Category: media

“Kael, whose critical reputation was in its early stages, used Bonnie and Clyde as the opening shot in what turned out to be a war against middlebrow, middle-class, middle-of-the-road taste.She announced no less than a revolution in taste that she sensed in the air. Movie audiences, she said, were going beyond ‘good taste,’ moving into a period of greater freedom and openness.”

“Screenwriters have become the latest group to criticise senior television executives for having too much creative control over drama production, claiming there is a lack of consultation when it comes to key decisions about their scripts.”

“In 1984, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the second film in the franchise, spent 12 weeks in the top 10. Five years later, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade spent 10 weeks in the top 10. Today, eight weeks in the top 10 — which generally requires that a movie is playing in at least 1,000 locations — is a significant achievement. By contrast, some of this summer’s less successful movies had the theatrical half-life of a June lightning bug; one or two weekends and they fell off the radar.”

“The vendors are missing from all their usual haunts, and many of the DVD shops that usually sell the products appear closed. Normally there is a clampdown on public sales of pirate product when someone like President Bush or a senior US trade official comes to town”.

“Guild insiders have acknowledged they have few other options left in the face of the congloms’ adamant refusal to change terms contained in the two-week-old final offer. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that SAG’s not going to ask its members for a strike authorization, since it’s highly debatable whether the guild would achieve the 75% support level needed for a work stoppage.”

“More troublesome is the film’s complicity in the commodified culture it ostensibly critiques. This isn’t about Disney, whose external merchandise and marketing are extraneous to the film’s artistic vision. Within the movie itself, ‘WALL-E’ betrays its true corporate overlord, and it isn’t Mickey. It’s Apple.”

Once the staple of broadcast television, the traditional family sitcom has been relegated of late to niche cable channels.

“Consumer spending on DVDs and Blu-ray in the first six months of the year, purchases and rentals combined, was up 1.6% from spending in first-half 2007, according to Home Media Magazine’s market research department. The first-half 2008 tally: $10.77 billion, compared with $10.6 billion a year ago.”

Ian McKellen’s acclaimed performance in “King Lear” is coming to PBS, but a public TV executive was coy Saturday about whether his on-stage nude scene will be exposed on air.

“Amid the town’s growing consensus that the Screen Actors Guild is not going to strike, SAG is staying in stall mode. The guild offered no response to the congloms’ latest effort to dial up the pressure by warning that they may have to scale back their final offer if the economy worsens.”