Netflix says games are a key part of its proposition to stay relevant with audiences in years to come, and is slowly ramping up plans to offer more gaming experiences to subscribers. - BBC
A recently released film titled The Witness, about a touring violinist, caught in Kiev as the invasion begins, who sees (entirely fictional) atrocities committed by (fictional) neo-Nazi Ukrainian troops, is part of a wave of propagandistic feature films produced by the Russian state. Will Russians go see it? - AP
"From studio rentals and set construction to dry cleaning for costumes and transportation to sets, it's hard to find a corner of the Los Angeles economy that has entirely escaped the reverberations. … Restaurants, coffee shops, even nail salons that neighbor major studios — they're all desperate for a quick resolution." - AP
Child advocacy groups now suspect that a second FTC probe into YouTube could result in a fine that dwarfs that 2019 record penalty. Their letter suggested that if millions of COPPA violations are discovered through the FTC probe, "the Commission should seek civil penalties upwards of tens of billions of dollars." - ArsTechnica
The major issues remain the same: Streaming residuals, AI plans, and more. Can anything be resolved soon? Well, that's up to the producers. - Washington Post
Glamorous - and weird: "For the second year running – after Tár in 2022 – it seems as if Gustav Mahler will be echoing around the gateway to the Adriatic. It pains us to bring this up, but the long road to the 2024 Oscars begins in Venice." - Irish Times
Sometimes, "Hollywood can get too caught up in the lavish spectacle of these affairs, with depictions that sap them of their cultural or emotional significance" - but looking over the landscape, a new movie mostly delivers. - The New York Times
"Curzon Cinemas, a chain with 16 locations in Britain, began allowing dogs to attend select movie screenings with their owners, starting with Strays." - The New York Times
Possibly, Bottoms - being released in a post-Barbie world - can win through where Joy Ride (equally raunchy, but not violent) and No Hard Feelings (had J-Law! And Ferris Bueller!) did not. - Los Angeles Times
"We often let ourselves believe that everything, now, is available to us — that nothing is lost and every experience can be accessed and repeated." But no. - The New York Times
“Podcasting has attuned hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide to the habit of choosing the right audio content at the right time and hitting play. The same goes for music.” - Inside Radio
Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election. An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat. - Washington Post
"Collecting is an act of love; even though it risks fetish-like attachments to the objects in question, its essence is found not in the objects themselves but in the pleasure that they provide, by delivering movies, music, literature—by providing the experience of art." - The New Yorker
