Category: media

“Pedro Almodóvar’s critically acclaimed Broken Embraces, starring last year’s best supporting actress winner Penélope Cruz, has been controversially omitted from Spain’s shortlist for next year’s Academy Award for best foreign language film.”

Says one exec: “Bringing money into drama is an absolute necessity. Product placement is an absolute necessity. It is about time. It is really good for us.” Of course, the producers want to control how the placement is done.

Disney has announced what it’s calling a “Latin American reversioning” of the popular TV comedy aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the U.S. Though filming will be at a studio in Caracas, the series (whose actual title in Spanish is Los Años dorados) is set in Miami, just as in the original.

“The documentary presents a kind of high-culture conspiracy theory, going so far as to display a cop-show-like ‘suspects board’ with photographs of civic and cultural leaders linked in their alleged efforts to usurp the Barnes’ deed and influence the foundation’s board.” The film also manages to “make Barnes, the pharmacological-entrepreneur-turned-art-maven, human again.”

“Turkish authorities are reported to have filed a request with the British Home Office to have the Duchess [of York] questioned about her filming of the documentary to obtain evidence on allegations that she broke Turkish privacy laws when she and her daughter Eugenie shot the film undercover last year.”

“As the film industry booms in Massachusetts, it’s creating a ripple effect across many businesses. Some come readily to mind, such as caterers and hotels. But others are more obscure such as galleries and antique shops that lease or sell paintings, maps, and photographs” to be used as props.

“In what is nothing short of a major win for the Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal judge has hamstrung Universal Music Group’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Veoh Networks. … The ruling is likely to have major ramifications in a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by Viacom against YouTube.”

At the world’s largest film festival, Manohla Dargis sees “something that was difficult to avoid and not just among the documentaries: along with the rest of the world, filmmakers are casting a hard, sober, often alarmed eye at the United States.”

A “so-called theme park within a theme park,” Universal Orlando’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter “will be faithful to the visual landscapes of the Harry Potter films produced by Warner Brothers…. ‘We’ve tried to include something from every book,'” an art director for the movies said.

Blockbuster plans to close from 810 to 960 of its stores by the end of 2010 and “might convert an additional 250 to 300 locations to outlets that focus on used DVDs. … There are 4,356 Blockbuster locations throughout the country, meaning 24% to 29% could be closed or altered within 16 months.”