Category: media

“It’s been a tough midseason for new and returning shows bowing on the Big Four — plenty of tankings and yankings — and no net has been immune.”

How to construct an ad for your movie.

“Yesterday, a District Court judge in New York City blocked the city’s quest to subpoena unused footage that the filmmakers … gathered during production. The footage would have been used by the city lawyers in lengthy federal suit brought by the wrongfully convicted defendants.”

A film director and longtime Academy member lets a journalist look on as he fills out – complete with candid commentary on every category – his ballot for this Sunday’s Academy Awards. (Unsurprisingly, we don’t know the guy’s name, though commenters have some ideas.)

In light of what seems to be the actor’s ongoing flameout, Richard Brody looks back at some of Depardieu’s best screen performances.

“Does the audience deserve the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? Surely not, but just how much fiction is OK?”

“Perhaps we are watching the Academy Awards in its death throes. Most reasonable people would agree that very few movies now match the best of television in terms of artistic vitality, storytelling vigour and social relevance. That argument is over and television won.”

Frank Bruni: “We in the media love the clear-cut drama of transitions. They’re easy to grasp and frame. And in the case of the Vatican, they come with majestic visual backdrops, colorfully costumed characters: a pageant extraordinaire. It looks splendid on the front page and even better on the nightly news.”

A study recently published in the Journal of Communication finds the popular internet video site is a far more peaceful place than, say, prime-time television. What’s more, the violence that is on the site “is generally less glamorized and less trivialized” than it is in television and movies.

“We Iranians look stupid, backward and simple-minded in this movie. Hollywood is not a normal industry; it’s a conspiracy by capitalism and Zionism. We need to come up with an answer to this and other films.”