Category: media

Of course, it came into being because of war – WWI, to be precise, and because “Britain was at the time trying to bring China into the war on the Allied side.”

USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism just released a study that found that “only two main characters over 60 appeared in the 25 films nominated for Oscars over the past three years. And things are even grimmer if you’re not Michael Keaton, as he played them both.”

“Screeners are usually identifiable by an intermittent on-screen message reminding viewers the film is not to be copied or shared, and they also usually contain watermarks as a security measure against piracy. But every year they do get leaked online, and 2017 has been no exception, despite earlier reports that fewer leaks were happening this time around.”

Three weeks ago, a Kickstarter campaign started for crowdfunding a game version of the Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam epic, blessed by Coppola himself. But the project started about eight years ago at a video game studio called Killspace, which one former employee told reporter Adi Robertson was “the worst-run company you could possibly imagine.”

“Animated films have editors just like live-action films. But how do you edit an animated film? In live action, you shoot first and edit later. In animation, you edit first and shoot later.” Andrew Saladino explains in a video essay.

The producers of the Uzbek film Daydi (“Rogue”) put Freeman top and center in the poster, but the movie doesn’t feature him (or even, evidently, anyone who looks like him). So Uzbekistan’s film board denied a license to show it.

“Just as the Fourth Geneva Convention has long protected civilians in times of war, we now need a Digital Geneva Convention that will commit governments to protecting civilians from nation-state attacks in times of peace.  And just as the Fourth Geneva Convention recognized that the protection of civilians required the active involvement of the Red Cross, protection against nation-state cyberattacks requires the active assistance of technology companies.”

Using Toni Erdmann, Cristian Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the orignal British version of The Office, and a new Canadian comedy (yeah) from VICE Media as examples, John Semley argues that not quite getting the joke is half the fun.

“With the sequel – finally – upon us, the director [Danny Boyle] and star [Ewan MacGregor] plus author Irvine Welsh, producer Andrew Macdonald and more look back on the 1996 Cool Britannia flagbearer and how it all happened.”