If you remember the 2005 movie Thank You for Smoking, you’d be forgiven for anticipating this is a Big Tobacco thing. “Nine out of the 10 films nominated for the Oscars top prize earlier this year featured smoking, which is up from the seven in the year before.” - BBC
The movie image of elite soldiers as macho hulks has fueled concerns that today’s flabby and screen-addicted youths couldn’t cut it in a real fight. But piloting drones demands quick thinking, sharp eyes and nimble thumbs, the kind of prowess more readily associated with computer games than military combat. - The Wall Street Journal
Figures published by the BFI said attendance across both free and paid-for in-person screenings and events at London venues increased by 92%, with 49% of tickets being booked by first-time LFF attendees. - Deadline
For instance, after the emperor died and the tech bubble popped in Japan, “filmmakers leaned into the anxieties of late-twentieth-century life–including, prominently and presciently, the ghostliness of digital technology.” - Criterion
We don’t mean that in a mystical sense, but in the sense that Sony and CBS are in the midst of a legal fight over the popular game show and its (perhaps even more popular) sibling, Jeopardy!. - Los Angeles Times
"Eastwood fans in the UK will have no problem seeing Juror #2, where it’s enjoying a wide release in more than 300 cinemas nationwide. Across the whole of the US, however, it’s screening in fewer than 50 cinemas” with no plans for a wider rollout or awards campaign. - The Guardian (UK)
Looks like Anna Kendrick, director and star of the Netflix film Woman of the Hour, which is about a serial abuser and killer, thinks the best thing to do is donate the money. - Los Angeles Times
Right now the key benefit is in visual effects: what requires hundreds of hours and people to accomplish using CGI takes a second or two with generative AI. What's more, "agentic" AI (as it's called) can suggest optimum marketing plans and release schedules. - The New York Times Magazine
“We are now exploring whether creating a new well-capitalized company owned by our shareholders and comprised of our strong portfolio of cable networks would position them to take advantage of opportunities in the changing media landscape and create value for our shareholders.” - Fast Company
"Often, films that are products of their time are not wholly embraced until that time has passed, and so it is with The Terminator, an ’80s novelty of remarkable longevity … that touches on all sorts of temporal mind games: the Grandfather Paradox, the Butterfly Effect and the would-you-kill-baby-Hitler thought experiment." - The Washington Post (MSN)
"Carrie’s final-act stinger was a turning point for jump scares, interrupting what appeared to be a peaceful epilogue. It united viewers in a shared moment of tension-puncturing shock; over the next decade, directors such as Tobe Hooper, Sam Raimi, and George Romero scrambled to deliver bigger and badder scares." - Atlas Obscura
Today’s automated social-media feeds deliver increasingly indistinguishable content now sometimes generated by artificial intelligence; in the face of this onslaught, we crave content with evidence that a real person actually stands behind the products or works being touted. - The New Yorker
As researchers have noted, the less an actual audience is visible or known, the more communicators depend on their imaginations. Because journalists can never know precisely who consumes their work and why they do so, they instead form mental constructions of audiences. That has material consequences. - NiemanLab
"Unlike their bosses, some of whom ascended to the heights of authority in their 30s …, young professionals today … see no clear path to the top. Not one that isn’t blocked by an all-powerful boomer who’s been perched in a corner office since the Bush administration. The first one." - The Hollywood Reporter
"In a saturated and unregulated landscape, some creators — with little to no training on how to cover crime — try to humanize the people who have suffered. I spoke to four creators for this story, all women. … They prioritize empathy for victims and their loved ones." - Nieman Lab
