Category: media

“America’s foremost myth machine, Hollywood has always tended to offer an especially idealized view of the country’s problematic past. ” Not this time.

“Technology could help find a way to actually do important journalism for our democracy that can impact many more people and help serve it to a general-interest audience in a way that can be commercially sustainable.”

“Outside of the established and growing circles of performers and ensembles that specialize in contemporary concert music, there is still a vast, untapped population that not only is able to enjoy listening to new music but that enjoys playing it as well.”

“Spiegel: The 2011 Western comedy Rango, for example, was everything but a children’s movie, but still very successful.
“Katzenberg: Successful? Not really. It didn’t make money. I don’t know how you gauge success. It won an Academy Award, and it appealed to adults. But the movie lost money.”

“AMC Theaters, with more than 300 theaters nationwide, is wagering its future, and many millions of dollars, on ripping out the old, uncompetitive seats and replacing them with what it calls ‘plush power recliners’.” Your correspondent tries them out in a ten-hour, four-movie marathon.

Midnight showings of the cult classic in several cities feature, along with the usual audience participation, “shadow casts” – people of varying shapes and sizes who act out the script in costume on a stage in front of the screen. A number of shadow cast members are finding that the performances help them overcome body shame, especially around fat.

“For Halloween 2013, the predominant attitude in pitches for candy, costumes, toys and other merchandise is more trick than treat – somewhat surprising, given the lingering qualms about the economy and the effects of the government shutdown. For instance, Booking.com … plans to introduce on Friday a spooky campaign centered on ‘haunted’ hotels.”

“It turns out the shows most seen on Twitter aren’t always the shows most seen on TV, and the discrepancy illustrates just how much more there is to learn about what a tweet about a TV show means.”

“Netflix Inc. is in talks with several U.S. pay-television providers including Comcast Corp. and Suddenlink Communications to make its online video service available as an app on their set-top boxes, people familiar with the matter say.”

“It’s a potential landmark moment in the pay-TV wars, precisely because it shows that the battle between Internet and traditional TV isn’t as bloody as some analysts like to pretend – at least, not yet.”