Ararat To Get A Showing In Turkey "Ararat, the film by Toronto-based Atom Egoyan about the genocide of Armenians at the time of the First World War, can be shown in Turkey but at least one scene will be cut, a Turkish culture ministry official said yesterday. The film by Egoyan, a Canadian of Armenian heritage, tells of the plight of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey when a 1915-23 campaign to force them from the eastern part of the country left as many as 1.5 million dead. Turkey says the figures are inflated and that Armenians died during civil unrest and not as the result of a planned campaign." The Globe & Mail (AP) 12/31/03

2003 - A Good Year For Women Directors It is because women directors usually have such a difficult time getting movies made that it is worth noting that 2003 has been a good year for women directors... The New York Times 12/31/03

Did CBS Pay Michael Jackson $1 Million For Interview? CBS denies it paid Jackson for his 60 Minutes interview Sunday. But a Michael Jackson associate said that "in renewed negotiations, CBS agreed to pay another $1 million to the star to grant the interview so that the network could finally broadcast its entertainment special. It is now scheduled to be broadcast on Friday evening. 'In essence they paid him, but they didn't pay him out of the `60 Minutes' budget; they paid him from the entertainment budget, and CBS just shifts around the money internally. That way `60 Minutes' can say `60 Minutes' didn't pay for the interview'." The New York Times 12/31/03

French Author Sues Disney Over Nemo "A French children's author is suing Disney, saying the international box-office hit Finding Nemo may have been lifted from his own work." BBC 12/30/03

Outside Censorship In Shanghai Shaghai is the cultural capital of the new China. But still, censorship means that watching some of the country's most interesting new movies requires going to underground screenings. "Since 1999 China has had about 100 independent movies. They are insightful, powerful and tell the real China." But they happen outside the approval of official censors. Wider acceptance may be coming though. "People beyond the elite were beginning to respond to these movies, which speak of their own lives." The New York Times 12/30/03

Bollywood Awards Pass On Canada Bollywood is the largest producer of movies in the world. Instead of being held in India, the annual Bollywood film awards - the equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars - are staged in other cities around the world. They've been held in London, South Africa, and Malaysia, and this year, Canada wanted to host them. "Organizers saw B.C. as a natural fit because of the province's large Indo-Canadian population as well as a thriving film sector that many in Bollywood would have been interested in checking out for co-production possibilities as well as options for making movies here." But alass it's not to happen. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/30/03

When News Is Entertainment Is News The back-scenes dealing between Michael Jackson and CBs that resulted in a 60 Minutes interview and the airing of an MJ music special this week further blurs the lines between TV "news" and entertainment. "Critics regularly warn about the narrowing line between news and entertainment. Now that line is downright disappearing. The news and entertainment branches of the network are mere offshoots of much larger corporate enterprises, in this case, Viacom. News and entertainment are equally engaged in the pursuit of profits. The news division, once a special enclave with a higher calling, is now a cog in the business machine. The "divisions" are less divided than they are team players." Denver Post 12/30/03

Which Movie Awards Count There are hundreds of movie critic associations and awards. And this is the time of year when they all weigh in with pronouncements about which movies matter. So how do you figure out which awards matter? Slate 12/29/03

So Bad Language Doesn't Matter? Bad language is everywhere in the media. I there anything that shocks us anymore? And yet, we make gestures at protesting. "We obsess over the encroachment of vulgar words into public spaces on pain of a stark inconsistency, one that will appear even more ridiculous to future generations than some Victorians calling trousers "nether garments" does to us. At least the Victorians' vocabulary taboos reflected mores that permeated society. Theirs was a world in which an author of a slang dictionary would have had trouble finding a publisher, people sequestered themselves under reams of fabric, illegitimate birth was a scandal, and sex was never spoken of in polite society." Washington Post 12/28/03

When Tech And Media Join Up "With more American households going to broadband, faster Internet connections are changing the movie, music, telephone, computer and cable businesses. The battles brought on by these changes are likely to occupy the media and technology industries in 2004." The New York Times 12/29/03

America's Record Movie Weekend Led by the latest installment of the Lord of the Rings, America's movie theatres saw record holiday box office over the weekend. The total estimated weekend box office receipts for the top dozen films was $168.6 million, a record. The top 12 movies over the same weekend last year pulled in $155.9 million. The New York Times (AP) 12/29/03

