Fascinating analysis. Four key points have been cherry-picked by me, but you’ll want to read the whole thing.

THR:

1. “We believe 2012 will be a watershed year for the media industry and serve as a historic inflection point for traditional TV consumption,” Greenfield wrote. “While TV viewing has consistently risen as choice (channels) and access (VCR/DVR) expanded, we believe consumers have reached a breaking point. There are simply not enough hours in the day for online activities to be purely incremental.” …

2. Movie-going is also “less and less compelling,” meaning that attendance will remain in secular decline, he argued. “3D, IMAX, XD – are they really worth the extra money? Maybe for a one or two movies a year, but Hollywood is increasingly looking to premium exhibition formats as the solution to falling top-line revenues (as home entertainment profits drop),” he wrote. “Unfortunately, bad movies at premium prices are still bad movies and end up alienating your best customers.” …

3. Digital video platforms could benefit though as Greenfield predicts that Google’s YouTube will increases its video spending 10-fold and enable some subscription offerings, while Amazon.com will launch a stand-alone subscription video streaming service, and Facebook will become a video platform. …

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Good article from the “L.A. Times,” touching on how the Internet has forever altered television viewing habits and what this means for the business end of it:

Television production studio executives long have been wary of Hulu and other forms of Internet distribution, fearing they would lead to increased piracy and destroy lucrative secondary markets, including syndication and DVD sales. But video streaming services offered by Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.com are becoming an unexpected boon to the TV syndication market. By writing checks to license library content from networks, the Internet services are injecting new revenue into the TV business and breathing new life into middling shows.

“The introduction of the subscription video-on-demand platform has broadened the opportunities for exploitation of product in a very positive way for consumers and studios,” said Ken Werner, president of Warner Bros. domestic television distribution. “You do not need to accumulate 100 episodes of a series because 40 hours of programming is a lot, so many of these shows work perfectly well on these new services.”

Something the article does miss, though, is how television marathons and DVD have also altered our viewing habits. We like to gorge now, watch more than just a single episode at a time and lose ourselves in that world for hours. This is one reason serialized dramas such as “Mad Men,” “24,” “Breaking Bad,” and the like are such favorites. These shows are addictive — in the best way.

Yesterday, the wife and I watched 5 episodes in a row of “Sons of Anarchy,” and when a new DVD arrives via Blockbuster of “The Closer,” we usually knock out all four episodes in just a sitting or two.

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No, he doesn’t improvise in rhyming couplets but one feels he could if it might provoke a laugh at the foolish world’s expense. One doesn’t want to be at the end of his verbal rapier. He’s already skewered the Obama Nation with such style that one’s first encounter with him always feels like the opening scene of Cyrano de Bergerac! The only, overly large protuberance out of his head is wit!!

I first began reading Mark Steyn when he seemed to be writing mostly for Canadians. That, of course, was my mistake. He’d already captured the interest and admiration of the entire English-speaking “Lost”, which is most of us.

Despite his unmistakably British diction, Mark was born in Toronto. Despite his Anglican affiliations, his family is rife with Catholicism. As a Moriarty, I attribute most of his genius to his disinherited Catholicism.

His most formative education was in the United Kingdom at the King Edward’s School, Birmingham, England and according to his Wikipedia biography his professions seem to have gone from disc-jockey to musical theater critic for The Independent of London. That accounts for his impressive knowledge of the entire American Songbook, not to mention the theatrical panache he can summon up in an entertaining instant.

Despite the indelibly British cadences, he has a Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls bite to his television appearances.

Broadway off of Piccadilly Square!

After entertaining the folks at The Independent, he then moved to the UK’s magazine, The Spectator.

Now, of course, Mark Steyn is all over the English-speaking world and I assume his eternally provocative books have been translated into every European language there is. If not, it is their loss, despite the inevitably great losses in translation.

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A year ago us, like many of you, we grew frustrated with the constant bias often exercised in the entertainment industry. Constantly, talent we know and love would be subjected to character assassination because of their personal beliefs (this shout out’s to you, Angie Harmon). All this done under the guise’ of “objective.” “Objective?” Nothing could be further from the truth.

