Tom Shales, Washington Post TV columnist, hits on the reason why TV seems to have bottomed, or rather flattened out:

... the very concepts of "good" and "bad" in the arts and communications are now deemed obsolete. Movies and TV shows just "are" and have been fashioned for consumption by various essentially undemanding constituencies.

TV and ( Read more... )

Remember when I said I'd discuss the "Creator Doesn't Always Know Best" issue in another essay? This is that essay. And I'll start with the most blatant and obvious example that could ever be coined.

George Lucas.

(Put gold stars up next to your names if you saw this coming.)

It's almost mandatory, in fandom, to rag on George Lucas for taking a ( Read more... )

Some nice comments from an author of children's books about taking Sundays off.

Sunday Routine - Rebecca Stead - For Rebecca Stead, a Day to Recharge the Brain’s Batteries - NYTimes.com
During the week I’m really focused on writing, and output. Sunday is a day when I really try not to write at all. It’s about input, because this is really where ( Read more... )

Funny how one train of thought produces another. First, the quote.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Power Elite - NYTimes.com

... society is too transparent. Since Watergate, we have tried to make government as open as possible. But as William Galston of the Brookings Institution jokes, government should sometimes be shrouded for the same reason that ( Read more... )

From Scott Green's current AICN Anime installment:

My concept of "bookshelf manga" has never caught on, but that's not going to stop me from evangelizing it. Most manga is written as disposable entertainment, and doesn't transcend that. Even for a compelling title like Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE or Fullmetal Alchemist, to name a couple of best ( Read more... )

Francis Ford Coppola once said, "I like all kinds of films, but what I really want is to be moved by a film, to feel as I've never felt, to see things I've never seen before."

Before I go any further, ask yourself this: What does Coppola mean by "see things I've never seen before"? I'd bet most people would assume he meant something like Avatar or ( Read more... )

When dealing with storytelling and writing, one of the fun exercises I like to run through is something I call Turn That Around. It comes out of something Ridley Scott talked about having picked up from Stanley Kubrick: when you are confronted with something where you have an automatic "oh, I'd do that" response, you stop and ask yourself: What ( Read more... )

Two ends of the spectrum. Or maybe better to say two pieces of it.

On the one hand, there is Cat Valente's impassioned defense of traditional publishing over the freemium money-later model, where (in her purview) a few short-term gains are weak compensation for a long-term denaturing of publishing as a whole.

Then there is C.E. Murphy's notions ( Read more... )

Manohla Dargis argues for a new way to make - and more importantly, market, independent films:

Independent Cinema - Poised for a D.I.Y. Revolution - NYTimes.com
... filmmakers who use Facebook to sell their movies aren’t simply partaking in a social-networking fad; they are trying to create a more complex, interactive and personalized relationship ( Read more... )

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