Category: media

“The decline in home movie sales comes after a fallow year at the box-office. Despite the success of the latest Transformers, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean movies – which each grossed more than $1-billion worldwide – total ticket sales fell by 4.5 per cent, although the decline was slightly offset by higher ticket prices. Revenues from ticket sales fell $390-million to $10.2-billion, a fall of 3.7 per cent on 2010, according to BoxOffice.com, which tracks box office performance.”

“The humor stakes are so high around here that live-audience sitcoms are turning to laughter ringers, folks so good at guffawing they’re planted the audience and get everyone else cackling at the right moment.”

“Members of the Central Board of Film Certification, the country’s regulatory film body, balked at scenes in Puja Jatinder Bedi’s Ghost in which an evil spirit in female form is crucified, citing concerns that it would offend members of the country’s Christian minority.”

“The process will be more transparent and more democratic than it’s been in two decades,” said [Michael] Moore, who was a driving force behind the changes. “The idea is to get this thing fixed.”

“In a prize season that has already seen plenty of slights, the Directors Guild of America on Monday snubbed Steven Spielberg, with his War Horse,and Tate Taylor, with The Help.”

“By 2015, IHS estimates that North American and major European cities will hit the 80 per cent mark for digital projectors, at which point it will be uneconomical for studios to continue to produce celluloid. Studios are already releasing fewer film prints every year, so it’s only a matter of time before celluloid is phased out.”

“Unlike television programming, which comes with viewing guides, DVR reminders and weekly picks from all manner of media, the Netflix instant universe is a largely uncharted, Byzantine library prone to aimless clicking and haphazard double features.”

Lots of new films sport ambiguous endings. Why? What did the filmmakers intend – and can audiences deal with the ambiguity?

Thanks to Michael Moore and others on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors, documentaries must be reviewed by the New York Times or Los Angeles Times to be considered for awards. That’s right; they’ll depend on the newspapers to cull the documentaries for them.

The new CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences promised to make changes – and so she has. But not everyone is applauding.