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Thousands of artifacts and manuscripts from the Iraqi National Museum have been recovered , leaving only 38 items still missing.
How about that?
Eminem’s albums, including The Eminem Show (currently #35 on the Billboard Chart), became available this week on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. This is not what I expected. I thought tracks like these wouldn’t be available for song-by-song download at 99 cents each. This is an additional indication of the success of legal online music downloading.
When Barry talks, it’s smart to listen.
Next month, Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the U.S. regulator, is expected to announce that he will abolish the last restrictions on media consolidation. [.....] In a series of speeches and interviews, [Diller] has been scathing about the consequences. He argues that there will be a return to oligopoly – where 30 years ago there were three channels dominated by three companies, now there will be five hundred channels dominated by four or five. The relaxation of rules in 1996 has led to the formation of giant, vertically integrated companies. This, he believes, has been a disaster for innovation and ideas. [.....] He says that the big players want to control every part of the production chain, commissioning programs from their own departments and then distributing them worldwide. The result is that while 10 years ago, independent producers in Hollywood created 16 new television series a year, last year they were commissioned to make just one. Diller believes the independent production sector is dying on its feet and that quality is suffering. The conglomerates’ own in-house production departments are so far down the chain, he jokes, it’s a miracle that all the shows on air aren’t about rejection.
The large businesses producing TV, music and film, often seek to turn pop culture into something that can be mass-manufactured like cookies or cars. This has been a concern since before Kurt Cobain wore a “Corporate Rock Sucks” T-Shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone. It’s understandable; they’ve got a big business to run, and of course they want to make it as reliable as possible.
In music, the result can be cookie-cutter sound-alike bands; in TV, it’s 10 million cop shows; in movies, it can be all tentpole pics, all the time (not entirely a bad thing – big action movies are something Hollywood often does well).
On the plus side, the music business may be reinventing itself via legal online distribution. In films, there’s still room for non-genre films like THE HOURS and THE PIANIST to be hits. And on TV… actually, TV has yet to turn the corner. HBO’s leading the way with cliche-busting shows like THE SOPRANOS, SEX IN THE CITY, etc.
Film at 11. 
Three trailers for the new Pixar movie starring fish, FINDING NEMO, are here. If you haven’t seen them yet… they’re pretty cool.
