Category: media

Derek Thompson: “TV, as we know it, is cable packages and live channels. But the new players are building an Internet-video experience around apps with very little access to live television. It’s not TV. It’s Internet TV. Even as these tech upstarts are battling each other for living-room dominance, they’re also battling the legacy of traditional television and the sturdy cable bundle.”

“Russia’s minister of culture threw a lifeline Monday to Hollywood studios fearing the introduction of movie import quotas in the country, which could harm U.S. interests at the Russian box office.”

“The idea behind Musekeweya, or the New Dawn, is to do the opposite of what the notorious Radio Libre des Mille Collines did 20 years ago as it stoked ethnic hatred during the genocide carried out by Hutu extremists.”

“Uncompensated minions are as central to the movie business as private jets, splashy premieres and $200 lunches. But the Hollywood tradition is under assault.”

The piece “shows that criticism is art, which means that it doesn’t need a purpose or a rationale other than truth, or beauty, or keeping faith, or doing whatever it is we think art is trying to do.”

“We want to encourage more young women to pick up the camera so we have greater diversity in what we’re watching. Girls lack confidence to pick up a camera because they think they need to be technical but a director is just someone who has a story to tell and can tell it clearly.”

“It’s a niche, like anything else, but I think it’s alive and well.”

“Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta, the crown jewel in its flagship franchise, swelled to a network-best 4.6 million viewers in February. The current season, one of the top five nonfiction series across all of cable, skews overwhelmingly African-American, at 68 percent. “

“‘Georgia’s just got everything you want—really great infrastructure, good crew, stages—for a big-budget film, and all the way down to the indies and TV series as well,’ says Dama Claire, an L.A.-based production executive.”

“Given the scale of the revelations of the occurrence and covering-up of sexual abuse by priests, you might assume that the same would be true of sincere and celibate Roman Catholic clergy. Yet, in these bad times for the Vatican, good priests are surprisingly in evidence on-screen.”