Category: media

The Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker has a plan to refurbish or prop up downtown movie houses in his home state of Michigan, and eventually nationwide.

Fox’s musical comedy “Glee” was the big winner at the Television Critics Association awards Saturday. “Glee” took the top honor as “Program of the Year,” as well as “outstanding new program” and “individual achievement in comedy” for Jane Lynch.

“Now, until the commission can formulate new guidelines that are satisfactorily less vague, or the Supreme Court weighs in again, we are in a state of regulatory free-fall in which most of the already few rules that applied to content on broadcast TV have been suspended. The fear, or the hope, depending on where you stand in the culture wars, is that anything can happen now.”

In a millennium that has thus far produced precious few motion pictures in the same class as “The Godfather,” “Jurassic Park,” “Casablanca,” “Gone with the Wind,” “My Fair Lady” and “The Matrix,” there is a knee-jerk tendency to throw up one’s hands and moan that the current year is the worst in the history of motion pictures. But 2010 very possibly is the worst year in the history of motion pictures.

“The rising clout of international audiences is a sea change for Hollywood. Decades ago, a movie’s foreign box office barely registered with studio executives. Now, foreign ticket sales represent nearly 68% of the roughly $32 billion global film market, up from roughly 58% a decade ago.”

“Software engineers are working on a system that would replace the traditional effects of the so-called Foley artists, who have been plying their trade ever since the ‘talkies’ hit the screens, with the omnipresent computer.”

“The video website, owned by Google Inc., said in a blog post Thursday that the longer upload time was the single-most requested feature that its users have been asking for.”

“The deal ends a laborious six-month bidding process in which the founders of the storied independent film label, the brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein, fell short in their attempt to regain control.”

“Fawned over by the studios, the geek contingent has never been more influential in shaping movies. But are the fanboys in danger of killing the thing they love?”

“By the time Fox introduces the soapy new drama Lone Star on television this fall, some Vanity Fair readers, cruise line passengers, hotel guests and iPad owners will have had a chance to watch it.”