Category: media

“Turning on the television to follow the action is a relatively new practice. It dates back to a set of dramatic crime syndicate investigations in the 1950s that became a televised political theater triumph – and set the stage for what has become a uniquely American pastime.”

Tunisia, in fact, is relatively relaxed by Arab standards about female dress. The reason for the ban does, however, have to do with star Gal Gadot (and it will probably make you mutter, “Gawd, not that again”).

“The shift to new home options for these ‘clean’ versions aligns with the public movement away from traditional broadcast venues towards on-demand or streaming services. Simply waiting for scrubbed content to arrive on television is not only inconvenient from the audience’s new get-it-now standpoint, but allows studios including Sony a new vector for improved profitability. While the streaming revolution has, for the most part, been a knife in the heart of network television, it could prove a long-run boom for the studios who, in some cases, manage better distribution deals through these new services.”

Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory, wound up being the end of the line in an early film distribution network, and distributors thought shipping the prints back from there was too expensive to bother with – so an enormous body of films piled up there. Filmmaker Bill Morrison made an avant-garde documentary (?!) about it all.

Video games are an art form. They make a player feel. “Journey” helped me understand how and why games could make me feel just as much books, movies and TV do.

Lee Camp, an “acerbic left-wing comic,” hosts a weekly show called Redacted Tonight on RT America, the Russian-funded cable network. Jason Zinoman looks at the show and its host – and at Camp’s visible discomfort when asked about the one American political issue that his counterparts make hay with but he doesn’t touch.

“In 2008, when Pinewood first opened, production in the city descended to an ominous low of $499 million. Contrast that to 2016 when film and television production soared to a remarkable $2.01 billion. It is the third record-setting year in a row, up from $1.5 billion in 2015. And this year, based on interviews with producers, studio owners, unions and the city, that figure is on track to be eclipsed.”

“As many of the old, old tapes as possible, going back to the 1970s, have been baked (that’s what you do) and played and their data turned into WAV and MP3 files and parked at a big catalog site named WorldCat.org.”

“A report by the Portuguese public broadcaster RTP suggested recent filming for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote left behind chipped masonry, broken roof tiles and uprooted trees at the 12th-century Convent of Christ in Tomar, central Portugal.” The director – whose years-long quest to complete the movie has been legendarily troubled – denies all: “People should begin by getting the facts before howling hysterically.”