May 27, 2002

The Toronto Star headline of What drives suicide bombers? in fact refered to a multi-paper piece on sucide bombers that appeared in the same edition. I think the answer is hatred and evil. 11:05:44 PM

Slashdot points to two articles in The Guardian by writer/director Alex Cox. In the first, Cox claims that the success of movies such as Spider-man shows that Hollywood is not losing money to pirates and that the movie industry is founded on intellectual piracy. However, the success of Spider-man does not mean money is not being lost to pirates and I would expect his stance to change rapidly if it was his movies that were being ripped off. In his second article, Cox claims that digital camera and digital projection are inferior to film and that digital projection is a scheme by studios to gain more control over the movie industry. He states: Finally, if cinema owners do convert to video, what will they get for it? Put yourself in the place of the owner of a multiplex, with - say - Captain Corelli's Mandolin on screen one (the big screen) and Bend it Like Beckham on screen two. Both films opened on Friday. By Sunday, it's obvious that Correlli has tanked, and that Beckham is a hit. Naturally you yank Corelli from the larger cinema and put Beckham in there. The studios hate this, but can do nothing about it. However, once the new technology is installed, Corelli will be beamed direct to screen one for the duration of its scheduled run, and will play to empty houses. You, the cinema owner, can do nothing except lose money on Corelli, and turn customers away from screen two. This is incorrect. The decision on which movies to show where is a function of the theatre and movie companies’ commercial agreements, not some technical decision. Movie companies do not control what plays where by technology; they sign contracts with the theatre companies. If the contract allows for it, Corelli can be moved, if not, the technology does matter, the movie will remain on screen one. There of course are real problems with digital film and projections. In a another piece praising digital technology, the authors cite Kodak figures of a $1.4bn saving worldwide by switching from film to digital. But this is a saving for the movie companies not the theatres, which are the ones that must install the expensive digital projectors. Until this discrepancy is addressed, movies such as Star Wars 2: Attack of the Clones will not be seen in digital. 11:03:26 PM