Category: media

“A new video game for iOS and Android called You Don’t Mess With Putin will see the Russian leader battle the undead led by the mystic Rasputin. … It is still unclear if the Russian president will be battling the zombies with or without his shirt on.”

“Nielsen Holdings announced on Monday that it had completed its $1.26 billion acquisition of the radio ratings company Arbitron, a deal that Nielsen says will allow it to monitor eight hours a day of the public’s media consumption across television, radio and a range of electronic devices.”

“Warner Brothers and RatPac-Dune Entertainment said that they had agreed to a deal under which Warner will receive financial backing for as many as 75 films over four years or more.”

“Pioneers in virtual reality wondered as early as 1992 whether simulation sickness would limit adoption of the technology, not realizing, perhaps, that eventually just about every interface humans might use would take on elements of virtual reality.”

“As the finale approached, ‘Breaking Bad’ had honed itself to a fine point, the L.A. Times’ Todd VanDerWerff writes, with a penultimate episode both weird and brilliant. For Sunday’s show, the series’ huge fan base was on the edge of their seats.” Um, spoilers ahead.

“Years later, after the scandal surrounding their adulterous love affair had subsided into yesterday’s news and with subjective directorial visions like Rossellini’s thriving on the art-house circuit, the work was reassessed with a newfound appreciation for its gutsiness and aesthetic power.”

“As wrong-headed as they may be, mean-spirited reductionist critiques can be really funny, particularly if served up in a pithy one-liner that pierces the heart of the movie and bursts its shimmering creative bubble.”

“Such a spectacle seems torn from the feeble imaginings of some bygone science-fiction author: a doomy vision in which humanity – having lost all enthusiasm for human interaction – resolves to consume the splendours of the Earth exclusively through cinema screens.”

Among cinema fans, the “director’s cut” mystique is huge – but are those movies usually any better than the studio cut?

“Audience tracking, a cottage industry created in the 1970s, works principally by polling viewers at test screenings to gauge interest and awareness of a film, or over opening weekend to provide a window on a movie’s demographics. … Many in the film industry believe that current tracking systems, which have been loudly criticized this summer for considerable inaccuracies in predicting opening weekend box office, are in dire need of improvement to better determine the viewing habits of today’s moviegoers.”