Category: media

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship? Not anymore: “For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is charging a license fee to TV stations and networks that broadcast live shows with interviews of movie stars on the red carpet before Sunday’s 89th Academy Awards telecast.”

Wait, what? “We wouldn’t have time to engrave each Oscar on the spot, so we pre-engrave the name of every nominee on to plaques beforehand.”

“Ever since 2015, when the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag called out the industry’s woeful inclusivity, the show has been transformed—possibly against its will—from a sporadically #woke statuette dispensary to something bigger. The entire show is now political: The nominees, the winners, and the things they say (or don’t say) on stage. And at time when everyone’s mad as hell, and deservedly so, this year’s Oscars offer a rare chance for everybody to make a statement—even the viewers playing along at home.”

“The Toronto International Film Festival is reducing the overall number of films it will screen for this year’s edition by 20 per cent and getting rid of two programs.”

Cara Buckley, the Times‘ Carpetbagger: “Chatting with a half-dozen or so Oscar campaigners, the Bagger learned that the reasons long-shot movies and performers are foisted into the awards fray are almost as numerous as the prizes Hollywood doles out to itself each year (though, she dares to say, publicists’ justifying their paychecks surely plays a part).”

“The result of 4,000 hours of TV consumption [by the founder] is Walter Presents, an online streaming service that began in Britain in January 2016. And now, when Americans have access to more TV from around the world, [Walter] Iuzzolino is bringing Walter Presents to the United States. The service will debut in March with a catalog of 34 shows, or about 300 hours of TV, and at least two new shows will be added each month.”

“Unlike traditional gaming, Second Life is governed by few rules. Residents can customize their avatars in an infinite number of ways. They can fly and teleport as easily as they can walk, run, and jump. They can build bespoke homes and islands almost from scratch, … marry a Second Life lover, take a rocket to the moon, or simply tuck themselves into bed at night. For many disabled residents, who may spend 12 hours a day or more in Second Life, the most important moments and relationships of their lives happen inside the virtual world.”

The board is considering a move to require 19 WLRN reporters and editors, now employed by an independent nonprofit, to reapply for their jobs; only this time, those jobs would be under the direct control and supervision of the school district itself.

“When the Academy expanded the best picture category to more than five nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010, it also made a fascinating tweak to how the votes are counted. It used to be a first-past-the-post system, where all you needed was more votes than everyone else to win. This meant that movies used to be able to win without majority appeal, as all you needed to do was persuade a dedicated minority to pick your movie. But now, instead of picking their choice for best picture, voters rank them. Then they’re counted with instant runoff voting,1 and the impact this has is it’ll award films with broad majority appeal over ones that have strong plurality appeal.”