Beginning today, scores of movies are threatened with removal from digital download and streaming sites, including iTunes, due to new FCC closed captioning regulations. The rules, mandated in a January, 2012 revision of 2010’s Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, require newly acquired movie and other content shown on the internet to be closed captioned if this content was shown on television with closed captioning after September 30, 2012. The rule also affects library titles that are currently or will be shown on television with captions as well as new acquisitions that will be captioned on television in the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2014I’ve seen it over a dozen times, and Nostalghia‘s late, nine-minute shot of a homesick Russian poet carrying a candle across a pool in an Italian spa in tribute to his mad, suicided friend, still devastates. I always read the scene in Tarkovsky’s penultimate film as the poet’s final ritual, a symbolic act carrying its own final, life-or-death meaning. But the struggle to keep the flame lit while poised between wind and water is obviously a metaphor for life itself, which is how actor Oleg Yankovsky described it in a quote included in the text for a fascinating video based […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 24, 2014Fandor, the online streaming service, announced today that indie stalwart Ted Hope would make the transition from board advisor to CEO come January 30th. The appointment follows Hope’s resignation from his role as Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society last October. In December, Hope penned a highly trafficked post on his blog about how he could no longer produce films for a living. The financial imperatives driving the current film production business, he said, would force him to choose quantity over quality. Those who were left wondering what his new day job would be now have their answer. […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 8, 2014(sleep furiously opens theatrically in NYC at Cinema Village on Friday, July 29, 2011. More importantly: FANDOR IS MAKING IT AVAILABLE FOR 24 HOURS ONLY ON FRIDAY, JULY 29TH! Go here to learn more.) It’s tempting to read Gideon Koppel’s sleep furiously as a bittersweet ode to the antiquated community in which he was raised, or, God forbid, to view it as some sort of call-to-arms to not let this slow, quiet way of life fade into oblivion. The truth is that it isn’t either of those things. By refusing to make any grand, preachy statements, Koppel has achieved something far […]
by Michael Tully on Jul 28, 2011