MEDIA

A Civil War Inside Netflix

“Increasingly, tensions have flared between the L.A.-based executives dedicated to movies and TV shows and its engineers and technologists in Silicon Valley. Internal disputes have erupted over how best to expand the business and promote content on the platform to boost audience engagement." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Critics Pan Elon Musk’s AI Version Of “The Odyssey”

Xavier Collins, the co-founder of Wonder Studios, said the first episode was made in less than two weeks with a creative team of three, including the US-based director Dev Walker. It is understood to have cost tens of thousands of dollars.  - The Guardian

When The Mystery Author Is So Caustic She Ends Up A Character In A Murder Movie

Patricia Highsmith's "politics are horrendous. She is homophobic despite being gay, antisemitic, anti-everything. Yet she is one of the most psychologically astute writers of the 20th century, particularly brilliant at allowing us into the dark parts of the human psyche.” - The New York Times

The Predecessors To The Possibly Partly Fake Documentary You Can See Everything

For instance, Shirley Clarke's 1967 movie Portrait of Jason. - The New York Times

How Netflix Went From Zeitgeist To, Well, Zeitghost

"The main problem with 2020s Netflix: It gets eyeballs watching far more than it gets tongues wagging. If a Super Bowl-size event takes place and nobody talks about it, does it even matter?" - Fast Company

Amy Poehler Goes To Ancient Greece

Poehler, and Hugh Laurie, star in a fictional show about realistic archaeologists. "Getting the objects right was important for the production because an appreciation of artifacts is central to archaeology." - The New York Times

Sofia Coppola On Finishing What Her Mother Eleanor Started

"'It’s like the opposite of Hearts of Darkness,' Sofia said. 'In a way it’s sort of a nice counterpoint because that movie’s so macho and masculine and this is so feminine.' And it’s also true to what really happened." - Seattle Times (AP)

Short-Story Collections May Be Hard To Sell, But A Single Short Story Can Sell To Netflix For A Million Dollars

Why? The "bite-size format appeals to busy studio executives facing mountains of scripts. Buying unpublished stories also allows producers to avoid the hassle of optioning novels, whose fans often expect a faithful adaptation." - The New York Times

AI Could Never Have Made The Stop-Motion Wildwood

"Every single thing you see onscreen is an artistic choice. You start with a blank canvas, nothing exists. Everything has to be thought through, designed and manipulated by an artist’s hands." - The New York Times

How “Star Trek” Was Saved By, Of All People, Lucille Ball

Most people who know Ball only through her crazy-redhead I Love Lucy character don’t realize that she was a savvy TV mogul, and it was her company, Desilu Productions, that saved Star Trek from oblivion after NBC cancelled it at the end of its third season in 1969. - The Hollywood Reporter

Canadian News Orgs Sue Anthropic Over Copyright

The statement of claim says Anthropic breached the news media websites’ terms of service and circumvented technological protection measures they put in place to restrict copying of their content. - Canadian Press News

Another Guy Who Didn’t Read His Release Form Threatens To Sue Sacha Baron Cohen

The chair of the El Paso (Texas) County Republican Party, Michael Aboud, says he intends to sue Baron Cohen over footage shown in the latter’s latest guerrilla mockumentary, Ali G: Who Iz I? Unwitting subjects in Baron Cohen’s films have sued several times in the past; none has ever won. - The Guardian

Sacha Baron Cohen Insists That “Ali G: Who Iz I?” Is His Final Guerrilla Comedy

"He’s adamant. No more Borat. No more Bruno. No more Ali G. … He’s tired of hoodwinking people to expose their prejudices, and he’s even more tired of the death threats that periodically follow. ... Eventually his luck will run out." Problem is, he’s said this many times before. - The Hollywood Reporter

How Lance Oppenheim Gets Extraordinary, Un-Documentary-Like Scenes Like The Ones In “You Can See Everything”

"Being vulnerable with his subjects generally inspires them to return the favor. ... He’s seen subjects go to trial, face romantic rejection, and lose their jobs on-camera; he’s also been holed up in a dingy motel bathroom while two of them had sex in the other room." - New York Magazine (MSN)

Two Thirds Of Microdrama Videos Are AI-Created

The prevalence of AI in microdramas is reflected in the top-performing titles that Owl & Co. found for the latest quarter on apps that require viewers to pay for their stories. - The Hollywood Reporter

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