Category: media

“Red Granite Pictures, the producer behind The Wolf of Wall Street, Dumb and Dumber To and other films, has agreed to pay $60 million to the U.S. government in order to settle allegations that it was funded in part by money siphoned from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund called 1 Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB.”

The medium has become the creative breeding ground for daring storytelling and unique personalities to find their footing, build an audience, and then seize larger Hollywood lucre.

“In the week to come, I received one of those public Twitter and Facebook shamings that writers now expect as an occupational hazard. Hundreds or possibly thousands of people, including close friends and professional colleagues, wrote or shared critiques of my piece; wondered in public what had become of me; lamented my decline (which had the strangely complimentary effect of suggesting that I had some status to lose, which few writers ever really feel they do).”

In comments to The Guardian that he later walked back, RuPaul said, “You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body. It takes on a different thing; it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing.” And he followed up on Twitter: “You can take performance-enhancing drugs and still be an athlete, just not in the Olympics.” Spencer Kornhaber offers a rebuttal.

“Three sources close to the investor group, led by former Obama administration official Maria Contreras-Sweet, said Tuesday that it found at least $50 million in undisclosed liabilities on the New York company’s books. The surprise debts, which would have significantly increased the purchase price of the assets, torpedoed negotiations.”

Several cities and states sought to curb the moral influence of movies through censorship laws. Chicago passed the first such ordinance in 1907, while Pennsylvania became the first state to enact movie censorship in 1911. These laws grew in popularity after the Supreme Court’s decision in the Mutual Film Corp. case. In its opinion, the Court ruled that movies were “not to be regarded as part of the press of the country or as organs of public opinion.” State and lower federal courts upheld this stance consistently, and by doing so, empowered censor boards.

Less often do we focus on the cinematographers behind the lens, many of whom never saw themselves working in television until, in the last decade or so, the schisms between the small and big screens dwindled. And not merely in the scope of the stories or the quality of scripts: never before has television looked so good, from inventive camerawork to glossy lighting.