Category: media

“In the middle of acting out the screenplay of a film” – titled This Is Not a Film – “he isn’t allowed to make, using strips of tape and a cellphone and his living-room carpet as his only props and sets, Iranian director Jafar Panahi grows discouraged.”

“There’s an argument that filmgoers are willing to pay more for new bells and whistles. Ticket prices for 3-D films, for instance, average 8% higher than their 2-D counterparts. Since winning an Oscar differentiates a film, there’s rationale to charge more.”

“After all, some films are so terrible that they gain a cult of devoted followers. It’s those films that fans say can enhance our understanding and enjoyment of all movies, and provide some much-needed relief from the predictability of the film industry. They’re also, aficionados worry, a dying breed.”

“Once marginalised and therefore cut down in screen-time, older characters have had to be stereotyped, with often unbecoming results. There have been a good few kindly old grandmas, but more often the elderly have been shown as [string of nineteen unflattering adjectives]. However, with the coming of our own millennium, cinema determined to do better. It was now in pursuit of the increasingly valuable grey dollar.”

“Hollywood has started coming to grips with one of its biggest worries: Is this the new normal for the Oscars? A diminished attraction that ranks well behind the Super Bowl and a host of playoff games, and has even been eclipsed by a surging, better-suited-to-the social-media-age Grammys?”

The Oscars weren’t even the most-watched awards show on television this month. The Grammys Got an audience of 39.9 million. “The Nielsen Co. estimated Monday that 39.3 million people watched the Oscars on ABC Sunday night, up from the 37.9 million viewers during the much-panned 2011 show where James Franco and Anne Hathaway shared hosting duties.”

“TiVo has released its customer research on the most-TiVo’ed moments from last night’s Oscars, with Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez’s presentation speech for the Best Costume Design and Makeup award tops the list.”

“Here’s an idea for the future – a Canadian Academy Awards, covering both film and television! Let the Gemini Awards and Genie Awards get married. Model it on the Golden Globes, which cover both film and TV, with a party-like gathering of everyone who is anyone in Canadian broadcasting and film. Just us, just our own.”

“Wearily accustomed to being the focus of bad news, Pakistanis celebrated on Monday after a filmmaker from Karachi won the country’s first Academy Award, for a documentary about the victims of gruesome acid attacks.”

“The film hasn’t made much money in America but that’s not the point – the point was getting those 6,000 voters fully au fait with it. It’s the perfect campaign.”