Kirby Ferguson's fourth and final installment of
Everything is a Remix:
System Failure has been released. (Also on
YouTube.) It covers intellectual property rights, the derivative nature of creativity, patents and copyright.
Transcript.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 17, 2012 -
5 comments
At first glance, the new inside-the-CIA Showtime series
Homeland looks like a cynical socio-political potboiler -- an attempt to exploit fears of a terrorist attack on American soil by Muslim extremists. In reality, the
critically acclaimed show, about an anti-terrorism agent (Claire Danes) tracking a U.S. Marine war hero (Damian Lewis) who may now be working for what's left of Al Qaeda, is thoughtful and emotionally complex despite its airplane-thriller trappings. That's why showrunners Howard Gordon and his buddy Alex Gansa gave an interview to
Mother Jones, a self-described "news organization that specializes in investigative, political, and social justice reporting." Reflecting on lessons they learned in the trenches of
24, they
talk about Homeland's self-aware approach to paranoia as entertainment, and how "dangerous and politically incendiary" a TV show can be .
posted by Joey Bagels
on Nov 8, 2011 -
67 comments
Actor, Playwright, Artist, Comedian, Magician, "Man of A Thousand Voices" (including Mighty Mouse,) "Beloved Herring Maven"
Mr. Ira Stadlen (Stage name: "
Captain" Allen Swift) has
passed away at the age of 87. Throughout his career, Mr. Stadler voiced characters in more than 30,000 television and radio commercials, as well as cartoons such as
Underdog,
Tom and Jerry and
Diver Dan, but some might remember him most as the man who saved
Howdy Doody. His nephew
has posted a remembrance on his blog, which includes a link to a "novelty 45" mp3 recording of Swift's
"Are You Lonesome Tonight."
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 28, 2010 -
13 comments
Culture by the people, for the people. We all know that there are a gazillion blogs out there, with people talking about anything and everything, frequently to an audience of one. Those same text based blogs are incorporating
video as well. People are beginning to organize
their internet not through search engine algorithims, but by their own
tags. There's also a dedicated cadrey of partisan and non-partisan
"amateur journalism" sites. Then you have
full fledged communities focused to specific subjects, holding an unbelievable depth of knowledge and opinions. With entire
encyclopedias available online, and with smaller topic-centric wiki's available, can the creation and dissemination of audience authored content be far behind? Witness the growth of
Flickr, the probable success of
Vimeo, people programming their own
radio stations and/or
shows, the
increasing awareness and
use of the
Freedom of Information Act (
FOIA) by
plain ol' citizens, the courting of
TiVo by Google and Yahoo (to share homemovies and pictures, perhaps?), open source news sites like
Take Bake the News,
NowPublic (for royalty free images to accompany content),
Downhill Battle,
Our Media ( a place to store your content), and open-source
sounds and
sights. Could there eventually be enough worthwhile content to break us free of a corporate-delivered culture?
posted by rzklkng
on Apr 25, 2005 -
35 comments
"Movies: They're worth it!" In a move to educate those darn thieving kids and their evil P2P file-sharing networks which are used to trade ripped movies, the MPAA has launched a
public service campaign to explain, in layman's terms, why violating their copyrights is wrong. …Yes, these are the same people who have just brought us an entire summer of bloated sequels, shameless celebrity vehicles and uninspired hack-work. Respect!
posted by Down10
on Aug 3, 2003 -
81 comments
The CBS News American Idol Power Hour. Viacom, owner of networks CBS and MTV among many others, is aggresively pushing lucrative
bribes offers for Private Jessica Lynch to get her on CBS News, including the possibility of her own video-hosting program on MTV and special editions of TRL. Corporate consolidation the way it is, are we in an era where synergy allows news-media-owning companies to offer not just material profit but flat-out media iconization in exchange for a good story? To put it another way: have we gone beyond using the news to promote entertainment owned by the same company to using entertainment as the currency to flat-out buy the news?
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Jun 16, 2003 -
12 comments
VHS on its last legs? According to source, Circuit City is already phasing out sales of VHS tapes and players in favor of DVDs. Sure, it's an ancient format, but again, not everyone has a
TiVo (yet)...
posted by betobeto
on Jun 21, 2002 -
16 comments
When I was a newspaper-slinger back as a youngster, I became acquainted with that odd funnypages subgenre-the
soap opera comic strip(i.e.
Winnie Winkle,
Rex Morgan, M.D. and the pinnacle of the genre
Gasoline Alley).
Moving at the brisk pace of 4 panels a day, these entertainments must have seemed quaint even in their early radio days infancy, yet they gained devoted followings and
Dr. Rex and
Skeezix and the Gang are actually still active. While the strips are published on the web, I'm surprised that there hasn't been a whole-hog revival of the genre. Heck,
Brenda Starr could be truly funky hip modern woman if the right person retooled her a bit and I imagine many web community administrators could relate to
Mary Worth at times.
posted by jonmc
on Apr 28, 2002 -
25 comments
'Is media bias real?', part two: Left-leaning media criticism folks
FAIR have produced a report detailing some examples of of publishers, advertisers, and government officials killing stories they don't like and placing stories they do. What about the Chinese Wall between the business of news and the actual newsgathering? To quote a CBS news producer on the distinction between entertainment and news, "That line was over a long, long time ago....That line is long gone."
posted by snarkout
on Feb 25, 2001 -
18 comments
