Category: media

Director Alfonso Cuarón wanted the release on the big screen, not just for an Oscars campaign, but because the movie looks better there. And the company did that, “but selling theaters on making room in their schedules to show Roma in all its glory was not an easy task for Netflix.”

Yeah, you probably have had a beef with her at some point. “For 30 years, she has watched movies — at least 12,500, she figures — and assigned grades of G to NC-17 so parents can make decisions about what is appropriate viewing for children. For 18 of those years Graves has served as the ratings system’s chairwoman, sparring with boundary-pushing filmmakers who call her too prudish, and, at the same time, defending her process to activists and parents who deem her grades too permissive.”

And pop culture. And young adult books. And … English class? “Teenagers across the country honed their argumentative skills by fighting for either Team Edward or Team Jacob. Who needs to write about school uniforms when you can just write a five-paragraph persuasive essay about Bella’s love life?”

When it comes to silent film, accompanists have infinite choices. Even in the early days of cinema, accompanists could improvise, select pieces from their own libraries, follow suggestions from cue sheets, or use the scores that came with some big-budget pictures, or any combination of these. Today, some accompanists try to recreate the sound of early cinema in their own performances, while others revel in using music that has been created since then.

At stake for China is more than just the validation of Hollywood’s powerbrokers and celebrities. In speeches and at forums, President Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the need to “tell China’s story well” — to make sure a coherent, compelling and, most important, Communist Party-sanctioned narrative of China’s rise to power reaches global audiences.

“In fairness, it is genuinely quite surprising that it’s managing to survive in 2018, a time where making a joke about something horrible is now deemed nearly as bad as the horrible thing itself. South Park season 22 has therefore had to change in order to ensure its survival in the outrage era. As the world – well, the world of Twitter at least – gets angrier and more reactionary, [Trey] Parker and [Matt] Stone have had to fine-tune their satire, making the takeaways of each episode more balanced than ever before.”

This past weekend in Taipei, at the Golden Horse Awards (which cover Chinese-language cinema worldwide), the winner of the Best Documentary prize called for Taiwan to be recognized as independent — whereupon censors in the PRC cut the broadcast off. Writer Lauren Teixeira recounts the other Taiwan/PRC drama at the ceremony and explains why the Taiwanese movie industry has to take it seriously.

“In recognition of the gift, MoMA will create the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center, spanning two floors of the museum’s … Lauder Building, which includes multimedia exhibition galleries and two theaters. The center will present film exhibitions and premieres with directors, actors, and other cinema experts.”

“Documentary filmmaker Fu Yue called for Taiwan to be recognised as an ‘independent entity’ during her acceptance speech [at the Golden Horse awards], fighting back tears as she said, ‘this is my biggest wish as a Taiwanese’. Her speech was quickly censored on Chinese television and streams, with the coverage going black.”