Category: media

“As of Christmas Day, the domestic total for the year was $10.68 billion, or 2.7% behind the same time frame a year ago. The final six days of 2017 are likely to generate somewhere between last year’s six-day total of $408 million and 2015’s six-day haul of $431 million, according to box office tracker comScore.”

“In the film, Verna, Pakistan’s most popular and highest-paid actress, Mahira Khan, plays a teacher who is abducted and raped repeatedly by the son of a regional governor. After failing to get justice from the police or the courts, the teacher takes matters into her own hands. Pakistan’s Central Board of Film Censors banned the film for its ‘edgy content,’ which the board said was ‘maligning state institutions.’ But a public outcry, fueled by extensive news coverage and a social media campaign, #UnbanVerna, bore fruit when an appellate board lifted the ban.”

“The image of Denmark that travels around the world is that of a peaceful, progressive, liberal, educated country on the cutting edge of feminism,” writes Danish journalist Anne Mette Lundtofte. And Zentropa, founded by Lars von Trier, is Denmark’s international flagship in the media world. Lyndtofte was initially “captivated” by Zentropa’s “militant transparency” – open plan offices, glass walls, outdoor swimming pool. “But, the more I visited Zentropa, the more I saw behavior that made me feel uncomfortable – both as a woman and as a Dane.”

When the movie was first in previews, audiences wanted Holly Hunter’s newscast-producer character to end up with one of her two guys. So James L. Brooks, against his better judgment, shot a scene to provide that happy-ish ending. As Jane Craig (Hunter) said in another context, “It’s awful.” Jason Bailey explains.

“In Christmas movies, audiences can bank on heartwarming plots where grouches become kind and misers become charitable. But Christmas movies also tend to reinforce the myth of the “good capitalist,” favoring stories about individual virtue over any real social change. The way Christmas movies tell it, the generosity of individuals is sufficient to mitigate the harms of class inequality.”

Over the past two decades, under CEO Laura Walker and deputy Dean Cappello, New York Public Radio has become known (even more than before) as a programming and podcasting powerhouse. How did things get to the point that three of the station’s best-known hosts were fired within four months? And why only now, when management was aware of the relevant problems for years? A reporter looks into how, as Walker puts it, concerns about growth and content crowded out concern with the people producing the content.

“VR technology offers a new means of creating and subverting our interaction with an environment, allowing images to become sculptural and encouraging a different kind of attention. 360 will allow visitors to view some of these early and pioneering works produced by artists.”

The takeaway? Audiences seem to have grown cynical of the whole Marvel-inspired interlocking universe trope. And in an era when summer moviegoing (the studios’ most reliable money-making time frame) hit a 25-year low, with revenues tumbling more than 14 percent and tying with 2014 for the worst year-over-year decline in modern history, that emphasis on spectacle, formulaic filmmaking, and empire-building (at the expense of creating relatable characters or even coherent story lines) proved to be bad for business.

Basically: “These aren’t just Christmas movies: They’re like Kay Jewelers commercials on steroids; movie-length advertisements for small-town America, capitalism and twinkle lights.”