Category: media

What does it mean that Los Angeles, home to Hollywood and the American film industry itself, has lost what was once its most important festival? And what is it about the city that proves so inhospitable to such events?

On the one side, German Playboy and its interview with Morricone. On the other, Morricone, who says he didn’t even give German Playboy an interview. What the heck is going on?

And it’s only going to lead to a lot more BitTorrenting, which isn’t legal, but is available. “The site is loaded with stuff that is, quite simply, not available on disc, and not streaming anywhere else. It’s the only way you can see Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown, Michael Powell’s The Spy in Black, Yasujirô Ozu’s An Inn in Tokyo, and dozens more.”

The owners of Aardman don’t want anyone (ahem, perhaps a large company that starts with a D) to take over the UK’s largest animation company, so they’re handing over 75 percent of the company to its 140 employees and 180 freelancers. Why? “We always believed that independence was our strong suit. We didn’t have to dance to anybody else’s tune and could make our own decisions.”

Filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu wanted to make work that showed Africans falling in love. “Americans were falling in love and Europeans were falling in love, … but Africans, we were never falling in love. The first time I saw an African couple even hold hands on screen, I was 16.”

Will Disney invest in a lot of international content for Hulu to meet, for instance, European regulations? And will this mean a hit to Netflix’s domination of the international market?

There will be plenty of popular movies in the Oscars this year. Probably.

The “town” on the ranch was likely completely destroyed. “The ranch, which until Friday resembled a town straight out of a western, was originally developed in 1927, when Paramount Pictures purchased the lot in the old Rancho Las Virgenes and used it for various films, including The Maid of Salem (1937) and The Adventures of Marco Polo (1938). In the 1950s, Paramount sold the lot to William Hertz, who built the permanent western town that would serve many shoots and as a tourist destination.”