Category: media

Ang Lee has already established himself as a great filmmaker. But can he take the next step to legendary status? “Lee has been industrious and pleasing in ways that make his work and its coherence seem easy or natural – and there is a risk that we admire the versatility and miss the lack of argument.”

“Fans of pop culture are tired of being told a given movie mustbe seen in the theatre. They are also tired of being scolded by the likes of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for preferring DVDs. Perhaps owing to the poor quality of most modern motion pictures, this is the era of the platform agnostic. Today’s film fan would just as soon watch Indy’s latest exploits on an iPod or computer monitor or TV set as the silver screen.”

Quentin Tarantino, a film-maker who believes that the camera was invented to portray violence, made a scathing attack on film music composers yesterday, saying that he would never trust any of them with his films.

“Television viewing in the UK saw a 10% jump in April compared with the same month last year. Viewers tuned in for a daily average of three hours and 45 minutes.”

“Cell phone art is gaining ground. The Australian Network for Art and Technology has a good site. There are festivals for cell photos, videos and even ring tones. In Japan, teenagers write novels on their way home from school. The field has yet to attract established major artists or produce one of its own.”

“Cable channels have been eroding broadcast viewership for years, and comparisons between them are inexact. This television season, though, the shifts are especially sharp. And some executives, like Brooke Johnson, the president of the Food Network, partly credit last winter’s writers’ strike.”

“May ratings have been pretty atrocious across the board, in a strike-shortened year that’s already shaping up as the TV executives’ annushorribilis. The worst part is this may be no temporary hiccup. Increasingly, the shutdown and aftermath of the writers strike that ended in February is beginning to look like a signal moment in the slow, painful meltdown of the broadcast-TV industry.”

“Adult DVD sales have slumped 10%-30% this year due to a massive shift by consumers to online content, and companies aren’t making up the lost coin on porn streamed over computers. Short clips are available for free or as little as 8¢ or 10¢ a minute online, and porn producers often get only a tiny cut. ‘People are scared, quite honestly. The majority of adult producers don’t know what the future holds’.”

Laurent Cantet’s The Class is “about a teacher who is challenged by his students in a tough junior high school in Paris. In his acceptance speech Cantet noted he was disappointed that the film business has not been especially open to making films that are slightly offbeat. But with “The Class,” he said, he was able to accomplish something ideal to him.”