Category: media

Avatar topped Star Wars , which took in $460.9-million domestically in its original run and several reissues over the years. Factoring in today’s higher admission prices, Star Wars remains well ahead on actual number of tickets sold.

“The sci-fi blockbuster – the most expensive movie ever made and on track to become the highest-grossing film ever made – won the Golden Globe tonight for best dramatic film and best director for James Cameron.” Meryl Streep won her seventh Globe, a record, for her incarnation of Julia Child in Julie and Julia.

“In a disaster this huge, television reporters are the heralds of the fund-raising effort. News organizations repeatedly let people know how and where to donate money for Haiti, … [Yet the] line between compassion and self-congratulation is thin on television; in a calamity this vast and acute, many viewers flinch at any sign of reportorial showboating.”

“In the Old World of distribution, filmmakers hand over all the rights to their work, ceding control to companies that might soon lose interest in their new purchase … In the New World, filmmakers maintain full control over their work from beginning to end … The Old World has commercials, newspapers ads and the mass audience. The New World has social media, YouTube, iTunes and niche audiences.”

“Cinema audiences in Russia have been quick to point out that Avatar has elements in common with The World of Noon, or Noon Universe, a cycle of 10 bestselling science fiction novels written by [brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky] in the mid-1960s.”

“A federal appeals panel appeared ready and eager Wednesday to overturn as a First Amendment violation the Federal Communications Commission rule banning even the one-time utterance of ‘fleeting expletives’ on the airwaves.”

“The radical idea of not charging for tickets, underwriting the festival largely through sponsorship money, drew surprisingly strong crowds to even the most difficult and obscure films.” The resignations “indicate a rift between the AFI Fest and the larger organization of the American Film Institute, which … had been experiencing financial woes even before the recession.”

A new website started by an actress “brings together ordinary folks–the site refers to them as ‘readers’–who for a modest fee (sometimes under $10) will record a short script for an actor eager to master the pronunciation and speech patterns of a specific region in preparation for an audition.”

“PBS’s cultural programming — which is expensive to produce and doesn’t necessarily draw the largest viewership — has gradually become marginalized.” But in a talk Tuesday in Los Angeles, the network’s president and CEO “recommitted PBS to arts programming, both on television and online. She described an ambitious arts initiative with three components….”

Last spring, a month before X-Men Origins: Wolverine was to hit the screens, someone uploaded an early print of the movie to the Web, causing serious agita for the studio and star Hugh Jackman. Now the culprit, a 47-year-old Bronx father who has been arrested and charged, explains how and why he did it.