Over-elaborate plans for the opening of the Cannes Film Festival mar the event for those actually trying to see the movies. – Dallas Morning News 05/11/00
Author: Douglas McLennan
WHAT BECOMES A CULT (CLASSIC)?
It’s all too easy to proclaim a movie an instant “classic.” But real cult status doesn’t become just any “Rocky Horror” wannabe. It takes seasoning and … – Daily Mail and Guardian (South Africa) 05/11/00
HOLY ****
The chairperson of India’s film censor board is under fire for some recent cuts of “American Beauty.” “I was adamant about all the expletives being deleted. I won’t allow filthy language in any film.” – Times of India 05/11/00
GOOD FAITH GESTURE
After losing its copyright case over music downloading last month, MP3.com says it will remove major-label music from its site. The company is said to be negotiating with recording companies over a million-dollar settlement. – Boston Globe 05/11/00
RADIO FROM YOUR WORKSTATION
About 100 new radio stations go online each month, streaming their programs directly onto the internet and into people’s computers. There are about 3,500 stations now online, but everyone in the radio industry is watching the phenomenon anxiously, trying to sort out what it means for traditional broadcasting. – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 05/11/00
ANOTHER TIME AROUND
Is it okay that writers cannibalize themselves, reworking or re-releasing a book they’ve previously sent out into the world but dressing it up to look like something new? – New York Times
BAD (BU HAO) BOOK
Zhou Weihui’s book “Shanghai Baby” has sold perhaps 100,000 copies in China, making it something of a hit. But Zhou’s publisher has now had the page proofs and all of the books in stock destroyed, saying that the novel is “in poor taste and that Ms. Zhou, 27, was too outlandish.” State media are denouncing Zhou as “decadent, debauched and a slave of foreign culture” and thousands of copies of the book are being destroyed even while the book seems to have found an audience. – New York Times
FIRST RING
A big $5.5 million funding boost from the federal government has enabled Adelaide’s South Australian State Opera company to announce plans for Australia’s first-ever homegrown production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. “We are doing it one-off, the whole thing, so it is a massive undertaking.”- The Age (Melbourne)
CD PRICES —
— will likely begin to fall now that the FTC has banned minimum-pricing laws. Minimum pricing rules were enacted several years ago because “mammoth discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Circuit City were selling CDs at prices lower than those found at music-specialty retail chains such as Music-land and Tower Records.” Independents say doing away with the rules will hurt them. – Variety
BIG BROTHER IS LISTENING
Remember last week when Metallica presented the names of some 300,000 people it says had illegally downloaded the band’s music? Yesterday Napster terminated the accounts of all those on the list. Look for the lawsuits to start flying. – Wired