Hollywood's Ten Most Overpaid Actors Forbes has made a list based on studios' return on investment.

Forbes 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@07:36AM

YouTube To Provide Automatic Subtitles The titles will make it possible for deaf users to read videos. "The machine-generated captions will initially be generated in English. At first they will only be found on 13 channels."

BBC 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/20/09@07:26AM

Best Documentary Oscar Semifinalists Announced; Guess Who's Missing? "Most of the top-grossing and critically praised documentaries of the year [are not on the list], including Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Chris Rock's Good Hair, the struggling rock band chronicle Anvil! The Story of Anvil and R.J. Cutler's inside peek at Vogue magazine, The September Issue. (The Michael Jackson doc This Is It was released too late to be eligible.)

Los Angeles Times 11/20/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:20PM

How Michael Moore's Oscar Snub Makes People Happy Patrick Goldstein: "Let's be honest. Is there really anyone who is up in arms over Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story being left off the Academy's 15-title short list for the best feature documentary? In fact, I would argue that when it comes to a snub of a much-ballyhooed film, the Academy has never managed to make more people happier."

Los Angeles Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:19PM

Oprah To End Her Talk Show In 2011 "Oprah Winfrey plans to … retire the Chicago-based syndicated talk show that made her rich, famous and, if not a kingmaker, a maker of a media empire, several bestselling authors and perhaps even a U.S. President." When her syndication contract ends in 2011, she will devote her energies to her new cable TV network.

Chicago Tribune 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@10:15PM

One Medium Popcorn, Please, And A Larger Pair Of Pants "A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest."

Los Angeles Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/19/09@07:53AM

This Year's The Wrestler? Oscar Buzz Builds Around Crazy Heart "A few weeks ago Crazy Heart was just another invisible movie, one with so little promise that the company that made it refused to put it into theaters. Now, suddenly, this low-budget film about a washed-up country singer finds itself at the heart of the Oscar race, with … its star, Jeff Bridges, a likely best actor candidate."

New York Times 11/19/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@09:53PM

Nude Scenes In Movies Don't Help Ticket Sales "'Analyses of 914 films released between 2001 and 2005 indicated that sex and nudity do not, on the average, boost box office performance, earn critical acclaim or win major awards,' reports a new study titled 'Sex Doesn't Sell - Nor Impress'."

Miller-McCune 11/18/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@09:40PM

When Universal Removed Black Actors From A UK Poster "Studios make dumb decisions all the time. But ... the real underlying issue behind these kinds of gaffes" is homogeneity among the higher-ups. "The decision-makers at studios are virtually all white, so they don't see potential racial slights in the same light as they would if they had someone -- anyone! -- of color in the executive suite."

Los Angeles Times 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@06:46AM

Why Is This Year's Best-Actress Oscar Pool So Shallow? "The lack of depth has led to a slew of awards-season chatter, from the expected downplaying -- all categories are cyclical -- to blanket explanations about studios making fewer awards movies in general. If the latter explanation were a factor, best actor also would be weak this year. It's not. ... So what's really going on here?"

Hollywood Reporter 11/16/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@06:40AM

After Protest, Greek State Film Awards Canceled "More than 200 directors, producers and screenwriters withdrew 52 films from the [Thessaloniki Film Festival], undermining the state awards, which selects winners from Greek films that unspool at the fest." Filmmakers were protesting the nation's film funding laws.

Variety 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@05:41AM

Report: White Guys Still Have A Lock On TV, Film Writing "The WGA West's 2009 Hollywood Writers Report finds 'little if any' improvement in employment and earnings for women and minority writers. The report ... found that women scribes remain stuck at 28% of TV employment and 18% in features while the minority share has been frozen at 6% since 1999."

Variety 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/18/09@05:34AM

'The Most Anti-War War Game I've Ever Played' There's a "reprehensible message" underlying most war-themed video games: "Killing foreigners on behalf of one's country is one hell of a good time." But Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is "a first-person shooter that plays as a tragedy, not a power fantasy[,]  … a murder simulator that won't let you forget the nature of your actions."

Slate 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/17/09@10:11PM

If We Get First-Run Films At Home, Is Hollywood Doomed? "As DVD sales decline, Hollywood studios are looking for ways to get movies straight to consumers' living rooms. This has some industry insiders worried that Hollywood is jeopardizing its most valuable asset: the theatrical release date. The movie industry is looking to change the way it distributes content."

