Category: media

The 9½-hour Holocaust documentary “has come to serve as a solemn metaphor for remembrance, as well as for butt-numbing endurance. … But to talk of Shoah only in terms of moral compulsion or epic length is to miss the multitude of Lanzmann’s decisions, his shot-by-shot brilliance – from revelatory tracks and pans to dramatically self-contained long takes.”

“Hollywood, an industry so often driven by the ids of 14-year-old boys, used to usher actresses into retirement after they lit their 39th birthday candle. But this year, leading ladies in their 40s, 50s and 60s have elbowed their way onto the screen in an abundance of principal roles in both studio and independent films.”

“Led by its public-television broadcaster, Mexico is producing a new breed of TV series — sexy, stylized and risk-taking — that bears closer resemblance to HBO offerings than to the telenovelas that have dominated Mexican television for decades.”

“The MPAA should have changed its standards long ago, taking into account the context and tone of a movie instead of holding fast to rigid checklists.”

“For filmmakers in the Gulf region, these are promising times. In recent years, the region’s governments have actively funded the development of a fledgling cinema industry.”

“A Japanese scientist is suing distributors of Oscar-winning documentary The Cove and demanding that footage of his interview be removed from the film. University of Hokkaido toxicologist Tetsuya Endo appears in the documentary about Japan’s dolphin slaughter talking about research into levels of mercury in dolphin flesh.”

“[Robert] De Niro’s portrayal of the fictional Sen. John McLaughlin in Machete … has apparently made some folks in Austin upset. The Texas Film Commission says it will refuse to pay $1.75 million in state incentives to the movie’s producers citing a state law that allows the state to refuse to pay incentives for ‘content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion’.”

Dame Helen Mirren has condemned film-makers for aiming movies at young men. The remarks came as she received an award for women in entertainment. Dame Helen, 65, said she resented “the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of some very brilliant female ones”.

“Satellite broadcasts of the US TV shows Desperate Housewives and Late Show With David Letterman are doing more to persuade Saudi youth to reject violent jihad than hundreds of millions of dollars of US government propaganda,” according to a US State Dept. cable included in the recent WikiLeaks dump.