Category: media

In the UK one of every three DVDs sold is said to be an illegal copy. “No one knows exactly how big the market is for bootleg discs, but already this year more than a million copied DVDs have been seized in the UK. Compared to videos, which are bulky and offer compromised quality, the new digital format is a bootlegger’s delight. The discs are cheap, light and easy to transport, while copying is quick and quality does not degrade.”

“A new co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival should be named by the first week of December and functioning in his or her new job a month later if the hiring process goes as planned, festival organizers said yesterday… Traditionally, the TIFF has promoted from within its own ranks. But this time it may go outside as the festival prepares to move, in 2006, into a dedicated, five-storey, multimillion-dollar facility in downtown Toronto and to position itself more firmly as the planet’s most important film fete.”

A research group is predicting that the worldwide slump in music sales will continue for at least the next two years, with total sales falling by as much as $500 million in the next year. But the report also predicts that sales will begin to nose upwards in 2006, largely as a result of the anti-piracy efforts of the industry.

In Boston, two major music stores owned by national chains have closed, amid much gnashing of media teeth over the state of the industry. But independent record stores, which depend on a small cadre of loyal customers to survive, are dropping like flies in the city, and no one seems to notice or care. “To counter falling sales, managers are cutting their staffs, strengthening their services, pricing their CDs competitively, and expanding stock to include videos, DVDs, and clothing.”

The Australian film industry has had one of its worst years in a long time. “Record low levels of foreign finance contributed to a fall from 30 to 19 features, the fewest for eight years. Their total value slumped from $131 million to $49 million.”

Seussical didn’t exactly turn the heads of fans of the late Dr. Seuss. Undaunted, producers are attempting a movie version of “The Cat in the Hat.” The risks are considerable. “We didn’t want to have children despise us. Everyone loves this book, and if the movie isn’t that good, people will get hostile.”

The film showing the assasination of John Kennedy 40 years ago is only 26 seconds long – 494 tiny frames. But its impact on American culture was huge. “The Zapruder film has wormed itself so deeply into the culture that many of the pathways it opened are no longer visible. Still, enough traces of its legacy can be seen — from rampant paranoia about government and disgust with the news media to a loss of faith in photographic truth and the acceptance of graphic violence as part of the movie experience — that recognition of its legacy is in order 40 years later.”

A project from the 1970s to film some of the best stage productions and offer it as movies, hoped to offer the best of each medium. “Instead of combining the best of Hollywood and Broadway, it combined the worst. There were basically two ways of shooting theater before AFT came along (and after live television went the way of the horse-drawn carriage). The networks and public television would videotape a play in the theater or on a soundstage, hoping to capture the intimacy and general feel of live theater. Conversely, when the film industry shot a play or musical — Mike Nichols’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” or Olivier’s “Richard III” — it would be “opened up” and shot on location to look less stagy.”

Okay, so fans of Ronald Reagan got CBS to dump a biopic from its schedule. Frank Rich writes that an upcoming TV version of “Angels in America” is far more searing and controversial. “This epic is, among other things, a searing indictment of how the Reagan administration’s long silence stoked the plague of AIDS in the 1980’s. If “Angels” reaches an audience typical for HBO hits, it could detonate a debate bloody enough to make the fight over “The Reagans” look like an exhibition bout. That’s not such a big if. “Angels” is the most powerful screen adaptation of a major American play since Elia Kazan’s “Streetcar Named Desire” more than a half-century ago.”

A proposed law in the US Congress would punish those who distribute copyrighted movies or music ahead of their release dates with jail time of up to five years. “Unauthorized copies of movies often turn up in flea markets and online ‘peer to peer’ networks, such as Kazaa, shortly after they are released, thanks to audience members who smuggle camcorders into theaters. In other cases, industry insiders post movies and albums online before they are officially released, throwing promotional plans into disarray.”