Category: media

“From May 1 through Aug. 31, attendance was down 2.4% from 2008 and 6% from 2007. Summer box-office revenues rose 1.3%, not even enough to account for ticket price inflation, let alone the premiums charged in a growing number of 3-D theaters. In the midst of the economic crisis, the best that studios could argue is that almost flat is the new up.”

“They are helping themselves and creating what can only be called an art scene, all around the many, many videos of their genre on YouTube. In serving these niche audiences with their microgenres, YouTube has solidified its slot as a home for the vernacular avant-garde.”

“Both those social-networking sites proved pivotal in the campaign to reinstate Lacma’s film program. So did an online petition that has attracted more than 3,700 signatures.”

“Why has no other war in the history of mankind seized and held the imagination of American directors and producers for so long a period of time?”

“Will Gompertz, 44, the director of Tate Media, is predicted … to become the next ‘star presenter’ after being appointed the BBC’s first arts editor. Few in the art world would doubt that Gompertz is one of Tate’s most media friendly directors who is fully plugged into the arts scene.”

“The idea that Hollywood’s hometown couldn’t sustain a smallish, 40-year-old film series just blocks from Charlie Chaplin’s old studio was shocking and depressing.” So it’s “a victory for a homegrown local protest movement as well as for the cultural life of the city” that “the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has backed off a plan to shut down its weekend film screening program. … Now comes the hard part.”

It’s southern California’s KUSC which says “that it has been ranked as the most listened to public radio station in the nation for the spring quarter by Arbitron.”

Freej, a 3D animated series starring four little old grannies in veils, has become a big prime time hit in Dubai and elsewhere in the Middle East. The show’s success and is winning its creator, 31-year-old Mohammed Saeed Harib, comparisons to Matt Groening, mastermind of The Simpsons.

“When there were more than five nominees for best picture between 1934 and 1943, the preferential ballot was used to choose winners,” which is why it’s being reinstituted now, likely leading to “schizophrenic and illogical” results. “One of the most notable disagreements between those races back in the old days led to one of Oscar’s greatest tragedies: the snubbing of one of Hollywood’s greatest directors, Alfred Hitchcock, who ended up going to his grave Oscarless….”

John Landis: “The truth is a film needs to be seen on the big screen with an audience. I find it depressing and shocking what the museum is doing and I don’t think the current director gives a . . . about film. I’m militant about this. This is L.A. for chrissakes.” Roger Corman: “The only true art form of modern times is motion pictures. If they do not show the only modern art form, they are not showing art.”