Author: Douglas McLennan

Friday March 29

TV FEEDS VIOLENCE: A new study links teens watching TV with a propensity for violence later in life. “The findings show that of children who watch less an hour of television a day at the age of 14, only 5.7% turned to violence between the ages of 16 to 22. For those who watch between one and three hours, this number jumped to 22.8%. The rate went up again to 28.8% for those who watched more than three hours a day.” BBC 03/29/02

ALTERED STATES: Popular culture has always influenced the way people perceive the world around them. “But now there is a new kind of medium, which has begun to close the gap between culture and life. It is an interactive medium, or, more specifically, video games. Compare games to earlier forms of pop culture, and you’ll soon realize that they are really different. The more closely games mimic life – with visual realism, emotional weight, an intuitive interface, conceptual rigor – the better they get. And most games try to do more than replicate life – they systematically probe the fantastic, the better-than-real. One senses that the best games aspire to supplant the living of life.” LAWeekly 03/28/02

• OUT OF THE ARCADE AND INTO THE LAB: Many of the ideas and tools that show up in popular culture have their doubles in scientific laboratories. For video games, the parallel is the study of artificial societies. A-society researchers have found that “they can create ‘societies’ of great complexity—ones that in many ways mirror what’s going on in the real world. These models imply that there are certain patterns into which human beings unconsciously arrange themselves—and the models help to identify what those patterns are.” The Atlantic Monthly 03/29/02

PUSHING TO “PROTECT”: The US Senate is already considering a bill to require digital copy protection to be built into new media playback devices. Now a similar bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives, in an effort to speed up enactment of such a law. Wired 03/28/02

TOWARDS A CLEANER TV: “A study released last week showed that between 1999 and 2001 the amount of sexual material on TV entertainment shows dropped 29 percent, and the amount of serious violence went down 17 percent. “Popular culture is not necessarily on a permanent and steeply downward slide, concludes the report, issued by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Christian Science Monitor 03/29/02

WHEN MERCHANT IVORY RULED THE EARTH: For a good part of their 40-year collaboration, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s movie collaborations were must-watch affairs. “Watch a Merchant-Ivory movie these days and you feel like you’ve been languishing for 40 years in the company of the wearisomely refined (and interchangeable) director and producer.” The Times (UK) 03/29/02

HISTORIC? CERTAINLY. MEANINGFUL? WE’LL SEE: The parties are over, the smiles have faded, the tears have dried. Is there any reason to think that the Oscar wins by Halle Berry and Denzel Washington will translate into more equable representation of minorities in the movies? Or does it only mean, as one cynic puts it, that “more people will want to hire Denzel and more people will want to hire Halle Berry.” Los Angeles Times 02/29/02

Thursday March 28

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING HOLLYWOOD: A new report says that “Southern California’s economy shed about 18,000 motion picture and television industry jobs last year, or nearly 12% of Hollywood’s work force, largely when the rush to make movies before feared labor strikes gave way to months of relative inactivity.” Backstage 03/27/02

TOWERING GIANT: Clear Channel Communications has come to dominate America’s radio and concert business. “With holdings that include approximately 1,225 radio stations and 130 concert venues, the company in recent years has amassed unparalleled power in the music and entertainment industries. That power – and what it means for the music business, as well as for Clear Channel competitors – has been the topic of heated debate within the music industry for the last year.” Now government regulators are paying attention. Salon 03/27/02

UNCLE MILTIE PASSES ON: “Milton Berle, the brash comedian who emerged from vaudeville, nightclubs, radio and films to become the first star of television, igniting a national craze for the new medium in the late 1940’s, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 93.” The New York Times 03/28/02

Wednesday March 27

NUMBING DOWN: If the video images of September 11 seemed unreal, perhaps we should blame it on the numbing effect of film. “It should have been a massive wake up call, because for too long cinema had been playing with reality, playing with it in such a way as to allow actions to become divorced from their consequences. For too long sensation has come to eclipse almost everything: bigger and better explosions that miraculously don’t kill the most important of the protagonists, simulated plane crashes which the right people somehow survive, shootings that manage to create victims without widows or orphans.” The Guardian (UK) 03/26/02

IF THE FEW CONTROL THE ALL… “Media conglomerates are in a merger frenzy. Telecommunications monopolies are creating a cozy cartel, dividing up access to the online world. The entertainment industry is pushing for Draconian controls on the use and dissemination of digital information. If you’re not infuriated by these related trends, you should at least be worried.” San Jose Mercury News 03/26/02

RACIST BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY? While critics are hailing last week’s Academy Award wins by Denzel Washington and Halle Berry, British actors say that the UK film industry is not nearly so racially open. “The industry’s attitude is not malicious, it stems from ignorance. I only began to get properly cast as an actor in my own right 10 years after I left drama school. The US has huge race problems, but at least in US culture everyone gets a chance. Here, we are sidelined and insulted.” The Guardian (UK) 03/26/02

WHAT ABOUT OTHERS? Representatives of American minority groups wonder when the “breakthrough” for other minorities will happen in the movie industry. “What’s historic about equality? Historic for me will be when all people of color are represented and are capable of garnering these awards,” said Skyhawk, president of the advocacy group American Indians in Film. Newsday 03/26/02

WHITHER PBS? Last week, Maryland Public Television unceremoniously fired Louis Rukeyeser, the popular host of PBS’s “Wall $treet Week,” reigniting a familiar debate on the future of American public broadcasting. Increasingly, it seems that PBS is programming for high ratings, just as commercial networks do, rather than for diversity and quality, as was its original mission. But does PBS’s attempt to ‘skew younger’ and homogenize its programming reflect a move towards irrelevance, or just a desire to compete with private networks? Baltimore Sun 03/27/02

Tuesday March 26

ANALYZING THE REMAINS: This year’s Oscar race was “universally acknowledged to be the most petty and mean-spirited in memory.” Okay, but exactly what does that mean for those few of us who are not Hollywood insiders? Mostly, it was a behind the scenes, below-the-belt slugfest between Miramax and DreamWorks, with Matt Drudge and a few free-lance publicists as seconds. Los Angeles Times 03/26/02

Monday March 25

OSCAR COMES TOGETHER: “After an awards campaign season universally acknowledged to be the most petty and mean-spirited in memory, the entire Academy Awards process also got a heartening, emotionally stirring Hollywood ending. With Sidney Poitier’s special Oscar, Halle Berry’s best actress triumph and Denzel Washington’s best actor nod, the Oscar ceremony touched chords of genuine feeling you would have sworn were beyond the grasp of this often derided ceremony.” Los Angeles Times 03/25/02

• BUT IT’S SLOW: “Alas, TV’s most-watched slug crawled back into town last night, despite the exciting and unpredictable nature of the contests and the bang-up finale. As usual, the technical awards formed a Bermuda triangle in the middle of the show, and the film-clip fests and production numbers numbed our brains. Cirque du Soleil is spectacular, but could we take a rain check?” Boston Globe 03/25/02

GOOD TIMES UNDER DARK SKIES: “The average cost of making and marketing a film fell by about 4% to $79m last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major studios. And this happened while box-office takings in America were growing to $8.4 billion, as Americans made almost 1.5 billion trips to the movies—the highest number since 1959. Everything seems wonderful, darling. And yet a shadow stalks Tinseltown. Beneath the bonhomie the industry’s leaders are increasingly nervous that Hollywood is about to be ‘Napsterised’.” The Economist 03/22/02