NPR 11/17/09

email this story | Posted 11/17/09@05:33AM

Beneath Buzz Over Huge New Film Studio, A Financial Mess A "former head of Paramount Motion Pictures certainly sounded like the right man to build a huge movie and TV studio in Massachusetts," but his $650 million plan for "14 sound stages and a virtual entertainment city in the woods of Plymouth" has been "marred by over-the-top claims, broken promises, legal infighting, and the chronic lack of one crucial ingredient: money."

Boston Globe 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/16/09@06:10PM

Switcheroo - Cable Co. Ready To Buy NBC "Cable TV operator Comcast Corp. is expected to buy a controlling stake in NBC Universal, perhaps as early as next week, bringing the network of Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Tom Brokaw under the corporate control of the company that owns the Golf Channel and E! Entertainment Television."

Yahoo! (AP) 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@11:49PM

Cop Show Wins Top Honors At Canadian Geminis "The slick cop drama Flashpoint was the big winner at Saturday's Gemini Awards as it snagged three of the night's top honours in Canadian television, including best drama."

The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/14/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@11:43PM

Universal Pays Out To Newspapers Over Fake Ads "The studio just paid $20,000 to the Alaska Press Club as part of a settlement with several Alaska newspapers after the studio, in the course of promoting its current release, The Fourth Kind, created an elaborate series of online news stories that professed to be from real Alaska news publications."

Los Angeles Times 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@10:44PM

Video Game Sales Crash "Console sales crashed 23% to $380.7 million last month, from $497 million in October 2008. Game software sales fell 18% to $572.7 million, down from $698.4 million a year earlier. The grim numbers represent the seventh monthly decline in U.S. video game sales."

Los Angeles Times 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@10:00PM

What Movies Define The 2000's? "More than 5,000 movies have come and gone and been reviewed in The Times, most of them still living somewhere in the lucrative zombie limbo of DVD or cable programming. Some landed noisily on thousands of screens at once, gobbling up as much attention and money as the marketing machinery of the studios could buy, at least for a weekend or two. Others bloomed quietly in big-city art houses and were smiled on (if they were lucky) by ardent critics and die-hard cinephiles."

New York Times Magazine 11/15/09

email this story | Posted 11/15/09@09:13AM

A Little Market Perspective - A New Video Game Sales Record Activision Blizzard Inc. said it sold 4.7 million copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 , or $310 million (U.S.) of sales, on its first day, setting a new record for the video game industry.

The Globe & Mail (Canada) 11/13/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@04:52AM

Forget The Internet - Many UK TV Watchers Stiil Use B&W Sets Almost 30,000 people across the UK still tune into their favourite programmes on black and white TV sets.

BBC 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/13/09@04:03AM

Gore's Current TV Shifts From User-Generated Content "Current TV's retrenchment shows the difficulty of grafting the freewheeling culture and sensibilities that have thrived over the Internet onto established mediums like television.... [J]ust as advertisers have shied from supporting websites that feature amateur video, so too they appear no more willing to support user-generated content on TV."

Los Angeles Times 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@07:03AM

Indie-Film History Goes Back A Hundred Years "Nickelodeons were once as common as coffee shops, and the nickel-a-pop silent films they showed were as disposable as YouTube videos. That made for a lot of competition in the early days of the movie business -- competition that fueled the rise of an indie-films culture as early as 1909."

NPR 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@06:28AM

Lion For Sale? MGM Looks To Be Headed To Auction "Several sources say they expect that MGM will essentially be auctioned off within the next few weeks. This would mean that a major, such as Time Warner, could buy the MGM-UA library while another entity might acquire the logo, and yet another deal could be made for United Artists."

Variety 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@05:54AM

Digital Media's New Health Hazard: Secondhand Smut "[T]he increasing popularity of laptops and handheld devices, and the prevalence of wireless Internet access, means there's a greater chance of becoming a bystander to a complete stranger's viewing proclivities." Skeeved-out bystanders say they're not prudes. "The trouble was knowing that they couldn't escape [the porn], not until the plane landed or the Metro doors opened."

Washington Post 11/12/09

email this story | Posted 11/12/09@05:40AM

The Problem With 3D TV: Those Ridiculous Glasses "It's brilliant in theory - but the actual practice of sitting at home wearing cardboard glasses watching TV is rather less so. Channel 4's black-and-white cardboard specs might … come from Sainsbury's rather than the bottom of a Frosties packet, but … how [do] you safely manoeuvre a cup of tea to your mouth" while wearing them?

The Guardian (UK) 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@09:28PM

In Gaza, A Women's Film Festival Challenges Hamas "Through The Eyes of Women, the three-day program that started Tuesday, includes 27 films, all by female directors, five of whom are from Gaza. Most of the rest hail from other Arab states, with eight from the West Bank."

