Category: media

These companies tap into our emotional longing for simpler times; even Socrates yearned for the days before this new-fangled technology called “reading” ruined everything (paywall). Never content with the cards we’ve been dealt, we keep on turning old ones over, wanting to escape into their familiar embrace.

“When horror movie icon George A. Romero died earlier this year, it should have started a copyright expiration timeline for his most famous and influential work, the 1968 classic and Halloween icon Night of the Living Dead. But something really scary happened to the film before it became a hit: Due to a last-second title change and a distributor error, the former Night of the Flesh Eaters fell into the public domain upon its release. What caused these types of problems – and how has copyright adapted since?”

News of Matilda, a glossy period piece about a Polish ballerina who had an affair with Nicholas II before he was crowned (or married), was met by Russian orthodox extremists with protests, calls for a ban and even arson attacks. (Nicholas was canonized in 2000 as a martyr for the faith.) “However, most Russians – and certainly those at the screening in Moscow on Tuesday – take little or no offense.”

“Closed captioning is widely but not unfailingly available in theaters; that should improve by next summer, when all theaters showing digital movies must comply with a new federal rule under the Americans With Disabilities Act. As for performers, ask people to name deaf movie actors — or films about deaf people starring deaf people — and you’ll probably get exactly one name and title: Marlee Matlin, who won an Oscar for her turn in “Children of a Lesser God” 30 years ago. Then, crickets.”

The film’s director, Paula Markovitch: “My parents were artists and they were intelligent at a terrible time. The dictatorship not only persecuted academics, it persecuted anyone intelligent. In that sense they were internal exiles. Exile are those who fled, those who escaped the dictatorship going to other countries. And the internal exiles were those who hid within the same territory.”

One of the actors from the show, which is about workplace sexual harassment (and more): “I know we’re talking about TV, but it was sort of a microcosm of what was going on. … We thought we had it in the bag. There’s no way [Trump’s] going to win. There’s no way we’re getting canceled. That happened, and that happened, and it was like … we’re really operating against some crazy forces right now.”

Or Deaf audiences, for that matter – though next year, all theatres using digital projection must comply with closed captioning rules. Things were better before movies became “talkies”: “Deaf and hearing audiences could delight equally in silent films. What’s more, deaf actors appeared frequently.”

Hmmm. “Although we have no intention of functioning as an investigative body or moral court, we do have a right and duty as a voluntary association to maintain clear standards of workplace behavior for those we accept as members.” (So are Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby the next to go?)

But he never got it. And by the way, he is a super normal dude who teaches biology and has four kids.