Dateline: Austin, Texas — IT CAME. AND IT WENT. In flash, it seemed.
“SXSW Interactive”, or the digital tech part of that annual multimedia extravaganza called the South by SouthWest festivals is now over – and it was on steroids this year, opening with the first-ever appearance by a sitting US President. Continue reading “At South By South West (Film), Emotional Wreckage in a High Finance Setting” »
THOUGH NEVER A HUGE ATTENTION-GETTER, the Best Foreign Language category in this weekend’s Oscar awards contains, as often, some very powerful cinema among its five nominees.
And if the runes cast before us by earlier rounds of the awards season are any guide, one film is close to being a shoo-in for the ‘Best Foreign’ statuette.
Son of Saul from Hungary (directed by László Nemes – or Nemes László, to use courteously the proper Hungarian ordering of names) comes lauded already as ‘Best Foreign’ among the Golden Globes winners, and before that was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Continue reading “Amid Oscars’ Glitziness, a Grim Film with Wrenching Reality” »
THOUGH FOR MANY OF US THE YEAR ahead may look pretty dismal, 2016 promises one great breakthrough – a major step toward ending Africa’s particular and hobbling form of the great Digital Divide. Continue reading “A Giant Leap in 2016? Africa Narrows its Techno-Gap” »
MY YEAR-END SCHADENFREUDE-FEST has rolled around again, all too soon.
It’s been a pretty good year for some striking media corrections and apologies.
And for some telling non-apologies.
Continue reading “Our Annual Festivity – The Media Beat’s ‘BEST CORRECTIONS & APOLOGIES’, 2015” »
SO, HYSTERICAL XENOPHOBIA courses through the US media about Muslim people seeking refuge – stoked by “unhinged” demagoguery – and lunatic ideas get discussed like an outright ban against incomers selected on the basis of their religion.
Meanwhile right now in the real world … winter is overtaking the region at the heart of the crisis, even if many Westerners don’t associate it with the bitter sub-zero temperatures it actually suffers. Continue reading “Untold Story of Mid-East Refugees – Guess Where?” »
