Category: media

“Which movie is the best of the decade? Is there any consensus among the accumulating lists? To find out, we collected all of the rankings we could find and synthesized the results using a simple scoring system.” The regularly updated, interactive list-o’-lists is called The Aught-omatic, and it has two films running neck-and-neck for the top slot.

“Now, according to data from TorrentFreak, Star Trek was downloaded nearly 11 million times this past year, just edging Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in total downloads. Interestingly, for all the fuss about the Wolverine leak, the film barely makes the top 10.”

In an article titled “Aristotle’s Virtues and Homer’s Doughnut,” “L’Osservatore Romano on Tuesday congratulated the show on its 20th anniversary, praising its philosophical leanings as well as its stinging and often irreverent take on religion.” The paper even suggested the possibility of a “Simpsonian theology.”

“The BBC Trust has today given its provisional approval to the Corporation’s involvement in Project Canvas, which … is a joint venture between the BBC and five other partners to develop and promote a common standard that would allow viewers with a broadband connection to watch on-demand TV.”

Danny Leigh: “In short, what with this being the season of goodwill and so on, it might be apt to briefly pick out in the spotlight those films that didn’t quite get their due when they were first released, whether from critics, audiences or award ceremony judges.”

As Russia pushes for “domain names in languages with non-Latin alphabets,” the nation’s people worry “that Cyrillic domains will give rise to a hermetic Russian Web, a sort of cyberghetto, and that the push for Cyrillic amounts to a plot by the security services to restrict access to the Internet. “

“Every year on Dec. 24 at 3 p.m., half of Sweden sits down in front of the television for a family viewing of the 1958 Walt Disney Presents Christmas special, ‘From All of Us to All of You.’ Or as it is known in Sverige, Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul: ‘Donald Duck and his friends wish you a Merry Christmas.'”

“Most TV executives cannot fathom a time without regular ratings, given that the Nielsen numbers are used to sell commercial time. But for decades, PBS was content to receive monthly reports about its audience.”

“Overweight adults who cut their viewing in half for three weeks used about 120 more calories a day than a similar group of viewers, who continued watching five hours a day on average, a small research trial has found.”

“Certainly, as a concept, reality programming offers the possibility, and rare actuality, of personal drama and cultural revelation. But from the nurse log of “American Idol” and “The Amazing Race” have sprouted all manner of shows in which the time-honored division between fame and notoriety has been unforgivably mangled, creating a pop culture smoothie in which there is not so much flavor as sensation.”