POOH ON YOU: The Winnie the Pooh franchise is a lucrative one, generating “somewhere between $1 billion and $6 billion a year for Disney.” But “for the past 11 years, the Disney Co. has been locked in a legal slugfest with the wealthy Slesinger family, which purchased some merchandising rights to Winnie-the-Pooh back in 1930.” The case is not going well for Disney. “Last summer, the judge slapped the company with a $90,000 fine for destroying relevant documents and issued a harsh set of orders that, experts say, will hamstring Disney’s lawyers.” New Times LA 03/23/02

Sunday March 24

GREEN RASPBERRIES: As Oscar hype winds up to a fever pitch, the “Razzies” step in to provide a modicum of sanity and humility to Hollywood’s self-congratulatory smarm. The awards honor the worst movie achievements of the year, and this year, in unprecedented fashion, the biggest winner was at the ceremony to accept his awards. Tom Green, the former MTV host and teen grossout movie specialist, picked up five awards for his monumentally disturbing flick Freddy Got Fingered, and became only the second star ever to accept the dubious honors in person. BBC 03/23/02

Friday March 22

FORCED TO PROTECT? US Senator Fritz Hollings has introduced his long-anticipated (dreaded?) bill to mandate copy protection on new digital media players. “The bill, called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act, prohibits the sale or distribution of nearly any kind of electronic device – unless that device includes copy-protection standards to be set by the federal government. Translation: Future MP3 players, PCs and handheld computers will no longer let you make all the copies you want.” Wired 03/21/02

ANY CHANCE OF MAKING JOAN RIVERS STAY HOME? Much has been made of the new venue built for the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. “The new 3,300-seat Kodak Theater, in Hollywood, has been custom-built for the Oscars. But it is significantly smaller than the show’s old sites in downtown Los Angeles.” How much smaller? Well, nearly 300 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will have to watch the show on television this year. BBC 03/22/02

• BRINGING OSCAR HOME: “The Academy hasn’t held the Oscar ceremonies in the real Hollywood since 1929, when it lasted all of 15 minutes, hardly long enough for a self-respecting celebrity to exit a limo these days. The $94 million Kodak Theatre, designed for the Oscar ceremonies, is pure nostalgia. It resembles a 1920s movie palace with stacked opera boxes.” But the Kodak sits in the middle of a strip mall, in a neighborhood known more for its drug dealers than its glitz and glamour. Is the project a laudable attempt to revitalize a landmark area, or a misguided plunge into a history that no longer exists? The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 03/22/02

FILMFEST AS URBAN RENEWAL: “With judges ranging from the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi to the former ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the new TriBeCa Film Festival will try to rejuvenate downtown New York, it was announced yesterday by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, the festival’s co-founders. The festival was organized quickly, Ms. Rosenthal said, because it is intended more to save a neighborhood than to celebrate film.” The New York Times 03/22/02

SEX AND VIOLENCE DOWN: A new study says that sex and violence on TV has declined between 1998 and 2000. “There is evidence that television has started to clean up its act,” says the study. “As for movies, the study found, the amount of sex and violence in the most popular theatrical releases during the same time periods remained unchanged.” Nando Times (AP) 03/21/02

• THINGS YOU CAN’T SAY ON THE RADIO (UNLESS YOU WANT TO): “Accusing broadcasters of trolling ‘the depths of decadence,’ Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps challenged radio and television executives in early February to better police themselves regarding indecency and vulgarity on the airwaves and create a voluntary code of conduct, all by Easter Sunday. Normally, broadcasters abhor dead air. But with a week to go before Copps’ suggested deadline, their silence has been deafening.” Los Angeles Times 03/22/02

DISSING YOUR WRITERS: Screenwriters have a gripe about how they’re credited in the movies. Writing a movie is much more than writing snappy dialogue. Story ideas, character development, rewrites…in other words, years of work. And then along comes a director and when the movie gets to the screen it carries the tag “a movie by…” If you’re the writer, you’ve just been insulted. Slate 03/21/02

Thursday March 21

DIRTY TRICKS: This has been the ugliest Oscar campaign ever. “That new breed of film executive, the ‘Oscar consultant’, has introduced the sort of dirty tricks and whispering campaigns once restricted to the sleazy world of politics. This is nothing to do with art; this is business. The Oscar consultant is more than a spinner, he is a strategist who works out how to maximise the chances of a film and direct a campaign of flattery, propaganda and vilification to that end.” The Times (UK) 03/21/02

• A BEAUTIFUL MESS: The supposed smear campaign against the Oscar-nominated film A Beautiful Mind is not really about ‘revelations’ concerning the behavior of the main character. It’s about Hollywood choosing to bend the facts of true stories for narrative purposes. “The decision to change a true story — to delete material that may confuse or disturb viewers, to telescope chronology, to insert composite or entirely fictional characters into historical events — is as much an artistic (and therefore an ethical) choice as the casting of a certain actor or the selection of a camera angle. And such choices are the basis of critical judgment.” The New York Times 03/21/02

THE BRITNEY MUSICAL? With the critical and popular success of Moulin Rouge, many Broadway fans are predicting a renaissance of the movie musical. But even if the supposition turns out to be true, there may be a catch. “Moulin Rouge has nothing to do with the Broadway genre. If it becomes a model for Hollywood studios, as some industry insiders predict it will, the movie musical of the future will draw more heavily from MTV than from “My Fair Lady.” The Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 03/21/02

RATINGS THAT DON’T MEAN ANYTHING: Australian TV networks scrutinize every bit of minutiae of the ratings reports trying to find even the slightest advantage over rivals. But statistically… well, if you apply a standard statistical margin of error, the ratings are useless.  “Applying the error margin to the last full week of ratings available for Sydney (week 10), every show in the top 10 could be potentially moved to a different position, although they couldn’t be simply jumbled at will. Unless the two networks are split by at least 5 per cent, which they almost never are, the figures are statistically irrelevant. They’re just shadow boxing.” Sydney Morning Herald 03/21/02

Tuesday March 19

ELDER-HOSTILE: Older British TV viewers believe they’re ignored by programmers. “Around 70% of those questioned thought that the views of the over-65s were ignored by programme-makers. The figure was even higher for the over-75s, while half of those over 55s thought their age group was not portrayed realistically in news and factual programmes.” BBC 03/18/02 

MUCKING UP VENICE: Five months before it starts, the Venice Film Festival is in disarray. “By tradition the Venice Biennale is an extravaganza where up-and-coming artists carve international reputations, but the Italian prime minister hoped this one would also give his government an opportunity to showcase administrative skills and political savvy. Instead the government finds itself accused of incompetence, hypocrisy and a heavy-handed attempt to promote a rightwing agenda.” The Guardian (UK) 03/18/02

Monday March 18

TRYING TO TAKE DOWN PUBLIC BROADCASTING: Is Canada’s CBC-TV “irrelevant, unwatched and unloved? Do Canadians really not watch CBC-TV? Would they not miss it if it were sold? Is it a bureaucratic fat cat unanswerable to anybody?” That’s what Canada’s largest commercial media conglomerate believes. And – here’s a surprise – the company believes CBC ought to be privatized and relieved of its public funding. But their case looks to be based on a series of unsupported myths. Toronto Star 03/17/02  

ENTERTAINMENT BOOM: “Revenues in India’s entertainment industry rose 30% in 2001, seven times faster than the economy as a whole, and are expected to double over the next five years.” BBC 03/18/02

