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How Director Park Chan-Wook Channels Hitchcock

"The mystery genre, Park’s chosen conduit this time around, scratches an existential itch in the human condition, he thinks. Since our lives overflow with enigmas — the meaning of our birth, what comes after death, why the people around us behave as they do — we long for certainty." - Los Angeles Times

Italian TV And Movies Are On An Export High

Those exports are still relatively rare, but the increase is notable. "Significantly, half of the 48 titles exported by Italy around the world over the past five years were distributed by global streamers." - Variety

Why A Horror Film’s Number One Opening Weekend Has Renewed The Streaming Debate

Would Halloween Ends have opened bigger if it weren't also streaming on Peacock? Maybe. - Seattle Times (AP)

The Queen Of The Recap Podcasts

Mallory Rubin watches each House of Dragons episode three times before her two podcasts. "It would be hard to engineer a commentator better equipped for this moment, when growth-obsessed streaming services and movie studios have coaxed audiences toward the outer limits of franchise entertainment." - The New York Times

How Robbie Coltrane Made Hagrid The Heart Of Harry Potter

"Coltrane, across a decade of movies, imbued in him a depth and warmth that made him feel not just instantly memorable, but real. In doing so, he subtly pushed against the scripts’ inclinations to turn the character into mere comic relief or an adorable buffoon." - The Atlantic

Want To Honor Angela Lansbury?

Here's where to stream not Murder, She Wrote, but some of her (other) greatest work. - Vulture

The Responsibilities Of Depicting Black Trauma Onscreen In 2022

"The question shouldn’t be whether a movie should capture Black pain. The problem in film arises when the camera only asks for an audience to witness." - Time

How The Insufferably Bland Barney Became A Cultural Sensation

The love and togetherness wasn’t “Barney” ’s problem. The character himself was uniquely unnerving—more Grimace than T. Rex, somehow dopey and condescending at once—and some of the outrage, I suspect, came from viewers’ impassioned feelings about what good educational TV should be. - The New Yorker

Netflix For $7 A Month (Plus Ads) Is Coming

"The ad-supported service is scheduled to debut Nov. 3 as Netflix tries to reverse a drop in subscribers. It will cost $7 per month in the U.S., a 55% markdown from Netflix's most popular $15.50-per-month plan, which is ad-free." - AP

TikTok Has Taken Over The Internet. It’s Worth Reflecting On How

TikTok’s website was visited last year more often than Google. No app has grown faster past a billion users, and more than 100 million of them are in the United States. The average American viewer watches TikTok for 80 minutes a day — more than the time spent on Facebook and Instagram, combined. - Washington Post

TikTok Is Taking An Awfully Big Cut Of The Money Syrian Refugees Are Raising On The Platform

"Displaced families in Syrian camps are begging for donations on TikTok while the company takes up to 70% of the proceeds, a BBC investigation found. Children are livestreaming on the social media app for hours, pleading for digital gifts with a cash value." - BBC

Subtly As Well As Brazenly, Russian Action Movies Are Propagandizing For Putin’s Ukrainian War

"For an American, it can be easy to forget how much ideology is packed into the genre — until you watch a film from elsewhere, and are confronted with the cartoonish heroes and villains of other cultures." - The New York Times Magazine

Why Didn’t Gaming Criticism Catch On?

Experiencing a game is weirdly different from experiencing a TV show, a movie, a play or a book. They are, to use a drab but accurate phrase, “lean back” culture. You’re the audience, experiencing the art — the artists and creators talking to you. Games, on the other hand, require you to do things. - Medium

Spotify Has Insisted On Exclusive Rights To The Podcasts It Carries. Maybe That Wasn’t A Good Idea

The podcast industry built itself on an open ecosystem: any podcast player could make any particular podcast available.  Then Spotify, after it bought Gimlet Media, started insisting on allowing its podcasts only on its own player.  It's a standard big-business move — and it's backfiring. - Simon Owens's Media Newsletter

The New Economy: Warner Brothers TV Makes Deep Cuts

The studio is cutting 26% of personnel, a total of 125 positions, across scripted, unscripted and animation. - Deadline

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