The literary couple “have set up an offbeat drama project at HBO that revolves around a motley group of conmen and magicians who use their skills at deception to battle Hitler and his forces during WWII.”
Category: media
White House Pledges Support For Public Broadcasting Funding
“It wasn’t the most full-throated endorsement — at one point, [White House press secretary Jay] Carney suggested that NPR’s White House correspondent, Mara Liasson, come up to the podium to help with her organization’s defense.”
Our Big Television Failures
“For 50 years, we have bombarded our children with commercials disguised as programs and with endless displays of violence and sexual exploitation. We are nearly alone in the democratic world in not providing our candidates with public-service television time. Instead we make them buy it–and so money consumes and corrupts our political discourse.”
Is American News Coverage Getting Worse?
James Fallows: “I now think it’s worth facing the inevitability of the shift to infotainment and seeing how we can make the best of it.”
Hollywood Has a Qaddafi Problem
Natural Selection, the once-ordinary production company bankrolled by one of the Libyan dictator’s sons, is suddenly a pariah in Hollywood, as is anyone involved with it. Meanwhile, US stars who have performed at Qaddafi-backed events have been rushing to donate their fees to charity.
Guillermo Del Toro’s H.P. Lovecraft Film Spiked by Universal
The $150 million adaptation of the great science fiction novelist’s At the Mountains of Madness is a dream project for the director of Pan’s Labyrinth. But del Toro insists on having the freedom to deliver a film with an R rating, while Universal Studios is convinced that the movie cannot turn a profit unless its rating is PG-13.
Public Broadcasters See Opportunity In More Robust News Efforts
“NPR, PBS and local public broadcast stations around the country are hiring more journalists and pumping millions of dollars into investigative news to make up for what they see as a lack of deep-digging coverage by their for-profit counterparts.”
US States Rethink Film Industry Tax Breaks
“An Associated Press survey found that from 2006 to 2008, states shelled out $1.8 billion in tax breaks and other advantages to the entertainment industry. The recession has officials in several states wondering if the incentives are worth the lost revenue.”
Why Amazon’s Streaming Movie Service Helps Hollywood
“The move provides the online retailer a new hook for acquiring profitable customers. But more important, it shows how the digital economy is allowing big companies to use media as a means to grow or protect legacy business model.”
What To Watch When Everything’s Available?
“What you need to bring to this party, as choice multiplies upon choice, is discretion. You become not what you own but how you choose: You live in the moment, you are what you click.”