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: The Academy Awards have a new home – one especially designed for them. But with 3,100 seats it’s much smaller than Oscar’s old home, which had 5,600. That leaves a lot of Hollywood bigshots without seats. Think they’re happy about it? The New York Times 03/18/02 

SMEAR TACTICS: A nasty campaign smearing the character of John Nash, the subject of the Oscar-nominated film A Beautiful Mind is meant to dim the movie’s chances of winning. “The whisper campaigns, which reach a peak during Oscar balloting, are fueled, the film’s supporters say, by the Internet, by a fascination with tabloid-type scandals and by the rise of private Oscar strategists hired by the studios. But even in that context, the campaign against A Beautiful Mind has struck many in Hollywood as particularly brutal.” The New York Times 03/16/02 

GUERRILLA CINEMA: At the appointed hour, a car pulls up, the driver gets out, sets up his equipment, and “guerrilla drive-in” is up and running. In Los Angeles, a filmmaker projects his movies on the sides of buildings, broadcasting the sound on a local pirate radio frequency. “The director began projecting a two-hour cut of his three-hour movie onto the sides of buildings from Santa Monica to the Valley last summer. Sometimes he gets the owner’s permission; sometimes he doesn’t, a dicey prospect given tonight’s locale: behind the parking lot of the LAPD’s Hollywood station.” LA Weekly 03/14/02

Sunday March 17

THE OSCAR’S NICE, BUT… So there are three African-Americans nominated for Oscars this year. A breakthrough, right? Not at all. “There are a lot of people, mostly outside of Hollywood, making a big deal out of whether this year’s Oscar race is truly a turning point for blacks or just a blip on the fluke meter. Do nominations mean long-term gains for black artists, or come the Monday after the Sunday of the awards show, will talented brothers and sisters with Yale acting school degrees still be lining up for bit parts in keepers like How High? Sure, some actors got a nod, but where are the nominations for black directors, sound recorders and craft servicemen?” Los Angeles Times 03/17/02

• TOKEN EFFORT OR A TURNING TIDE? Long criticized for its lack of minority hiring, Hollywood is holding auditions. “While hoping for the break all actors long for, the performers at the minority showcases have become part of a larger game this spring—recruits in the primary networks’ first major quest for minority talent, timed to coincide with the frenzied casting season for series prototypes, or pilots. The showcases were born out of a controversy, making them significant not only to the minority actors who took the stage, but to the entire television industry. Some industry executives maintain that while they would like more minorities on comedies and dramas, the talent pool is not large enough.” Los Angeles Times 03/17/02

ET – THAT WAY SCARY ALIEN: Australia’s film rating board has upheld a decision to reclassify the rerelease of ET as “PG”. When it first played 20 years ago, ET had a “G” rating. ”Although the resolution of the film is positive, the children face difficult and complex situations without support. From a child’s perspective, many of these situations are menacing.” The Age (Melbourne) 03/17/02

Friday March 15

SCREEN SMOKES: A report details tobacco companies’ attempts to promote their products in movies. “In the 1970s and ’80s – Phillip Morris alone is credited with 191 placements in films including Grease, Die Hard, Field of Dreams and The Muppet Movie.” From a Phillip Morris marketing plan: “It is reasonable to assume that films and personalities have more influence on consumers than a static poster. … If branded cigarette advertising is to take full advantage of these images, it has to do more than simply achieve package recognition – it has to feed off and exploit the image source.” Hartford Courant 03/15/02

GENERALIST IN A WORLD OF SPECIALISTS: Canada’s CBC is a major cultural force in the country. But its audiences haven’t grown for years. Why? Maybe because the broadcaster has to be a little bit of everything, while cable has fractured audiences with numerous specialty channels. “Our experience at the CBC has confirmed that, given the opportunity, large numbers of Canadians will turn to high-quality, original Canadian programming. Our experience also shows that Canadians will not accept cheap alternatives simply because they are Canadian.” Toronto Star 03/15/02

X-RATED: In Britain, The Exorcist has finally passed the censor for video. But Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) is still banned. This is the record of the retiring president of the censor board. “His four-and-a-half-year stint as Britain’s chief film classifier certainly saw the board gain a more permissive reputation.” The Guardian (UK) 03/15/02 

FAILURE TO PROTECT: Movie and music producers are trying to copy-protect their work. But “many critics are convinced that copy-protection technologies are doomed to failure. No system is perfectly secure, and anything that works too well is bound to annoy consumers. Veterans of the consumer industry recall the late 1980s, when many software manufacturers abandoned various copy-protection schemes as bad for business. That cycle, they argue, is set to repeat itself.” Salon 03/13/02

WHAT’S AN OSCAR WORTH? Well, it’s priceless, of course, a big boost to a career. But everyone appearing on the Oscar TV broadcast – presenters and performers alike – will go home with a goody bag worth £14,000 of presents and vouchers. “The bag will contain a £1,000 watch, and a £280 handbag from American designer CJ & Me.” BBC 03/15/02 

Thursday March 14

SHARE OF THE PROFITS: American actors have long been able to sign deals with movie studios for a share of profits. Now British actors can make the same deal with UK filmmakers, ending a six-month dispute that threatened to shut down filming. The Guardian (UK) 03/13/02

Wednesday March 13

UK STRIKE AVERTED: “A strike by British film and TV actors has been called off after a new deal for performers was agreed between actors union Equity and producers’ organisation Pact. The two-year agreement means performers will for the first time receive either a share of the profits of a film or a share of the proceeds from sales of films to television and for video and DVD sales and rentals.” BBC 03/12/02

DIGITAL RADIO DEBUTS: The BBC launched its new digital radio service this week. But there were probably only a few hundred listeners to listen in. Sales of digital radios, required to pick up the broadcast, have been slow in the UK because of their high cost. The Guardian (UK) 03/13/02

“TERRIFIC!” SENSATIONAL!” “I LOVED IT!”: Last year Sony made up a critic and newspaper to blurb glowing reviews of its movies. Now the company is paying the state of Connecticut “$326,000 for using fake reviews attributed to a local newspaper in promoting its films. Sony also has agreed to stop fabricating movie reviews, and to stop using ads in which Sony employees pose as moviegoers praising films they have just seen.” Nando Times (AP) 03/12/02

RADIO JUST ISN’T FOR MUSIC FANS: Blame it on a vast corporate conspiracy, a bad local program director, or anything you want, but radio’s small playlists and near-total unwillingness to play anything not backed up with reams of audience research and paid for by the big labels is unlikely to change anytime soon. So why do stations do it this way? Well, because most listeners seem to want nothing more than their favorite songs repeated over and over, and have no taste for experimentation. And the folks who run the stations admit that, if you’re a true music fan, you’re pretty much out of luck. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/13/02

Tuesday March 12

PAID TO SMOKE: “Tobacco companies, hoping that smoking scenes in Hollywood movies would increase sales, worked diligently through the 1980’s and early 90’s to get as much screen time for their brands as possible, a British medical report says, and at least one company went so far as to provide free cigarettes to actors and directors who might therefore be more inclined to light up when the cameras rolled.” The New York Times 03/12/02

• PAID NOT TO RUN ADS? Hollywood trade publications have refused to run ads for a group mounting a campaign against the portrayal of smoking in the movies. “At a time when smoking is banned in most public places, tobacco use is everywhere in movies. You can find stars smoking in three of the five films nominated for best picture.” Toronto Star 03/12/02

