TV / Film News

Furious Exchange on Futures Trading

Source: All About Jazz
April 26, 2010

Proponents of two proposed film futures exchanges defended their proposals on Capitol Hill Thursday amid an increasingly onerous political environment and skepticism among lawmakers about the viability of trading in weekend box office receipts.

But the teams behind the exchanges got a boost from an endorsement by Lionsgate's vice chairman Michael Burns, who argued in a letter to a House Agriculture subcommittee that the market in domestic box office receipts “would substantially widen the number and breadth of financing sources ...

Continue Reading...

Muslim Extremist Can't Take a Joke, Post Death Threats Against "South Park" Creators

Source: Michael Ricci
April 26, 2010

Threat against South Park creators highlights dilemma for media companies. Comedy Central bleeped out all references to the prophet Muhammad in the show after he was depicted dressed as a bear. The shows creators disagreed strongly with the decision. In its 200 shows, the irreverent animated program “South Park" has mercilessly satirized Christianity, Buddhism, Scientology, the blind and disabled, gay people, Hollywood celebrities and politicians of all persuasions, weathering the resulting protests and threats of boycotts. But this week, after ...

Continue Reading...

Woody Allen: Have I Mentioned I Love Paris?

Source: Michael Ricci
April 26, 2010

Woody Allen has been saying for years that he's happy to explore new means of financing -- er, urban backdrops -- and has pretty much backed up that promise/flexibility by jumping between England and Spain for his past half-dozen films (including one detour to his native New York). The director hasn't stopped off in Paris yet, but that will change with the movie he's getting ready to make, whose title he revealed Thursday as “Midnight In Paris" and which he'll ...

Continue Reading...

Hollywood Don't Get Games

Source: All About Jazz
April 26, 2010

Avatar producer Jon Landau says getting game developers to work directly with forward-thinking filmmakers is the solution to Hollywood's long-standing videogame problem. The process for developing movie-themed games “can't be studio-driven," Landau told Wired.com. “It has to be filmmaker-driven. I think [game companies] need to go find the Jim Cameron's, Steven Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's of the world and develop the relationships with them." Landaus comments came after his keynote interview at the 3D Gaming Summit here Thursday, the same ...

Continue Reading...

The Big Easy on TV: 'Treme' Brings New Orleans Jazz Front and Center

Source: All About Jazz @ Spinner
April 26, 2010

By Tad Hendrickson

Talk to most musicians, and they'll generally sound like they are caught amidst a whirlwind of activity. It takes a lot of hustling to make ends meet when you are musician, particularly a musician who plays jazz. So it is altogether appropriate that one of the running threads of the new HBO series 'Treme' is that the character of Antoine Batiste, played by Wendell Pierce, is looking for a gig, or is on the run to get ...

Continue Reading...

8 1/2 Turns 50

Source: Michael Ricci
April 26, 2010

Is it possible? Can “8 1/2" be close to 50 years old? The calendar may say yes, but to see this classic of personal cinema one more time is to be in the presence of a kind of picture-making that defiantly remains forever young. First released in 1963, Italian director Federico Fellini's landmark examination of self-portraiture and the creative process opens a run at Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills in the first newly struck 35-millimeter print in almost two ...

Continue Reading...

Box-Office Futures Exchanges Dealt Blow by Senate Panel

Source: Michael Ricci
April 22, 2010

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday passed the Wall Street Transparency and Accountability Act, which includes in it a provision banning futures trading on movie box office.

This is a big blow to Indiana-based Media Derivatives and Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, both of which had been given the green light to create their box-office futures exchanges by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The major studios are fiercely opposed to futures contracts related to the movie industry, maintaining that the ...

Continue Reading...

Flaming Lips Play Pink Floyd's "Breathe" on Jimmy Fallon

Source: JamBase
April 21, 2010

BREATHE, BREATHE IN THE AIR, DON'T BE AFRAID TO CARE

This is a pretty heavy reinterpretation of Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon rumination, and it makes one excited to see The Flaming Lips (with some help from Stardeath and White Dwarfs) perform the entire album performed live at Bonnaroo and other hot spots this year.

The Lips' version of Dark Side was released digitally last December, and last weekend as part of Record Store Day, Warner Bros. released 5000 ...

Continue Reading...