San
Francisco Chronicle 08/16/02
Thursday
August 15
MOVIE
STUDIO INVENTS FAKE FANS? First movie studios got caught inventing
critics to promote their movies. Now the editor of a popular internet
site devoted to movie reviews says a movie publicist has been
inventing fake fans to post positive comments to a fan forum.
He also claims that "whoever is behind the bogus postings
collected the e-mail addresses of all the users of the message
boards and sent ads for the film to them." Hartford
Courant 08/15/02
FIGHTING
THE FILE-TRADERS: Movie and music companies are stepping up
plans to combat file-swapping. "The new plan appears to extend
the target beyond companies with an apparent declaration of legal
warfare against individuals who the industry believes are swapping
illicit songs or movies through peer-to-peer networks. The outcome
could include jail time for those convicted of wrongful file swapping.
This move comes as copyright holders are striving to combat the
continued popularity of peer-to-peer networks, which permit millions
of people to link their PCs to a massive collection of files,
some legal to distribute and some not." CNet
08/14/02
Wednesday
August 14
HOME
CENSORS: New software allows viewers the ability to "delete
offensive language, violence, or adult situations from movies
that are played back on home digital equipment." But the
software goes beyond simple censorship. It can also change the
look of a movie. "A consumer can actually choose to tone
down the violence in a movie but leave the language intact or
vice versa. In other words, parents can become movie directors."
ABCNews.com 08/14/02
WHITE
BOYS AND MORE WHITE BOYS: "The American summer of 2002
will be known as the 'season of the white boy' at the nation's
cineplexes. It opened with Spider-Man and The Sum of All Fears
and has subsequently serviced every beloved boy genre save perhaps
the Stand by Me coming-of-ager. Summer 2002 was for bigger boys,
men who grew up playing cops and robbers and G.I. Joe in the backyard,
men who had difficult fathers, men who went to sleep reading The
Lone Ranger and action comics. Yes, folks, the Hollywood dream
factory continues to produce more stories about white guys than
anything else." Sydney Morning
Herald 08/14/02
INFLATED
FEELINGS OF INFLUENCE? Does Hollywood's glamorization of smoking
on the big screen capture young minds and turn fans into smokers,
as screenwriter Joe Eszterhas claimed last week? "Despite
the claims of its creators and its detractors, Hollywood hardly
wields such omnipotent powers to shape human behavior, whether
for good or ill. People actively process what they consume and
make decisions for themselves. Indeed, if people actually aped
what they read, viewed, and listened to, then violent crime rates
by kids, ostensibly the most impressionable audience segment,
would have soared over the past 30 years - a period in which popular
culture inarguably became more violent and graphic. But the rates
are in fact lower than they were in 1973, when the federal government
first started collecting such data." Reason
08/09/02
Tuesday
August 13
TV
GUIDE LOSES ITS WAY: For much of its career, TV Guide
was a publishing powerhouse. In the 1970s, 40 million people read
it every week. These days "circulation has plummeted to 9
million, the magazine is increasingly reporting on gossipy non-TV
stories like Winona Ryder's legal troubles, and - in a clear sign
of the changing zeitgeist - it's taken a backseat to new TV
Guide properties that are online or delivered by cable and
digital systems." San Francisco
Chronicle 08/12/02
LAPD
BECOMES BRAND-SENSITIVE: "The Los Angeles Police Department
is seeking to censor films and television shows by threatening
to sue any company that uses its name, badges or logos without
getting approval for the script first. Behind the move is a desire
to force the entertainment industry to abandon one of its favourite
stock characters: the bad cop who either beats up suspects, takes
money on the side or drinks too much." The
Telegraph (UK) 08/12/02
CUT-RATES
= MORE WORK: Hollywood musicians were losing more and more
movie-score recording to musicians in other cities who would record
it cheaper. So last year the musicians cut their rates by 50 percent.
They got more work. "In theory, we could have lost money.
