Category: media

“It’s impossible to tell what Ms. Bigelow’s Oscars will mean for her, much less whether it will help other women working in the American movie industry.”

“The video game industry faces an unfortunate paradox: It attracts boundlessly creative individuals, yet demands a regimented, practically scientific skill set. And although it’s gained the kind of Wall Street muscle that has accorded it economic legitimacy, recognition of game design as an art form continues to lag.”

“After a decade of “Survivor,” we’re fluent in the nuances, strengths and shortcomings of reality shows. Some pop-culture critics go so far to say they have evolved into a new art form, to be taken at least semiseriously.”

“Global movie ticket sales climbed 7.6 per cent in 2009 to $29.9 billion US, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The group representing U.S. studios said the greatest growth was in Asia Pacific, where box office was up 12.3 per cent, boosted by sales in Japan and China.”

“In a zig-zagging departure from the one-person-steers-the-ship movie making standard, Untitled Comedy is being shot by half a dozen different filmmakers. … The concept: each director takes charge of one segment of a feature-length picture. The scenes will then be stitched together to form a single shaggy dog story.” The cast includes Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet.

“Two trading firms … are each about to premiere a sophisticated new financial tool: a box-office futures exchange that would allow Hollywood studios and others to hedge against the box-office performance of movies, similar to the way farmers swap corn or wheat futures to protect themselves from crop failures.”

“Although the charges and counter-charges in this case are pretty salacious, the furor is only partly about [New York Press critic Armond] White and [‘Greenberg’ director Noah] Baumbach. It’s also about the uneasy symbiosis between film critics and the movie business,” and it manages to suggest, “in the face of all available economic evidence, that what we do still matters.”

“Quentin Tarantino – fresh from his Oscar loss – is now being sued by a man who claims the director ripped off his concept to create Kill Bill.“

“The suit says that the paper lured the film’s producer into last year’s awards race with the offer of an expensive promotional package, then savaged the film in a review.”

The makers of a short film, “a cross between ‘Goodfellas’ and the ‘Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,'” hope to use it to “build support for stronger incentives to keep filmmaking centered in Southern California.” They also hope it “will be featured in a festival they’re planning that would showcase short films that are shot in California.”