Manhattan Movies - Now $10.25 Manhattan movie theatres bump up movie ticket prices by 25 cents - to a record $10.25. Movie-goers give the move a thumbs-down: "There are ads, and they're in your face and obnoxious. There are previews, and they're just as bad. It doesn't seem right. They show you ads, so why are they raising the prices?" New York Daily News 12/28/03

Indy Films Take On The Studios Increasingly, independent films are becoming a major force in the movie industry. Why? "Independent and independent-minded films may earn less at the box office, but it's easier for them to turn a profit, because they're vastly cheaper to make. Even a little gem such as "Pieces of April,' which has grossed about $1.7 million, is a moneymaker - because it cost only $300,000." Denver Post (NYTS) 12/27/03

Note To Movie-Makers: Sex Doesn't End At 35 Why are critics going so ga-ga over 50-something women showing a little skin in recent movies? "Though the American film industry has pretty much had a 35-and-out attitude toward women as sexual beings, the trend, if indeed it is a trend and not merely a confluence of goose-bumped flesh, is more reflective of real life than the way things have been. Women's bodies don't become decrepit when the first grey hair appears, and sexual desire doesn't dissipate when a woman blows out the 36th candle on a birthday cake." The Age (Melbounre) 12/28/03

A Cable Universe Of Equals (Sort Of) Do broadcast networks have any advantage over cable stations anymore? "Even if it doesn't bite them today or tomorrow where it hurts (presumably the wallet), the broadcast titans seem to be ceding creative leadership in a way that ultimately dissolves any viewership advantage to which they continue to cling. How long can it be until viewers completely abandon the notion of the networks as the "default" choice to check what's worth watching each night? What's the difference when ABC looks like TLC looks like Fox looks like Spike?" Newsday 12/28/03

Up All Night, Staring At A Screen Advertisers are famously obsessed with young people, and so television, by necessity, is obsessed as well. In recent years, network brass have been at a loss to explain where all their young viewers have gone. Some say they went to cable, some say they went to the internet, and some say it shouldn't matter, anyway. But what if the 18-to-34s haven't deserted TV after all? What if they've just moved their "prime time" back a few hours? A close look at demographic ratings shows that young people are watching plenty of TV: they're just turning on the set a lot later. Miami Herald (AP) 12/23/03

Hitting 'Em While They're Down "Last week's court decision preventing the recording industry from forcing Internet service providers to identify their subscribers on peer-to-peer networks offers new hope to file traders who have been sued. But fighting the RIAA may prove costly for anyone hoping to challenge the trade group, which spends an estimated $17 million annually in legal fees. In the wake of Friday's ruling, which found that the RIAA can't subpoena Internet providers for subscribers' personal information without going through the court system, experts say lawyers could feasibly argue that their clients' information was unjustly obtained from ISPs, and therefore should not be used. But such a strategy would be unorthodox and difficult to carry out." Wired 12/23/03

American TV's Clutter Grows Promos, ads and other filler has proliferated on American TV. "According to a recent report in Media Life, an online magazine, the major networks now offer one minute of "clutter" for every two minutes of legitimate entertainment during prime time. Or put in another context, the Big Four (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) air about 52 minutes of commercials and promotional material during three hours of prime time. This is up 8 percent from 2000 and a whopping 36 percent since 1991." Rocky Mountain News 12/22/03

The Depressed Aussie Film Industry "A soaring Australian dollar, staunch competition from Canada, eastern Europe and New Zealand, the impending US-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California have cast a dark shadow over the Australian film industry." Sydney Morning Herald 12/23/03

French Film Award Judges Get Self-Destructing DVD Screeners Voters for the French Cesar film awards will be getting DVD copies of the movies that self-destruct. "The DVD of Gus Van Sant's film Elephant turns black and becomes unusable with two days of being played, reports industry website Screen Daily. The DVDs, which are designed to be disposable, will be sent to members of France's Academie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema, said the report." BBC 12/22/03

