Category: media

Says Russia’s culture minister, “Let all flowers bloom, but we will only water those we like, or those we consider necessary. … State support for culture won’t be going to projects which portray Russia in a negative light.”

“Music-focused cinema could provide something radical: a close view of the processes of composing and performing that reveals the work behind what seems, to listeners, like magic. Instead, like almost any other kind of cinema, it tends to focus on human relationships: on the interpersonal, not the inner personal.”

Sorry, Dustin Hoffman. “The glossy hermeticism and theatrical realism of many older, ostensibly classic movies have dated terribly and reflect the very exclusions and compromises of the system that produced them.”

Another aging American movie star disses his younger compatriots: “In Britain they take their training seriously while in the States we’re going through a sort of social media image conscious thing rather than formal training. … With the Aussies, particularly with the males it’s the masculinity. In the US we have this relatively asexual or unisex area with sensitive young men.”

“Proponents said the cuts were necessary to help Louisiana balance its budget and avert steep cuts to education and other needed services. The state faces a projected budget shortfall of at least $1 billion in the current fiscal year. Many fear the new law, however, will encourage major studios to take big budget movies to Georgia and other states competing for Hollywood’s business.”

Mynette Louie: “I spoke to some of those filmmakers to get a better sense of the forms of discrimination they typically face; these four examples were the ones most commonly cited.”

“Most films today, away from the comic strip or robot adaptations, are made in around 20 days. Part of the reason is that digital technology enables filmmakers to shoot more scenes in a day than they used to, but mostly it’s to do with the downsizing of budgets as more and more films get made. The films that have been squeezed the most by this development have been the quality dramas, a genre that has a habit of calling on Hoffman’s inimitable services.”

“KPCC’s total audience has grown 27 percent, and Latino listenership has nearly doubled since 2009. At the end of 2014, the station was the highest-rated public radio station in Los Angeles. Its listener-sensitive revenue grew accordingly. The paper reports that KPCC’s listener support nearly doubled, from $6.5 million to $11.4 million; corporate underwriting revenue increased from roughly $5.3 million to $7.8 million between 2009 and 2014.”

“Two decades after it went off the air, Seinfeld remains relevant to American audiences … but in much of Europe it is considered a cult hit, and commonly relegated to deep-late-night time slots. Its humor, it seems, is just too complicated, too cultural and word-based, to make for easy translation.”

The Hollywood Reporter put together three lists to keep you at your TV 24/7 before the nominations come out: Dramas (16 different dramas), Comedies (12 comedies), and the bizarre but enjoyable Obscure Shows (13 of those).