EMBRACE THE MACHINE: When VCR’s hit the market a few decades ago, movie studios went into a panic, calling them the “Boston Strangler” of the film business. Now they’re making the same noises about digital copying machines. But just as videotapes became the movie industry’s biggest profit center, might the same not also happen with new technologies? “New technology has a funny way of appearing scary at first glance, but it often opens the door for unforeseen business opportunities.” Los Angeles Times 03/12/02

A RECORD CURL: The hottest movie in Canada this week? It’s Men with Brooms, a film about curling. “Launched on 207 screens across the country, with a promotion budget in excess of $1-million, the Robert Lantos-produced film placed third nationally and topped Johnny Mnemonic (1995), the previous English-language Canadian winner for opening-weekend grosses.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/12/02

Monday March 11

BOLLYWOOD VS HOLLYWOOD: “As East and West eye continue this cultural flirtation, there’s money to be made on both sides. Bollywood’s film-makers have developed a shrewd eye for their market overseas, shaping films to appeal to non-resident Indians in the West. Meanwhile, Hollywood is manoeuvring its tanks on to Bollywood’s front lawn, launching films such as Jurassic Park, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings in India. Dubbed into Hindi, they have been big hits, and movies such as these accounted for almost five per cent of box-office receipts last year, a small but ominous figure.” The Telegraph (UK) 03/11/02

MORE MOVIE AWARDS: Another set of awards said to presage sentiment in Oscar voting. “Russell Crowe was named best actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday for his portrayal of delusional math genius John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, a win that could boost his chances to win back-to-back Academy Awards. Halle Berry won for best actress as the widow of an executed death row inmate who becomes involved with one of her husband’s guards in Monster’s Ball.” Nando Times (AP) 03/11/02

ART OF PROGRAMMING: How do radio programmers decide what music gets on the air? “How the man behind the curtain arrives at what we hear on the radio is somewhere between an art and a science. Although some people like to blame a big corporate conspiracy for the state of radio, much of what we hear is determined by a jury of our peers.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 03/10/02

Sunday March 10

SAG REELECTS GILBERT: The Screen Actors Guild has reelected Melissa Gilbert president in a special election. “Gilbert captured 21,351 of the vote to Valerie Harper’s 12,613 in a record turnout for a highly publicized race. The election has been one of the nastiest battles in the history of Hollywood unions, marked by accusations and name calling involving some of the industry’s best-known actors.” Los Angeles Times 03/08/02

• WHAT NEXT? “Despite an aggressive campaign, Harper, 61, was unable to convince members that her opponent allegedly was too cozy with agents, studios and others Hollywood unions at the expense of SAG. Gilbert’s margin of victory far exceeded what it was in November, when she pulled in 45.3 percent of the vote compared to Harper’s 39.4 percent.” Los Angeles Times 03/10/02

TV FOR ADULTS: The BBC’s launching of a new arts channel has been controversial – who needs an “arts ghetto?” But “halfway through its first week, BBC4 looks like the best thing that has happened to television for a long time. It gives the novel impression of being a channel produced by adults for adults. True, it sometimes resembles radio with a camera in the room, but that is more daring than the brand of television in which movement and noise are valued above intelligence. If you don’t employ bells and whistles, witlessness is not an option.” The Scotsman 03/09/02

Friday March 8

LEAVING FRANCE UNPROTECTED: Vivendi Universal chief Jean-Marie Messier is a major media player in France (as well as the US). So when he recently predicted the demise of “an intricate system of state subsidies that have protected the French movie industry for years against les grosses majors américaines” his countrymen were outraged. “France’s cultural elite view the subsidies program as a kind of national treasure.” New York Observer 03/06/02

SAG SOAP DRAGS ON: The controversy over last year’s Screen Actors’ Guild elections continues to rage, with stars on both sides squealing over who actually won the election for head of SAG, and whether a re-vote is necessary. The pointless arguing was bad enough, but then members “began to get inundated with e-rhetoric from those directly involved, those tangentially involved, and those who maybe wanted to get some publicity because they’re not on television anymore.” Backstage 03/07/02

A RETURN TO MOVIE MUSICALS? The success of Moulin Rouge seems to be leading the way to a predictable revival of the popularity of the movie musical. Studios are looking for attractive ways to package the new round of musicals, including using actors not known for their singing (as in Rouge) and debating whether revivals of classics like Chicago or development of new, modern musicals is the best way to go. USA Today 03/08/02

Thursday March 7

RECORD YEAR FOR MOVIES: Hollywood had a record year at the box office in 2001. “Films including Harry Potter, Shrek and Lord of the Rings helped the box office hit a record high of $8.41 billion, well above 2000’s $7.7 billion. The report by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents Hollywood’s major movie studios, shows that films are costing less to produce.” BBC 03/06/02

A KINDER GENTLER RUSSIAN TV: The three national TV channels in Russia run a lot of violent programs during the afternoon and evening hours. In fact, they routinely ignore the children’s programming quotas required by their license. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has two teen-age daughters, doesn’t like it. He urged the Russian media to make better children’s programs a priority. To emphasize his concern, he ordered the Press Ministry to start monitoring those quotas. The Moscow Times (AP) 02/06/02

Wednesday March 6

A MORE HARD-CORE ET? Australian film censors have given a tougher rating for the upcoming reissue of the movie ET than it got 20 years ago – the movie got a “G” rating then; now it gets a “PG” tag. “In reflecting contemporary community standards across all classifiable elements of the film, the supernatural themes and language could not currently be accommodated at the G level of classification. It is understandable that attitudes shift over a 20-year period. This results in some films receiving different classifications when classified now.” The Age (Melbourne) 03/06/02

TURKEY BANS FILM IT FUNDED: The Turkish Culture Ministry helped fund a movie it hoped would compete for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. But now the government has banned the movie in Turkey “on the grounds that it highlights Kurdish nationalism and portrays the Turkish police in a poor light.” The Guardian (UK) 03/05/02

Tuesday March 5

A FIRST – DVDs SURPASS VHS: For the first time since the DVD debuted nearly five years ago, DVD sales and rentals have outdone the more traditional videocassette format. Couple that with the fact that more than 26 million DVD players are in homes nationwide, and it’s no wonder that the figures are so staggering. In 2001, DVDs generated more than $4.6 billion in sales compared to just $3.8 billion for VHS.” Nando Times (Scripps Howard) 03/04/02

CONGRESS COOL TO ANTI-COPY LAW: Members of the US Congess appear to be cool to the idea of legislating copy protection into CD and DVD technology. Hollywood studios and recording companies looking for help in combatting digital piracy want to mandate the protections to prevent illegal copying. Wired 03/04/02

Monday March 4

THE ACTORS WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT: The biggest battle in Hollywood this winter isn’t over the Oscars. It’s about who should be president of the Screen Actors Guild. “The campaign for the two-year term as guild president is a rerun of a race last fall in which Melissa Gilbert was declared the winner. She has been serving in the job since then, but the guild’s election committee nullified the results after some members complained of voting irregularities, prompting a second election and an investigation by the Labor Department that is continuing.” Valerie Harper is the challenger, and with ballots to be counted Friday, the race is too close to call. The New York Times 03/04/02

UNPREDICTABLE: “Predicting the Oscars used to be a relatively dependable business. The components of a potential Oscar-winner could be tallied up with almost scientific precision. Positive themes, worthy true-life tales of injustice and courage, ‘intelligent’ spectacle, crippling conditions overcome, terminal diseases not overcome, noble failures, heroic victories, big weepy farewells. But ever since Titanic swept the board in 1998, the academy’s voting patterns have become increasingly eccentric and youthful. The recent winners are not particularly undeserving, just out of sync with previous Oscar voting patterns.” The Times (UK) 03/04/02

