Category: media

Anger is growing over the CBC’s decision to sell off the international rights to many of its Canadian-produced (and publicly funded) shows without giving Canadian companies an opportunity to bid. “What’s missing is the uproar this charade should have provoked in Ottawa. “

“It would be a pity if the Academy Awards show were spiked because of the writers’ strike, because this might be the most wide-open contest in years… With no big Hollywood blockbuster to squash the competition, the Oscar nominations went Tuesday to dark, unsentimental and often violent films and performances.”

“After a weekend marked by too many downbeat dramas and comedies in name only, the Sundance Film Festival’s flock of film buyers finally began taking in movies they could send to the multiplexes.” Almost immediately, the first big deals of this year’s fest started to be announced.

“Each of the five films was made for $30 million or less — unheard of when the average studio project costs three times that.”

The Motion Picture Association has long cited a study that it says blames college students for 40 percent of illegal downloading. “Now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a ‘human error’ in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.”

“The Hollywood writers guild said Tuesday it has agreed to back off proposals to unionize writers of reality and animated shows, a key concession that came the same day the sides said they would begin informal talks.”

The writers’ strike is dragging on, and Patrick Goldstein says that it may be time for the guild to cut a deal before a tired and impoverished membership forces it to cut its losses. “You had a membership that was united largely by vitriol for the studios who’d put them out in the cold by walking away from negotiations. All that aggravation is still alive — it’s just now pointing in a new direction.”

“A Toronto television distributor is alleging the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. intentionally withheld plans to sell a vast portion of the rights to its TV catalogue to a foreign buyer, even though it had a clear opportunity to let domestic companies in on the process.”

As if President Bush didn’t have enough fiascoes to worry about, director Oliver Stone has announced that he plans to make his next film about the deeply unpopular president. “The film would include a look at the president’s ‘belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States and his coming into his own with the stunning, pre-emptive attack on Iraq’, he added.”

The pre-Sundance prediction this year was that there would be plenty of spending on small but commercially promising films by big studios chasing the next Juno. The trouble with predictions is that they can quickly become expensive self-fulfilling prophecies. So far, though, there hasn’t been a single major purchase at the fest.