Category: media

“All movie sets have nitpickers. They were ‘script girls,’ early on. Now they’re ‘script supervisors.’ They ward off wobbles that make movies less believable. But the Internet has stirred up a nest of similarly obsessed volunteers. They nitpick the nitpickers.” Sort of the way Monk would, if he knew how to operate the remote.

“It isn’t only ‘At the Movies’ that died Wednesday. It was [a] whole genre of television. We thought of it as a movie review program. The television industry thought of it as a half-hour weekly syndicated show.” Speaking of which, Ebert is going ahead with a new movie review show he plans to produce.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s new rules require broadcasters to spend at least 30% of revenues on Canadian content, but are flexible about where and when that content is presented. Says one actor, “It’s great that broadcasters are being told to spend money on Canadian drama, but they’re not being told they have to air it.”

“Twin Peaks was a sensation from the moment it first aired … and still, 20 years later, the influence of David Lynch’s groundbreaking series can be felt in TV drama, from The Sopranos through to Lost. Here we relive its surreal appeal and ask six veterans of the show for their memories.”

“The new censorship guidelines reverse a ban on scenes featuring homosexuality” in movies and television shows – “so long as they repent or even go straight in the end.”

“[I]t should air fine-arts programs that encompass the full range of the performing arts. That means not just ‘The Nutcracker’ but ballet and modern-dance masterpieces of all kinds. It means not just ultrafamiliar operas but solo recitals and chamber music. It means not just Broadway musicals but performances of classic and contemporary plays.” It means arts all over the country.

“The website TVTropes.org catalogs some 20,000 plot devices and dialog conventions that show up throughout pop culture. Freelance writer Zachary Pincus-Roth explains that the wiki-structure of the site has allowed contributors to identify some bizarre and hilarious tropes.”

Google, teaming up with Intel and Sony, “envision[s] technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel.”

“Among the hundreds of comments we received, there was one area where readers were in absolute agreement: Never, ever text at the movies. Even text addicts agreed–the light from your cell phone is obnoxiously distracting to everyone else in a large, dark theater, and you deserve a pile of popcorn in your lap when you turn it on.”

On California’s Central Coast in 1923, “1,600 craftsmen built a temple 800 feet wide and 120 feet tall flanked by four 40-ton statues of the Pharaoh Ramses II. Twenty-one giant plaster sphinxes lined a path to the temple’s gates. A tent city sprung up” — and was buried in the sand, along with the rest, when shooting of Cecil B. DeMille’s silent movie ended.