Category: media

“Disney in 2003 announced that it was abandoning traditional animation in favor of computer-generated imagery, after a string of hand-drawn flops,” but it “didn’t exactly strike pay dirt with its new all-computers, all-the-time approach.” Now the cofounders of Pixar are overseeing Disney’s return to the technique.

Turns out TV viewers, DVR owners included, want to lounge, not expend precious energy skipping commercials. “Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer.”

“Film festivals have sprung up in the Gulf Arab region in recent years with events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The latest, Robert De Niro’s Doha Tribeca, just ended a four-day run in Qatar’s capital. But despite the heightened exposure, Arab filmmakers say the focus is still on Hollywood and European films with little attention — or funding — given to homegrown films.”

“Ratings are up 2 percent after falling for several seasons. I’m not suggesting the suits break open 11,000 bottles of champagne, but there is plenty of cause to pop a can of ginger ale. Freshman shows have reinvigorated a medium that once seemed headed the way of the typewriter, or Amy Winehouse’s career.”

“After a series of meetings last week, the two companies reached a tentative agreement on Friday over the main points of a deal, these people said. Comcast would own about 51 percent of NBC Universal, contributing several billions of dollars in cash and its own stable of cable networks to the new venture.”

“For years PBS has been trimming back its high-culture programming, partly because it doesn’t do well in the ratings and partly, I suspect, because such lofty fare has lost favor with the intellectual elite. The notion of devoting a 13-hour TV series to the glories of Western art would now be thought comical–or contemptible–by those well-placed eggheads who regard the West as the source of all evil in the postmodern world. Among such enlightened folk, “Civilisation” is regarded as an embarrassing relic, painfully slow-moving and politically retrogressive.”

According to totalscifionline.com, it’s The Shining. Stanley Kubrick’s film “scared off fierce competition from Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and British cult classic The Wicker Man.”

Google’s new music search feature, unveiled Wednesday, “was applauded by the music industry, which … is hoping the search feature will direct users to legitimate digital music outlets and in turn help them compete with free but often unauthorized sources of music.” It may also aid iTunes’ competitors.

Tomorrow “the Stuart Street Playhouse reopens as a movie theater and Boston gets its first art house cinema in years.” But, at least to start, it will not be a first-run house; it will open with movies that “have been playing in local theaters since last month.”

“A film version of a book about a man’s true-life experiences in post-Katrina New Orleans would seem sufficiently pregnant with artistic possibility. Still, Jonathan Demme plans to take his adaptation of Zeitoun, the best-selling Dave Eggers work, one step further by making it as an animated feature.”