The Americans are officially crazy

It's pathetic enough that the American movie industry feels the need to make Hollywood versions of the Millenium trilogy (because clearly they believe the Americans are unable to watch a European movie w/subtitles...). But this really blew me away:

Dessutom skriver tidningen nu att det finns planer på att alla skådespelare i filmen ska bryta på svenska.

Apparently the director wants the actors to talk with a Swedish accent througout the movie? I guess the American version of the movie will be set in Sweden as well, just to make it completely and utterly corny. Well, if they're looking to make a comedy out of it, they seem to be on the right track.

Another lesson in irony

The Swedish movie industry has the nerve to accuse food company Dole of being a threat to the freedom of speech, following a lawsuit where Dole want's to prevent the movie "Bananas!" from being shown. Isn't that cute. The big bully pushing around all the smaller kids in the schoolyard gets pushed back and runs crying to the principle's office.

Oh well, I guess freedom of speech was a good idea after all?

Voddler - a fiasco in the making

Voddler is supposed to be a kind of Spotify-like service, only for movies and TV-series. This is all good, but according to the article in SvD, Voddler will be burdened by the same antique release window system invented by the movie industry that is killing the DVD market and causing people to illegally download US-released movies and TV-series that won't hit European theaters for months:

Alla filmer kommer alltså inte att finnas i gratisversionen och filmer kommer även att kunna flyttas från gratisvarianten till premiumvarianten och vice versa. Baserat på filmbolagens så kallade releasefönster kommer filmer även att kunna försvinna helt i perioder.

Seriously, who's gonna pay for a premium account?

Unfortunately it seems as long as you want to stay on friendly terms with the entertainment mafia, you're going to have a poor, defective service. If you, on the other hand, decide to give the customers what they want, expect to be persecuted prosecuted by an industry that makes its own laws. It's really a lose-lose situation.

How the music industry makes its money

We've already seen how the movie industry makes its money by ripping off the writers and actors through "Hollywood accounting".

How about the music industry? Much the same, really, ripping off the songwriters and artists. While they're not busy suing their customers, that is.

There truly is no business like showbusiness, perhaps with the exeption of organized crime.

Angels and annoyances

I went to the movies yesterday, to watch the premiere of Angels and Demons, based on the book by Dan Brown. Free tickets of course (as I'm on my third year of a total entertainment industry boycott, my "don't feed the monster" campaign). Before the movie started the audience was informed that the distributor, Walt Disney, had ordered the following:

• There were to be absolutely no use of cell phones or other equipment with any possibilities to record any parts of the movie.
• If a cell phone, or any kind of illuminated LCD display for that matter, was observed by one of the security guards patrolling the auditorium (what is this, a penitentiary???), the movie would be stopped immediately, and the device would be confiscated.

This brings up a few questions:

• What kind of police authority does Walt Disney think a cinema security guard has, to confiscate other people's property with no proof whatsoever that a criminal act has taken place? Nevermind, I forgot about the Ipred for a while...
  
• More importantly though: How do those morons over at Walt Disney think the public reacts to being treated like criminals when they go (and actually pay) to see a movie? Does this encourage the audience to come back and pay to take more abuse?
  
• Oh, and do these paranoid bastards really think, even in their wildest imagination, that a cell phone recording, grainy, 320x250 resolution and inaudible sound, of Angels and Demons will be any kind of substitute for the high quality cinema version? Of course not, it wouldn't even be watchable. I'm gonna wait for the high quality, region free, decrypted DVD rip myself. If I can be bothered to download it.
  

And as for the movie itself, it was ok.