Category: media

Consider the film credit: “At their best, they use the requisite list of names and credits as a mere leaping-off point for clever experiments in graphic design, typography and kinetic wizardry.”

The lines between news, comedy, propoganda and entertainment are so blurred these days, it’s sometimes difficult to tell them apart, writes Frank Rich. “At such absurd moments, and they are countless these days in our 24/7 information miasma, real journalism and its evil twin merge into a mind-bending mutant that would defy a polygraph’s ability to sort out the lies from the truth.”

Generation X movie-makers are generally been known for their ironic take on the world. But as they grow older, there are signs that that defining sttitude may be mellowing…

The recording and film inductries are pressuring the US Congress to make file-sharing peer-to-peer networks illegal, and lawmakers are complying, introducing bills that suggest file-sharing networks are the haunts of terrorists, pornographers and big bad evildoers. “In defending the Pirate Act, Senator Orrin Hatch said the operators of P2P networks are running a conspiracy in which they lure children and young people with free music, movies and pornography. With these “human shields,” the P2P companies are trying to ransom the entertainment industries into accepting their networks as a distribution channel and source of revenue.”

Linda Ellerbee writes that NPR has succumbed to ageism. “This week, National Public Radio, apparently acting on the theory that if it’s not broke, break it, announced that Bob Edwards was no longer its choice to host “Morning Edition,” the program he began, shaped and — for the last 25 years — informed with his intelligence, wit and grace. Although nobody came right out and said so, it’s clear that the new honchos at NPR believe the man whose voice has soothed millions of us into day after day of too much reality is, at 56, too old for the task. Were the ratings sinking, perhaps? They were not. “Morning Edition’s” audience grew by 41% in the last five years; Edwards’ is the most-listened-to morning radio program in the U.S.”

Movie documentaries are hot these days. “At a time when mainstream Hollywood movies have never been more defensively fortified against any leaks from the outside world, when everything seems spawned by computers, designed by corporate merchandisers and inspired by comic book fantasy, even the editorial manipulations of documentary come as a bracing, flesh-affirming alternative.”

Interactive computer games have taken over; they’re a huge hit, and academics have begun studying them for what they mean for the larger culture. “They’re a form of interactive storytelling. There’s performance involved when you play the game. And they obviously have powerful visual elements. I think some games are, frankly, very beautiful.” Some gamers, though, find the attention absurd. “It is a sensibility that strikes some in the game world as off the wall. Trying to strap meaning onto entertainment sometimes can be ridiculous.”

Some $20 billion worth of video games were sold last year. Games now outsell movies, and games now look more and more like the movies. “The convergence between films and games makes sense for many reasons. Both special-effects-laden blockbusters and shoot-’em-ups rely on computer power, and as games consoles become more capable their output becomes ever more cinematic. Indeed, modern games based on “Star Wars” look even better than the original films, since today’s games consoles far outperform any special-effects technology available back in the 1980s. Costs have increased as the production values of games have improved: the typical budget is now $5m-8m.”

Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” is going to be released in theatres in the US again, following the success of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” “Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson’s blockbuster with the lines ‘Mel or Monty?’, ‘The Passion or the Python?’ Distributor Rainbow said it hoped the film would ‘serve as an antidote to all the hysteria about Mel’s movie’. It was condemned as blasphemous before its original release, although Monty Python said it was intended as a spoof on Bible films and intolerance rather than Christianity.”

National Public Radio’s decision to bump Morning Edition host Bob Edwards from the chair he has occupied for the show’s entire 25-year run is meeting with astonishment and anger from NPR listeners. Richard Cohen, for one, is incredulous that NPR would lower itself to the ratings-obsessed, buzzword-intensive level of TV news. “The telling sign was not just that he was axed as the program’s host but that no one can tell you why. At NPR, clearly the most erudite of the networks, various officials descended into the juvenile babble of TV executives, empty words spilling out of their mouths, as if they were determined to fill airtime yet say nothing.”