What we really did was behave in a way that made us good stakeholders
in the industry. There are now many more albums out there, so
we have 25% of something instead of 50% of nothing." Andante
(Variety) 08/12/02
Monday
August 12
THE
GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL: What does the recent British Film
Institute list of all-time great movies say? "It has surprised,
even shocked, some people that there are no recent pictures on
the 2002 lists but even more striking is the absence of certain
big names - Lang, Buñuel, Ford, Ophüls, Powell, Reed.
But the lists aren't terrible, especially considering that in
the critics' section 631 films were nominated (408 receiving one
vote each), while the directors named 490 films (312 receiving
one vote apiece). This is an encouraging tribute to the attractive
diversity of world cinema." The
Observer(UK) 08/11/02
- Previously: TOP
FILMS OF ALL TIME: Every ten years the British Film Institute
asks leading international critics and directors to rank the
best movies ever. Citizen Kane tops this year's list. "The
most recently made film to reach the directors' top 10 was Martin
Scorsese's Raging Bull, released in 1980."
Nando Times (AP) 08/10/02
WHAT,
ME WORRY? Traditionally American broadcast networks have ignored
cable television. But then HBO won all those awards. And the ratings
were up. And... now there's some anxiety as "HBO and Tony
Soprano are in their face, launching the new season of the hit
cable series on the eve of the network fall schedule." Denver
Post 08/11/02
Sunday
August 11
OSCAR
IN NEW YORK? "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences and a group of New York leaders have been talking about
moving part of next year's Academy Awards show to New York City
to help the city recover from the Sept. 11 terror attacks."
Nando Times (AP) 08/10/02
TOP
FILMS OF ALL TIME: Every ten years the British Film Institute
asks leading international critics and directors to rank the best
movies ever. Citizen Kane tops this year's list. "The most
recently made film to reach the directors' top 10 was Martin Scorsese's
Raging Bull, released in 1980." Nando
Times (AP) 08/10/02
- MOVIES
- NO LONGER THE COMMON LANGUAGE: For much of the last half-century
one common cultural reference point has been the movies. As
much as "we loved the films, we treasured the thought that
'everyone' knew them. More or less in those decades, everyone
did go to the movies. In America, in the 20s and 30s, say, 60-70%
of the people went to the movies once a week. Today, it's no
more than 15%." Movies aren't the cultural binder they
once were. The Guardian (UK) 08/10/02
CENSOR
FOR YESTERDAY: Britain's new chief fim censor is a solid upstanding
civil servant. But he's hardly kept up with the movies he'll soon
be judging. "His favourites are the films you'd expect a
busy civil servant to remember from his student days at Gonville
and Caius College, Cambridge, rather than a film buff who keeps
up with the trends at Odeon and Empire, Leicester Square."
How will he know what should play in today's movie houses? London
Evening Standard 08/09/02
Friday
August 9
FIGHTING
THE CANADIANS: Runaway productions are killing Hollywood film
production. "While film box-office receipts hit an all-time
high of $14 billion last year, industry employment in Southern
California was at a four-year low. Some 30,000 jobs evaporated
just between 1999 and 2000. Add to that the impact on local businesses
that serve the industry and its workers, and the U.S. Department
of Commerce estimates that the domestic economy is taking a $10
billion annual hit from runaway production." A group of technicians
is trying to fight movie flight, but they're pissing off much
of official Hollywood. LAWeekly 08/08/02
DIALING
UP DIGITAL: The FCC decrees that within five years all televisions
sold in the US must be equipped with digital tuners. "The
tuners are necessary, the commission said, to ensure that all
TVs can receive broadcast programming over the airwaves after
the switch from analog to digital signals, expected within a few
years." TV makers are protesting. Wired
08/09/02
WGBH
BREAKS A BOYCOTT: Since April, Boston-area TV stations have
been boycotting Nielsen's rating service. Nielsen had introduced
its "people meter" system, which the stations say seriously
undercounts broadcast station audiences. It has made life for
the stations tougher, since they use the ratings to set advertising
rates. So it's something of a surpirse that this week WGBH, Boston's
public television station (which doesn't sell adds) has become
the first station to break the boycott and resubscribe to Nielsen.
