Category: media

“The most perceptive and authentic satire is just 10% different from the real thing, and that’s the narrow target Kasdan and Reilly’s “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” is aiming for.”

“Maybe it is the movie or the psychological baggage we schlepped in with us. Or is it empathy, or you-are-so-busted guilt? Maybe genetics or cultural conditioning. Or were we simply bursting to spill that night because the boss refused to give us a week off for Christmas?”

“Thursday night’s rally of about 3,000 film and TV writers occurred a day after talks with their employers broke down amid disputes over DVD residuals and pay for programs distributed over the Internet. The writers’ employment agreement expired at midnight Wednesday. The union’s board of directors is set to formally ratify the strike plans at a 10 a.m. meeting today .”

“When studios adapt books into films, there is always a risk: No matter how compelling a literary property may be, producers must find financing, create a high-quality film and succeed at the box office. Yet all these hurdles loom even larger when it comes to adapting for the screen books about the Iraq war — and there are already many, including more than 40 being published just this fall.”

“In the near term, a writers’ strike will have an immediate impact on more than 200,000 workers in the movie and TV industry here and the thousands more who produce or sell entertainment elsewhere in the United States and abroad. The dispute may also signal more labor trouble to come, as directors and actors face similar issues when their contracts expire next June.”

“Writers said the guild board would meet Friday to formally call a strike and decide when it would start. They said guild members would be told Friday afternoon.”

“Every Hollywood studio has a different way of measuring what its digital business is, with Walt Disney Co. right now touting fairly loudly its successes in this area and NBC among those suggesting that the coin is fairly negligible. For their part, analysts in the digital sector are increasingly hinting that the growth in the biz is anything but straight up. Some even hazard that consumers may not for years feel comfortable ditching their DVDs in favor of Internet-delivered movies and TV shows.”

“Online serials that allow anyone to discuss the plot, write to the characters and vote on their fate are stealing away young viewers and threatening the model that has supported free-to-air television for 50 years.”

“If the writers strike, the walkout will at first most noticeably affect talk shows and soap operas that use guild writers, sending the programs into repeats or forcing the hosts to ad-lib. The production of television series would then slow, as producers burn through scripts. Moviegoers will not experience immediate effects, as studios have finished, or are rushing into production, movies that will arrive in theaters through 2008, using scripts that are already written.”

“More than half of Americans surveyed said it should be illegal for a company to own both a newspaper and a television station in the same market. Long-standing FCC rules restrict cross-ownership and ban ownership of a newspaper and a TV or radio station in the same market without an FCC waiver.”