Category: media

Movie theaters in Melbourne and Sydney are “[rushing] to release the latest film by the French director of the controversial movie Romance before its possible banning by the Office of Film and Literature Classification review board. Anatomy of Hell (Anatomie de L’enfe), by director Catherine Breillat, is described as “an investigation into the nature of misogyny” and features several explicit scenes involving a woman and a gay man who uses various objects to penetrate the woman at her request.” The film was originally set to receive an adult rating, but the Australian Family Association is appealing the rating in an effort to have the film banned outright.

“The Senate voted on Tuesday to repeal rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission that make it easier for the nation’s largest media conglomerates to expand and enter new markets. The rules, approved last June by a divided F.C.C., largely removed previous ownership restrictions on media companies.”

The American Film Institute announces its list of the best movie songs of all time. “The earliest song to make the list was “Isn’t It Romantic” (No. 73), which was sung by Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in 1932’s “Love Me Tonight.” The newest came from 2002, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger’s rendition of “All That Jazz” (No. 98) from “Chicago,” and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” (No. 93) from “8 Mile.”

“OD2, the [UK-based] music download service co-founded by Peter Gabriel, was sold to a US rival yesterday as competition intensifies in the online music market. Digital media firm Loudeye will pay $38.2m (£20.9m) in cash and stock for OD2… The deal follows a surge in activity in the European online music market, with the European launch of Apple’s iTunes last week following the rebirth of Napster, the former enfant terrible of the digital music industry.”

Filmmaker Michael Moore has lost his appeal to have the ‘R’ rating slapped on his Fahrenheit 9/11 changed to a PG-13. The film is slated for release this week, and one industry expert predicts that “the R rating could reduce the film’s theatrical revenues by 10 to 20 per cent.” Moore is urging teens under 17 to try to see the film anyway.

Michael Moore certainly seems to enjoy making enemies, and Bruce Kluger is sick of hearing about how the self-important filmmaker plays too rough, or is too wrapped up in his own image as a rabble-rouser. “The truth is, Moore may be as much a propagandist as the spinmeisters at the White House and Pentagon. If he is, he’ll surely be held accountable for his truth-twisting, just the way the president should be for his.”

The new director-general of the BBC isn’t wasting any time in putting his mark on the organization. In his first day on the job, Mark Thompson announced a sweeping overhaul of the way the UK’s leading broadcaster conducts its business. A new board will oversee the BBC’s news division, chaired by Thompson’s deputy. In fact, oversight boards seem to be the way of the (foreseeable) future at the corporation…

“Every year, movie studios plant flags on days they consider to be prime real estate to launch their planned summer blockbusters, warning potential competitors to steer clear or face destruction. Backing away from an intended release date is a sign of weakness. But early this month, two movie studios quietly made an inauspicious sort of history by doing something no studio had ever done in the history of Hollywood: They each moved the release date of a feature film to avoid getting trampled at the box office by a documentary.”

Canada’s next government might try to privatize the CBC. “The truth is, since the late ’70s, when independent production began in earnest thanks to taxpayer support, a huge business has grown up where once there was CBC and little else. The entertainment-media industry is not about to shrink in this wired world. Quite the opposite. So, rather than weeping and wailing about what was — or wasn’t — perhaps the wiser course is to look to the future and act as if there is one. Maybe the time has simply come to rewrite this script.”

TV “networks have a lot to gain by switching away from traditional seasons, and viewers do, too, since new shows are easier to check out when they come in small doses. It’s impossible for a normal person who has any kind of life to see all the shows that début in the fall, and within a couple of weeks it can be too late, since shows not infrequently get cancelled after just two or three episodes. But something has happened to summer in the process. Reruns are disappearing from the landscape; soon you’ll no longer have the chance to see that episode of your favorite show which you missed because your tango class interfered, and you won’t happen to catch a show that you ignored during the regular season, and that turns out to be good.”