An Idea - Pay TV Viewers To Go Digital? In the UK, plans are for all TV broadcasts to be digital by 2010. But the only way to get some viewers to switch might be to pay them. "There were only two ways of making everyone switch to a digital source, such as a set-top digital box, cable or satellite. One is to pay people to switch, the other is to force them." BBC 12/22/03

The Global Movie "Increasingly Hollywood studios are aiming to open their potential blockbusters simultaneously, or nearly so, around the world. If the phenomenon is beginning to make seeing the Hollywood blockbuster a global experience for the most avid movie fans, the reasons for it have little to do with those fans. Instead the trend is being pushed by the threat of movie piracy and the harsh realities of marketing costs, combined with ever-briefer theater stays as highly promoted films quickly saturate their markets." The New York Times 12/21/03

Court Ruling Stuns Record Industry In a surprise ruling, a U.S. federal appeals court has told the recording industry in no uncertain terms that it does not have the right to demand the names and addresses of subscribers from the nation's internet service providers (ISPs). A lower court had previously upheld the industry's demand that Verizon and other ISPs release the names of their subscribers, and paved the way for nearly 400 lawsuits against users suspected of illegal file-trading. The ruling doesn't mean that the industry must cease suing online pirates, but it will make such actions much more complicated. San Francisco Chronicle 12/20/03

• Am I My Users' Keeper? Not In Holland. "The makers of Kazaa, the world's most popular computer file-sharing program, cannot be held liable for copyright infringement of music or movies swapped on its free software, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday. The decision upheld a 2002 appellate-court verdict... In the United States, a federal judge already has dismissed the entertainment industry's lawsuits against two rival file-sharing services, Grokster and StreamCast Networks, saying they could not be held liable for what their users do with the software. That ruling has been appealed, with a decision expected in February." Wired (AP) 12/19/03

Dean Joins The Big Media Backlash Presidential contender Howard Dean apparently sees some political hay to be made in the recent backlash against the FCC's attempt to further deregulate the American media industry. Dean "is making the message of the media reform movement part of his campaign--not just calling for overturning the FCC rules but also calling for breaking up existing media conglomerates." Whether a president would actually have the ability to implement such a sweeping anti-corporate agenda is an open question, of course, but at the momentm Dean is the only candidate even talking about the issue. Editor's Cut (The Nation) 12/18/03

The No-Pee Conspiracy Movies are getting longer every day, and it seems like every time you set foot in the multiplex, they've added another gallon or so to your "cup" of pop. And no, there are still no intermissions at your favorite Hollywood blockbuster. You see where we're going with this. When, exactly, are America's movie lovers supposed to take a bathroom break? San Francisco Chronicle 12/19/03

Does Canadian Drama Need Protection? When a Nova Scotia-based TV production company was shut down by its corporate parent last week, it sparked renewed fears that Canadian drama is in severe trouble, and unable to compete with the influx of American programming. Now, a coalition of union activists are calling for new federal regulations designed to protect and encourage Canadian programming. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/19/03

Someone Get That Critic A Bodyguard Hey, look! It's a movie critic who doesn't like the Lord of the Rings movies! Why, the nerve of that guy! Everyone loves LoTR! Where does he get off? What did he just say? It's too long?! "Every time you think the final credits are about to roll, another scene lurches in, adding another chance to look at your watch in awe and wonderment at how much sheer footage the film has." Grrrrrr... The Christian Science Monitor 12/19/03

Golden Globe Noms Announced A historical drama which isn't even in theaters yet is the runaway leader in the nominations for the Golden Globes, Hollywood's bizarre and inexplicably important awards show. Cold Mountain earned nominations in every major category, and a few minor ones as well. Other films nominated for top awards are Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Seabiscuit, Mystic River, and the animated feature, Finding Nemo. CNN 12/18/03

Catching More Flies With Honey Online music piracy is a problem worldwide, but the heavyhanded tactics being employed in the U.S. to make file-swapping less tempting are controversial, and not every country is following suit. In Argentina, the recording industry is using dialogue, education, and partnerships with corporations whose employees use company computers for their piracy to stem the flow of illegal music. Wired 12/18/03

