Category: media

A spate of feature films is causing controversy in Europe “for choosing to depict terrorism from the terrorists’ point of view,” with detractors accusing the filmmakers of glorifying murder. Says one screenwriter: “We didn’t set out to glorify the character at all, but it seems people still find it very difficult to watch a bastard go about his business.”

Many Indians have been celebrating the success of the Mumbai-set film. But not Amitabh Bachchan: “if SM projects India as [a] third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations.”

The five nominees for the Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award will be chosen from a list of nine released this week. Included are Israel’s Waltz With Bashir, France’s The Class and Turkey’s Three Monkeys, but movie-maven bloggers are fuming over the snub of the Italian Mafia drama Gomorrah.

At the Sundance Film Festival, “audiences expect to discover edgy new talent. Filmmakers expect to get a shot at distribution and, perhaps, a Hollywood career. Both constituencies continue to be rewarded. But, at the same time, expectations must be readjusted in the harsh light of today’s economic realities, say festival veterans and distribution execs.”

“SAG’s internecine battle over its strike authorization vote battle isn’t over yet. That was the message sent Wednesday by the slim majority of SAG board members who regrouped after the 30-hour boardroom brawl in which their efforts to remove the guild’s national exec director Doug Allen, stop the strike authorization vote and replace the guild’s negotiating committee were thwarted by a marathon filibuster mounted by Allen supporters.”

The Screen Actors Guild may be riven over the question of a strike, but casting — of the solid bronze statuette that is the Screen Actors Guild Award — continues as usual. Photojournalist Allen J. Schaben turns his camera on the process.

Robert D. Hof says that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz should “nuke the current management structure once and for all” and focus on what the portal does best. “More than anything, Yahoo’s uniqueness lies in its unmatched collection of curated media properties, from Finance to Sports, that have large, loyal, and distinct audiences that advertisers still love.”

“Along with a new, fourth judge, more semifinalists and a ‘wild-card’ round that gives some contestants a second chance to go to the finals, commercials promoting the new season have shown fewer of the bizarre and obviously untalented contestants than in previous years.”

“The film won every award for which it was nominated at last night’s Golden Globes – best film, best director, best adapted screenplay and best original score. The clean sweep confirmed it as this year’s Oscar front-runner. But its biggest challenge might just be reaching Indian audiences. Slumdog is due to be released in India on Jan 23, but has yet to make it past the country’s notoriously prickly censors.”

“Complaining that the Golden Globes are bought and paid for is a bit like being upset that a billboard for a movie is bought and paid for. They’re both just ads. But next year around this time, you can bet you’ll be hearing tawdry tales of the Golden Globes all over again. Why?” Might it be the legitimate journalists’ jealousy of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association?