IS TRADITIONAL ANIMATION DEAD? “On the surface, traditional animation is in trouble: witness the continuing layoffs at Disney, cradle of this 20th century art form. Rival studios Warners and Fox are still smarting from their humiliating attempts to emulate Disney’s 1994 triumph with The Lion King by setting up their own animation studios.” Steve Jobs says traditional drawing is over – computers do it better. Calgary Herald 03/03/02

THUMBS DOWN ON CONFLICTS OF INTEREST? Film critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are on a cruise – a cruise sponsored by Disney, which owns their show. Fans of the show can pay to go on the cruise and meet the critics. But “the cruise raises some questions about whether journalists and critics can navigate the tricky waters of cross-promotion and still avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Los Angeles Times 03/03/02 

MOVIE TIME IN NEW YORK: New York is planning to build a $375 million movie studio complex. “The 15-story Studio City will offer more than an acre of Hollywood-style backlot on the ninth floor, with a view of the New York skyline and the Hudson River. Planned on a West Side block between 10th and 11th avenues and 44th and 45th streets, the tower will provide production studios, equipment and offices to film, television and advertising companies.” Backstage (AP) 03/02/02

Sunday March 3

WHAT’S WRONG WITH AN ALL-ARTS CHANNEL? This weekend the BBC launches BBC4, its new arts channel. But not all arts lovers are cheering. “BBC4, for all its cultural riches, is not a creative channel in the way that BBC1 and BBC2 were at their best. Its philosophy is alien to the creative risk that produces great television. Rather, it stripmines other art forms and creates little that is new.” The Guardian (UK) 03/02/02 

ABC TO KILL NIGHTLINE? Is ABC planning to buy David Letterman to replace the network’s Nightline? “ABC News staffers, furious that network brass were working to replace their most prestigious program, launched an attack to try to save the show, led by news division President David Westin.” Washington Post 03/02/02

A REAL LOOK AT OSCAR? “Two women’s groups, the Guerilla Girls and Alice Locas, have mounted a giant billboard in the heart of Hollywood depicting an ‘anatomically correct oscar’ in the ungainly shape of a pudgy, middle-aged man. ‘We decided it was time for a little realism in Hollywood,” they said in an statement yesterday. So we redesigned the old boy so he more closely resembles the white males who take him home each year’.” Sydney Morning Herald (AFP) 03/03/02 

Friday March 1

OUR LIVES IN MOVIES: Film biographies rule the screen these days. But “the biopic is more than a film ‘based on a true story’ or a movie about historical events. In a secular society, biopics can be the closest we get to lives of the saints – or the sinners. They can be cautionary tales, inspirational stories, lenses through which we view the past – cheery hagiographies or bitter denunciations.” The Age (Melbourne) 03/01/02

ILLUSIONS OF QUALITY: Is Miramax “the world’s most annoying” film company? “Movies are all about illusion, and the greatest illusion of them all is the illusion of quality. This is Miramax’s stock-in-trade. It takes stories that seem a bit classy – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Shakespeare in Love, Chocolat – and turns them into cultureless mush, affected little movies which are grand in their own way, and which win Oscars, but which are actually meritless escapades fine-tuned to dupe the public.” The Telegraph (UK) 03/01/02

Thursday February 28

HANDS OFF OUR BUSINESS! With the US Congress threatening to write legislation requiring copy protection technology in new digital devices, tech companies pledge to come up with a standard of their own. The movie industry is worried that new devices will allow consumers to rip off their products. Wired 02/27/02

Wednesday February 27

NPR SCALING BACK ON CULTURE? “National Public Radio has begun an extensive review of its musical programming, and is considering overhauling or eliminating some of its venerable jazz and classical offerings. A strategy paper written by NPR’s top programming executive says some of the network’s live performance and recorded music shows ‘may disappear,’ although officials stress that nothing is final.” Washington Post 02/27/02

PROBLEM SOLVED? For the first time in 30 years, three African-American actors have been nominated for top acting Oscars. “But instead of drawing cheers from those who have been fighting for greater black representation at all levels of the entertainment industry, the situation is raising concerns that many people will conclude that the problem has been solved.” It hasn’t been. The New York Times 02/27/02

SYNERGY OR MONOPOLY? When Congress changed the rules of the broadcast industry back in the mid-90s, supporters claimed the new system would spur greater competition and better content for consumers. The exact opposite has been the case, as “old-fashioned, bare-knuckled competition grudgingly gives way to attempted “synergy,” as companies that bring us news, information and banal sitcoms keep getting bigger and more powerful, while simultaneously trying to use their various assets to prop up and support each other.” Los Angeles Times 02/27/02

Tuesday February 26

HOLLYWOOD UNDER ATTACK: Motion Picture Association president Jack Valenti has discovered who’s behind all those nasty accusations about Hollywood. It’s “a small community of professors.” Those blackguards, says Jack, have charged that “producers deliberately are holding back the exhibition of movies on the Net … and that copyright owners are stifling innovation in the digital world.” Nothing, he says, could be further from the truth. Washington Post 02/25/02

SUCCESFUL IN HOLLYWOOD, BUT BORED: Lasse Hallström is a hot director in Hollywood right now: Chocolat, The Shipping News. But he’s ready to go home to Sweden, so he can make films that are, well, less American. “”I think Americans are more likely to be satisfied by experiencing the expected,” he says. “They feel safer and have a better time. Europeans are more open to being genuinely surprised. I appreciate surprises and complexity.” The Telegraph (UK) 02/26/02

Monday February 25

RINGS WINS BAFTAS: Lord of the Rings wins big in the British Bafta awards. “The 4,500 members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave it four awards, for best film, best director (Peter Jackson), best visual effects and best make-up/hair.” The Telegraph (UK) 02/25/02 

AUSTRALIA LURES FILMMAKERS: Australia is proud of its movie industry and hopes to attract more Hollywood productions. So the government has introduced a bill to give movie producers shooting in Australia a 12.5 percent tax rebate, which could save producers millions of dollars. Backers of the idea claim that “when coupled with Australia’s weak currency, state government incentives and cheap labour costs, Australia becomes one of the most viable places in the world to shoot a movie.” The Age (Melbourne) 02/25/02 

Sunday February 24

BBC4 – ARTS HAVEN OR CLEVER DODGE? For years now, Brits have complained that the BBC has been dumbing down the level of its arts programming, and bemoaning the recent lack of much in the way of live concerts or truly informative arts documentaries. The public broadcaster’s response has been to launch BBC4, a cable channel supposedly dedicated to the arts. But critics are howling still, saying that the arts should not be relegated to “niche” programming, but distributed throughout the BBC schedule as they once were. Sunday Times of London 02/24/02

CROSSING THE COLOR LINE: “The Academy Awards have long been known as a lily-white affair, with only six black actors ever winning an Oscar and 36 snagging nominations. So the Feb. 12 Oscar nominations of Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry have drawn the attention of many academy watchers. After all, this was the first time in the 73-year history of the Academy Awards that two African-Americans were nominated in the lead actor category, and the first time since 1973 that three black lead performers received nods.” Dallas Morning News 02/23/02

GRIEF AS A VOYEURISTIC EXPERIENCE: The trouble with portraying real mourning in a film is that most people do not express their grief by wailing uncontrollably for five minutes and then moving on with the plot of their lives, as movie scripts would tend to require. So historically, much of character grief in the movies has tended to occur off-screen. But a new batch of critically acclaimed films features human grief so prominently as to almost make it a character in itself. The New York Times 02/24/02