Suing Over Who Gets To Sell Pooh For 12 years a lawsuit has dragged on about who owns the rights to merchandising Winnie the Pooh. For Disney, which has been selling Pooh stuff for years, the stakes are huge. "The company earns about a billion dollars a year in Pooh-related revenues, and if the Slesingers win the case Disney estimates that it may be liable for several hundred million dollars." The New Yorker 12/16/03

TV Going After The Gaming Audience TV ratings are down this fall. And where did many viewers go? Computer games. So "top cable networks like Spike TV, MTV and Game Show Network are focusing on original programming that revolves around video games in an effort to regain the loyalty of an audience segment coveted by advertisers." Wired 12/17/03

LA Discovers Alt-Film Los Angeles has never been much of a home to independent or alternative film; there's too much mainstream industry going on. But recently that's begun to change. "Most striking are several expensive new or renovated theaters either just opening or being planned. They are evidence that interest in film's history here goes far beyond the casual stroll along Hollywood Boulevard's tacky Walk of Fame. Blessed with access to pristine 35mm prints of old movies from various studios and other archives, these venues are making L.A. a mecca for retro cinema. And independent and art/experimental films." Indiewire 12/03

Pop Goes The Culture Pop culture is everywhere. TV is pop culture. Ergo, there's more and more TV about pop culture. "The extent to which pop culture has become the focus of more and more TV networks is undeniable. It's the nature of it. Pop culture is the stuff everybody is talking about, and if everybody is talking about it, networks are naturally going to want to find programming that taps into that." Dallas Morning News 12/12/03

American TV's Longest-Running Shows What are the 20 longest-running shows on American television? More or less the same as they were last year. Longevity means never having to say goodbye. New York Daily News 12/15/03

Iraq's First Movie In Ten Years "An arts school dropout is directing Iraq's first feature-length movie in more than a decade, shooting it with film he "liberated" from Saddam Hussein's culture ministry during the looting that followed the dictator's fall." Charlotte Observer (AP) 12/15/03

What's Christmas Without A Big 'Ol War Movie? What's with all the war movies set out in prime movie season, wonders Frank Rich. "Intentionally or not, three of the four new Christmas war movies play on our current fears rather than reprise the slam-dunk triumphalism of "Top Gun." And they do so even though most of them are top-heavy with creative talent (actors, directors, screenwriters) who hail from countries in the coalition of the willing (England, Australia, Japan, even Romania)." The New York Times 12/14/03

Italians Stage TV Viewers' Strike A TV viewers' strike was organized over the weekend in Italy. "Television is one of the principal causes of dullness and isolation, and is a drain on precious commodity of human time" say the organizers. We want to say to people that there are better ways of spending their free time than to stay home staring at television. "The strike's organisers have arranged discounts at a range of venues for people who bring their remote controls with them. Organisers say they are expecting around 400,000 people to join the strike against what they call Trash TV." BBC 12/13/03

Why Some Movies Aren't Out As DVDs Yet DVD's are the standard for watching video these days. And there is a flood of movies newly released with every passing week. "More than 36,000 films are now available on DVD and nearly half of those were released in just the last two years. So why, among this vast stockpile, is there not a single Marx Brothers comedy or Astaire-Rogers musical?" The New York Times 12//14/03

Indy Film's UK Woes "It felt disorientating to be British at the European Film Awards, now in their 16th year and celebrated at a ceremony in Berlin last weekend. Those of us from the UK mingled with movie-makers and press from a score of countries, all perfectly relaxed about enjoying films from other nations, even those requiring subtitles. It was hard not to muse gloomily on the difficulty for even exceptional non-English-language films to obtain exposure in a British cinema culture so in thrall to Hollywood." The Telegraph (UK) 12/12/03

Why PBS Programming Is So Timid PBS programming is staid and unadventurous. Why? Consider an acclaimed 36-year-old one-man show about Mark Twain and why PBS declined to air it: "What could literary legend Mark Twain have said 130 years ago that would cause PBS programmers of two different regimes to reject an acclaimed performance of his wit and wisdom by one of America’s most respected actors? Well, about 35 minutes into the one-man show, after the first intermission, Twain/ Holbrook includes a passage ofHuckleberry Finn. In this five minutes of the program, “Twain” acts out the parts of young Huck, his drunk father Pap and old Jim, a slave..." Current 11/17/03

