Category: media

It’s been 23 years since Elvis died. But “during the past year, Elvis could be found in more movies than other hardest working men in show business such as Michael Caine, Gene Hackman and the Bridges brothers. The period of mid-1996 to mid-1997 – the first year of my unscientific survey –  remains the champ. During those 12 months, Elvis “appeared” in 26 movies – only seven fewer than the number in which he actually starred.” – Chicago Sun-Times

Chinese director Wang Shuo’s film “Baba,” which has been banned in China since it was made four years ago, has won the top prize at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival. Billed as a “surprise entry,” the film was unveiled at the last minute to avoid attracting unwanted attention from Chinese authorities. “No custom and passport officers will ever let the director of a banned film leave China if they know the banned film is going to play in the foreign country where the director is heading.” – BBC

• A BITTERSWEET WIN: Wang Shuo told a huge audience in Locarno that he’s thrilled his film was honored with the award, but regrets it will never be screened in his homeland. – China Times (AFP)

That Packard discovered and came to love classic American cinema is one of the luckiest things that ever could have happened to classic cinema. In the past 20 years, Packard, 59, has done more for film preservation than any private citizen in history, funneling millions upon millions of dollars into archives such as the Library of Congress, the University of California at Los Angeles and the George Eastman House. – San Francisco Chronicle

“Since the earliest days of Hollywood, agents have been the power-wielders behind the studios’ thrones. They have thrived as wheeler-dealers who guide clients’ careers, negotiate salaries and, nowadays, arrange those all-important ‘back-end deals’ – percentages of a film’s gross profits.” Now there’s an agent war. Poaching is rampant. “Industry insiders have not seen anything like it since the mid-Eighties.” – The Telegraph (UK) 08/12/00

• “Thanks to a tight race and more money flooding into politics, the Television Bureau of Advertising is forecasting that television stations will post a record of $550 million in 2000, up significantly from the $367 million of 1996.” – Variety

Movie critic Stanley Kauffmann finds his opinion has changed after 40 years. “The plain, discomfiting fact is that every one of us who has watched plays and films or read books or listened to music or looked at painting and architecture is, in some measure, self-deceived. Filed away in the recesses of our minds are thousands of opinions that we have accumulated through our lives, and they make us think that we know what we think on all those subjects. We do not. All we know is what we once thought, and any earlier view of a work, if tested, might be hugely different from what we would think now.” – The New Republic

As the actors’ strike against TV commercial makers drags on into a fourth month, TV and movie studios are coming to the alarming realization they may be facing actors strikes for their projects too next year. “We are trying to get everything done and wrapped up by a June deadline. You don’t want to be halfway through a project when the strike hits.” – Washington Post

“But a general malaise appears to have gripped consumers; in part due to what many consider unfairly priced CDs. Consumers have flocked to file trading networks such as Napster, Scour, and the nearly 100 other applications that allow users to trade and sample music for free. Even as a federal court prepared to shut down Napster for violating copyrights, 3 percent of the entire Internet home population logged on to the application in search of free music.” – Wired

“For years, 15-minutes of ads was a kind of unofficial barrier for TV, a mark that no network wanted to go past for fear that it would turn viewers off.” Now two American networks have crossed the line. “Soon we’ll have no programs left to watch.” – New York Post

A bitter war has broken out in Hollywood, with agents battling to lure new clients. “In the past year, the business has been thrown into turmoil because many of the biggest stars and most powerful agents have abruptly changed agencies, lured by the promise of better roles and more money. With stars and directors commanding millions per picture, plus a hefty percentage of the gross, the stakes are high.” – National Post (Canada)