Category: media

“Sivaji – The Boss” has been hugely anticipated. “The film took 19 months to be completed and is said to be the most expensive movie ever produced in India. Huge banners and hoardings were erected in front of cinema halls where Sivaji was released. Fans performed ablution by milk on Rajni’s cut-outs and broke coconuts to ward off evil forces. The movie has been released in 17 theatres in Chennai and in over 500 cinema houses all over the state. Tickets for the movie have been sold out for the next three weeks.”

“Abortion is one of the last taboos in mainstream American film — a no-flyover zone of many years’ standing. No matter how realistically presented, it’s just not something that’s done if you want to keep the sympathy (and ticket sales) of multiplex audiences. That said, each moviegoing generation confronts and/or backs away from the subject in its own fashion, and three current releases have opted to carry to term, whether it makes dramatic sense or not.”

There was a time (like, five years ago) when an actress over the age of 40 had a better chance of being asked to host the Oscars than of landing a starring role in a TV series. But all of a sudden, TV has been embracing middle-aged and older characters, and that has led to a new rush of opportunity for actresses.

In response to what many perceive as a sharp uptick in talking, phone use, and other distracting behavior, “Regal Cinemas, the nation’s biggest theater operator, is arming random patrons with wireless pagers to silently alert management to trouble during films.”

Chinese censors have cut about ten minutes out of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, claiming that a character played by Chow-Yun Fat is overly stereotypical and insulting to Chinese people. Still, “the film took in a record $1.3-million (U.S.) on its opening day in China on Tuesday.”

Three years after Minnesota’s St. Olaf College, operator of the oldest listener-supported radio station in the US, sold its classical broadcast operation to public radio behemoth Minnesota Public Radio (which promptly converted it to a pop music format,) the school is still feeling the wrath of longtime supporters who claim that the sale was illegal. Now, a lawsuit has been filed, and a judge may rule that WCAL-FM (now KCMP) was a charitable trust that the college had no right to sell without consulting its trustees.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will now allow more than three producers to be eligible for an Oscar movie credit. “The agreement to consider exceptions to the three-producer rule, though a small change, was welcomed by some of those who had been slighted by the old limitation, which at this year’s Oscar ceremony excluded two producers, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, from awards consideration for the best-picture nominee ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.”

“DVD sales to consumers are down nearly 8%, as of the first quarter. And no wonder: After years of trying to space out big new releases throughout the year, studios again appear to be focusing on the fourth quarter and cutting back on the rest of the year.”

“Welcome to marketing in the age of YouTube, where brands seek to appeal to the consumer’s so-called creativity, in part by associating themselves with genuine artists and creative dialogue, in part by exploiting interactive technologies such as social networks.”