Category: media

Unscripted shows such as Survivor, Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? are hemorrhaging viewers. Some of this is overexposure and the age of the shows, but can the plummeting ratings be blamed on the recession? “Well, hard times may not have any direct effect on what people choose to watch. But there’s little doubt that during times of upheaval, viewers’ tastes can shift.”

New York’s flagship public television station will produce arts programming in a new glass-walled studio on the ground floor of the newly-renovated and expanded Alice Tully Hall, which opens early next year.

Leading the pack is the post-Katrina doc Trouble the Water, the odds-on favorite; other semifinalists include Werner Herzog’s trip to the Antarctic, the Philippe-Petit-skywalks-the-Twin-Towers film, and Errol Morris’s examination of Abu Ghraib.

Of the Documentary Oscar shortlist, Salon.com’s “Beyond the Multiplex” columnist fumes, “Margaret Brown’s wonderfully nuanced and profoundly personal film about the racially segregated Mardi Gras traditions of Mobile, Ala., The Order of Myths, was left off, as was Laura Dunn’s gorgeous The Unforeseen, which I’ve described as the Chinatown of Texas real-estate documentaries. Those were two of the best examples of American filmmaking to be seen on screen all year … It’s a complete and total goddamn travesty, is what it is.”

“The movie world has been fretting for years about the collapse of stardom. Now there are growing fears that another chunk of film architecture is looking wobbly: the story. In league with a handful of former Hollywood executives, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory plans to do something about that on Tuesday, with the creation of a new Center for Future Storytelling.”

“A new study suggests that games that feature motion-controlled violent actions, like the Wii version of Manhunt 2 …, don’t affect players any differently than traditional violent games. Phew!” Critics had claimed “that young children would be rehearsing violent moves, and converting them into real physical violence.”

“So, there I was, idling late at night in front of the telly, when on came the late film: John Schlesinger’s 1967 work, Far from the Madding Crowd.” Then up popped the on-screen sign-language interpreter, inescapably covering a substantial chunk of the picture. “Please, someone, answer me this: what the hell is wrong with subtitles?”

“These are heady times for French film, which seems finally to have found a new voice after many years spent emerging from the long shadows of the Nouvelle Vague and battling the influence of Hollywood. French films are taking centre stage around the world and the names of French directors are once again rolling off the tongues of cinephiles: Cantet, Abdellatif Kechiche, Olivier Assayas, Agnès Jaoui. Is this the start of a new New Wave?”

Why do movie subtitles have to be boring? Enough of those black-and-white lines of text at the bottom of the screen. Perhaps they should look like comic boook balloons…

“The demise of My Own Worst Enemy highlights the risks of the advertiser partnerships that NBC and other broadcasters are turning to. But the network is not backing away from the model; if anything, it is doubling down.”