Category: media

Apple News+ threatens to open a massive hole in news site paywalls, allowing their best premium articles to escape. Publishers hope they’ll get exposure to new audiences. But any potential new or existing direct subscriber to a publisher will no longer be willing to pay a healthy monthly fee to occasionally access that top content while supporting the rest of the newsroom. – TechCrunch

“It wasn’t exactly that Heathers contained no [John] Hughesian influence. The types and tropes were all there — mean girls, jocks, bullying, upper-middle-class ennui, idiotic or abusive parents, delusional teachers, a bad-boy crush — but … Heathers seemed influenced as much by Blue Velvet as by Sixteen Candles, and it paved the way for an era of darker, edgier, more experimental teen comedies.” – The New Yorker

When a huge earthquake killed 140,000 people in Japan in 1923, written and radio reports could get around the world quickly, but film footage couldn’t. That didn’t stop the makers of newsreels, who used special-effects tricks to recreate the event. That sort of thing was common from the earliest newsreels to the 1930s. – Gizmodo

The struggle is over how the talent agencies negotiate pay for the writers they represent and whether there’s a conflict of interest. As David Simon (The Wire, Tremé, The Deuce) put it to a notional agent, “If you can only leverage profit for yourself, but not for me, what the fuck do I need you for?” – Vulture

“It was something that players were talking about during warmups or while they were dressing in the locker room rather than focusing on the actual hockey game that we were getting ready to play. Part of the issue was just the inability to put it aside. I did even on occasion hear the odd reference on the bench in the middle of the game.” – CBC

There were the NATO jets overflying the filming location. The prostate infection that took out the lead actor. The woman who claimed she could get financing from the deposed president of Tunisia. Another lead actor who died just before filming was to start. The Portuguese producer who rescued the project and then sued to kill it. Bilge Ebiri talks with the director about the very long, very strange journey. – New York Magazine

“Several minutes of footage were edited out of the film, including scenes of two men kissing and the word ‘gay’. There has been significant reaction to the film’s release online. … Though some [social media] users complained of ‘half watching and half guessing’ as a result of the deleted scenes, others were pleased the film had been released at all.” – BBC