Video Store As Research Tool "As budget-conscious film studios increasingly greenlight remakes of old films and recycled television shows (coming soon: "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "The Stepford Wives"), independent video stores are finding themselves with a new role in the $9 billion-a-year video-rental industry. They are often used as research libraries and idea factories for the movie studios in whose shadows they lurk." Christian Science Monitor 12/12/03

TIFF Picks A New Director "Noah Cowan, who began his cinematic career at age 15 selling tickets for the Toronto International Film Festival, was crowned the fete's new co-director yesterday. This self-described 'child of the festival,' was one of 12 American and Canadian candidates who applied for the job, one of the top film-related postings on the planet." Cowan was previously associate director of programming for TIFF, before leaving in 1997 to head up a distribution company in New York. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 12/11/03

Battle Of The Network Stars At The 49th Parallel Canada has always been concerned about the risk to its homegrown culture from the American pop culture juggernaut. But these days, the situation, particularly in the television realm, seems dire: the public funding upon which Canadian TV writers and producers rely is at record low levels, and Canadians seem increasingly willing to abandon homegrown product for American shows. With most Canadians now able to receive all the major American broadcast networks on cable, and many additional American programs being rebroadcast on Canadian channels, Canada's TV industry is at a loss as to how to recapture its audience. Edmonton Journal 12/11/03

Filmmakers For Global Peace Global peace may sound like an awfully lofty goal, especially for a group of artists with little to no political clout, but no one has ever accused filmmakers of allowing harsh reality to stand in the way of idealism. "This week through Sunday, Orlando is host to a cultural event that would seem much more happily scheduled in the 1960s, and maybe better in Woodstock, N.Y.: the first Global Peace Film Festival. It's the creation of Shaikh Abdul Alishtari, a genuine Moroccan sheik and founder and CEO of the Orlando-based GlobalProtector.net Web filter company, who came up with the idea just before the latest Iraq war." Chicago Tribune 12/11/03

Game On Video games have fast become the recreation of choice. "Figures for the overall size of the industry in 2003 will not emerge until March but, in 2002, the UK leisure software market value topped £1bn for the first time, compared with cinema box-office income of £755m and video/DVD rental worth £500m." The Guardian (UK) 12/11/03

Hollywood's Got Game(s) Hollywood's top movie producers are teaming up with computer gamer producers to collaborate on projects. Why? "Nothing grabs Hollywood's attention more than money. And with video-game sales topping Hollywood box office receipts for the second year in a row (games raked in $30 billion in global sales versus the movie industry's $20.4 billion in 2002), Hollywood agencies have gone virtual." Wired 12/10/03

In Defence Of BBC4 Culture BBC4 is where most of the BBC's cultural program now ends up. It is a popular target of critics from all sides. "It does not like to describe itself as highbrow - 'We always try and avoid that word,' says a BBC press officer - but it is pitched squarely at the class Keynes referred to as 'the educated bourgeoisie'." The Guardian (UK) 12/10/03

Criticism Of Disney's Eisner Growing Is Michael Eisner vulnerable as head of Disney? After Roy Disney quit Disney's board last week, more public criticism of Eisner has surfaced. "Despite a charm offensive by Mr. Eisner in response to the board uprising last year - wooing anxious or skeptical directors, institutional investors, partners and members of the news media over cocktails and in interviews - many say he has just papered over a lack of substantive change at the company." The New York Times 12/08/03

Some NBC Affiliates Refuse to Carry Saturday Night Live "Over the weekend, half a dozen or so NBC stations refused to show "Saturday Night Live" because Al Sharpton, a presidential candidate, was hosting. They objected either because of the equal time rules or out of fear the 90-minute program would embarrass them by amounting to more political coverage than most TV stations offer in six months." Chicago Tribune 12/08/03

Movie Studios Losing Fight Against Piracy Hollywood studios' latest attempts to combat piracy seem to be a miserable failure. "A major source of movies online is an underground network of groups that specialize in bootlegging films, piracy experts say. These "ripping crews" - which recruit members around the world to obtain, edit, transfer and store films - compete with one another to be the first to obtain a movie, the experts say. They frequently are assisted by people connected to the movie industry, whose numbers include cinema employees, workers at post-production houses and friends of Academy members." Chicago Tribune 12/07/03

