Category: media

Just what is Disney getting for its $7.7 billion purchase of Pixar? “Disney executives are assuming that Disney will get back $1 billion from Pixar’s cash and investment portfolio and recoup another $700 million from what Pixar will earn from its share in the past coproductions and from future video, pay-TV, and television sales. If so, the net cost of acquiring John Lasseter’s talents—and employment contract—will be just over $6 billion. The deal memo in fact specifies that Disney can pull out of the acquisition if Lasseter does not agree to provide his services.”

“For the first time in the festival’s 22 years, Sundance jurors and audience members gave the same two films grand prizes in the documentary and dramatic competitions. “God Grew Tired of Us,” a look at the so-called lost boys of the Sudan and their relocation to the United States, swept both documentary awards, and “Quinceañera,” the coming-of-age story of a Hispanic girl in a gentrifying Los Angeles neighborhood, won the dramatic prizes.”

Several of the leading movies for Oscar honors this year have gay themes. “It could end up being the all-gay Oscars. We could have every major category won by gay-themed pictures. Needless to say, that would be a first. No gay-themed film has ever been named best picture. For all the right wing’s blather about Hollywood’s liberal agenda, the big studios are actually conservative, concerned not so much about politics as about their bottom line.”

As usual, there’s grumbling about documentaries that are left out of Oscar contention. “There’s an inherent conflict between how the academy determines eligibility and how most documentary filmmakers make money. Because European television has government money and spends it on films that tackle controversial subjects, American documentarians often look there for financing, in exchange for the chance to show the film on the air. To be considered for an Oscar, however, a documentary must have made its debut in theaters and played for at least a week in New York or Los Angeles, and films that appeared only on television – or even those that appeared on television before moving to theaters – are disqualified.”

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain continued its romp through Hollywood’s awards season, snapping up the top trophy at the prestigious Directors’ Guild Awards this weekend. Other winners included Clint Eastwood (for lifetime achievement) and documentarian Werner Herzog.

Hollywood has taken an interesting (and wholly predictable) turn in the last couple of years. As political polarization has reached nearly unheard-of levels in Washington and the country at large, the entertainment business has formed a major part of the pop culture backlash against the current political majority. “Overtly political films and TV shows with a strong anti-corporate, anti-Republican, pro-liberal bent are being made in greater numbers, perhaps, than at any time since the 1960s.”

This year’s edition of the Sundance Festival has cast a interesting light of some major changes taking place in the world of indie film. “A new class division appears to be defining the indie market, according to agents, producers and buyers, with the so-called mini-majors — most of them owned by the big studios — now mainly pursuing independent movies with the potential to earn substantial money at the box office, while leaving to smaller ‘micro-distributors’ the many titles that could well turn a profit, but at a much lower price.”

Canadian movies had a good year at the box office. “In fact, just about all of Canada’s Top 10 films in 2005 were popular, watchable movies.”

“To appreciate the Sundance Film Festival, 10 days winding up Sunday, as it is, you must embrace its contradictions. Here, the most high-minded artistic and moral aspirations coexist with hype, corporate self-congratulation and a ravening hunger for money and attention. All the values and pathologies that define the movie industry, — and perhaps American culture in general — are concentrated into a bitter, dizzying espresso shot.”

” ‘TV on demand’ is a hot new buzzword. Between iTunes, digital video recorders like TiVo, cellphones and PDAs that play movies, and countless streaming options over the Internet, it’s becoming a reality, wresting the power of TV programming from network executives, putting it squarely in viewers’ hands. Consuming TV shows in this way takes a bit of effort, as it turns out.”