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We are so tired of Lord of the Rings. It tied with Titanic and Ben Hur for winnng the most awards in one year.
The best moment to us was when Sean Penn won for best actor for Mystic River. The rest was a yawn.
Sean-Paul of Agonist has seen Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ movie. He compares it to Reservoir Dogs and is sorry he went. He hated it, and tells why.
For more on how the movie is a shameful travesty of violence and anti-semitism, we recommend Leon Wieseltier's The Worship of Blood at TNR. In a nutshell,
It is a repulsive masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film, and it leaves you with the feeling that the man who made it hates life.
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It's Grey Tuesday today. Received from Norwegianity:
It's time for music fans to stand up and demand change from the music industry's copyright cartel. Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work.
DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z's the Black Album and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z's record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time") and the Boston Globe (which called it the "most creatively captivating" album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.
(430 words in story) There's More :: Permalink :: Comments
Ok, we'll admit it. Don Henley is our favorite recording artist (not the same thing as rock and roll star, which goes to Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen, but kind of in the same league as them and up there with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, recording artists who are also in our top five.) So it gives us great pleasure to reprint almost all of Henley's op-ed in today's Washington Post, Killing the Music:
Today the music business is in crisis. Sales have decreased between 20 and 30 percent over the past three years. Record labels are suing children for using unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing systems. Only a few artists ever hear their music on the radio, yet radio networks are battling Congress over ownership restrictions. Independent music stores are closing at an unprecedented pace. And the artists seem to be at odds with just about everyone -- even the fans.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the root problem is not the artists, the fans or even new Internet technology. The problem is the music industry itself. It's systemic. The industry, which was once composed of hundreds of big and small record labels, is now controlled by just a handful of unregulated, multinational corporations determined to continue their mad rush toward further consolidation and merger. Sony and BMG announced their agreement to merge in November, and EMI and Time Warner may not be far behind. The industry may soon be dominated by only three multinational corporations.
So whether they are fighting against media and radio consolidation, fighting for fair recording contracts and corporate responsibility, or demanding that labels treat artists as partners and not as employees, the core message is the same: The artist must be allowed to join with the labels and must be treated in a fair and respectful manner. If the labels are not willing to voluntarily implement these changes, then the artists have no choice but to seek legislative and judicial solutions. Simply put, artists must regain control, as much as possible, over their music.
Liberal Oasis interviews Eric Alterman, co-author of The Book on Bush. Some highlights:
- It’s hard to fathom just what an extreme group of people [they] are, how little regard they have for what we think of as the public interest, until you examine the details. And in this case, the devil really is in the details.
- I think there’s a real healthy understanding among all sensible people right now that there is only one hope for the future of this country and that is to get rid of this man, no matter who replaces him. I would very happy to vote for Bob Dole or George Herbert Walker Bush. He is the most dangerous man ever to occupy the American presidency in the past 100 years.
- The one bright spot of the complete and total lack of responsible planning for the entirely predictable aftermath of the invasion of Iraq is that they’re not in a strong position to take this show on the road.
Over at American Prospect, Eric and Michael Tomasky have a new article up, Wake Up Time:
Yes, Bush has bullied the national media. But are they really powerless? Only if they play along. Herewith, five suggestions for how the Fourth Estate can stop the charade.
Max Potter's story in 5280 on the Air Force Academy rape scandal will be the focus of a special segment tonight on ABC's 20/20.
Eric Alterman does it again--check out the website for his new book, co-authored by Mark Green, The Book on Bush :
The Book on Bush is the first comprehensive critique of a president who is governing on a right wing and a prayer. In carefully documented and vivid detail, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, two of the leading progressive authors/advocates in the country, not only trace the guiding ideology that runs through a wide range of W's policies but also expose a presidential decision-making process that, rather than weighing facts to arrive at conclusions, begins with conclusions and then searches for supporting facts.
Jason Zengerle, writing for the New Republic, explores the resurrection of liberal talk radio. Can it succeed now?
.... growing liberal anger at and alienation from mainstream media is just one reason why the latest liberal talk radio efforts are far more likely to succeed than past ones.
by TChris
The general manager of CNN acknowledges that "his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean's 'scream' after the Iowa caucuses." No kidding. But it wasn't just CNN.
