Category: media

Set to music and narrated by the nation’s last living cowboy, “Halftime” has considerably more rhetorical pow than the prosaic platitudes of Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech: “We’re the nation that puts cars in driveways.” Indeed, Eastwood’s manager couldn’t resist representing the spot as a personal statement from his client: “Chrysler just sponsored what he had to say.”

“With lit candles in their hand and tears in their eyes, a crowd of sorrowful citizens gathered outside Attikon yesterday to mourn the cinema’s destruction. Among the Athenians in the crowd who had fond memories of watching movies at the Attikon since they were children, were a number of artists who came to commemorate the building’s significance for the arts in Greece.”

“The post-Edwardian period décor, costumes, and sumptuous scenery all seem just right. But with drama that is so dependent on dialogue, one aspect of the show has come in for particular attention from sharp-eared fans: the accuracy of its language.”

“Hasbro has long been known for making toys and games based on movies and TV shows. Lately, the multinational toy company has been making movies and TV shows based on its toys and games.”

No. In making movies, “the key factors are ideas and money – and both are currently in short supply.”

“If any company should have recognized what 2012 would be like in, say, 1988, Kodak should have. After all, it pretty much invented 2012 in 1888. That was the year that company founder George Eastman introduced the Kodak No. 1, catalyzing a new way of looking at the world, a new mode of existence.”

The Guardian‘s Xan Brooks live-blogged the BAFTAs from the top rows of the Opera House at Covent Garden. “Up steps Stephen Fry to welcome us all: ‘lords and Iron Ladies and media scum’. Fry, it transpires, is deeply proud of British cinema, whether it be represented by James Bond or little Harry Potter.”

“I know the arguments about never forgetting; that making movies or writing books about the Holocaust is a way to keep these memories alive. But books — libraries full of them — have been written. Plenty of good films (bad ones, too) have been made, and this output will endure. Why do we need fresh entries at this point? Is anyone truly going to see In Darkness to learn about war-time atrocities? Or are they driven by some pornographic instinct?”

J. Hoberman explains the Clint Eastwood (oh, and Chrysler) Super Bowl commercial: “‘It’s Halftime in America’ was a most effective bit of political theater — maybe the best of its kind since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 ‘Morning in America.'”

“There was a time when a kiss, delivered by the right kind of person to the right kind of person, could set the whole country abuzz and speak profoundly to our national identity crisis.”