Category: media

“The digital-transition bill was born amid sniping between Republicans and Democrats, which time and again complicated its implementation. The heads of the two federal agencies charged with managing the transition barely spoke to each other. And in the end, the rifts between Republicans in the Bush administration running the program and the congressional Democrats overseeing it stymied efforts to right the transition as it steered off course.”

The movie industry, famously resilient during the 1930s, is now showing similar signs of prospering in a recession. Across North America, box office returns are holding relatively steady.

“Filmmaker Michael Moore, who says the Wall Street bailout is ‘the biggest swindle in American history,’ is asking bankers to help him make a movie proving it.” So should they? One crisis-management professional says no, advising bankers to “counter potential fallout from Moore’s venture by assembling a rescue program to buy houses going into foreclosure and give them back to their owners.”

“No, you are not hallucinating. The documentary William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet concerns the attempt [by choreographer Margo Sappington] to create a ballet based on Shatner’s 2004 album Has Been[, made with singer Ben Folds].” The movie gets its world premiere this April at the Nashville Film Festival.

“The self-described moderate faction of the Screen Actors Guild’s national board of directors fired national executive director Doug Allen for the second time in less than two weeks Feb. 8, hoping to turn the corner on 18 months of infighting.” The first dismissal was challenged last week in a lawsuit which was itself dismissed. “They fired him a second time to make absolutely certain it would take.”

“What if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences threw an Oscar show and not everyone came . . . early? With last year’s audience for the telecast at a historic low of 32 million, the academy has devised a new strategy for enticing more viewers on Feb. 22: Ask presenters to eschew the pre-show red carpet so people will tune in to see who’s handing out the awards — or at least to get a look at what they’re wearing.”

“There can’t be many new DVD releases of short film anthologies which are unstintingly riveting all the way through. But here’s one. For the past couple of days, I have been glued to the BFI’s incredible collection The Joy of Sex Education, which is a compendium of sex education films from 1917 to 1973. They have a weird similarity to old-fashioned stag films, not merely because of explicit content, but because they are designed to be watched in a semi-clandestine world….”

“Given the state of the global economy, some of the downsizing and budget-slashing that Hollywood is now enduring would have come even without the 100-day walkout. But the realignment of the biz’s investment priorities is coming more swiftly and more comprehensively because of the scrutiny of operations that took place while the scribes were pounding the pavement.”

“Children’s BBC is in crisis, according to a report from the corporation itself this week. A review of the BBC’s kids’ offerings found audience numbers are now at all-time lows – especially for the jewel in its crown Blue Peter, viewers for which are more than 50 per cent down on the average during 2007.”

“If I hadn’t used the locution so recently, I would be certain to call The Reader ‘The Worst Holocaust Film Ever Made.’ … This is a film whose essential metaphorical thrust is to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution. The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar offers stunning proof that Hollywood seems to believe that if it’s a ‘Holocaust film,’ it must be worthy of approbation, end of story.”