Why The Oscars Matter "It's a TV show. Television is the reason movies get made and watched, and TV is the only reason anybody cares about them. Why was the awards show moved from its traditional March date to February? To put it into the February TV sweeps period. That's why."

The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/22/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@08:52AM

Oscar Voters - Old, White, Male "A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%. Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership."

Los Angeles Times 02/19/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@08:21AM

Twickenham Film Studios Goes Bankrupt "Twickenham Film Studios, which have been used for films as diverse as Roman Polanski's Repulsion, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and current Oscars hopeful My Week with Marilyn, are to be closed just one year ahead of the facility's centennial anniversary."

The Guardian (UK) 02/21/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@12:06AM

China Loosens Restrictions On Foreign Films "China has agreed to ease restrictions on the number of foreign films shown there, and to increase the amount film studios can make from ticket sales. A quota of 20 foreign movies, which are mostly US exports, remains. A further 14 Imax or 3D films will be allowed."

BBC 02/20/12

email this story | Posted 02/22/12@12:02AM

Taviani Brothers, Now In Their 80s, Win Golden Lion In Berlin "The Italian docudrama Caesar Must Die from octogenarian sibling film-makers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani won the top prize at the Berlin film festival on Saturday. The film follows real-life inmates of a high-security jail as they rehearse for a performance of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar."

The Guardian (UK) 02/20/12

email this story | Posted 02/21/12@12:09AM

Disney And Warner Bros. Fight Over Wizard Of Oz Rights L. Frank Baum's 1899 novel may be in the public domain, but Warner Bros. still owns, and profits from, the classic 1939 film. With Disney's Oz, the Great and Powerful on the way, the studios have begun legal battles over both copyright and trademarks.

The Hollywood Reporter 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/20/12@11:58PM

Skip The Movie; The Title Sequence Shows The Real Art Title sequences can set up the rest of the movie. Of course, the rest of the movie often disappoints. That's OK: New title sequence websites mean you never need to watch a full movie again.

Irish Times 02/18/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@09:20PM

Music Sales Up; Music Press Way Down New figures say that in the new media world, "the recorded music business, for all its troubles, is actually faring far better in the transition to digital than the British music press."

The Guardian (UK) 02/18/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@09:19PM

Historic Theatres In Danger, Thanks To Switch To Digital "With the future of motion pictures headed quickly toward an all-digital format played only on pricey new equipment, will the theaters be around? Or will they be done in by the digital revolution that will soon render inadequate the projectors that have flickered and ticked with a little-changed technology for more than 120 years?"

Boston Globe (AP) 02/18/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:51AM

Berlinale: Far From Lackluster, And Catering To, Well, Everyone "Last fall the German Film Critics Association held a symposium on the future of the Berlinale titled 'What Now After All the Bad Reviews?' The Berlinale's director, Dieter Kosslick, who has headed the festival since 2001 and whose contract was recently renewed through 2016, has a ready answer for detractors: Look at the numbers."

The New York Times 02/17/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:41AM

You Think Hollywood Loves Itself, But What You See Is Actually Self-Loathing "The Oscar nominees may not be just a demonstration of a sudden burst of nostalgia. They may be a demonstration of the self-contempt of an industry that is finally tired of itself and of the movies that have defined it for two decades. This doesn't mean that they will retreat from teenage blockbusters. It just means that they are using the Oscars to stage a small protest against the sorts of movies they feel we the audience sadistically forces them to make."

Los Angeles Times 02/19/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:33AM

Cirque Returns To The Oscars - Without Setting The Theatre On Fire, This Time After a decade, Cirque de Soleil gets another invitation to the Oscars show. Producers just hope the 50-performer extravaganza isn't quite as boisterous this time.

The New York Times 02/17/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@08:08AM

Holocaust Movies: Always A Good Oscars Bet J. Hoberman: "In the 52 years since Shelley Winters won a supporting actress Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank, there have been 20 nominated features -- including foreign-language and documentary films -- that treated the Holocaust from the perspective of its victims. Only two have gone home unrewarded."

Los Angeles Times 02/19/12

email this story | Posted 02/19/12@07:52AM

Video - "The Beginning Of The Future" Although "it's been pretty fashionable for different pundits to bash television," said Bill Duggan, group executive vice president at the advertiser association, watching video content and interacting with it on various screens is booming.

The New York Times 02/17/12

email this story | Posted 02/17/12@09:17AM

Bourne Identity Director Is Crowd-Sourcing Documentary On Torture In a collaboration with PEN American Center and the ACLU, Doug Liman "will create a feature-length film whose script is compiled from various documents on prisoner abuse and torture [during the Bush administration's War on Terror] ... and whose footage will consist of user-submitted videos of their readings of these documents."

