Studios are fighting with movie theatre chains; not enough people have been vaccinated yet to feel comfortable going to theatres; and, well, there's streaming. To be obvious: "'It’s going to take some time for things to settle out,' said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a movie consultancy." - The New York Times
As New York cinemas open with precautions in place, "what movies are even playing in theaters these days? For those in attendance, the film in question wasn’t the main reason they showed up at their closest multiplex on a chilly Friday afternoon. Rather, audiences were guided more by a desire to get out of the house and sit in...
Women, men, and nonbinary people all compete for the same award starting this year at the Berlin Film Festival - and this year's award went to a woman. "While some will argue gender-neutral categories are socially progressive, they will also have unintended consequences. It could, interestingly, lead to a battle between two different factions of equality campaigners." - BBC
The economics of it are a bit weird. Mulan was $29.99 for a while, even with a Disney Plus subscription. Then Soul was free, starting on Christmas Day. Now Raya and the Dragon is ... also $30? Sure, yes. Why? Well, "entertainment conglomerates are still very much in experimentation mode when it comes to settling the streaming vs. theatrical...
Zhao, the second woman ever to win a Golden Globe for directing and first Asian woman to win the prize, was at first feted by Chinese outlets - until her old interviews surfaced. Then everything shifted, including toward censorship on the social media platform Weibo, where searches for (hashtag) Nomadland and (hashtag) Nomadland Release Date were blocked. - The...
Adam Aron’s job is to persuade movie studios and moviegoers to re-embrace the theatrical experience, once things open up again and more of the population has been vaccinated. Now 66, he joined AMC as chairman and CEO in 2015. - Chicago Tribune
"It was a surprise to many when Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced without fanfare last week that movie theaters in the five boroughs could open at reduced capacity starting on March 5. That gave film exhibitors less than two weeks to rehire staff members, many of whom had been furloughed or laid off, reorder concessions and outfit their cavernous venues...
This is not a fact-checking program, exactly, because it will not involve trained fact-checkers. Instead, participants in the Birdwatch pilot can identify tweets they find to be “misleading,” then submit notes explaining their stance—ideally these should link to reliable outside sources, and provide helpful context—as well as a judgment of how much harm the misinformation is likely to cause....
Parasite got six Oscar nominations and four awards, none of them for any of its actors. That case continued a pattern that has held even with Asian-led films in English: Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi, The Last Emperor, and so on right back to Flower Drum Song in 1961. And the pattern may be about to repeat itself with...
Torstar's new owners say they are branching into online gambling to help pay for those continuing efforts. "Doing this as part of Torstar will help support the growth and expansion of quality community-based journalism," co-owner Paul Rivett said. - CBC
That would be transcription, which is prohibitively expensive to do for every segment but which makes it far easier for potential users to find any given audio piece with a search engine. KQED's senior vice president for digital partnerships writes about how his station and the Google News Initiative are working to improve automated transcription — and avoid pitfalls...
“Our entire industry is in the worst crisis since World War II,” says Thomas Lengfelder, chief executive of the Berlin Hotel and Restaurant Assn. (DEHOGA Berlin). “Even today, there is still no telling where the pandemic will lead us. Unfortunately, political leaders are still not giving us any prospects.” - Variety
Who votes for these things? The members, currently totaling a scant 87 compared to the nearly 10,000 eligible Oscar voters, of the LA-based group of entertainment writers and photographers, working for media outlets overseas, known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. THe HFPA currently has no Black members, and hasn’t for 20 years. - Chicago Tribune
"The cultures of public media (nonprofit, built around broadcast, sometimes a little sleepy) and digital news startups (often for-profit, built around text, real-time and a little frenetic) are not the most natural media match. Public media outlets — typically the larger and better-financed partner — often enter these deals specifically in hopes of injecting that digital DNA. But the...
The game-changers were the pandemic, and also awards-nominated movies One Night in Miami and Sound of Metal, not to mention Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Those films, "coupled with the cultural impact Borat has enjoyed across the globe, have significantly altered the perception of Amazon Studios’ film division in Hollywood and among Amazon’s more than 150 million Prime subscribers. (The studio,...
