Category: media

Like other big celebrity events, the Toronto Film Festival gives swag bags full of gifts to celebrities who attend. And like American authorities, Canadian tax officials are hovering. “Those receiving gift bags must pay tax on the fair market value of such items. It’s up to the individual to declare each and every gift on their personal income tax return. We will be conducting reviews and audits of income tax returns to ensure compliance with the tax legislation.”

The Telluride Festival is a serious place for movies. “Sundance has swag, Cannes has yachts, Toronto stars. Telluride has class. Because it’s a holiday weekend, and because it’s virtually impossible to get to — it’s easier to get to Cannes than it is to Telluride — the people who go to Telluride are truly die-hard movie fans. Everyone is there to see movies. There is no other agenda, there are no deals. It’s a place to discover movies.”

Hackers have broken Microsoft’s digital rights protection. “The program apparently strips Windows Media audio (wma) files of Microsoft’s DRM 10 or 11 protection, removing any usage restrictions. A post on the forum said: ‘This program is only designed and intended to enable fair-use rights to purchased media’.”

The owners of the Barney brand have been extremely aggressive in going after anyone they think is infringing on their copyright. “On Wednesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in New York against Lyons Partnership of Allen, Tex., which owns the Barney brand. The group’s aim is to bring an end to what it characterizes as the partnership’s relentless harassment of Web site owners who parody the Barney character, chiefly through threatening cease-and-desist letters from Lyons’s law firm in New York, Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty.”

They’re buying more theatre tickets. “They’re watching just as many movies at home, mainly on DVD, which accounts for 77 per cent of home video sales, said the report released Monday. About 70 per cent of Canadian households owned DVD players in 2004. But revenues from film distribution to cinemas rose sharply, up 16.6 per cent to $446.3 million.”

Was the verbal war between Paramount’s Sumner Redstone and Tom Cruise and his agents at CAA just a show? “Such wars of words can leave lasting scars. Yet the mudslinging between Redstone and CAA may be largely a show for each side’s power base. Their interdependence is underscored by the dozen movie projects involving CAA clients pending at Paramount.”

“HBO emerged with the most Emmys — 26, including the awards given out at last week’s creative arts ceremony for technical and other achievements. NBC, struggling in the ratings, got a shot in the arm with its cumulative 14 awards, the most for any broadcast network.”

“Edutainment funded by Lockheed Martin doesn’t sound like box-office gold, but The Dream Is Alive is the top-grossing movie in IMAX history. It has earned more than $150 million since its 1985 debut, putting it several million dollars ahead of such competitors as 1998’s Everest and 1991’s Antarctica. Yet for all its success with such films, the IMAX Corp. dislikes being thought of as a purveyor of mega-sized documentaries. It now wants to show Hollywood blockbusters on its trademark six-story screens—a strategic shift that seems to have caused the company considerable trouble.”

“These days, the summer moviegoer has two things vying for control of his imagination: the movies and the box-office receipts. Each operates according to an outsized, cartoonish aesthetic. Even for those of us who chuckle at the notion that summer blockbusters are special-effects abominations that have “ruined” the movies, it’s striking that the numbers should exert such a hold over us.”

Music for video games is getting a big upgrade, with more sophisticated quality. “The game itself is interactive, the story line is interactive, so to the extent that you can make it work, and it doesn’t mess up the experience, the music should be interactive as well.”