Category: media

Eighty percent of early American silent and “talkie” movies have been lost due to decay. “Russian state film library is giving the Library of Congress preserved copies of 10 “lost” silent films that will help fill a gaping hole in the American collection.”

The nine-and-half-hour Holocaust documentary – “which does not use historical footage and instead consists primarily of first-person interviews conducted in 14 countries with survivors, witnesses and accomplices” – will be shown theatrically in New York in December and in other US cities in the new year.

In the first week after Netflix launched its on-demand streaming service in Canada, 10 percent of the entire nation’s Internet users used the site. “At peak hours (around 9 p.m.) the service accounted for more than 90 percent of the traffic on one Canadian broadband network. It’s not just Canada. Netflix is swallowing America’s bandwidth, too.”

“Stories of the pathologically depressed are 21st century television’s oblique way of reflecting the disappointments of the American economy and the frustrations of apparently endless warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“A court in Ankara lifted the ban on YouTube videos on Saturday. In 2007, the court imposed the ban under a law that makes it an offence to insult Turkey or Turkishness. An individual had complained of clips disrespectful to the founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.”

“Just a few years ago, the notion of Univision catching and surpassing them would have had mainstream network executives rolling with laughter. They’re not laughing now.”

“Ain’t No Grave was the last thing Johnny Cash recorded in a studio. Milk’s tribute has been to invite fans to submit their own single frame for the video – and 250,000 have been submitted so far. Viewers see a video composed of some of those frames, but can also choose director-curated frames, highest-rated frames, abstract frames and so on.”

The city has already hosted six television pilots, the Ron Howard-directed “The Dilemma” and, oh yeah, that one sequel about the robots in disguise.

“Every film critic I know loathes making lists. Most of us make an annual Year’s Best Films List, because that’s our equivalent of signing the Hippocratic Oath when you’re a doctor. The plague of lists has grown much more fearsome in the age of the Internet.”

“Today’s blockbusters live and die on their special effects. So it’s not surprising that the wizards of f/x are beginning to step out from behind the curtain and direct their own films.”