Category: media

Thai movie fans claim world movie-watching marathon record after staying awake through 25 movies played back-to-back in 51 hours. – BBC 02/20/00

While Canada’s CBC is reeling from cutbacks and layoffs, America’s National Public Radio, by contrast, is thriving. As it marks its 30th anniversary this month, NPR is flush with cash. Its audience has tripled in the past six years, reaching 15 per cent of Americans, and its network of stations is expanding. Are there lessons for Canada in NPR? – The Globe and Mail (Canada) 02/19/00

Sergio Leone created the “spaghetti western” and launched the career of Clint Eastwood. But popular success wasn’t his ambition. A new biography reveals the Italian director’s ill-fated plans for an epic picture that ought to have constituted his final masterpiece. – The Telegraph (UK) 02/19/00

Chinese film crew in St. Louis to make a movie about a Chinese couple in the Midwest, say their reception in America has been anything but welcoming. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch 02/18/00

— wins short-film prize at Berlin Film Festival. – Die Welt (Germany) 02/18/00

It’s tempting to describe the deeply personal films being made in Iran these days as fragile flowers struggling to thrive through a repressive government. “But their relationship with the fundamentalist regime and its social agenda is more ambiguous than that. For better or worse, this is a cinema that exists in its present form not in spite of, but because of the restrictions it has to circumvent.” – LA Weekly 02/18/00

The Berlin Film Festival is still struggling for identity ten years after the Wall fell. “When this was a divided and occupied city, the West Berlin festival had a clear political mission, first as a showcase of democratic freedom, then as a cultural bridge between East and West. Now, with Berlin reunited and the Soviet bloc a thing of the past, the festival seems to be adrift in the no man’s land that divides the global movie industry between the United States and the rest of the world.” – New York Times 02/17/00

Russian space officials have agreed to send an actor up to the Mir Space Station and to film scenes for a movie there. “The film is among several projects aimed at keeping the aging space station aloft. Starved of government funding, Russian space officials have been forced to entertain unorthodox proposals for commercial use of the Mir.” – Detroit News (AP) 02/17/00

PBS series “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” successfully brings antiquity to life. “History is sometimes best told by ignoring contemporary academic disputes, and concentrating instead on the dramatic events of the past. Scholars who study the Classical period can have their enthusiasm unbottled when relieved of responsibility for ideological and political rectification by a skillful team of professional story-tellers.” – The Idler 02/16/00

At the Berlinale, a rush to add subtitles to every film is a time-consuming and often last-minute art. – Die Welt (Germany) 02/16/00