The New York Times 02/15/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@11:58PM

Kodak Gets Its Name Of Off Oscars Theatre "Eastman Kodak had been seeking to end the $74m, 20-year naming rights deal it signed in 2000. CIM Group, the real estate company that owns the theatre, objected but a judge ruled in Kodak's favour this week." Fun Fact: "Of the nine films nominated for this year's best picture Oscar, seven were shot on Kodak film."

BBC 02/16/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@09:31AM

The Very First Recordings Of The Human Voice Revealed "It must have been excruciating for the National Museum of American History's archivists to have the earliest known recordings of the human voice but not to be able to listen to them. The records, made in the Volta Lab of Alexander Graham Bell in the early 1880s, were too fragile to play. But the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figured out how to scan them optically and retrieve the sound."

The Economist 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/16/12@12:03AM

China Limits Broadcast Of Foreign TV Shows "The new regulations, announced Monday, ban all imported programs during prime time and limit such shows to no more than 25 percent of a channel's offerings each day."

The New York Times 02/15/12

email this story | Posted 02/15/12@08:35AM

We're In A Golden Age Of Documentaries (So Why Don't We Celebrate Them?) Of the more than 800 feature films released theatrically in America last year, more than 300 were documentaries. (At premiere marketplace festivals like Sundance and Toronto, the ratio is similar.) Yet at the Academy Awards, where the film industry lavishly celebrates itself, all of those films compete for one measly award: best documentary. By comparison, dramatic features get 20 chances for an Oscar.

Slate 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@08:55AM

"Halftime In America - Political Metaphor Set to music and narrated by the nation's last living cowboy, "Halftime" has considerably more rhetorical pow than the prosaic platitudes of Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech: "We're the nation that puts cars in driveways." Indeed, Eastwood's manager couldn't resist representing the spot as a personal statement from his client: "Chrysler just sponsored what he had to say."

New York Review of Books 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@08:52AM

100-Year-Old Athens Theatre Destroyed In Riots "With lit candles in their hand and tears in their eyes, a crowd of sorrowful citizens gathered outside Attikon yesterday to mourn the cinema's destruction. Among the Athenians in the crowd who had fond memories of watching movies at the Attikon since they were children, were a number of artists who came to commemorate the building's significance for the arts in Greece."

Greek Reporter 02/14/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@08:02AM

Spotting The Anachronisms In Downton Abbey's Dialogue "The post-Edwardian period décor, costumes, and sumptuous scenery all seem just right. But with drama that is so dependent on dialogue, one aspect of the show has come in for particular attention from sharp-eared fans: the accuracy of its language."

The Boston Globe 02/12/12

email this story | Posted 02/14/12@12:05AM

Old Hat: Toys Based On Movies. New Hotness: Movies Based On Toys. "Hasbro has long been known for making toys and games based on movies and TV shows. Lately, the multinational toy company has been making movies and TV shows based on its toys and games."

The New York Times 02/13/12

email this story | Posted 02/13/12@11:58PM

Without Books, Can Cinema Survive? No. In making movies, "the key factors are ideas and money - and both are currently in short supply."

The Financial Times 02/10/12

email this story | Posted 02/13/12@07:58AM

Kodak's Glorious History, And Sad End "If any company should have recognized what 2012 would be like in, say, 1988, Kodak should have. After all, it pretty much invented 2012 in 1888. That was the year that company founder George Eastman introduced the Kodak No. 1, catalyzing a new way of looking at the world, a new mode of existence."

The Smart Set 02/10/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:49PM

Who Won At The British Film Awards? They're Not Talking The Guardian's Xan Brooks live-blogged the BAFTAs from the top rows of the Opera House at Covent Garden. "Up steps Stephen Fry to welcome us all: 'lords and Iron Ladies and media scum'. Fry, it transpires, is deeply proud of British cinema, whether it be represented by James Bond or little Harry Potter."

The Guardian (UK) 02/12/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:31PM

Can We Please Just Stop With The Holocaust Movies? (A Response to Agnieszka Holland's 'In Darkness') "I know the arguments about never forgetting; that making movies or writing books about the Holocaust is a way to keep these memories alive. But books -- libraries full of them -- have been written. Plenty of good films (bad ones, too) have been made, and this output will endure. Why do we need fresh entries at this point? Is anyone truly going to see In Darkness to learn about war-time atrocities? Or are they driven by some pornographic instinct?"

Tablet Magazine 02/10/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:46AM

What Did 'It's Halftime In America' Mean In Cinematic Terms? J. Hoberman explains the Clint Eastwood (oh, and Chrysler) Super Bowl commercial: "'It's Halftime in America' was a most effective bit of political theater -- maybe the best of its kind since Ronald Reagan's 1984 'Morning in America.'"

