Category: media

A new study reports that “male characters outnumbered females 3-to-1 overall in top-grossing G-rated films from 1990 to 2004.”

Michael Pack, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s top TV executive has resigned. “This is the latest in a string of departures of officials and consultants who played central roles in an effort by conservatives to bring what they viewed as more balance to public television and radio.”

“We seem to have entered a golden era of woeful movie titles… Is `The Squid and the Whale’ the worst movie title of all time, or is it still a tie between `Chu Chu and the Philly Flash’ and `Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things’?” And can anyone remember the difference between a movie titled ‘A Lot Like Love,’ one called ‘Just Like Heaven,’ and that instant classic, ‘Just Friends’? And don’t even get us started on filmmakers who title their masterpiece with a sound effect…

“A study of the most popular G-rated movies of the past 15 years has found that three-quarters of the characters are male, raising concerns that Hollywood is inadvertently telling children that women are less important than men.”

Emboldened by several years of electoral and judicial victories, religious conservatives in the U.S. have become extremely vocal when they spot a Hollywood project that a) they don’t like, or b) is aimed squarely at religious audiences but fails to pander in just the right way. As a result, the major studios have become a bit nervous when releasing any film with vaguely religious or sectarian overtones. So what are the producers of the new film version of The DaVinci Code doing to stay out front of what will surely be a wave of religious right-generated negativity? Why, they’re providing the soapbox, of course.

Job growth in Los Angeles’ entertainment industries is expected to slow in the next two years as business models change. “Video-on-demand and mobile entertainment are two of the new opportunities, but they also threaten traditional business models and network broadcast television in particular.”

George Bush’s proposed budget takes a big cut out of money for public broadcasting. “In the president’s 2007 budget request, CPB funding will be cut by $53.5 million in 2007 and $50 million more in 2008. Those cuts don’t reflect others made in funding at the Education and Commerce departments and the elimination of specific programs for digital TV conversion and satellite delivery system. Public broadcasting officials estimate that the entire budget cuts run $157 million over the two-year period.”

“Toronto radio station CHFI has refused to run a series of promotional spots for Eve Ensler’s play The Good Body, which opens next month at the newly refurbished Music Hall on the Danforth. The reason? The commercials use the word ‘vagina’.”

“The future is always precarious in the ruthless world of television. But this fall, when CBS and Warner Bros. launch the CW, a new youth-oriented network, and shut down the WB and UPN, there will be one less network renewing shows and buying new ones.” That has producers scrambling.

Disgraced author James Frey was in Hollywood in January attending to the making of a movie of his memoir. The movie makers had changed some details in the book. Frey had what was described as “a classic Hollywood fit.” Frey said they didn’t have the right to alter the facts in the book, the observer recalled this week. “How could they do this? This was his life! How could they change the facts of his life?” Eventually, Frey fired his agency.