To influence change we decided to not only play their game, but to play it better.

So we started our own site MovieCriticAssassins.com. We created our own pseudonymous Sensei White Lotus and Master Iron Fist. Through our anonymity we deprived anyone of using personal attacks, while also holding the ability to “tell like it is” in the industry we love so much.

Since that time we’ve developed a following through Sensei’s unique essays and box office predictions, as well as Master Iron Fist’s unfiltered commentary on the aforementioned biases (more often referred to as “verbal executions”). We aspire to be muckrakers and to offer sound, firm analysis while also joining in on Big Hollywood’s mission to provide accountability within the entertainment industry.

We are honored and thrilled to join this community at long last.

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You know the problem with the arts these days? In case you didn’t know, Philip Kennicott will be happy to tell you. The problem with the arts, he says, is that they’re homophobic.

Quit laughing.

In a recent Washington Post column, Kennicott takes issue with “a litany of shameful events and grievances” committed against homosexuals in the arts, from “the ‘super-macho’ ethos of the American abstract expressionists” to the recent removal of an explicit exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum. Basically, he believes that despite the disproportionate contributions of homosexuals to the arts world, the arts world has failed to honor them appropriately. And he believes that the only way to do this is to make sure that museums are upfront about (1) the sexual proclivities of artists and their subjects, and (2) the subjects’ role, if any, “the iconography of same-sex eroticism.”

For instance, since Saint Sebastian has been appropriated as a homosexual icon, museums are supposed to mention this wherever they display paintings of him. Never mind that he was not himself homosexual.

And if all this openness makes museums seem a little less “family friendly” to some, well, they just need to get with the times. “‘Family’ is now understood to include gay parents, married gay couples and people with gay children, and the absence of basic information about the role of same-sex desire in art history has become an overt sin of omission,” Kennicott explains. Because society is now more accepting of various forms of sexuality, clearly, kids need more sexual information shoved in their faces! (Since, you know, they’re not getting enough of it already from the culture around them.) (more…)

Correction:  The quote referring to Common’s music as “very positive” was mistakenly attributed to Media Matters in the originally published version of this piece.  We regret the error.

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Have you heard about “Poetry Night” at the White House?  I find it appalling and very inappropriate (yet not at all that surprising) that the Obamas have invited “Common”, a rapper who grew up in the pews of America-hating “Reverend” Wright’s church, who he describes as an “intelligent, strong individual…a great man…a conduit of love.”   He denigrates women with his misogynistic lyrics, promotes killing cops, and burning (President) Bush. Isn’t that special?  His lyrics have been praised by a Fox News reporter as being “very positive.”  Are you kidding me?

Hi Caliber

This is just another tactic this administration is using to convince young Americans that Barrack Obama is just that “cool” and that these are the kinds of artists your kids should be listening to.

Please.

In the New York Times Bestseller Obama Zombies:  How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, author Jason Mattera describes how liberals successfully launched their highly successful technology-based campaign to take advantage of and brain-wash his generation into becoming “zombies” for Team Obama.  They used every facet of new media to reach our youth through their computers, iPods, and cell phones via new media venues and services like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and text messaging and “rocked the vote” in favor of “That One.”

Thankfully, we conservative keyboard warriors are fighting back with those very same tactics to reach our young voters using every weapon in our arsenal (e.g., conservative websites, blogs, video rants, music, books, artwork, and the list goes on).   In less than two years (since the 2008 elections), through the effective use of  new media, the TEA Party movement managed to rise up and put a major hurtin’ on the Democrats in the House and Senate in the mid-term elections.  It was interesting to note that younger voters seemed less than enthusiastic about voting in 2010.  Perhaps voter’s remorse is setting in?

Good.

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I’ve discussed this topic a lot all across the country, the wave of women, of mothers in political activism.

Why have so many mothers become so active?

Because motherhood is political.

