Category: media

“So is a show that has one or two stellar episodes among consistent mediocrity more award-worthy than a show that is less flashy but more solid in its excellence? Should the fact that network dramas air twice as many episodes as most cable shows be taken into account? Or is excellence excellence no matter what the package, and how on Earth is that judged anyway?”

The Los Angeles Police Department made 10 arrests and seized $4.06 million worth of counterfeit goods, from music CDs and DVDs of just-released movies, including titles of “Tron” and “The Tourist,” as well as handbags, jerseys, sunglasses and other knock-off goods.

“The 700 square foot Eight Track Museum will display between 500-1,000 tapes. The museum will also have an example of every type of physical recorded music from the wax cylinders of the 1800s to the iPod.”

“The file-sharing blog reports that Avatar was downloaded 16.6 million times. The 3D film, which Canadian-born James Cameron devoted 10 years to making, was also a box office record-setter, bringing in $2.8 billion US worldwide, the highest amount for a feature film.”

“China’s state press and publishing body said such words were sullying the purity of the Chinese language. It said standardised Chinese should be the norm: the press should avoid foreign abbreviations and acronyms, as well as ‘Chinglish’ – which is a mix of English and Chinese.”

The theatres “operate on the premise that a certain sort of fan will pay handsomely to be pampered at the movies, with hyper-plush seating and fancy food and drink. The movie houses, born down in Australia, take online reservations for reserved seats, charging a whopping $29 a throw on weekend nights.”

“Studios want to offer new movies on video-on-demand systems in living rooms about 45 days after the movies arrive in theaters. The response from multiplex theater chains, which currently have an exclusive window of about 120 days to show new films and are concerned about protecting ticket sales: Over our dead bodies.”

The media regulator said the new rules governing product placement – which is where companies can pay to have their product placed in a show – would allow broadcasters to “access new sources of revenue”, while protecting audiences.

“Hollywood cinema remains, for the most part, rather prudish. Inserting a semi-nude scene into a movie without any narrative justification is clearly no longer cost-effective, but why are there so few studio films with sexual themes, in which sex and nudity would come naturally?”

“As radical changes in the entertainment business force studios to cut staff, make fewer movies and generally reduce the amount of money flowing through the town, these thousands of young people have found the Hollywood career ladder a steeper and more treacherous climb.”