Category: media

“2009 was a record year at the Swedish box office with the total gross up 22% at $212 million. U.S. films had a market share of 54%, with Swedish films coming in second with a record 33%, according to figures from the Swedish Film Institute.”

“[T]he dealmaking at this year’s Sundance, which concludes Sunday, reverted to what one producer with a film in play called a ‘rational approach.’ It’s the start of a new decade, and patience and thoroughness have become the catchwords in the condos, theater lobbies and lounges here.”

As Disney prepared to shutter its art-house company Thursday, people in the movie business mourned. “When we think of the movies that defined the latter part of the 20th century – the movies that mattered, … that hit pop culture like a hammer and left a dent – more often than not they came from Miramax.”

Yes, “Avatar” has just become the highest-grossing movie ever — but the inflation of ticket prices is a big factor. “Given the current estimated average ticket prices of $7.46, ‘Avatar’ still needs to sell about 50 million more tickets before it matches the inflation-adjusted domestic gross of ‘Titanic.'”

The prank site Google Xistence “resembles a Google product page, complete with YouTube instructional video, and purports to let users plug in their Facebook, Twitter and blog log-in credentials. The service supposedly lets Google live your social life for you — so you can ‘play World of Warcraft or Tower Defense.'”

“The film is a perfect souffle of left-wing attitudes. But conservative critics are missing the conflict at the heart of the movie,” which champions a cause dear to them. Central to the plot is “a stark violation of property rights, the foundation of the free market and indeed of civilization.”

“‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is a work that’s nearly impossible to categorize. The movie that’s both about — and made by — the controversial and hugely popular artist grapples with a separate series of contradictions about the competing themes of fame and privacy.”

“The children who grew up watching the big, pre-irony 1980s movies — where all was black and white, good was good and evil was evil, before Tarantino and Soderbergh came and blurred all the lines — are now the directors and studio bosses, and they’re making the movies they used to watch.”

“What happens to all those 3-D glasses after they’ve been used to goggle at floating mountains and blue aliens? They usually get washed or recycled.” Unless, of course, they don’t.

OntheBoards.tv, is “the first online, pay-per-view series dedicated to presenting progressive contemporary performances from around the world.”