Friday February 22

A MATTER OF FREEDOM OF THE PRESS? It’s possible that some of the last remaining regulations on ownership of electronic broadcast media might go away. “Regulations still standing include: prohibiting the ownership of a TV station and a newspaper in the same community; limiting a company to owning not more than 35 percent of all TV stations in the United States; and limiting a single company to providing cable TV services to no more than 30 percent of the US population.” The American TV world may be about to change in a big way. For the better? The Nation 02/21/02

TALK OF THE NATION OR MUSIC OF THE PEOPLE? When the September 11 attacks knocked classical radio station WNYC-FM off the air, and threw the national media into a frenzy of information gathering, the station began simulcasting its AM sister station, which carries a public radio news/talk format. “It’s been five months now, with no move back to music. But listeners didn’t understand what was happening until 4 February 2002, when the astute weekly New York Observer detailed the unhappiness and off-air conflicts within the station… exploding with the news that the station was seriously considering dropping classical music almost completely.” Andante 02/22/02

• TAKING THE PUBLIC OUT OF THE EQUATION? Saint Paul, Minnesota seems like an unlikely place for the next nationally dominant, media behemoth to emerge. But according to some critics, in its ambitions, Minnesota Public Radio is the Microsoft of public broadcasting, combining for-profit enterprise with a non-profit patina. Speaking of which, those pledge drives conducted with such breathless earnestness? Oh, MPR still has them, but does it really need them? City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 02/20/02

YEAH, BUT NBC HAS KATIE COURIC! As Americans grumble about the lack of live coverage of the Olympics on NBC’s three available networks, the boring old BBC is blowing the doors off every other nation’s television coverage of the games. “Press the red interactive button and the BBC serves up three video feeds of live events to choose from, all accessed via the same screen. Scroll down to the action you want, and press the button for the full-screen version, or scroll back up and watch all three events at once.” Wired 02/22/02

LUCILLE LUND, 89: “Lucille Lund, an actress who appeared in dozens of films in the 1930’s with stars like the Three Stooges, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, died at her home here last Friday. She was 89. The actress, who co-starred in more than 30 films, is perhaps best known for playing the dual roles of Karloff’s wife and stepdaughter in The Black Cat.” The New York Times 02/22/02

Thursday February 21

A MAJOR TV RESTRUCTURING? Their audiences may be shrinking, but TV networks are still money machines. And it’s only going to get better if a federal appeals court decision this week is allowed to stand. The ruling, which would remove restrictions on networks owning local stations, could result in a buying spree that will see big conglomerates buy up and consolidate local stations around America. This is a good thing for whom? The New York Times 02/21/02

I WANT MY HDTV: “High-definition television, the long-awaited revolution that promised to dazzle our senses and transform the TV medium, is finally here. The fight over a uniform standard, which kept the technology on hold for a decade, is settled. Prices of high-def TV sets are plunging. All the commercial networks, plus HBO, Showtime, and PBS, now broadcast at least some of their programs in high-definition. You can even watch the Winter Olympics in HD. So, why does everyone seem to be keeping its arrival such a secret?” Obstacles. We got plenty of obstacles. Slate 02/21/02

DEFINITION PLEASE: What qualifies to be called a Hollywood movie these days? Some of the biggest studios are owned by non-Americans, stars are as likely to live in New Jersey or Montana or New York as LA, and few films are shot in California anymore… The Age (Melbourne) 02/21/02

THE THREE-FIGURE MOVIE: How much does it cost to make a movie? $545. That’s what a Vancouver filmmaker spent on his 60-minute film. – and the movie’s becoming a cult hit; so far it has played in 13 film festivals worldwide. Most of Bell’s $545 production budget was spent on shooting and editing equipment: $100 in Hi-8 videotapes, $80 in digital tapes, $20 in CDs, $45 on a microphone and the rest on renting the machine that would transfer analog video to mini-DV.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/21/02

MOVIES ON YOUR HARD DRIVE: MGM has decided to offer movies for downloading directly to consumers’ computer hard drives. “Only two films will be available for now – the 2001 comedy What’s the Worst That Could Happen and the four-year-old swashbuckler, The Man in the Iron Mask, starring Leonardo diCaprio. MGM’s willingness to risk software piracy is seen as an indication of its wish to pioneer direct-to consumer systems for Hollywood films.” BBC 02/21/02

Wednesday February 20

SHADY DEALS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY? NO!!“The Film Council, the UK’s grant-awarding body for film-makers, has been accused of ‘cronyism’ by the Conservative [Party]. The agency has been criticised for handing out lottery grants worth £23m to companies in which six of its directors have an interest.” BBC 02/20/02

BEYOND DVD: Major technology companies have unveiled what they expect will be the successor to the DVD disc format. “The new format, the Blu-ray Disc, will store more than 13 hours of film, compared with the current limit of 133 minutes. It is expected to come into its own as more viewers become able to record TV shows on DVD machines.” BBC 02/20/02

HARRY IS NO. 2: Harry Potter has passed Star Wars on the list of all-time biggest-grossing movies.  It has earned more than $926 million at cinemas around the world – but that is still a long way off the number one film, Titanic, which took more than $1.8 billion. BBC 02/20/02

Tuesday February 19

BANNING ADS FOR KIDS: The European Union may consider banning commercials from children’s television. “Powerful voices, citing statistical evidence, are building a case asserting that advertisements between cartoons and other shows for young people are behind increasing levels of child obesity.” New Zealand Herald 02/19/02

FAN INVOLVEMENT: Movie publicity at Hollywood studios is a highly developed science – the product of much market research and considerable effort. The first rule – never give up control of any aspect of your publicity campaign. But times are changing in movie marketing.” Studios are learning that involving fans in the creation and dissemination of marketing can pay off big. Los Angeles Tribune 02/19/02 

MAYBE SMART IS SEXY AFTER ALL: Advanced physics and mathematics, which are hard enough to explain in extensive graduate seminars, are being trotted out as the stuff of popular entertainment. There was Good Will Hunting, and now A Beautiful Mind, along with several other less-touted movies. On Broadway, Proof and Copenhagen, for example. What is going on here? Hartford Courant 02/17/02

Monday February 18

BERLINALE WINNERS: The Berlin Film Festival ended this weekend with the British film Bloody Sunday, about the troubles in Northern Ireland, sharing top honors with the Japanese film Spirited Away.‘ Nando Times (AP) 02/17/02

THE OSCAR EFFECT: Box office for movies nominated for Academy Awards last week soared over the weekend – In the Bedroom doubled its take, while most of the others were up at least 35 percent. New York Post 02/18/02

WE’LL HAVE TO GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT: “It may be a dim memory to some, but a little more than three months ago about two dozen Hollywood leaders stood shoulder to shoulder with President Bush’s senior adviser, Karl Rove, and vowed to work together to help fight the war on terror. Cameras whirred. Lenses clicked. Headlines were made. Whatever happened to that effort? Not terribly much, it seems.” Washington Post 02/18/02

Friday February 15

THE LITERARY MOVIE: All of a sudden a wave of British books is being made into movies. “These films may be thematically diverse, but they occupy a similar niche and cater to a similar demographic. They’re plush adult entertainments; popular yarns that trail literary prestige. Taken as a whole, this wave of Brit-lit cinema spotlights a complex waltz between the author, the book publisher and the film producer. But why is this happening now? And who is calling the tune?” The Guardian (UK) 02/15/02

