Category: media

“The U.S. Naval Academy has confiscated the computers of about 100 midshipmen who allegedly have pirated music and movies on their hard drives. The Annapolis students could face punishment up to a court-martial if they are found to have the copyrighted material illegally.”

Time was when aspiring movie biz hopefuls would hang out on the studio lots and watch. The storyu goes that “Steven Spielberg’s professional movie career began the day he decided to jump off a tour bus at Universal Studios Hollywood and wander around the back lots. While exploring the buildings, he found an abandoned janitors’ closet and turned it into his office. He would go to work there everyday, wearing a business suit and tie, walking past the security officers. After some time, the security guards had seen him so often they would wave him through the gates, no questions asked.” But now, studio security locks down the lots to outsiders.

Is MTV in trouble in the UK? “After enjoying 15 years as a near monopoly, the network is in the biggest competitive fight of its life. In less than 18 months Emap – the magazine and radio group formerly known as East Midland and Allied Press – has been able to launch and grow six rival channels which, together, are now watched by almost as many people as MTV’s.” And there are more competitors coming…

“After years of failed promises, unripe business plans and half-baked technology, the cable industry is finally beginning to deliver reliable and economical video-on-demand services. Despite the omnipotence that the label implies, video on demand does not allow users to watch any program or movie under the sun. No database is yet infinite. But in New York City, for instance, Time Warner Cable plans to have 1,300 hours of programming available at any one time — the equivalent of almost two months of TV watching.”

Why are Americans so cocky about going to war? Why are they so confident everything will turn out in their favor? “The source of our unworried attitude, our sureness that Iraq will be no more than a blip on our glorious march toward the future, is, I very much fear, that we have been brainwashed by history and, more to the point, by the movies into thinking we cannot lose.”

If a film gets an “NC-17” rating in America, it will have difficulty being distributed. So filmmakers often censor themselves before the ratings board does, taming the content to fit an “R”. “Why do we accept similar censorious interruption when it’s sex rather than violence at issue? And why is the art-house audience, supposedly the one that takes film most seriously, so willing to look the other way?”

A dying teenager makes a pact with friend that when the first of them dies, the others will put a small digital camera attached to the internet inside the coffin. “When one of the teenagers dies, the survivors must decide whether to fulfill their high-tech pledge and if so, how. One stipulation moves the story into the gothic realm of Edgar Allan Poe. The coffin is to contain a heating element that will speed or reduce the body’s rate of decomposition. The temperature will then be controlled by online visitors, who can adjust an interactive thermostat on the tell-tale Web site.”

The British government has revealed its communication bill, which will reform the way broadcast media do business in the UK. “The bill aims to promote universal access to media and communications services, and self-regulation for companies in the media industry.”

Judging by a lot of today’s movies, “you’d think race was easy. No biggie whatsoever. Not only that, it’s fun and entertaining.” But Hollywood has a long history of distorting race relations. “If anything, Hollywood is — and nearly forever has been — in the problem-dodging business, and if these movies are only becoming more strident in their insistence that race on-screen isn’t an issue, it’s because off-screen it so clearly, obviously and unsettlingly is.”

Since taking over as CEO of PBS in 2000, Pat Mitchell “has been herding cats, struggling to bring unity and stability to the nation’s loose affiliation of 349 noncommercial television stations. With varying success, she has shifted some of the network’s ‘icon’ series from their hallowed time slots in an effort to bring a new thematic consistency to the weekly offerings. None of these changes, even ones that seem superficial, have been easy.”