I have two sons. One day they may hear the call of duty and enlist to fight for our liberty. One day they may be called upon to defend America’s shores. They may decide to enter business or take up a trade. They may decide to have families of their own someday. I want them to have every opportunity available to them and I will stand against that which impedes on their rights. It’s instinctual: my job as a mother is to raise up, nurture, and protect my children, to protect their interests, to protect the interests of my family. In a society where my first line of defense, my husband, has been compromised by the self-victimization of the female sex, I’ve volunteered to go to the front lines of this ideological battle and I do it for my children. I’m not the only one.

It’s unconscionable to me that I would protect my children from running out into a busy street but not protect their right to be free. A month after my oldest was born my husband and I spent an entire morning baby-proofing our house: placing plastic covers on all empty wall sockets, installing cabinet latches, covering all the sharp edges of the tables with adhesive cushions. Why wouldn’t I also rise to install barriers against that which harms my children’s future? We armed our children with the knowledge against “stranger danger,” we taught them how to dial 911 in emergencies, we’ve taught them how to properly handle and not handle firearms. Why wouldn’t I teach my children about their fundamental rights as an American? Their right to free speech, to assemble, the freedom of the press, the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the freedom of religion? Their right to pursue happiness but not the expectation that they are owed happiness from their fellow man?

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It was either Kayser Soze or some French poet with an unpronounceable name who said something to the effect of, ”The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Not everyone believes in the Devil but we all know Hollywood exists, and isn’t six of one just a half dozen of the other? After all, the greatest trick Tinseltown (with the help of the MSM) ever pulled was convincing the world that a belief in a moral code is what’s abnormal because all the cool kids are into a collective degeneracy.

Though liberals only make up 20% of the population, they’re still able to pull off this sinister bluff because conservatives took their eye off the ball and allowed the Left to infest the institutions in charge of documenting and portraying who we are as a society. Unfortunately, these socialist engineers aren’t stupid and figured out almost immediately that with a near-monopoly on sound and image they could make a majority of the population feel like the minority; with the goal in mind of using peer pressure to shape our culture into a godless orgy of anything goes hyper-sexuality.

The result is that those of us made nauseous by the idea of loveless sex are intentionally made to feel like the oppressive party-poopers – the weirdos, the prudes, the uncool outsiders lacking in compassion, enlightenment and sophistication. This devil has so perfectly executed this ruse that even those of us on to him can forget what’s happening until a genuine phenomenon like “Twilight” comes along to remind us. (more…)

a timely excerpt of a Charles Bukowski poem

..with you

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The era of Reagan is over.

No, I don’t say that in the same way that RINO’s say it in an attempt to move towards the center and line their Brooks Brothers’ pockets. I say it in that the political landscape today has changed drastically and we need to do more than look to one transcendent figure as the leader of the conservative movement. Future generations will be won on the cultural front, and never through “politics.” Politicians are boring, plus they smell funny.

Say what you want about leftists; Sure they act a little crazy, wear pointy shoes and spit when they talk, but they are incredibly effective with planting cultural seeds. Avatar, plants a seed. Family Guy, plants a seed. SNL plants a seed. All of Comedy Central plants seeds. On the flip side, the sad fact of the matter is that conservatives have planted little to nothing in the cultural landscape. (more…)

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YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen HD

A thousand years ago in Cairo, surrounded by ancient pyramids and the ghosts of lost civilizations, the great Arab scientist Alhazen conducted a peculiar optical experiment. Building on observations made by Aristotle thirteen centuries earlier, he first constructed a room, one completely shuttered from the light of the outside world, as dark as death. He then cleverly lit the space around the room with an array of bright lamps. Finally, he punched a single pinhole into one wall, just large enough to let a small beam of lamplight bleed in.

Alhazen confirmed that if you entered such a room, and sat in the darkness until your eyes had ample time to adjust, and then followed the beam of light emanating from the pinhole to where it splashed onto the wall opposite, you would be privy to an amazing, almost magical sight. As you watched, shapes and colors would begin to coalesce. Familiar forms would appear. And eventually, when your eyes had acclimated enough, you would be staring at nothing less than an exact upside-down projection of the outside world, perfect in every detail. Alhazen marveled at this, and gave the experiment an evocative name: Al-Bayt al-Muthlim, translated by later scribes into Latin as camera obscura — The Veiled Chamber. (more…)

As far as I’m concerned, a silent or waffling pastor in today’s paranormal climate is unnecessary. I don’t care how much the minister likes kitty cats, candy canes, and if he cries at Celine Dion concerts. Look, Voiceless Vicar, if you’re not currently in the middle of this crucial cultural squabble, pointing out what’s putrid and cheering on what’s proper, then you’re Dr. Evil in my book. 

