Category: media

Some see Minnesota Public Radio’s foray into Los Angeles to takeover and makeover a local public radio station as an opportunity. MPR (whose biggest programming asset is Garrison Keillor) promises new local public affairs programming and a significant news operation. Others decry the Minnesotans’ arrogance and lack of familiarity with LA values. – Los Angeles Times 04/10/00

• “American Beauty” repeated its Oscar sweep by cleaning up at this weekend’s Baftas, the UK’s most prestigious film awards ceremony. And, in case you wondered: “Bafta judges were asked to cast their votes ahead of the Oscars so as not to be influenced by the famous US ceremony.” – BBC 04/10/00
  
  
  • The winners.  – The Times (UK) 04/10/00

Ever since Jane Campion filmed “The Piano” on New Zealand’s craggy coast, more and more international film companies have been traveling south. New Zealand is “fast becoming a desirable location because of the accessibility and high quality of local film crews, production units and film laboratories and the rich variety of locations that change every 10 kilometers.” – The Age (Melbourne) 04/10/00

Why do so many great movie directors get involved in forgettable second-rate projects? It goes directly to the way movie projects are made – the money, the power, the complications. “Imagine being, as the director is, in complete charge of hundreds if not thousands of people, to have minions endlessly lining up to (a) ask for your make-or-break opinion and (b) fulfill every fancy you have for what you want to see on the set, no matter how arcane or difficult to procure.” – Los Angeles Times 04/09/00

What does it take to be successful in Hollywood? “The basic truth is that everyone wants to stay close to the fire. They don’t know how they got there but they know it won’t last. A great deal of the nervousness of Southern California is based on that understanding; that it’s all going to slip away from them.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 04/09/00

Actress Emma Thompson and director Mike Nichols have signed on to make the film version of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Wit” – the story of a Donne poetry professor battling ovarian cancer. – Times of India  (Reuters) 04/07/00

— after lawyer lures reporters to office with stunt. – Variety 04/07/00

Cable TV enticed new viewers with dozens of highly specialized channels, whereas the web has recently been drawing audiences to more generalized content on fewer high-profile sites. “As TV becomes more of an active medium and the web becomes more passive, they will eventually meet in the middle.” Convergence already spells success for independent film producers and other artists, but “make no mistake, streaming media is cool but it’s still embryonic.” – The Age (Melbourne) 04/06/00

“Sixth Sense” is a major hit in the home too. “Consumer spending on the purchase of DVD versions and the rental of VHS and DVD versions in the first five days is estimated to be as high as $50 million. DVD sales alone were so strong that the number of units sold in the first five days would have ranked the DVD version ahead of all but the top 20-25 best-selling VHS titles for all of 1999.” – Variety 04/06/00

“Only last week a California judge ruled, in a case brought by Ticketmaster against Tickets.com, that it’s not illegal for one site to link to another.” So what is the Motion Picture Association of America doing filing a motion to criminalize links to DeCSS, a program that decrypts DVDs so people can play them on Linux-based operating systems? – Salon 04/06/00