Category: media

“Theaters have long charged less for matinees and early morning screenings, but charging a higher ticket price to watch a movie in the film-going equivalent of prime time is a newer and less consumer-friendly trend.” Especially when a film that draws an audience of two dozen people costs $16 on a Sunday afternoon.

“But as early as this month, next-generation 3-D glasses will be hitting stores. The new specs are designed to work with any TV or computer monitor capable of playing movies or shows in 3-D. Manufacturers hope the new universal glasses, which will cost more than $100 each, will help expand the niche 3-D market.”

“The application, called Disney Tickets Together, could transform how Hollywood sells movie tickets by combining purchases with the powerful forces of social networking. When you buy a ticket through Disney’s application, for instance, it alerts your Facebook friends and prompts you to invite them to buy tickets of their own.”

The actor “has announced that he plans to ‘pirate’ part of his upcoming film, ‘Killers,’ and put it online sometime this week. As he put it in Tweet-speak, he’ll be ‘going live 2 the web & pirating the 1st 10 min of Killers from the premiere.’ He later told Ellen DeGeneres that he plans to ‘pirate the first 13 minutes of the movie.'”

“Think Laurence Olivier was immune from awful? You’ve obviously never seen him in ‘The Betsy,’ where his auto tycoon sports an accent that’s equal parts Southern, Midwestern and Martian. Or what about his rabbi in the Neil Diamond remake of ‘The Jazz Singer’? Oy.” And Olivier has company — lots of it.

“The organisers of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards could be ruing their decision to hold the ceremony in the Sri Lankan capital this year. … Because of strong protests by Tamil groups against IIFA holding the ceremony in Colombo, the top actors of tinsel town have cited prior commitments to give the occasion a miss.”

“Here’s everything you need to know about summer television: 1. It is still dominated by cable. 2. The broadcast networks are no longer turning the lights off in May and have dedicated themselves to programming the summer. 3. All the good shows are on cable.”

“Producers of shows can use social media data as a large-scale focus group to see what most engages viewers. In addition, advertisers’ integration of brands into shows often reappears in social media conversations even as people increasingly skip TV commercials.”

“In France, cinema is widely referred to as “the seventh art”, along with architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, music and poetry. “Seventh art” is not a phrase one hears often in Britain, or America for that matter. But, in France, they view cinema as a form of artistic expression, worthy of study and discussion.”

“The phony battle between the channels doesn’t convey the truth about how we listen to music. Different music can inspire different emotions, can suit different moods. In this country we have the most extraordinary range of radio stations.”