Given that the culture-dividing issues, thanks to Obama, are more obvious than Joan Rivers’ last lip implants, it is mind-boggling to me that many ministers are mute or side with parties, policies and principles that are antithetical to the Judeo-Christian worldview. I don’t know if you got this memo in seminary but pastors are not only supposed to salvage souls but also build the good society. 

In some kind of ascending order, it seems to me there are 10 reasons why pastors and priests avoid political and intense cultural issues and thus aid and abet evil:  (more…)

When preaching to the choir, one directs one’s lessons to those who already agree.  Conversely, those who otherwise might listen and gain something useful get nothing.  More on that as this inter-connected series of observations comes to an end.

American Icon: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”

Vast, determined, highly successful forces and superior technologies dominated the theaters of WWII prior to America’s entry into the conflict after Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The Manhattan Project began in August of 1942, a couple of months before General George Patton invaded North Africa.  Character, strategy, and tactics played as large a role in dealing with Panzer and Tiger tanks as did Patton’s Shermans, of course, because firepower alone was insufficient in itself.  But the defeat of one totalitarian threat by 1945 was not apt to make much difference in taking down another in a place where school children were being trained to fight to the death for the Empire— with sharpened sticks.  The Manhattan Project, through funding, research, experimentation, design, development and production, met the challenge and made the difference. (more…)

“They say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” —Andy Warhol

"I adore America and these are some comments on it. My image is a statement of the symbols of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, and practical but impermanent symbols that sustain us." —Andy Warhol, 1962

Americans love rebels, even without cause or clue. Enough hip, smart, young people who are tired of having their faces and futures pushed into to sewage of bad ideas, pointless existences, and totalitarian ideologies, with strong support and encouragement, could really make a difference in the world. In contemporary context, they would be true anti-heroes, rebelling against the brave new world of ersatz freedom and the all-powerful fascist state, against crushing conformity and the annihilation of the rights of the individual.

Such things can and do happen.  Some might say they happened in the nineteen-sixties.  And they did—in Czechoslovakia. (more…)

“In fifteen minutes, everyone will be famous.” —Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol also spoke that jewel of wisdom, presumably demonstrating a sense of humor in referring to his most famous quote.  Or was it, perhaps, prescient, albeit unintended foreknowledge?  Pity he’s not around to toy with Twitter.

Bridge as visual metaphor, Media as bridge, Pittsburgh.

Looking back at Part 1, we considered a couple of insights into Andy’s Pop Life with the aim of solving some problems surrounding Mr. Breitbart’s incisive assertion that conservatives must come to terms with popular culture, and more, use it to advantage, or fail catastrophically in countering the negative effects of said culture and restoring public confidence in fundamental ideals.  Narcissism, amorality, and an attitude of entitlement, as examples, speak poorly to the future of democracy, while the virtues of valuing others, the practice of ethical discernment and choice, and the elevating ideas of individual liberty and self-reliance are greatly to be desired in the body politic, and traditionally set America apart from typical “statist” governments around the world.  Evidence abounds of the former set of attitudes in common currency as reflected in pop culture; the latter set, highly prized by conservatives, goes sorely wanting for attention in movies, TV, music, etc. (more…)

Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

A dance craze— like “freaking”— it is not, but rather, a point of view.

Back in January of this year, Andrew Breitbart announced “Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry”.  The announcement is as important as it is radical, assessing the power of Pop Culture in shaping global attitudes and standing athwart contemporary assaults on Western values, yelling, as did William Buckley in 1955, Stop.

Ask yourself: Is a vision of the world that is contrary in almost every way to the prevailing cultural paradigms a difficult “sell”?  Given this is always so, how is such a challenge overcome? (more…)