Media

“Georgia’s recent passage of a highly restrictive abortion law has turned its once cozy relationship with Tinsel Town into a fraught one, and put Hollywood’s liberal politics on a collision course with its own economic interests in the state. … But the industry’s response to the law has been far from unified. There have been pledges to boycott Georgia and promises to stay. Most strikingly, there has been near total silence from top studio brass.” – The New York Times

The gift from the Knight Foundation will be used to expand NewsHour‘s Canvas program online and over the air. – ARTnews

“It’s weird to play a character who lived, more weird if he’s still alive — because he’s producing more information every day — and extraordinarily rare that he is behind the camera saying, ‘Action!’ to you. To deal with all of these things was not easy.” – The New York Times

“TV and film star David Niven griped in 1955 that ‘the laugh track is the greatest single affront to public intelligence I know of.’ … But consider for a moment the unheralded achievements of the laugh track. It allowed directors to leave their live studio audiences behind and shoot scenes on location. It gave at-home viewers someone to laugh along with. And, if you believe the sparse scientific research and the anecdotal evidence from Hollywood, it made jokes funnier.” – Quartz

“Just a few years ago, Le Vele – a sprawling housing estate in Scampia, on the outskirts of Naples – was both the fictional location for the hit crime film and Italian TV series Gomorrah and the real-life location for the biggest international drugs and arms supermarket in western Europe.” But no more. “Unusually, the effort to demolish the buildings has been led by the residents themselves.” – The Guardian

Could the IndieWeb movement—or a streamlined, user-friendly version of it to come—succeed in redeeming the promise of social media? If we itemize the woes currently afflicting the major platforms, there’s a strong case to be made that the IndieWeb avoids them. – The New Yorker

No pressure, but if this movie doesn’t do well, Hollywood might force itself back into its (extremely long lasting, tight, and transparent) closet, or at least that’s the threat. “Rocketman trails glitter — a million Swarovski crystals adorn the costumes and eyewear — and depicts gay sex, a first for a major studio.” (In 2019, y’all. 2019.) – The New York Times

Will this start some dominos falling or reinforce the agencies’ intransigence? “Verve, a young Los Angeles agency focusing primarily on writers, is the biggest agency so far to make peace with the opposition, though it is far smaller than the four major Hollywood agencies that are at the center of the fight.” – Los Angeles Times

There is, however, downward pressure on the market – which may eventually hit actors, directors, and everyone else working on films in the pocketbook. And – let’s face it – Disney is a challenge. “U.S. distribution is still a big issue. There are fewer studios now that Disney has purchased Fox, and most of the major companies are more interested in remaking past hits or backing sequels to long-running franchises than they are with buying an unknown property in the script stage out of Cannes.” – Variety

“[Garin Nugroho’s] Memories of My Body follows four stages in the life of Juno, a young boy in a Central Java village who becomes infatuated by the lengger lanang, a traditional dance that often has male dancers taking the role of female dancers.” Indonesian films with LGBT themes have been released in the past with little incident, but this one has been banned by cities, denounced by politicians, and garnered its director death threats. – The Guardian

A recent study finds that simply posting “community rules,” and making sure they remain prominently displayed, increases compliance with those guidelines, as well as participation by newcomers. – Pacific Standard

A separate internet for some, Facebook-mediated sovereignty for others: whether the information borders are drawn up by individual countries, coalitions, or global internet platforms, one thing is clear – the open internet that its early creators dreamed of is already gone. – BBC

“In a bankruptcy filing on Tuesday, lawyers for the studio … said it was burning through what little cash it had left. … The Weinstein Company has been negotiating for more than a year with insurers, creditors and women who have sued for compensation for abuse, and the filing could be legal maneuvering intended to speed up a resolution.” – The New York Times

“Given the gravity of recent events,” said the CEO of the ITV network in a statement, “we have decided to end production of The Jeremy Kyle Show.” The grave recent event was the death of a 63-year-old man a week after he failed an on-camera lie detector test while claiming that he had not cheated on his girlfriend. – The New York Times

Bill Murray and zombies, Afghanistan, football. It’s an eclectic (to say the least) lineup this year. – The Guardian

Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher: “It’s sort of like asking someone who survived a shipwreck why he’s still alive. … Why are you asking us? Well, ask the person who built the boat, who sold the tickets, the schools. People have said there haven’t been enough women, but it’s not enough to talk about at the end [of the chain]. We have to look at the beginning of the chain.” – Vulture

In the movie in question, titled Rothchild and currently being pitched to buyers at the Cannes marketplace, Gibson is to play the patriarch of an extremely rich New York family. The similarity to Rothschild, the name of a wealthy European Jewish family that has been the target of anti-Semitic invective for centuries, has (one might say) not gone unnoticed or unremarked-upon online, given Gibson’s history of (one might say) unfortunate utterances. – The Guardian

“Seven months after the murder of Jamal  Khashoggi derailed Crown Prince Mohammed  bin  Salman’s plan to open up the country — and its $1 billion in potential box office — the kingdom is quietly mounting a comeback.” Reporter Alex Ritman visits the Saudi Film Festival in Dhahran. – The Hollywood Reporter

The Local Television Satellite Solution that provided free service to Canadians who lost signals when TV transitioned from analog to digital in 2011 could end this year. – CBC