The Globe and Mail (Canada) 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@08:00AM

Can Chicago Lure Big Indoor Shoots From Hollywood? "If all goes according to plan, the city will be home to an enormous new soundstage complex sometime next year, located in almost 50 acres of buildings that formerly housed Ryerson Steel.... In theory, it could mean Chicago will be a draw for the kinds of movies that necessitate large-scale special effects."

Chicago Tribune 11/11/09

email this story | Posted 11/11/09@07:49AM

Americans More Addicted To TV Than Ever "The average person watched four hours and 49 minutes of television a day in the 2008 to 2009 season, an all-time high … The average household watched a whopping 8 hours and 21 minutes of television a day, according to the study. That's up from just an hour and 50 minutes in 1991, the first year to be included in the study."

Wall Street Journal 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@09:51PM

Hollywood Rediscovers South Africa With such films as Distruct 9, Disgrace (starring John Malkovich), Skin (with Sam Neill), and Clint Eastwood's Invictus - and that's just this fall - the U.S. film industry is finding South Africa a rich source of locations, stories, facilities and especially talent.

Los Angeles Times 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@09:45PM

The Collapse Of Lollywood: Pakistan's Film Industry In Ruins "Back in the 1960s and '70s, Lahore buzzed with movie shoots, red-carpet premieres and box-office hits. … Today, Pakistani cinema has all but vanished, a victim of the VCR, cable television, President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq's Islamization of Pakistani society, and finally DVD piracy."

Los Angeles Times 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@09:43PM

When Sesame Street Was New "Educators were thrilled that children were entering school with a grasp of letters, colors and elementary numbers. Later, the show was criticized as too winsome, leading children to expect that the elements of reading and math would bounce in bright colors across the classroom. Nowadays, teachers are probably just grateful if kindergartners aren't texting in class."

Los Angeles Times 11/10/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@05:50AM

Odds Are Long For Black Actresses, Precious Star Included "It is a wonder that so many black actresses have waded through this stereotypical muck with their dignity intact. ... Gabby Sidibe better enjoy her fame while she can because black actresses never have less than a hard row to hoe. Even if the inner life they bring to characters is as beautiful as they are physically, they have little chance."

The Root 11/09/09

email this story | Posted 11/10/09@05:30AM

The Secret To Those Viral Video Phenomena "On YouTube some videos have been downloaded tens of millions of times. There is a cat playing the piano , a music video set on treadmills at a gym, a cackling baby. At first there may not seem any rhyme or reason behind their appeal. Yet there are shared characteristics to some viral videos, and companies seeking to advertise their products are keen to decipher these."

Financial Times 11/06/09

email this story | Posted 11/09/09@05:52AM

Academics Find An Algorithm For Hollywood Movie Sequels "Based on factors such as whether key stars are still on board, how long it has been since the last film and how that performed, the researchers say they can calculate what producers can expect to gross relative to a film in the same genre that is not a sequel."

The Observer (UK) 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@10:25PM

Native Peoples Take The Camera And Develop Their Own Cinema "From Inuit fishermen in Canada … to Quechua salt-harvesters in Bolivia, they are grabbing whatever equipment they can find to make films of their own.  … [Absent are] the drama and momentum that western audiences expect. Here, time tends to be circular rather than linear … the idea being to keep the memory [of an event] alive, rather than turn it into entertainment."

The Guardian (UK) 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@10:14PM

Why The New Children's Films Are Unsettling Some Adults A.O. Scott: "A movie like Where the Wild Things Are or Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox play a kind of reverse dress-up, disguising adult anxieties in the costumes of innocent make-believe and fanciful spectacle. … [T]oo scary for youngsters? Too confusing? Maybe, for some. So is The Wizard of Oz and half the books in the children's section of the library."

New York Times 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@12:37PM

Appalling, Addictive, And/Or Academic Touchstone: Fight Club, Ten Years On Rex Reed called it "a film without a single redeeming quality"; Chuck Palahniuk called it "the best date flick ever"; professors write about its "rhetoric of masculinity" and "economics of patriarchy"; Dennis Lim says it "is surely the defining cult movie of our time."

New York Times 11/08/09

email this story | Posted 11/08/09@09:38AM

EU To Give Teeniest Tiniest Protection To Those Accused Of Illegally Downloading Media "Some members of the European Parliament felt nobody should lose their connection until after they had been prosecuted in a court for illegally downloading content. The new rules take the form of an amendment to a much wider revision of all Europe's telecoms regulations."

BBC 11/05/09

email this story | Posted 11/06/09@07:32AM