Category: media

“For many people, public access TV is still symbolized by ‘Wayne’s World,’ a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch that portrayed two slackers doing a so-bad-it’s-good program from a basement rec room. But today, the Waynes of the world have a whole new stage on the Web. Homemade videos are viewed by millions each day, giving anyone with a video camera and a fast Internet connection their own ‘show.’ So do we still need public access TV?”

The deaths last week of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni highlighted their irrelevance — a marginalization due not only to the passage of time, Ty Burr argues, but to the way we watch movies. “If you wanted to see an old movie three decades ago — and you were lucky enough to live in a big city — you went to a revival theater and joined the worshipers at the altar. … What was once a vibrant communal experience has become a solitary pursuit. As with so many other things in the 21st century, movie history is a Balkanized casualty of an attention-deficit culture.”

“Responding to an outcry that included a passionate Internet campaign and a satiric rap video, city officials yesterday backed off proposed new rules that could have forced tourists taking snapshots in Times Square and filmmakers capturing that only-in-New-York street scene to obtain permits and $1 million in liability insurance. In announcing the move, officials at the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting said they would redraft the rules, intended to apply to commercial film and photography productions, to address complaints that they could be too broadly applied.”

“In a 1992 speech to a group of religious broadcasters, then-President George H.W. Bush proclaimed that ‘we need a nation closer to the Waltons than to the Simpsons.’ He lost the election. ‘The Simpsons’ won.” But at a moment when the United States is in global disrepute, what explains the world’s immense affection for “an ignorant, doughnut-scarfing ‘Ugly American’ father and his mustard-tinged brood”?

The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Thursday asking the Federal Communications Commission to oversee the development of a super V-chip that could screen content on everything from cell phones to the Internet.

The Writers Guild of America wants something from Hollywood. “What do they want? Residuals. Specifically, they want a piece of the new-media pie. That’s online reruns and secondary content like webisodes, mobisodes, minisodes, and character blogs — all the goodies you can get on your laptop, cell phone, and iPod. When do they want it? By October 31, when the WGA’s current three-year contract with the studios expires.”

“The Copyright Board of Canada has given the green light to a controversial extra fee on the sale price of MP3 players including iPods, two years after the Federal Court of Appeal struck down a similar levy. The fight centres on an oft-misunderstood piece of copyright legislation that permits people to make personal copies of music recordings they have purchased.”

A new documentary about Arctic wildlife is aiming to bring the important message of climate change to kids, but critics are raising questions about some of the filmmakers’ tactics. For their part, the film’s backers “are unapologetic about the fact that the occasional anthropomorphism is there to make the global-warming message as commercially accessible as possible.”

There are many woman directors but they’re still struggling for recognition. “No woman has ever won an Academy Award for best director, and only three have ever been nominated. A woman has never won the Directors Guild’s top honor, either, though six have been nominated.”

“Beyond his impact on other artists, Mr. Bergman had a vast influence on the way we see movies. One of the three horsemen of the art-house movement, Mr. Bergman, along with Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa, prompted the opening of art theaters from Boston to Bombay during the 1950s and 1960s, drawing audiences to more challenging fare than the latest Hollywood blockbuster.”