Category: media

The BBC plans to make all of its radio and TV library available free for downloading over the internet. “The BBC probably has the best television library in the world. Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn’t been an effective mechanism for distribution. But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that.”

“Hollywood has had a long love affair with books, and like any relationship, it has had its highs (“Gone With the Wind”) and lows (“The Great Gatsby”). There are movies that are better than the books (“The Godfather”); movies that drastically depart from books with disastrous consequences (“The Scarlet Letter” starring Demi Moore); and movies that differ to one degree or another but still capture the spirit of the book (“The French Lieutenant’s Woman”).”

“There is little question that digital is the future of movie exhibition. The real questions are when it will happen and who will pay for it. The major studios are gung-ho on the technology because transmitting a movie over phone lines or on discs or by satellite will save them the expense of making individual prints of their films. At $10,000 a copy, a studio spends millions to duplicate a film like “The Hulk” that opens on 3,000 to 4,000 screens. Digital imagery is ostensibly incorruptible and theoretically as vivid as photographs on film. The digital revolution was supposed to happen four years ago…”

In the past 10 years, 1970s cinema has become an unqualified cult. Directors like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze make films under its influence; fan-boy Web sites extol its glories. Not long before she died, Pauline Kael wrote that the 1970s were ‘when the movies seemed to be about things that mattered.’ Yet, there’s something troubling about the way 1970s cinema has evolved from mere fandom to become its own genre, especially among younger cinephiles.”

Movies seem worse than ever this summer. “It’s been a year when flicks about talking fish, a freak horse and an ancient Disney ride have rocked the box office, and unbearable lovers Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been only slightly less lethal than unstoppable killers Freddy and Jason.” So here are 50 ways to improve things…

Why are movies intended to be blockbusters this summer, failing? Movie studios blame text messaging by teenagers. “The problem, they say, is teenagers who instant message their friends with their verdict on new films – sometimes while they are still in the cinema watching – and so scuppering carefully crafted marketing campaigns designed to lure audiences out to a big movie on its opening weekend.”

“The television industry has not brought in Hispanics in proportion to their burgeoning numbers and buying power. While Latinos make up 13 percent of the national population, Latino characters make up only 3 percent of the prime-time TV population. While some progress has been made – “The George Lopez Show” is considered a viable hit for ABC – the Hispanic market remains an afterthought for network TV, despite dramatic new evidence of its growing clout.”

As a listener, you probably don’t realize it (and that’s the way it’s supposed to be) but a good deal of the music you hear in films these days is composed and performed electronically – with barely a live violinist or horn player in sight…

DVD piracy is a growing problem in the UK. “The sale of bootleg videos and DVDs is a growing problem, up 80% in the last year, according to the Federation Against Copyright Theft. That means piracy has cost the UK film industry £400m in the last 12 months, the research said.”

Once upon a time mindless summer blockbusters could be fun. No more, writes Brian Miller. “After the opening weekend to each successive studio tent pole, nobody’s lining up around the block to catch the must-see movie two, three, or a dozen times more. That’s because there’s another new tent pole arriving each weekend that we grimly drag ourselves to see, like hamsters on a wheel. Why is that? Where has the fun gone? Into the machine, that’s where, the same self-perpetuating machine of which we all—moviegoers, critics, studio executives, directors, and stars—are a part.”