Category: media

While British cinema languishes in a slump (with one after another flop released in recent months), “it’s heartening to find a group of home-grown filmmakers trying something that is novel, forward-looking and gripping”: the release of the first truly interactive movie. “Running Time” can be viewed over the Internet on a PC, with a new five-minute segment released every four months. The ending will be decided by viewers’ votes. – The Telegraph (UK) 06/08/00

“Want a Roman baton from “Ben Hur”? A gladiator helmet from “Spartacus”? How about the baseball bat Robert DeNiro used in “The Untouchables” to pound a point home?” For the first time in its 100-year history, L.A.’s Ellis Prop Shop will put it holdings on the auction block next week – the largest auction of Hollywood memorabilia since MGM sold its backlot in the 1970s. – CNN 06/07/00

Italian film lovers hoped when Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful won international success last year, Italian film would experience a resurgence. But the slump continues, perplexing many. Italian films don’t even make money at home. Why? “Because 30 percent of Italian moviegoers go in without paying,” says one producer. “I personally verified the receipts at one of our theaters last summer. There were 2,000 people there, and 400 didn’t pay for their tickets.” – The Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (New York Times) 06/07/00

Arts programming has been getting increasingly less airtime at the BBC over the past few years. “BBC has been without a head of music and arts for nearly nine months. Programmes are scattered idly around the schedules. Major series have been arbitrarily cancelled. Television hours devoted to the arts have almost halved since the mid-’90s. There is no longer a regular documentary arts strand, single music documentaries have virtually disappeared, and the two literary strands have been axed.” Yet, some new programming hires may signal the beginning of a reversal of the trend. – The Independent 06/06/00

Chinese film plays all over the world. But at home an existential crisis. “One school wonders if it should imitate Hollywood. Another sees Hollywood as a virus that will destroy what is left of the domestic film industry. There’s no doubt, though, who is winning. A Chinese film is lucky to get 20 or 30 people per screening. Meanwhile, a lackluster John Travolta vehicle now showing on the yellowing screen, usually gets a packed house of 300 or more.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 06/06/00

A number of Canadian films are losing funding from a government fund set up to support Canadian films. The reason? They’ve been judged not Canadian enough.  This year the fund introduced a ranking system judging their Canadianness, based on a system of points. One filmmaker denied funding says: “You couldn’t get more Canadian unless you dressed in Canadian flags. I’m aghast at these new guidelines. It’s a reason to leave Canadian filmmaking altogether.” – National Post (Canada) 06/06/00

Today 20^th Century Fox will premiere the first movie to be sent from a Hollywood studio to a theater via the Internet. The animated sci-fi epic “Titan A.E.” will be shown to an audience in Atlanta – after a  transmission that could one day replace the traditional movie distribution system. – Yahoo! (Reuters) 06/05/00

A current affairs show where the female reporters are topless has become such a surprise hit on Russian television that politicians are lining up to be interviewed. “Svetlana Pesotskaya, the blonde actress who reads the news while playfully taking off her top or having it removed by a pair of hairy male arms, insists that the program is a serious news show.” – The Age (Melbourne) (The Telegraph) 06/05/00

In the past decade enough good and unusual films have been made in Ireland that critics and scholars are studying the “genre.” But such academic study so often misses the point, writes one critic, that it’s laughable. – The Sunday Times (UK) 06/04/00