Category: media

Reaction to a proposal to give tax incentives to movie producers in California has brought a wave of protest. “Critics have pounced on the estimated $50 million outlay since its unveiling last week, claiming that it amounted to ‘corporate welfare’ when basic social services are being cut. ‘Those who will benefit mostly by this are those independent movie producers who really are operating on very very thin margins. Really what this is about is stabilizing the middle-class workforce in California’.”

That would be “March of the Penguins”. “Two months after its quiet launch amidst the big guns of summer, the penguins still roost firmly in the North American Top 10. Playing in more than 2,100 theatres in the U.S. and Canada, a reach usually achieved only by a Michael Moore documentary, the film is closing in on $50 million (U.S.) in domestic tickets sales, ranking it second to Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 as the most successful documentary in history.”

Some Blockbuster Video stores are getting out of the chain’s “no late fees” policy and charging again for overdue rentals. “The promise of that new freedom — basically the ability to keep rentals several more days without extra fees — meant copies of new releases were not available when the next customer wandered in. ‘What we’re trying to do is get the product back on the shelves’.”

“The ‘labour disruption’ at the CBC has spilled onto the Web, and it’s leaving a mess. It would be nice if the story was about how the new media empowered locked-out journalists to keep practising their trade. But expatriate CBC shows have been appearing on community radio stations across the country, all before any picketer-run news website arrives on the scene. (One is reported to be preparing for a launch next week.) Instead of saving us with science, the Internet has just given us an intimate view of our public broadcaster disemboweling itself.”

Earlier this month Wal-Mart signe exclusive deal with Garth Brooks to sell his music. Now “the Walt Disney Co. is giving Wal-Mart exclusive sales rights through the end of the year to the animated holiday feature film “The 3 Wise Men,” which debuts on DVD November 1. As the market for DVDs becomes increasingly competitive, big retailers are aggressively vying for exclusives — and, in more and more cases, getting them. Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer with close to 40% of the home video market, is in the catbird seat, studio sources say.”

The BBC is planning to simulcast programs on the internet. “A simulcast of BBC One or BBC Two, letting UK viewers see programmes on the web at the same time as they go out on TV, is being planned. Proposals to make clips available on mobile phones are also being speeded up.”

“Thousands of movies made in Hollywood before 1950 no longer exist. Some were destroyed by malice, others by negligence (90 percent of all silent films). And of those movies made since 1950, there are no guarantees. But such matters are the domain of film preservationists, and while their work should not be undervalued, just as significant is another species of movies you can’t see: movies that do exist, that may even be no more than a few years old, but that remain as elusive as those maligned masterpieces of von Stroheim and Welles. Movies, in other words, without distribution — or with distributors who, for one reason or another, refuse to release them.”

DVD sales are slowing from their torrid pace of the last few years. “Hollywood shipped 403m DVDs to America’s stores in the first quarter of this year—one-fifth more than in the first quarter of 2004. That is a healthy growth-rate, but far slower than in the whole of 2004, when nearly 50% more DVDs were sent to shops than in 2003—and much lower than previous years’ dizzier increases of 100% or more.”

The Boston Film Festival, which opens in two weeks, is being cut to half its usual length. “Festival organizers say the abbreviated schedule will be a one-year phenomenon — a nod to the nationwide decline in box office receipts, and an acknowledgment that the festival itself is in transition. Mark Diamond and Susan Fraine, former Loews executives who had run the festival since 1993, handed over the duties this year to Robin Dawson, executive director of the independent Massachusetts Film Bureau.”

“Cell phones are quickly becoming 24-7 entertainment companions. The current generation of cell phones can take pictures, record video, download MP3s, play games, text message, surf the Web and play video clips. The third generation of cell phones, already available in Asia and becoming more widespread in America in the next year, can do all those things, better and faster, and do more. The world that exists on the TV and your video game console is now alive on your phone.”