“The difficulty is that TikTok is a marketing-focused company and fails to understand creators and their independence…They kept asking me for reports on our progress, even though we hadn’t even seen each other,” he said. - Deadline
"Today, as metaverse engineers, designers, and architects map out the look of digital future experiences, for some, smell has become a key part of the puzzle. Whoever defines the smell-o-verse first will lead this nascent category, meaning the smell-off is ON." - Fast Company
A staff memo from Gimlet Media chiefs said that "the decision to end this iteration of the show" was made as the series's two hosts, Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi, were leaving. The move comes after a turbulent 18 months at Reply All, Gimlet, and parent company Spotify. - The Verge
“We had a few fully-masked concerts. We did livestreaming. We had a couple of adverts filmed here. We sold takeout meal kits when we couldn’t open the restaurant. The biggest one of all: we repurposed the theatre lobby into a wine bottle shop.” - Toronto Star
"Hollywood did not create this country's desire for green lawns — that longing originated when wealthy Americans tried to replicate the resplendent gardens of French and English nobility of centuries past. Then Hollywood did what it does best: propagate the myth through relentless, omnipresent imagery." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
The biggest change is the return of the requirement that a film must have a theatrical release during the relevant calendar year. However, that release no longer must be in either New York or Los Angeles; showings in Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, and the Bay Area also qualify. - The Hollywood Reporter
Says one who is leaving, "I can't see how I can be part of a community that will be charged with ideological tasks and has to comply." Many observers believe Putin's government will ramp up production of the sort of films that the Soviet industry used to make. - Variety
"Right off the bat, Peter Greenaway wants to make clear that he's never really taken himself seriously as a filmmaker — although like so many of the paradoxes that comprise Greenaway's identity, it's not wise to take such a claim too seriously." - Variety
The magazine's flagship audio property, a daily news podcast called The Intelligence, averages 3.9 million downloads each week and 2.5 million unique listeners a month; collectively, The Economist's five podcasts have had 1 billion downloads since launch in 2016. - Adweek
After the sale of the Chicago Reader "was nearly derailed over a co-owner’s column opposing COVID-19 vaccine requirements for children," and after a lot of protests and work, the sale to a nonprofit is expected to work. - Seattle Times (AP)
"If the very essence of Blaxploitation films to challenge the world order, the creative marriage between Kung Fu and Blaxploitation offered global imagery of resistance." - Black Film Archive
"As media habits change, the entire system is likely to be overhauled, and the networks are relying more heavily on Nielsen rivals, trying to gain more control over the process — before someone else does." - Variety
If you were watching TV in the late 1990s, the name should strike a very familiar chord. "Kelley, the creator of The Practice, Ally McBeal, Picket Fences, Boston Public, and Chicago Hope, among others, was a star showrunner," to put it mildly. But Ally changed him. - Slate