Instead, the cable and broadcast news networks aired Dean's Iowa exclamation 633 times -- and that doesn't include local news or talk shows -- in the four days after it was made, according to the Hotline, a Washington-based newsletter.
The repetition may have contributed to Dean's declining support. But it's not just a problem for Dean. Witness the overplayed footage of Janet Jackson's breast (suitably fogged for our protection). David Bauder has an interesting take on the phenomenon of excessive coverage (or uncoverage, in Jackson's case) of news events that don't quite warrant all the fuss.
If you've been dying to see Janet Jackson's breast, you can do it here. Ms. Jackson will be discussing the incident with Larry King tonight, 9pm ET.
Update: CBS offered to let Janet present an award at the Grammies after all--if she apologized. She declined. She's apologized enough. We agree with Roger Friedman -- what do they want from her, blood?
by TChris
CBS, guardian of the nation’s moral fabric, has reportedly pressured producers of the Grammy awards to rescind Janet Jackson’s invitation to appear at Sunday night’s award presentation in light of her decision to expose some or all of her right breast to Superbowl viewers. Jackson had been scheduled to introduce a tribute to Luther Vandross. Oddly, CBS will apparently allow Justin Timberlake to sing the Grammy-nominated “Where Is the Love?” with Black Eyed Peas during the broadcast. Timberlake, who removed a portion of Jackson’s costume at the end of their Superbowl performance, has been aptly labeled as Jackson’s co-conspirator.
While this is not a criminal conspiracy (and certainly not worthy of all the hand-wringing, including an ill-conceived FCC investigation), it would be interesting to ask CBS why it decided to ban Jackson but not Timberlake. The criminal law generally decrees that individuals who join together to commit a crime are equally guilty of the crime. Does CBS view Timberlake, who took an affirmative step to expose the breast, as having less responsibility than Jackson, who passively allowed the exposure? Was not this act that CBS regards as an affront to decency jointly planned and executed?
Of course, the criminal law recognizes that shared responsibility is not the same as shared culpability, and some offenders therefore deserve lighter sentences than others. But why is Timberlake (whose actions are described by some, perhaps unfairly, as "a pantomime of sexual assault") less blameworthy than Jackson? Is it her fault that she’s the one who happened to have the breast?
Criminal law doesn’t apply here, but civil law might. Should CBS and/or the Grammy producers be worried that treating the white male more favorably than the black female runs afoul of civil rights laws? Perhaps CBS views presenters differently than it views performers, although it is difficult to draw a principled distinction that justifies the disparate treatment of Jackson and Timberlake. At the very least, the decision betrays an alarming insensitivity that is more offensive than the Superbowl mishap.
*****
For those who were emotionally scarred or traumatized by catching a fleeting glimpse of a woman's breast, help is on the way. A Tennessee woman has started a class action lawsuit "for exposure to lewd conduct" on behalf of the millions of people who saw Jackson's performance. While complaints of frivolous litigation are largely overblown, this may be the silliest lawsuit in recent memory.
by TChris
A television ad criticizing the Bush administration for saddling the next generation with today’s debt will not appear during today’s Superbowl broadcast, because CBS refuses to run it. Eli Pariser makes a strong argument that CBS, by hiding behind a policy against advertising concerning controversial issues, is actually protecting its corporate advertisers from criticism.
Notably, the policy has not motivated CBS to avoid airing the administration’s controversial issue ads, including those making the specious link between terrorism and toking. Nor will it prevent CBS from airing this year’s anti-drug ad during the Superbowl, one that attempts in a “subtle” way to link drinking (a favorite Superbowl pastime) and marijuana smoking.
As Senator Durbin (D-IL) remarked, the CBS officials who are protecting the administration from criticism recently succeeded, with the administration’s help, in raising to 39 percent the maximum percentage of television viewers that any single company’s TV stations may reach in a market. According to Senator Durbin,
it just so happens that Viacom, which owns CBS, currently owns stations reaching 38.8 percent of American households, and Rupert Murdoch's news corporation, the owners of that "fair and balanced" Fox Network, owns stations reaching 37.8 percent.
TalkLeft recently reported that moveon.org, the organization seeking to run the ad, is urging Superbowl viewers to change the channel to CNN in order to view the ad that CBS refuses to run. The ad should be running during the halftime show, at 8:10 and 8:35 EST.
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