NEXT UP, MAYBE, PAINTING THE SIT-COM: The BBC is launching its latest digital channel, BBC Four, with television’s first interactive art exhibition, focused on the weather. In Painting the Weather, a series of documentaries will examine the collection in the television exhibition, looking at the art in terms of different weather types. Featured works include Turner’s The Snowstorm, Monet’s Haystacks and Howard Hodgkin’s The Storm. BBC 02/14/02

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE: “Despite the cynicism and materialism of the post-modern era, despite irony as a lifestyle choice, and despite the prevalence of pseudo-science that argues for the utter selfishness of human beings, audiences in cultures all over the world recognize innocence when they needed it most.” And these days, we seem to want it in our movies. A slew of recent hits, from the French import Amelie to Hollywood’s blockbuster Lord of the Rings focus on the triumph of innocence, and more variations on the theme are sure to follow. The Christian Science Monitor 02/15/02

SOMETIMES IT’S HARD TO GET ATTENTION: It looked for a while as if no one was going to get indignant about posters for the new Costa-Gavras film. But now the Vatican says the image, a cross blending with a swastika, is unacceptable. The film, Amen, is about an SS officer who tried to get Church leaders to condemn the Holocaust. Dallas Morning News (AP) 02/14/02

L.A. PRIORITIES VS. NYC SENSIBILITIES: “Recently, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which is moving its Manhattan operations to a former factory in Queens while the museum undergoes a three-year, $650-million renovation, announced that it is moving its renowned film stills archive, which includes more than 4 million stills, many of them found nowhere else, to Hamlin, Pennsylvania.” This being the type of thing that passes for great art in Los Angeles, a number of movie types have their knickers in a bunch. Los Angeles Times 02/15/02

Thursday February 14

SAG FIGHTING: The disputed election for leadership of the Screen Actors Guild has got nastier, with president Melissa Gilbert and contender Valerie Harper hurling accusations at one another. “Words such as ‘slug’, ‘hatchet man’ and accusations of hijacking the election are being hurled by supporters.” San Francisco Chronicle 02/14/02

WHAT’S QUALITY WITHOUT THE STARS? This year’s Berlin Film Festival is pretty good. So why is the mood a bit flat? Maybe its because of the lack of celebrity power to heat things up? A little star intensity never hurts. The Times (UK) 02/14/02

THE DOWNSIDE OF BOOK-BUYING FOR THE MOVIES: Movie producers buy the rights to books because they offer a readymade audience that is already familiar with the book. But there’s also a downside: “The lure and the curse of these books lie with their readers. It’s the struggle going on right now to get filmgoers interested in The Shipping News: the obvious audience, the people who have read E. Annie Proulx’s novel, are the most sceptical. You can tempt them with the Newfoundland scenery and a heavyweight cast but they are wary.” The Observer (UK) 02/10/02

Wednesday February 13

OSCAR’S REAL MEANING: History shows that all five films nominated yesterday for best picture will reap market benefits. Oscar contenders, on average, earn $30 million more in box office revenue.” The New York Times 02/13/02

• OSCAR TRIVIA: Who has more Oscar nominations than any other living person? What’s unusual about the 10 movies nominated for costume design and art direction? What Oscar record are Will Smith and Denzel Washington a part of? Here’s a list of quirky Academy Award factoids related to this year’s nominees. The Age (AFP) 02/13/02

MOVIES ON YOUR PHONE? Three companies are teaming up to provide technology to deliver video on wireless phones. “Apple Computers and Sun Microsystems are to provide the software for the new service, with Ericsson providing the network.” BBC 02/13/02

PROMOTING GERMANY: “Although Germany is the richest movie market after the United States, even in 2001, the German industry’s best year since the mid-1980’s, German films accounted for just 18 percent of the box office here.” That’s why the new director of the Berlin Film Festival decided to use this year’s festival to promote the home product. The New York Times 02/13/02

Tuesday February 12

OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED: Lord of the Rings picks up 13 nominations. A Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge were tied for second place with eight nominations each, including acting nominations for Moulin Rouge‘s Nicole Kidman and A Beautiful Mind’s Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly.” Los Angeles Times (AP) 02/12/02

• COMPLETE LIST OF THE NOMINEES
• BUYING ON TO THE LIST: It was generally a weak year for movies. “In Hollywood, 2001 felt like a long string of disasters and nullities, and so we were left with an Academy Awards race that became a high-priced publicity campaign to remind industry figures that anything good happened last year. Never before have the movie studios spent so much money on those psychological-warfare operations known as Oscar campaigns, never before have they played such dirty tricks to undercut one another and never before have they done such silly things to get the attention of academy members.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/12/02

STUDIOS TRY TO BLOCK PERSONAL PROGRAMMING: TV and movie studios have sued makers of personal digital recorders to block them from adding features. “If a ReplayTV customer can simply type The X-Files or James Bond and have every episode of The X-Files and every James Bond film recorded in perfect digital form and organized, compiled and stored on the hard drive of his or her ReplayTV 4000 device, it will cause substantial harm to the market for prerecorded DVD, videocassette and other copies of those episodes and films,” the lawsuit states. Los Angeles Times 02/12/02

AN INDICTMENT OF IRRELEVANCE? During the fall and an audience turn to all-news channels, America’s PBS television network suffered a 19 percent decline in ratings, more than twice as steep a decline as the major TV networks. “The average primetime household rating for October-December 2001 dropped from 2.1 to 1.79 percent—down 0.4 points, representing a loss of about 350,000 households.” Current 01/28/02

MAKING UP REALITY: A film biography of writer Iris Murdoch makes up some of its scenes. They’re poignant, but not true. For filmmakers, “it is the image, not the reality, that comes first, and dramatic truth, not literal truth, is what matters.” But for book people, especially biographer, such tinkering with reality is an ugly blot on a story and it seriously mars what might have been a good film. New Statesman 02/11/02

Monday February 11

BETTER THAN FILM: A new generation of digital camera sensors promises to revolutionize photography. “There is no longer any need to use film.” The New York Times 02/11/02

Sunday February 10

HANDICAPPING THE OSCARS: “No matter what the critics think, the Oscars mean more to people – inside and outside show biz – than any other entertainment award. The Academy Awards may not recognize everyone’s favorite films and performances, but they at least tend to honor the highest meeting point of critical and popular tastes.” Chicago Tribune 02/10/02

THE NEW BERLINALE: Two years ago, fans of the Berlinale Film Festival seemed to be looking for something new. Now, with new leadership the Berlinale seems to have recovered, and “German cinema, whose weakness affected even the Berlinale, Germany’s most high-profile film festival, seems to be gradually recovering from its crisis. Today, there are so many interesting young filmmakers that talk of the end of German cinema seems premature.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/07/02

• WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL: In the past, it always seemed as though a peculiar gravitational force was preventing the annual film festival from really getting off the ground. The films were no worse than those in Cannes or Venice, and the stars were no fewer in number. Yet an inexplicable gloom always seemed to hang over the competition, a gloom that could not have been due to the February weather alone – but may have had something to do with the Berlinale’s management climate.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/07/02

Friday February 8

SCREENPLAY SCANDAL: The Writers’ Guild has announced its nominations for Screenplay of the Year, and two of the most praised scripts of the last year are not on the list. Why? Well, it seems that the authors of In The Bedroom and Memento weren’t members of the guild at the time the movies were made. Nando Times (UPI) 02/08/02