The New York Review of Books 02/11/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@09:16AM

Remember When A TV Kiss Could Change The World? "There was a time when a kiss, delivered by the right kind of person to the right kind of person, could set the whole country abuzz and speak profoundly to our national identity crisis."

The New York Times 02/11/12

email this story | Posted 02/12/12@08:49AM

'Conservative' Movies Sell More Tickets Than 'Liberal' Movies, Says Conservative Group "Films that embody 'conservative' values such as capitalism and Christian belief are more likely to prove profitable than those which take a more 'liberal' standpoint, according to a US group called Movieguide, which promotes the former."

The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@11:54PM

A Sundance For Facial Hair: The World's First Moustache Film Festival "Cannes will bristle. The bigwigs at Venice may twirl. There's a major new cinema event on the scene: the inaugural moustache film festival, to be held in Portland, Maine on 30 March. The festival is an offshoot of the annual Stache Pag, a moustache pageant showcasing the best in east coast facial hair."

The Guardian (UK) 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@11:52PM

Canadian Movie Box Office Down Slightly In 2011 "Gross box-office revenue in Canada for the year totalled $1.001-billion, a 3 per cent decline from 2010. Canadian films accounted for about 3 per cent of that, grossing $28.3-million in total, down 16 per cent from the $33.5-million tallied in 2010."

The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 02/09/12@08:02AM

America's Global Blockbusters Are No Longer Set In America "Last year's top five had one film, the fourth Twilight, with a US setting; two, if you count the last Transformers, which really belongs to the multimillion-dollar globetrotters that rule the roost now. The new orthodoxy is: if a film is set in America, with strong American themes, the less chance it stands in the new globalised mainstream."

The Guardian (UK) 02/08/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:53PM

Foreign Countries Ban American Movies For The Darnedest Reasons Sure, it makes sense that India would forbid The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - all that rape and violence. But Burma/Myanmar banned The Simpsons Movie over pigment, the French government cut the entire second half of an African art documentary, Ireland banned the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business for anarchy, and China blocks all films depicting time travel.

The Atlantic (Flavorwire) 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/08/12@11:52PM

Top-Rated Part Of SuperBowl 2012? Madonna "Overall, Madonna's show was more popular viewing by nearly a 16 percent margin over the game itself - and TiVo said it wasn't because so many viewers rewound to watch rapper M.I.A give them the finger, though the company is checking to see if the controversy encourages those who recorded the Super Bowl to go back to that moment and see it for themselves."

The Hollywood Reporter 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@06:54AM

M.I.A.'s Middle Finger Salute During Super Bowl Broadcast Unlikely To Rouse FCC "Right now, the U.S. Supreme Court is in the midst of considering the FCC's constitutional allowances to police indecency, and until that happens, the rulebook is in flux as the 2nd Circuit has already struck down some of the agency's policies on naughty words on broadcast television."

The Hollywood Reporter 02/07/12

email this story | Posted 02/07/12@06:49AM

Verizon And Redbox Join Forces To Compete With Netflix "Verizon Communications Inc and Coinstar's Redbox unit have formed a joint venture to sell video services aimed at competing against video rental giant Netflix Inc. The venture will combine the Redbox DVD rental kiosk business with an Internet video offering from Verizon, including mobile offerings, in the second half of the year."

Reuters 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@11:59PM

Meanwhile, Netflix Is Morphing Into A TV-Streaming Company "More than 60% of the 2 billion-plus hours of video streamed by Netflix subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2011 originated on the small screen." So the company is quickly adding content to its streaming library, including old, now-cancelled programs as well as a made-for-Netflix series.

Los Angeles Times 02/05/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@11:55PM

Béla Tarr Says He Has Quit Filmmaking The 58-year-old Hungarian director, best-known (or most notorious) for the seven-and-a-half-hour Sátántangó, has confirmed that his most recent work, The Turin Horse, is his last. "It is an extraordinary move from a man who has won rabid devotees as a standard-bearer for art-house modernism."

The New York Times 02/05/12 (includes slideshow)

email this story | Posted 02/05/12@11:57PM

Iranian Hardliners Dismiss Foreign Film Oscar Favorite As 'Dirty Movie' "The backlash [against Asghar Farhadi's A Separation] was apparent on state-run television recently when Masoud Ferasati, an Iranian writer whose views are close to those of the Islamic regime, said: 'The image of our society that A Separation depicts is the dirty picture westerners are wishing for'."

The Observer (UK) 02/05/12

email this story | Posted 02/05/12@02:07PM