Category: media

It was on this date in 1949 that the FCC first began poking its nose into the fledgling technology that would come to be called cable television. “An FCC attorney eventually concluded that CATV was a common carrier, subject to FCC jurisdiction. The commission, however, didn’t adopt his recommendation, and it would be 1965 before the FCC decided to regulate cable TV.”

Conventional wisdom says that free music is the future, and the record industry is fighting a quixotic battle even attempting to combat illegal downloading. But one record company exec says we’re all missing the point. “If you could download a loaf of bread free you would. But you can’t, thank God, because otherwise bakers would cease to exist and there would be no bread to download. Then we’d all be dead, and good riddance to us, because we humans are greedy, thieving, conniving bastards, every last one of us.”

Is this the golden age of movies for geeks? “Hollywood’s cyclical nature and the ascendancy of comic book aficionados such as Christopher Nolan, Zack 300 Snyder, and Frank Sin City Miller has seen the nerd return as a highly influential factor in Hollywood.”

In response to the latest flurry of celebrity run-ins, city officials will meet today in Los Angeles to outline plans for curbing unsavory behavior by paparazzi. The “personal safety zone” proposed by one city councilman was deemed nearly unenforceable, but another plan would legitimize the paparazzi – freelancers by definition – through credentials, and thus, rules.

The rest of America switches to digital TV next year. But this September, Wilmington, NC gets to play the Guinea Pig, and people are nervous. “Having this flat, coastal city make the switch in the thick of hurricane season is just one concern critics have voiced about Wilmington being the nation’s only full-fledged test market.”

The U.S. Department of Justice might have approved the satellite radio merger, but Canada, where XM and Sirius also broadcast, has yet to sign off on the deal. “Having one company hold a significant share in two competing companies is sure to draw the interest of the Competition Bureau,” says one Canadian lawyer.

What is it about stoner comedy that somehow still manages to carry countless movies to box office success, if not always critical acclaim? “Pothead humor is particularly suited for film because it provides endless possibilities for slapstick… Just as you can be antigun and enjoy Dirty Harry, you don’t have to be stoned to enjoy stoner comedy.”

An industry so slickly marketed and promoted has had its share of public relations disasters…

Who really runs Hollywood? No, it’s not the big-name stars or the ultrarich directors or even the big studios. It’s the PR mavens who spend their time making all the others look good. “That mysterious and dark breed of fixers, stuntsters and arch media manipulators have, for more than a century now, been as fundamental to the Tinseltown fantasy as the Hollywood sign itself.”

“The films competing for the Golden Lion award for best film include Darren Aronofsky’s ‘The Wrestler’, Mexican writer-director Guillermo Arriaga’s ‘The Burning Plain’, starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, Jonathan Demme’s ‘Rachel Getting Married’, and ‘Ponyo on the Cliff’, the latest feature-length animation from Hayao Miyazaki, the Japanese director of ‘Spirited Away’.” The latest film from the Coen brothers will open the festival.