Category: media

So the Motion Picture Association wants to classify smoking in movies. Maybe some other ratings are in order too? “O rating: Films that represent eating in ‘an exuberant or overly celebratory fashion, without fair time and emphasis given to the benefits of moderation, exercise and/or occasional fasting’ would earn an O (for Obesity). Scenes of holiday meals, carbohydrate-heavy breakfasts, enticing preparations of animal protein and empty-calorie snacking will all be considered.”

“The budget for an over-the-top Hollywood premiere rarely goes above $750,000. But when the same event is thrown 6,000 miles away, the economics are turned upside-down. When Sofia Coppola traveled to Cannes last year to introduce ‘Marie Antoinette,’ the tab ran more than $42,000 — just for the filmmaker’s hair and makeup stylists. Travel to the south of France is costly enough, but the meter really starts spinning once you land.”

“The subtitles that will allow non-native viewers to follow the stories are crucial because no matter how flashy or impressive a movie may be, it’s the subtitles that can stifle or showcase its quality. Although many audiences around the world, most of whom see foreign films dubbed, consider them the cinematic equivalent of Brussels sprouts, subtitles remain an unsung yet essential tool of moviegoing. And with technology improvements, more people speaking foreign languages and the modern habit of multi-tasking, the traditional aversion to watching a film while reading it just might be on the wane.”

“There has long been a cat-and-mouse game between Web advertisers, which pay to place their messages on sites where people view content, and ad-blocking services, which let people hide those messages from their browsers. Steve Lambert, a conceptual artist, plans to add his own twist to one type of software that blots out commercial messages. His add-on will replace the display ads — which are usually papered over with blank windows — with curator-picked artwork from contemporary artists.”

“Hollywood studios are speeding production on movies and TV shows, preparing for a possible strike by writers and more trouble next year when contracts with actors and directors expire.”

TV networks are anxious to convince advertisers that their audiences will still watch commercials. If the viewers go away, then…

Newspapers are dropping their movie critics. So why does that matter? “Fewer movie critics may lead to homogenized movie criticism. Most of the movie critics for the major wire services and national publications live in New York and Los Angeles. Now, I know and admire a great many critics who live in those cities – but their perspective doesn’t always match that of the people where I live.”

“The big TV networks are on a collision course with the advertisers that subsidize their shows, including the big hits like ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” Fox’s “American Idol” and NBC’s “Heroes.” The battle has the potential to get very ugly indeed over the next few weeks. And it’s all about ratings — or, more specifically, how to measure and assign monetary values to the rapidly dwindling broadcast TV audience in our era of TiVo and the Internet. Why should you, the average viewer, care?”

“The end of ‘The King of Queens’ is another step toward the end of another kind of network comedy — those that are simply presented in a studio before a live audience, where the resulting laughs (sometimes enhanced after the fact) are as much a part of the show as the multiple-camera setup, shooting the action as if it were a play. Nowadays, comedies are much more sophisticated, without laugh tracks and shot like a movie or drama series. They’re called single-camera comedies, though they certainly involve more than that.”

“Cannes’s doe-eyed affair with American film has often, it should be noted, been at the expense of French cinema. The hosts haven’t had a home win since 1987’s Sous le soleil de Satan – and that choice was booed to the Palais rafters. But some of the cosying up to Hollywood studios has been plain vulgar: Godzilla as closing night, The Da Vinci Code as opener, Shrek II in competition.”