Category: media

A 10-year-old actor in Hollywood is suing the financier of a movie made by the kid. Why? It’s about “creative control”, and natch there’s big-time legal talent behind the suit…

“The FCC’s lax oversight of the terrestrial radio industry may have contributed to the death of a listener who drank almost two gallons of water to win a video game console, critics say.”

When Washington, D.C. public radio station WETA decided to switch its format back to classical music (after two years as an all-news station,) classical fans rejoiced, but not everyone was happy. The station faced severe opposition from longtime listeners when it dumped classical music, but plenty of listeners liked the news-talk format as well, and they claim that WETA deceived them.

This year’s Sundance Festival has been a contradictory mix of low hype and huge sales. “A festival that was generally expected to be too dark and uncommercial for a breakout hit has turned into a buying spree. One reason is this week’s announcement that Little Miss Sunshine has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture.” But reproducing that movie’s commercial success is hardly as easy as throwing wads of cash around Utah, and many wonder if the studios really have any idea what they’re buying.

Everyone, it seems, likes to bash the MPAA for its inconsistent and (some feel) out of date film ratings system. But what about reserving some outrage for the thousands of parents who apparently have no problem toting their young children along to see a movie chock full of horrific violence and themes far too adult for them to understand? The MPAA is considering a special advisory for the clueless.

Film critics have been rushing to debunk the controversy over the “rape” of child star Dakota Fanning in a new film screening at Sundance this week. But while Fanning may not have been in harm’s way when the film was made, there’s no question that this year’s crop of Sundance features is chock full of kids in horrible (if fictionalized) situations.

The owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team has produced a powerful documentary on the Rape of Nanking, which is currently being shopped at Sundance. “And now that he’s made one film, Leonsis thinks he’s latched onto a Big Idea: He fancies using a ‘filmanthropy’ model to make future projects with a social bent.”

This year’s Oscar nominations have a decidedly international flavor. “It’s not anymore about cultural barriers or language barriers. It’s emotion and humanity. We are using the power of cinema to cross borders. We are understanding that now there’s a cultural connection that needs to happen. Most films can reveal the nature of other countries and other people around the world.”

Norman Lebrecht: In pursuit of a mass audience that will never return in a spectrum of multi-channels and web porn on demand, BBC television turned its back on the high arts and dumbed down its language to a point where an averagely intelligent dolphin can now understand the six o’clock news.”

The Iraq war is inescapable at this year’s Sundance Festival, writes Geoff Pevere. “Many Sundance films have played out beneath the spreading cloud of the conflict. And people are willingly gathering beneath that cloud.”