Judge Strikes Down Screener Ban A federal judge has overturned a ban on independent producers sending out screener DVDs to awards judges. The Motion Picture Association of America had instituted the ban as a way to cut down piracy. But the judge ruled that: "the screener ban will significantly harm independent films, thereby reducing the competition these films pose to major studio releases." Chicago Sun-Times (AP) 12/06/03

NYU To Film Student: No Porno This fall a New York University student proposed making a film in which there would be pornography. University officials have forbidden her to and say they would "issue a written policy requiring student films and videos to follow the ratings guidelines of the Motion Picture Association of America, with nothing racier than R-rated fare allowed." Is this a threat to academic freedom? The New York Times 12/04/03

A Screener Issue That Threatens To Engulf The Industry The Motion Picture Association of America's new policy of not providing screeners to those voting on various awards is pissing off many in the industry. "The question producers might consider now: How bad a taste will the screener issue leave in the mouths of the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild? Why? Because both these unions are currently in the process of organizing the positions and recommendations they'll carry into next year's negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on their feature-film and TV contracts." Backstage 12/04/03

Is Disney Headed For A Fall? "Charges that the Disney company has lost its way under current company head Michael Eisner are not new. But the departure of the final Disney family member from the fabled company has thrown the charges into a new relief... Disney's core animation and theme-park businesses have been battered by the competition. [Roy] Disney and his fellow departing board members charge that the company is pushing profits over innovation and quality." Worse yet, the public seems to agree, and the Disney name no longer carries the automatic consumer respect that it once did. The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 12/04/03

Crackdown? What Crackdown? "Hollywood's all-out war against movie piracy is turning into a big-budget bomb, with illegal copies of virtually every new release — and even some films that have yet to debut in theaters — turning up on the Internet... The abundance of bootlegs arrives just as the movie studios have launched their most aggressive campaign yet to protect their business from the rampant downloading that has plagued the record industry... The steps may have made some thievery more difficult, but overall, piracy appears to be up from previous years... In fact, the new security measures seem only to have emboldened some pirates." Baltimore Sun (LA Times) 12/04/03

More Lawsuits, Just In Time For The Holidays! The recording industry has filed another 41 lawsuits against online file-swappers accused of trading at least 1000 songs illegally, and warned an additional 90 individuals that legal action is imminent if they do not stop their file-trading activity. Since this past summer, the industry has sued more than 300 users, settled with 220, and received pledges from over 1,000 that they will delete their illegally-downloaded songs and never download again. Wired 12/04/03

• Here's Betting The Industry Doesn't Like This, Either In Europe, final touches are being put on a next-generation portable MP3 application known as tunA, which will not only function as a playback machine, but has the potential to turn every user into a walking radio station. The application "employs Wi-Fi to locate nearby users, peek at their music playlist and wirelessly jack into their audio stream... tunA is being designed for wireless PDAs, cell phones and even its own hardware device." Wired 12/04/03

Crowe Warns Aussie Movie Industry As Australia considers cutting off funding to its film industry, actor Russell Crowe warns that to do so would damage the industry."I don't think the structure that we have in place should become a social welfare system for people who can't compete," he said. "But he said the industry should concentrate on making improvements and becoming internationally competitive rather than consider withdrawing funding." The Age (AFP) 12/04/03

Sundance Lineup Star-Heavy, Racially Diverse "The competitive categories of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival will be characterized by big-name actors appearing in films by relatively unknown directors, projects influenced by Sept. 11 and a record-breaking number of projects from black filmmakers. Festival director Geoff Gilmore and director of programming John Cooper made those assessments on Monday as they unveiled three sections of the fest — the Dramatic and Documentary competitions and the American Spectrum program." Toronto Star 12/03/03

Maryland Public Television Faces Scrutiny A state audit has uncovered multiple examples of what the auditor says are questionable financial practices at Maryland Public Television. Conflicts of interest, contracts awarded without proper bidding process, and deliberate attempts to subvert the state's rules on project review are among the charges being leveled at MPT, which insists that the report is overblown. MPT is best known nationally for producing the program "Wall $treet Week." Baltimore Sun 12/03/03