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH THE BBC: Is the BBC out of touch with its audiences? Greg Dyke, the corporation’s general director, thinks so. So he’s launched a plan to “urgently address the fact that young people and ethnic minorities feel that the BBC is out of touch, and get rid of the image of it concentrating on south east England.” BBC 02/07/02

Thursday February 7

HEADING NORTH: American film workers are increasingly upset about the number of productions leaving the US for Canada. “The U.S. Center for Entertainment Industry Data and Research estimated that, between 1998 and 2000 (the last year for which figures are available), cumulative budgets of features shot in Canada more than doubled to over $1-billion (U.S.). In the same period, feature spending within the United States shrunk by over $500-million to $3.37-billion. The centre also pointed out that in 2000, 37 U.S. movies were shot in Canada, compared with 18 the previous year, and 23 in 1998.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/06/02

THINK OF IT AS TIGHTER EDITING: Many TV stations are using a “time machine” to squeeze in extra commercials. “It works by going through programs frame-by-frame, and when two identical frames appear side-by-side, one is removed. Usually, this can be done enough in a 22-minute program to add 30 seconds of time.” Networks and ad agencies don’t like it. Viewers – so far – don’t seem to notice. Nando Times (AP) 02/06/02

MAYBE ARTHUR ANDERSON SHOULD BE TAKING NOTES: Price Waterhouse is a $20 billion dollar accounting firm. The contract to count the Oscar ballots is a tiny part of their business, but it’s the one that gets them attention. And a reputation: no one has ever demanded a recount; no one has ever pried loose some advance information. The man who counts the ballots says it’s easy. “Here’s what I’ve found. The way you keep a secret: You just don’t tell anybody.” CNN 02/06/02

TIME BEFORE DIGITAL: “There was a time – fast disappearing – when tape was wound, reels of film spooled, and images produced by the physical movement of materials. Etchings were carved in stone, lead and ink scratched on to paper, and silver oxide shifted on photographic plates. Matter was displaced so that ideas and images would place themselves in our minds. As we enter a new millennium, we are in the process of losing our biblical attachment to an entire form of communication: the graven image. From the carved tablets of the Ten Commandments, to walls of stone hieroglyphs, to the boxes of ancient magnetic tapes that Krapp lugs on to his desk, there was a physical cumbersomeness to these archives that related to their human origins. They were expressly handmade. They couldn’t betray their origins. They were touching, because they were made to be touched. Their exchange required a physical transfer.” The Guardian (UK) 02/07/02

Wednesday February 6

WHY AMERICAN TV “STINKS”: American network television is bad and getting worse, says Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the founders of Dreamworks Studios. Speaking at the World Economic Forum last week in New York “Katzenberg blamed the ownership structures of the networks — and their quest for greater profits — for how bad their programming is.” Toronto Star 02/06/02

THE NEW CBC RADIO: In its biggest programming shakeup in 30 years, Canada’s CBC is going to revamp its entire morning Radio One schedule. Instead of delaying programs to play at the same time in time zones across the country, the broadcaster intends to run live between 6 AM and noon. “I’d like us to be more spontaneous. Sometimes we’re too slow to react.” Toronto Star 02/05/02

STUFFING THE BALLOT BOX LEGALLY: Politicians and Oscar-award nominees have something in common: well-established rules about what they can and cannot do to win votes. They also have something else in common: a penchant for loopholes. The New York Times 02/06/02

CYNICAL IS OUT. SINCERE IS IN: “Just as culture in general is leaning toward the heroic, the comforting and the inspirational, so too is Hollywood, throwing its weight behind projects that cultivate familiar, all-American images and stories of bravery and goodness. ‘What we’re buying here is big, uplifting projects. People don’t want quirky, odd, Billy Bob Thornton movies’.” Washington Post 02/06/02

Tuesday February 5

ET TU, PBS? February is “sweeps month” in the U.S., the period when TV ratings companies measure who’s watching what, which has a lot to do with determining ad rates for the next six months. Naturally, the networks respond by airing their most shameless audience draws in February. But public broadcasting is immune, right? Um. Well. PBS’s documentary series Frontline seems to be gearing up for an episode titled “American Porn.” Are the days of public TV operating in a ratings vacuum gone? Boston Herald 02/05/02

BRITNEY BEAT PATRIOTS (ON TV, AT LEAST): What did viewers most want to see on Sunday’s Superbowl TV broadcast? Tivo, the device that enables viewers to do their own instant replay, “used its technology to analyze which football plays or TV ads its subscribers chose to view again or to see in slow motion. TiVo viewers did more instant replays of Super Bowl commercials than of the game itself, and the Pepsi ads featuring Spears were the MVP.” Nando Times (AP) 02/04/02

Monday February 4

THE SECRETIVE CENSOR: Two years ago Australia passed a law to censor internet sites that put up “overly sexually explicit or violent” material. Has the law been a success? Hard to know, since getting regulators to even say what they’ve censored hasn’t been possible…Wired 02/03/02

WHERE THE REAL DRAMA IS: TV soap operas are Britain’s “real National Theatre. Last year, more people discussed who shot Phil Mitchell than who would win the general election. Soaps provide a forum through which we learn about issues such as domestic violence, breast cancer and euthanasia. And, most significantly, British soaps are fundamentally egalitarian, one of the few places on TV where the poor, the fat, the old and the ugly are shown to be important.” New Statesman 02/04/02

THE DIGITAL ACTOR: Computer generated images are becoming so sophisticated and lifelike, some look forward to the day when digital manipulation will replace real-life actors on screen. But a pioneer in digital graphics says the day is a long way off. “I tell actors not to be frightened because nobody knows how to get there, so it’s not going to happen in our lifetime unless there’s a sudden and surprising breakthrough.” Nando Times (UPI) 02/03/02

Sunday February 2

BUYING OSCAR: Movie studios are busting their piggybanks trying to promote their films’ Oscar chances. “Spurred by a wide-open competition for some of the top nominations, the most aggressive studios have mounted campaigns that by some estimates have already cost more than $10 million, easily double what a successful effort totaled only two years ago. A campaign of that magnitude would involve spending more than $1,500 per Oscar voter in the effort to win nominations.” The New York Times 02/03/02

THE POPULAR NEW BBC – DUMBING DOWN FOR RATINGS? For the first time since commercial TV was introduced in Britain (in 1954), the BBC scored more viewers than its commercial competition. Good right? “But just as BBC executives were congratulating themselves, the sniping began. The Beeb, as it is widely known here, was obsessed with ratings, its critics complained. It had not become the world’s most prestigious public broadcaster by kowtowing to the masses. Indeed, to have nudged ahead of ITV in the scramble for audiences was the ultimate proof that it had dumbed down its programming.” The New York Times 02/03/02

• Previously: BBC SURGES: For the first time, the BBC1 TV channel has scored higher ratings for the year than chief competitior ITV1. “Ratings show BBC One with an audience share of 26.8% compared to 26.7% for ITV1.” BBC 01/01/02
• And: BBC RADIO AT RECORD LISTENERSHIP: BBC Radio listenership is up, beating out all commercial radio stations. “The number of people listening to BBC Radio each week has risen by 300,000 since September, taking the total to 32.7 million – a record since new monitoring methods were introduced in 1999.” BBC 02/01/02

SEE CANADIAN: In the last two weeks of 2001, Lord of the Rings took in $40 million at the box office in Canada. By comparison, the top grossing Canadian-made movie for all of 2001 sold about $3 million worth of tickets. Canada makes some good feature films – so why won’t the multiplexes show them and why won’t audiences demand them? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/02/02