Here is Ron Grover’s full report on Paramount, entitled Mission: Precarious. I have some issues with it that are also my issues with much of the reporting around this subject these days. Sorry that Mr. Grover gets to be the butt of it.
Grover
Joe Straatmann on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
LexG on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
The Pope on: The Great Gandolfini
David Poland on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
David Poland on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
David Poland on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
David Poland on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
Bulldog68 on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
Bulldog68 on: The Great Gandolfini
Hallick on: Superman & How I Analyze Movies
Superman & How I Analyze Movies
Trailer: The Wolf of Wall Street
Weekend Estimates by Man of Klady
DP/30: My Day In Video from Michael Cera to Costa-Gravas
“I don’t really think, Sean, that you need to know about my various sexual liaisons. Or that anyone else needs to. I did write about them. I filled a hundred pages of Moleskine notebooks with my one-night stands, my affairs. But I decided they didn’t belong in a professional memoir. First of all, these are real people we’re talking about. Many of them were enjoyable. Some were abject failures. My wife said to me when she read the pages, ‘Of what purpose is this in a memoir? Of what purpose is this other than to titillate?’ The point is, I never see them. It’s because I have nothing in common with them, frankly. And probably didn’t at the time. I could not provide a sensible reason why I married these women. The thing is, in the case of my marriages, it takes two people to fuck up a marriage. It wasn’t simply the fault of these women that I lost interest in them and realised they were insignificant relationships. Which is how I look at them right now–as being insignificant. I see them as blips.”
~ William Friedkin On Cutting Interviewers Off At The Sass
“I have to imagine from Mr. Spielberg’s point of view, the paradigm shift in the 1970s was just the new “normal,” a “halcyon era” from which we are straying in the 21st century–because theatrical exhibition is tenuous (as it has been since the 1940s), the home video market has dried up and people are watching pirated movies on their phone. Spielberg’s coming-of-age era was for him the halcyon period that the 21st century “implosion” will cause to go “crashing into the ground.” But he is wrong. The market for movies is actually diverse and highly segmented–although from the top-down movie industry vantage point and media punditry you would not think this to be true. Would we really mourn for Mr. Spielberg or ourselves if Lincoln would have been made for cable or had played on public television? Is it bad for humanity that cable television is creating wonderful, resonant stories in long-form series that people want to watch at home on TV (or streamed onto their computer)? I don’t think so, but it is a paradigm shift and it might affect people’s theatrical moviegoing habits. Televisions in people’s homes have had that effect for seven decades–it is not a new phenomenon. As Art House cinema impresarios we need to focus on what WE can do at our theaters and in our communities. It is not productive for us to fret over what pundits say or about what well-meaning filmmakers like the Stevens–Spielberg and Soderbergh–say. We should fret about what we can do in our communities. What we can do to support filmmakers.”
~ From A Response By Russ Collins, CEO, Michigan Theater–Ann Arbor And Director, Art House Convergence, To Mr. Spielberg
Dave,
You ought to consider writing some kind of commentary on the sad situation involving the shake-up at the Village Voice. We could be witnessing the end of advocacy journalism in print. It’ll be a sad day in this country if altervative weeklies are turned into cookie-cutter versions of everyone else.
Executive doings du jour at Paramount? Duh.
Sister company cuts a secret deal with the Smithsonian Institution? Major story that so far has been pigeonholed.
Showtime Networks is starting a channel called Smithsonian On Demand. The Smithsonian has made this demand of all documentary filmmakers: Offer your work to Smithsonian On Demand — or you don’t get access to the Smithsonian archives. Ken Burns and Michael Moore helped blow the whistle on this sleazy deal.
The Smithsonian is an agency of the US government. Showtime and Paramount are controlled by Viacom, whose chairman publicly endorsed Bush for re-election. Smithsonian On Demand smells like something cooked up at Halliburton.
“Smithsonian On Demand smells like something cooked up at Halliburton.”
Showtime has aired some pretty subversive stuff (could you equally imagine Sleeper Cell having anything to do with Halliburton?). Sounds more like the Smithsonian is angling for funds to keep their many many museums and archives afloat.
Yeah, let’s get our issues straight. This Smithsonian thing is a budget-cutting/outsourcing thing. It sucks but it’s not the same as conflict-of-interest corruption.
The Smithsonian deal is not about money, budget cutting or outsourcing. It’s an attempt to establish a mechanism that can be used for censorship and revisionist history. It was tried before, with another quasi-government institution about 40 years ago–but thankfully, was shot down.
A little arithmetic will show that there are not enough homes which will “demand” this program material. The money is in pay-per-view to schools–at “public assembly” rates. Our children will have no alternative to the Showtime version, and Showtime will have no competition. That is why close scrutiny of this deal is so important, and why the exclusivity element must be excised from the contract. Showtime has experience and expertise, and should be encouraged to enter this market, but only on an even playing field.