ABC’s entertainment president Channing Dungey has already contended that her network’s programming may very well be out of touch. “With our dramas, we have a lot of shows that feature very well-to-do, well-educated people, who are driving very nice cars and living in extremely nice places,” she told attendees at the 2016 Content London conference “But in recent history we haven’t paid enough attention to some of the true realities of what life is like for everyday Americans in our dramas.”
Category: media
In An Era Of Endless Choice, It’s The Massive Blockbusters That More And More Dominate
“As a business, entertainment has in some ways become less democratic, not more. Technology is making the rich richer, skewing people’s consumption of entertainment towards the biggest hits and the most powerful platforms. This world is dominated by an oligarchy of giants, including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix and Disney (as well as Alibaba and Tencent within China’s walled ecosystem). Those lacking sufficient scale barely get noticed. Paradoxically, enabling every individual and product on the planet to find a market has made it next to impossible for the market to find them. Consumers generally favour whatever they find on their mobile screens or at the top of their search results. The tail is indeed long, but it is very skinny.”
‘Moonlight’ And ‘Arrival’ Win Writers Guild’s Best Screenplay Prizes
At the last of the big awards ceremonies before the Oscars on Sunday, “Moonlight won for best screenplay, and Arrival for best adapted screenplay; it was based on the Ted Chiang novella Story of Your Life.”
New Yorker Report: Inside Reinventing The Oscars (Some Historical Perspective)
“Throughout the spring of 2016, Academy librarians worked overtime scrutinizing older members’ credits, as the board of governors fielded frantic calls from members asking if they were marked for demotion. When the board held its elections last summer, a handful of candidates ran on an anti-reform platform, among them the composer William Goldstein, who railed against the Academy’s response to “false accusations of implied racism.” They all lost, and Boone Isaacs was reëlected—indicating that her critics were louder than they were numerous.”
Will “The Great Wall” Establish China As A Global Movie Powerhouse?
“Filmed entirely in China, the film is a $150-million (U.S.) attempt to prove that with enough money and talent, some of the brightest entertainment minds on both sides of the Pacific can assemble a film that audiences in both China and the West want to watch. It is also perhaps the most visible flagpost in a sweeping attempt to build China into an even greater entertainment power, one with the technical capacity and storytelling savvy to win over audiences far and wide.”
Against The Odds, These Two Actors Appear Together In Two Best Picture Nominees
In a banner year for movies with black actors in the lead, Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monáe both created breakthrough performances in “Moonlight.” They cemented their year with their work in “Hidden Figures.” For Ali, the recognition comes after decades of a steady acting career; for Monáe, a successful musician, “Moonlight” was her first time onscreen.
If IMDb Could Figure Out A Way Around The Trolls, The Message Boards Wouldn’t Have To Die
No, IMDb, the conversation has not all moved to social media – even a social media administrator could tell you that: “There is a definite sense of community on the boards. You won’t be able to use the site in the same way.” But the site’s admins might (with reason) think that racist trolling has gone way too far. So as of today, Feb. 20, all of the content will disappear.
Advertisers Buy All Of The Oscars’ Ad Time, Expecting Political Speeches
It’s possible that the “Trump Bump” that’s been helping the New York Times, Teen Vogue, ProPublica and other print/online publications is also driving more money toward the producers of the Oscars. The current president “‘has been very good for television,’ said Ashwin Navin, chief executive of Samba TV, a data and analytics firm. ‘The politically charged environment has been good for television, including these award shows.'”
Movies Have The Power To Change Minds, And Real Lives
Civil Rights leader Vernon E. Jordan Jr.: “Division has always been a product of assumption — assuming that our story is the only story, or that our lives are harder than someone else’s, or that people who don’t look like us don’t have the right to live and work for the American dream. But no matter how divisive life in this country may become, the movie theater has always been a place where we can rediscover what unites us.”
So What’s The Deal With The Foreign Film Nominees For This Year’s Oscars?
There’s a South Pacific island Romeo & Juliet-ish film from Australia, a Hitchcockian thriller from Iran, a post-WWII POW story from Denmark, the force that is A Man Called Ove from Sweden, and of course, the very tipped winner, Toni Erdmann – which is set to be remade in the U.S. with Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig (yes, really). Which will win? Which should win?