The station says it was getting pressure from underwriters. Boston
Globe 08/09/02
BAD
YEAR FOR NEW YORK MOVIES: It's been a bad year for film and
TV production in New York City. "Numbers released by the
New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting (MOFTB)
show an understandably dismal 2001: Film and TV expenditures declined
by $149 million; the number of feature films in the city dropped
from 201 to 174, and the number of shooting days shrunk more than
15 percent, falling to levels not seen since 1994." Village
Voice 08/07/02
Thursday
August 8
AT
LEAST GIVE THEM A CHANCE NOT TO SUCK: America's television
critics have been unusually merciless this season, seizing every
opportunity to kick the big three networks (particularly the hapless
ABC) while they're down. The most frequent complaint has been
network execs' unwillingness to take risks with their programming.
But last week, when CBS announced plans to air a miniseries on
the rise of Adolf Hitler, the critics did a complete about-face,
insisting that the show was too risky, and that CBS had crossed
some invisible line of taste. Scott Feschuk wonders at the hypocrisy.
National Post (Canada) 08/08/02
REALLY BIG HITS?
Imax shows movies on giant screens 10 stories high. Now Imax is
hoping to convince film companies to let it show up to six
Hollywood films a year. "Imax has previously persuaded
Walt Disney to convert two of its films, Fantasia 2000
and Beauty And The Beast, to its format. Both were successful
when released on Imax screens across the world." BBC
08/07/02
KILLER-B's:
What's with all the B-movie plots for this summer's biggest
blockbuster movies? Crop Circles? Radioactive spiders? Aliens? "The
concept of B-movies was a product of cinema’s boom time in the
1950s. Smaller non-studio producers wanted to make a fast buck
by tapping into the audience’s primal fears with sensationalist
(but cheap) film-making." Now they've moved into the mainstream.
The Times (UK) 08/08/02
GIANT
KILLER? Clear Channel might be America's biggest radio company,
but there are signs the company might be in trouble. Its stock
price has dived. Congress is making noises about reining in radio
ownership. "Meanwhile, plaintiffs are filing lawsuits while
critics raise questions about company finances and alleged payola
schemes." Wired 08/07/02
BOW
TO THE MACHINE: Machinima - a contraction of machine and cinema
- is the newest and cheapest thing in film-making. "The new
form was made possible by computer game manufacturers, which began
releasing some of their codes to enable players to customise characters
and backgrounds." Sydney Morning
Herald 08/08/02
Wednesday
August 7
STUMBLING
GIANT? Clear Channel owns some 1200 radio stations in the
US in 300 markets. It controls a good chunk of the country's concert
business too. But lately the company has been doing so well. "Clear
Channel - well known for its hardball tactics - has been hit with
numerous antitrust lawsuits, petitions to the Federal Communications
Commission and pending legislation on Capitol Hill." Salon
08/07/02
- THE
CORPORATE LOCAL: With giant corporations owning hundreds
of radio stations across America, the voice on the radio who
wakes you up every morning isn't exactly local. "The chances
are pretty good that the man behind the voice lives in another
time zone, appears on stations in four states, and picks up
local color by reading newspapers online. He may even have taped
his show last month then gone on vacation to some exotic locale
he's never visited. Like, say, your town." Wired
08/07/02
- IF
YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, BUY 'EM: Clear Channel radio has had
many critics among radio insiders, but few as vitriolic as Inside
Radio, a trade publication which in 2000 found itself on
the business end of a defamation lawsuit from the corporate
radio giant. Two years later, the publisher is out to pasture,
the suit has been settled, and Inside Radio is published
by (who else?) Clear Channel. New
York Daily News [first item] 08/06/02
- Previously: CLEAR
(AND ONLY?) CHANNEL: "After a blizzard of purchases,
sales and mergers, Clear Channel owns or operates 1,165 radio
stations in the United States. It controls about 80 more through
other means that occasionally raise eyebrows." Critics
contend that Clear Channel is sucking the creativity out of
American radio with standardized formats and market-driven programming.
