“Some of them are startlingly cinematic, far beyond the workmanlike coverage we expect from seeing the same action on television.” - The New York Times
“The region’s new generation of filmmakers is no longer bound by the intimate, place-specific arthouse mode that often defined the late 2010s New Catalan Cinema. ... They are pushing into genre, into international co-production, into areas their predecessors rarely touched.” - Variety
Is it all about popularity? What about when a network drops every episode at once? Does a series need to have characters who might grip an audience, or a dense plot? The NYT editor in charge of recapping has Thoughts. - The New York Times
The wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has given birth to a new independent, nonprofit organization that looks to fill some of the gap left by CPB’s closure after nearly six decades. - InsideRadio
“This clandestine smear machine seemingly connects some of the most talked-about scandals of recent years. … (Figures are) targeted by mysteriously operated websites that are filled with character-assassinating claims and impossible to take down. In recent months, the origins of these sites have been connected and allegedly unmasked in court.” - The Hollywood Reporter
“Staff at the BBC were told about plans to cut about a tenth of its costs over the next three years in a conference call held by director-general Tim Davie on Thursday afternoon. Operating costs for the BBC were more than £2 billion last year.” - The Irish Times
“Shahrbanoo Sadat … wrote, directed and stars in the daring, genre-bending film No Good Men, about a budding love affair in a Kabul newsroom on the eve of the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and the West’s chaotic withdrawal.” - The Guardian
Yes, of course the fact that the Motion Picture Academy has made a conscious effort to internationalize its membership is part of it. Yet the key factor (yes, for all categories) has been a change in the way nominations for Best International Film are made. - The Hollywood Reporter
Sundance’s move to Boulder is coinciding with a fortuitous moment in the specialty film space, with an uptick in post-pandemic interest from younger moviegoers. - The Hollywood Reporter
On Tuesday, the Skydance-owned company said it would pay Warner shareholders an added “ticking fee” if its deal doesn’t go through by the end of the year — amounting to 25 cents per share, or a total of $650 million, for every quarter after Dec. 31. - AP News
“An international media outlet employing hundreds of foreign journalists with the stated mission of promoting civil liberties abroad was bound to be incompatible with an administration that was attacking the same liberties at home and had made xenophobic nationalism central to its political platform.” - The Point
Most of the World Service’s £400 million budget comes from the licence fee which funds the entire BBC, though the Foreign Office contributes a sizable amount, £137 million in the last year. BBC director general Tim Davie has just warned that the government must not delay further in deciding on Foreign Office funding. - The Guardian
“Deakins – cinematographer to the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese and Sam Mendes, whose work has earned him 14 Oscar nominations and two wins, five BAFTAs, a knighthood and a reputation for being the greatest practitioner of his craft alive – is struggling to explain just exactly what he does.” - The Guardian
The sides will be negotiating in a Hollywood far different from 2023. Production has slowed significantly industrywide, as many entertainment companies struggle to adjust to the streaming world. Work has dried up for many actors, writers and directors. At the same time, the rise of generative artificial intelligence has become more central. - The New York Times
“Browsing Letterboxd, you find an eclectic range of tastes, tones and approaches to movie-watching, a buffet of high and low, mainstream and esoterica. … If Rotten Tomatoes has become a tool of Hollywood’s homogenizing marketing machinery, Letterboxd is something else: a cinephilic hive buzzing with authentic enthusiasm and heterogeneous tastes.” - The New York Times Magazine
