Five years ago, 63% of Americans mostly watched television through cable and satellite. Today, that percentage has dropped to fewer than half of all Americans, while the percentage of those primarily watching television via a streaming service on the internet has jumped 17 percentage points, from 20% in 2016 to 37% today. - CBS News
Yes, 2020 was a weird year, and the rules for movies to debut in movie theatres were waived, but still: Netflix had seven statues, Amazon two, Disney one (or a lot more, if you count Nomadland as a Disney production), and Warner Bros one, all for movies that were either only streamed or debuted on streaming and theatres (if...
How wild to have a show with Crip Camp nominated for best documentary, a show that prevented disabled people in L.A. from getting to their subway trains - and also forced hordes of people to find the new site for COVID-19 testing. Ash Pana, who lives by Union Station and "who suffers from chronic pain and sometimes uses a...
Basically, her subjects tell their stories; she works with those stories and fictionalizes them, and then the subjects act out their fictionalized lives. "The outcome is scripted but the raw material is fact. There’s a personal rediscovery for the men and women onscreen as they interpret themselves in Zhao’s fabricated versions of their realities." - Los Angeles Times
Yes, Nomadland is only the second movie directed by a woman to win a Best Picture Oscar, and the first Best Picture Oscar to go to a film directed by a woman of color. But also: Nomadland is about women. "Movies about women basically never win Best Picture. By my count, Nomadland is one of only six movies focused on the...
A dubious proposition, but a possible one: "If numbers or data or statistics can provide any ounce of entertainment, there’s no better time than the present." (If you're a betting person, bet on Nomadland to take it all.) - The Hollywood Reporter
Broadcast TV ratings have been declining for years, and this ceremony will be no different - and won't mean anything about the actual movies involved. "I have long thought that the thing the Oscars needs most is one of those old Christmas special sets, with the cool living room sofa, the baby grand and that front door through which...
Embrace the absurdity: "Look, things are going to get weird. There was a small fire within the first 15 minutes of the Emmys. (It started as a bit, but then a slightly panicked Jennifer Aniston could not put out the flames with an extinguisher.) In the closing moments at the MTV Video Music Awards, the Black Eyed Peas wore pants...
What the directors say, including clips about how to make a dramatic scene more dramatic with whispers - and how to cast a "good guy" to make a point in a scene about a not very good guy at all. - The New York Times
Probably there will still be a lot of private showings, now that we're somewhat used to the idea. And then ... a return to Moviepass, or something like it? "To survive beyond the pandemic, theaters must persuade moviegoers not just to come back, but to come back more frequently than they did—to start thinking of their local cinema as...
Well, what a surprise: "For white actors, Academy recognition quickly leads to starring roles, both in big-budget blockbusters and prestige dramas. For actors of color recognized by the Academy, landing those roles typically takes much more time—if they ever land them at all." - Vice
According to Laverne Cox, it can't all be fashion - but then it can't all be politics, either. "There’s so, so much work that goes into a look. This is the sad thing about there not being red carpets. It’s a whole cottage industry of stylists and hair and makeup people. I think we can celebrate that and also...
" Patwardhan views his filmmaking practice as comprehensive — not just researching, shooting, and completing films, but also taking them on tour and holding discussions, involving the communities and people he profiles. … Even if he is routinely cited as India's leading documentarian, actually showing his films there is a bedeviling challenge" — especially his latest, Vivek ("Reason"), about...
"The two-hour format which was so ideally suited to theatrical, we’ve now trained young people for fifteen months not to see that as a primary way to have audiovisual entertainment. Now, how they come back or if they come back . . . they’re certainly not going to come back in the way they once were." - The New...