Wired 08/05/02
MIGHT
WANT TO HOLD OFF ON BUYING THAT TiVo: With U.S. broadcasters
on the verge of upgrading to fully digital signals, and cable
companies already delivering video on demand and digital-quality
pictures, the companies who manufacture video recording devices
like TiVo and ReplayTV will soon see their machines become obsolete.
The devices cannot handle digital signals, and while the next
generation of product certainly will, Hollywood is threatening
to withhold movies from broadcasters unless measures are put in
place which would disallow such personal recording, making TiVos
all but useless. Wired 08/07/02
Tuesday
August 6
CLEAR
(AND ONLY?) CHANNEL: "After a blizzard of purchases,
sales and mergers, Clear Channel owns or operates 1,165 radio
stations in the United States. It controls about 80 more through
other means that occasionally raise eyebrows." Critics contend
that Clear Channel is sucking the creativity out of American radio
with standardized formats and market-driven programming.
Wired 08/05/02
OUR
DIGITAL MOVIE FUTURE: "Digital video is one of the most
controversial issues in Hollywood. Film purists like critic Roger
Ebert decry the muddy and streaky images that often afflict lower-end
video features - while proponents like George Lucas hail high-end
digital video (DV) as the wave of the future that will democratize
filmmaking, allowing artistic freedom and permit even established
directors to make risky films." New
York Post 08/05/02
Monday
August 5
DIGITAL
DEBATE: "The F.C.C. is set to decide on Thursday on a
regulation proposed in January 2001 that would require consumer
electronics makers to include digital tuners in all new TV sets
by 2006. The idea is that if enough sets are sold with the proper
receivers, broadcasters will have more incentive to provide programs
to watch on them giving people more reason to buy the televisions.
But the measure is opposed by the Consumer Electronics Association,
which argues that the rule would add as much as $250 to the average
price of a TV set." The New York
Times 08/05/02
SLAVE
TO STEREOTYPE? Here's the charge - Hollywood supports only
"three types of black films: the slapstick comedy, the romantic
comedy and the gangsta/'hood thriller. If a filmmaker attempts
anything different, says Eriq La Salle, potential backers argue
that they don't know how to market nontraditional black movies."
New York Daily News 08/04/02
NARROW
DEFINITION OF WOMEN: "We all know that women fall madly
in love even when they're not raving beauties or sweet
young things. And that these days many are staying vigorously
active, leading fulfilling professional lives, and having physical
adventures and sexual escapades well into their senior years.
Yet head to the mall to take in the latest Hollywood studio films,
and you get a much narrower vision of womanhood." Seattle
Times 08/04/02
LATE'S
NOT GREAT: The Directors Guild of America is complaining that
almost half of all scripts for prime-time series have been arriving
late. This is "a level of tardiness, they say, that means
inadequate time to prepare and thus undermines program quality."
Los Angeles Times 08/05/02
RIDING
THE RED CARPET: The red carpet walk - it's where the stars
come out, the cameras go off, and people most feel the glamor
of Hollywood. "Studios can spend millions of dollars for
this one- night-only fanfare, an event that some consider an expensive
exercise in celebrity worship that ultimately does little to boost
box-office revenues. But others in the industry say the red carpet
is as vital as the movie itself. It's Hollywood's security blanket,
they say, a reassuring tradition for an industry consumed by anxiety."
