Category: media

“In the more than 50 years since its debut, the animated special, directed by Chuck Jones and Ben Washam, has become a holiday classic and turned into a live-action movie, a Broadway musical, an updated animated film and a retailer’s fever dream of pantookas, fuzzle fuzz and fliffer bloofs.” – The New York Times

“Since 2011, from late October to January, Hallmark has broadcast Christmas movies nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. … During this year’s holiday season, the programming, called Countdown to Christmas, has made Hallmark the No. 1 cable network among women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four, and, in some prime-time slots, No. 1 in households and total viewers. Last year, seventy-two million people watched Countdown to Christmas.” Sarah Larson looks into the secrets of Hallmark’s success. – The New Yorker

The satirical group Porta dos Fundos (“Back Door”) has made irreverent holiday satires about Jesus Christ before (2018’s was The Last Hangover), but this year’s Netflix special, The First Temptation of Christ, shows a pot-smoking Mary with a very visible (and lustful) God for a boyfriend and a haplessly jealous Joseph. But what’s angered the nearly 2 million people who’ve signed a petition is that Jesus comes home from 40 days in the desert with a new “close friend,” Orlando. – Variety

“Once the most highly coveted game developer — a hit-maker with the Midas touch — [Howard Scott Warshaw] had been immortalized as the man who created E.T., the ‘worst’ video game in history. But Warshaw’s story, like that of Atari, is a parable about corporate greed and the dangers of prioritizing quantity over quality.” – The Hustle

Cineworld previously paid $3.6 billion for Regal Entertainment Group, its entry into the U.S. market last year. The company plans to combine the operations of Cineplex and Regal to create the largest exhibitor in North America. Following completion, the enlarged group would have 11,204 screens globally and a combined 8,906 screens across the U.S. and Canada. – Variety

“When I got into producing television, the business model had been the same for about 70 years and, suddenly, in the last five years it’s completely different. And it looks like over the next five years it’s going to be completely different again. And nobody really knows.” – Toronto Star (CP)

But will the U.S. take that opportunity? With more than a quarter of rural lands and nearly a third of tribal lands unable to get internet access, the public sale of the spectrum could make it all possible. (Emphasis on could.) – Slate

But it might be awhile after The Rise of Skywalker before we know more. “‘We’re literally making this up from whole cloth and bringing in filmmakers to find what these stories might be,’ Kennedy said. ‘It can take a while before you find what direction you might want to go. We need the time to do that.'” – Los Angeles Times