Category: media

“A crucial part of the Disney magic has always been its total control over ‘the vault,’ its 80-year-old catalog of animated features that are only released for sale for a limited time before becoming artificially scarce again.” But the studio has been busy remaking many of its classic animated titles – Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast (not to mention the 1996 101 Dalmatians) – in live action. Why?

“The decidedly lowbrow dramas — with names like ‘Bad Housewife’ and ‘Red Bean Bread’ — have, in fact, become something of a cultural Trojan horse, sneaking visions of the bustling South into the tightly controlled, impoverished North alongside the usual sudsy fare of betrayals, bouts of ill-timed amnesia and, at least once, a love affair with an alien.”

“The organisation, which describes itself as the largest Arab civil rights organisation in the US, said it had collected ‘hundreds of violent messages targeting Arab and Muslim Americans from movie-goers,’ mainly from Facebook and Twitter.”

“The show tells us that men are bothered by women who casually fuck men, it tells us there’s a virgin/vamp dichotomy in society. It tells us that male monstrosity isn’t monstrosity at all, but exists on a spectrum that includes hapless lovestruck officers of the law. It informs us that women can be unfeeling, that murderers can be empathetic, that men often mistake misogyny for art. True, all perfectly true, but the presentation is very After School Special.”

“The victory is seen as a predictor of the Academy Awards. For the last seven years, the winner of the producers’ honor has gone on to win the best picture Oscar. And like the Academy, the organization uses a preferential ballot and allows more than five nominees.”

Which is good, because web shorts pay in what’s known in the biz as “deferred compensation” – aka nothing.

“The underperformance of films like Turbo, Mr Peabody & Sherman, Penguins of Madagascar and Rise of the Guardians has wiped almost 40% from the studio’s share value, leading to 500 layoffs, a change of management and a heavily reduced release slate.”

“These games subvert the usual arc of heroic triumph … at last breaking away from the technicolour militarist bloodbaths that dog the reputation of computer games. … Finding a mouldy crust of bread to eat is often a higher priority than blazing away at the robots.”

“The first surprise is the wide range of propaganda subjects on which bans are still enforced” – not only anti-British, -French, -Russian, and (of course) anti-Jewish propaganda, but also films promoting fighter pilots (a musical, no less), the Hitler Youth, euthanasia, and the repatriation of ethnic Germans in Poland. Richard Brody considers why these movies are still forbidden after 70 years.

Shirley S. Wang takes a look at the ever-expanding phenomenon of advertising disclaimers.