Category: media

“The Asia Pacific Film Festival, which was due to run Nov. 18-21 in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, has been canceled due to poor attendance… This year the fest was expected to host 350 delegates from the 21 member countries and screen 61 films. However, interest has been lackluster with almost 60% of delegates canceling at the last minute.”

Mark Peters, creator of the blog Wordlustitude, points out that words and expressions such as truthiness, spongeworthy, D’oh!, regifting, Spock-like, Jetson-esque, and yada-yada have entered the language because they’re useful. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

“Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi-led government is selling off its [24%] stake in Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, completing the privatization of the historic facilities and ending an era in Italo film.”

“When the aliens shoot up a grain silo, we yawn. When they blast the head off the Statue of Liberty, we all gasp and know they mean business.”

“But what if there were a device that objectively flagged questionable elements in online news articles, poking and parsing words and phrases, and letting you contribute your own critiques? Well, a Seattle company called SpinSpotter has produced a piece of software – a free download that works within a Web browser – that tries to do just that.”

“The major record labels plan to start selling digital songs today for a dime apiece. The catch: You can’t carry them with you on an iPod. … The Web song is stored online and can be listened to only through a computer’s Web browser.”

“As they have watched their 401(k)’s shrivel in recent weeks, entertainment executives have started to grapple with how best to reflect the global economic crisis in movie and television story lines, or whether to bring the topic up at all.”

“Film festivals have traditionally been an oasis, a heady escape for artists and dealmakers removed from real-world concerns. No longer. The financial crisis is hitting some U.S. film festivals — and hard. Local cash and in-kind sponsorship are drying up quickly. “

“The owner of the East Village’s famed Kim’s Video store is putting his vast collection up for sale. Facing declining revenues, Yongman Kim is making all his 55,000 films available but has imposed strict conditions. The buyer must purchase the collection in its entirety, house it in 3,000 square feet of space and allow access to those who used to rent films at the store….”

The Screen Actors Guild’s national board of directors has voted to bring in a federal mediator to intercede in its contract dispute with studios. The board also agreed to ask its 120,000 union members if they want to authorize a strike.