San Francisco Chronicle 08/02/02
GETTING
THE MESSAGE UP FRONT: Few advertisers just want to buy 30-second
spots on TV shows anymore. Product placement is big business,
and some of America's most successful TV shows and movies have
worked products into their storylines. "If someone's drinking
a can of soda, it can be Coca-Cola. But downstream in syndication,
if Pepsi wants to sponsor the show, it can (digitally) become
a can of Pepsi." Dallas Morning
News 08/05/02
Sunday
August 4
KID-PROOFING
THE BIG SCREEN: It may be hard to believe in this era of family-friendly
blockbusters, but there was a time only a few years ago when a
PG rating was considered box office death, and directors intentionally
inserted words and scenes designed to garner the adults-only R
rating into their movies. So what's changed? According to one
industry analyst, ""If you've got excessive violence or nudity,
you're taking out a huge portion of America, conservative moviegoers
included, not to mention the most lucrative audience of all, and
that's the under-16 crowd." Denver
Post 08/04/02
Friday
August 2
RIGHT
TO OWN IS UNDER ATTACK: "The simple transfer of music,
from home to car to portable device, could soon be ending. Content
companies and consumer advocates are waging a vicious battle in
Washington, with the future of consumer rights - and what you
can do with products you have purchased - at stake. At the center
of the fight: government regulations being written with the support
of movie studios and record companies." Wired
08/02/02
PUTTING
RARE CULTURE ONLINE: A project in Britain will digitize important
artistic, historic, scientific and cultural records to make them
available to all. The project includes, rare books, scientific
records, old newsreels, photographs - many of the documents or
records are currently inaccessible because of fear of damage,
and it is hoped that digital records of them will help research.
Wired 08/02/02
WRITING
SMALL: Where's the real creative juice for a screenwriter
these days? TV. Movie writing is too deeply compromised by the
big money and power of the studios and stars. The writer
is the power in TV; in features, a star can say they don't like
it and you're stuck. The Economist
08/02/02
NOW
FOR A SOMETHING THAT REALLY MATTERS... What are the greatest
cartoon characters of all time? TV Guide has made a list. And
no one's bound to be entirely satisfied. No. 1's bad enough, but
"the most serious scandals are near the end of the list:
Yogi Bear and Boo Boo (36) beating the more ingenious Wile E.Coyote
and the Road Runner (38); the charming stammerer Porky Pig (47)
out-talked by the incomprehensible Donald Duck (43); two ingratiating
magpies, Heckle and Jeckle (25), flying higher than the definitive
bird/cat combo Tweety and Sylvester (33)." Sydney
Morning Herald 08/02/02
Thursday
August 1
PBS
AT THE GATE: PBS seems determined to make itself unloved and
unwanted. "Like an underperforming child, you get angry at
its failures because you so badly want it to succeed. But lately
PBS hasn't even been responding to tough love. It does what it
wants, for whom it wants, never takes criticism well and then
can't understand why it gets hassled all the time."
San Francisco Chronicle 07/31/02
- PILING
ON PBS: "This is all very nice and earnest, but PBS
isn't getting sympathy and support from critics any more."
So says a Canadian writer after observing PBS's various stumblings
in recent months, and its sad, pathetic attempt to make generic,
boring programs look exciting and new. With the Louis Rukeyser
flap and the HIV-positive Muppet flap both thoroughly botched
by network management, reruns of The Civil War simply
aren't enough to cover up public broadcasting's glaring inadequacies
anymore. The
Globe & Mail (Toronto) 08/01/02
LIMP
OPINION: A new book condemns Australian film reviewers for
being superficial and soft on homegrown movies. "Most mainstream
reviews are shallow exercises in opinionated writing with little
critical depth or knowledge of cinema history: We have a fetish
for superficial dabbling, commodified thumbnail reviews or banal
ratings games, as writers bask in the glamour of the entertainment
industries rather than attempting to dissect them." Sydney
Morning Herald 08/01/02
UK
GETS A NEW CENSOR: "Senior civil servant Sir Quentin
Thomas - who played a key part in securing peace in Northern Ireland
- has been named as the new president of the British Board of
Film Classification... Sir Quentin, 58, was one of the first UK
officials to make contact with the Sinn Fein in the search for
a peace deal [in Ireland] in the early 1990s, and was instrumental
in securing the 1998 Good Friday agreement. A film fan, he will
take charge of vetting all cinema and video releases in the UK."
BBC 08/01/02
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