The problem is a new variant: "After delays caused by Covid, the festival confirmed it would take place in early July, but France has announced a seven-day isolation period for visitors from the UK in response to rising concerns over the Covid variant B.1.617.2, first detected in India. The move is likely to affect thousands, both among the press corps and...
Yes, that's right, the long-running sitcom (still massively popular with Millennials and Gen-Zers thanks to streaming) is useful for English language-learners around the world. "The dad jeans and cordless telephones may look dated, but the plot twists — falling in love, starting a career and other seminal moments in a young person’s life — are still highly relatable." -...
There's a bad review of Paddington 2? Yes" "The new Paddington 2 review slammed the warm-hearted adventure film for having deviated from the spirit of Michael Bond’s children’s books, being 'contrived and ridiculous,' with Paddington being 'over-confident, snide and sullen,' claimed 'considerations of race and identity, key to the Paddington character, are not addressed,' and added that voice actor Ben Whishaw...
It's not common for Italian shows to have mostly Black casts, but the new show Zero does - and makes the invisibility of Black Italians a superpower. - NPR
Amazon desperately needed content, but will the Bond plan work? "Bond is a treasure trove, unexploited beyond the 25 feature films focusing on its star, which Amazon would dearly love to develop into a Marvel- or Star Wars-like 'universe” 'The only problem is that Bond is partly owned by Eon Productions in the UK, which is run by Barbara Broccoli...
The chair of the Board of Supervisors of Easttown says the real town isn't much like the show. "'I can’t remember when the last homicide was here, if ever,' said Marc Heppe (pronounced “heppy”), chair of the Easttown Township board of supervisors. ... The big conflicts are over 'a lot of NIMBY stuff' — new development and more traffic....
Gotta keep those subscriber numbers up with direct to streaming movies! But ... how do agents, producers, directors, and actors feel about this? It's not ideal right now: "Talent typically has little leverage should a studio decide to put a title onto a streaming service, sources say. It did not readily occur to either agents or studios that contracts...
The app - long derided both for squelching LGBTQIA voices and exploiting Black creators - reacted to the George Floyd protests by starting an incubator for Black voices. How's it working now? "Program members bonded. ... They shared legal advice, sample media kits, tips on talking to potential agents or collaboration partners and the stresses of turning a hobby...
Simon V.Z. Wood: "Searching for evidence that bad actors were weaponizing artificial intelligence for political gain, what I found instead was an emerging field of detection firms, government grantees, startups, academics, artists, and nonprofits that seemed to depend on one another to sustain interest in deepfakes. Call it the deepfake-industrial complex — or, perhaps, a solution in search of...
In the wake of Bob Garfield's firing from On the Media for what he's described as "anger mismanagement," Celeste Headlee — who endured mistreatment on and off the air as co-host of The Takeaway with the now-disgraced John Hockenberry — writes, "There is no such thing as a host who is 'too big to fail.' Executives in the past...
It's an inevitable progression, and not surprising Amazon would do it first. Unlike Netflix, it has failed to reliably produce original hits. And unlike, say, NBCUniversal, its corporate model isn’t solely entertainment. It’s also a cloud computing company, massive retailer, and grocery store chain, to name a few. It had a net income of more than $21 billion last...
“It’s a natural process because every platform has a ceiling. If Netflix has 80 million subscribers in the U.S., they’re done. They can’t grow beyond that. All their growth has to come from international, and local content is the best way to secure that growth.” - Hollywood Reporter
To get more advertisers to move their dollars to streaming, the TV executives are working furiously to gather all the streaming fans for the same advertising experience. It’s not going to be easy. - Variety
Sunday's spending spree means the mysterious anonymous bidder will become the owner of the Charlie Bit My Finger clip. But it also gives them a chance to create some follow-up content. The auction page says the NFT winner will be given the opportunity to "recreate a hilarious modern-day rendition of the classic clip" that will feature "the original stars,...
For Amazon, snapping up MGM — which has more than 4,000 movies and 17,000 TV shows in its catalog — is a way to supercharge its Prime Video service with a slew of well-known entertainment titles. In addition, Amazon is anticipating being able to mine Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer properties like the Pink Panther, Rocky and, yes, the 007 franchises for new...
