SAR Academic Freedom Media Review-April 7-13, 2012

The Scholars at Risk media review seeks to raise awareness about academic freedom issues in the news. Subscription information and archived media reviews are available at here. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Scholars at Risk.

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Jadavpur University professor arrested over anti-Mamata cartoons
The Times of India, 4/13
Finally on solid ground (in Norwegian – Google translation)
Aksel Kjaer Vidnes, Forskerforum, 4/13
Colombia all ears after students vote with their feet
Graham Jarvis, Times Higher Education, 4/12
Tenuous Tenure
Kaustuv Basu, Inside Higher Ed, 4/12
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Making Bad Movies Fun

The Razzies are annual awards saluting the worst Hollywood has to offer.


I saw a really bad movie on Friday. Never mind which. One of the things I enjoy about writing this blog is that I get to be a critic without being critical, so I generally only write about works of art that I’d like to endorse. My mom would be proud that I am following her injunction to refrain from saying anything at all if you can’t say anything nice. So never mind the title. The point is that for two hours I was in a theater watching a movie that, had I know better, I would not have watched, let alone paid $12 for!!
The way I see it, when you are in that situation, your options are limited. You’ve paid a significant amount of money for a ticket. Which is more of a waste: losing the time you will spend watching a movie you aren’t enjoying, or losing the money you spent on the ticket? Theaters do not refund the ticket price because you didn’t like to movie. Moreover, its not always a straight-forward choice. For example, maybe you are at the theater with friends who want to stay.
Well, there is a third option.
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Mozart of the Pickpockets on YouTube

It is a wonderful development that you can now see so many award winning short films online. I am a full fledged cinophile and I do believe something is lost when a film that was shot for the big screen is watched on the small screen, let alone the event smaller screen of YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion or other sites. But other the other hand, every year I pay attention to the Oscars, the Golden Globes, Cannes, Venice, and all the other film festivals. The short films always sound wonderful, but until recently it was unlikely I’d see more of most of them than the clips they show in the telecast. Continue reading

Music publishers: iTunes not paying fair share

I should have a category in the blog called “Are you F—ing kidding me!”  I could use it to include things like some of the right-wings arguments against health care reform, the conspiracy theories of the “Birthers” and this little doozy right here, reported on CNET.

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all.
These groups even want compensation for iTunes’ 30-second song samples.

Royalties on song samples?  Are you F—ing kidding me?  To be fair, the way in which composers and songwriters are compensated when their music is used in movies on televison is complicated and not entirely fair to them.  But to even suggest that they might deman royalties on previews and clips is just foolish.  Talk about shooting themselves in the feet.
How else do they expect the full length TV shows and movies featuring their material to sell, let alone their songs themselves? In the digital age the last thing you want is to place any barriers to the distribution of trailers and clips.  They don’t compromise revenue, they enhance it.  You want those things to go viral.
However, the reality is much more diverse. tadalafil tablets 20mg This unica-web.com free viagra in canada medication work to open the partially blocked coronary arteries. These medications inhibit 5a-reductase, which in turn inhibits production of DHT, growing older guys tend to shed their hair quicker compared to females. viagra india Diabetes and kidney purchase viagra uk diseases may induce erectile dysfunction or impotence. Why did I go see a movie as bad as Snakes on a Plane when I knew I probably wasn’t going to like it?  Because I had seen those clips from it everywhere and my curiosity was piqued.  Why were there snakes on the plane?  And that brief scene of Sam Jackson yelling how he was tired of the snakes was emblazoned enough that I just really wanted to see how it fit in.  So I went.  The movie was terrible.  Really terrible, just as my better judgment expected.  But viral marketing did the trick and got me to shed my $10.
Plus there is the ill will that even making such a suggestion generates.  By many estimates, more than 90% of music downloads are “illegal.”  This practice will never be stopped through law enforcement strategies.  Law enforcement can’t even stop the buying and selling of marijuana and a much smaller percentage of the population smokes pot than does the percentage that downloads music illegally.  In fact, many people that do it don’t even understand the difference between legal and illegal downloads.
So the best strategy the recording industry has is one of public education and cultivation of good will, i.e. helping people understand which downloads are which and how artists are affected when their material is downloaded through illicit channels.
But how likely is the public to care about any of that when the industry is charging them for what is, in effect, advertising?

Julie and Julia, a near perfect film

I wanted to post this review on Flixster, but it got too long, so here it is in its entirety.
I was bowled over by every aspect of Julie and Julia. It was masterfully directed, well staged, well costumed, well lit, etc. Meryl Streep at her worst is pretty damn good and in this she is at her best. It is great fun to see her play Julia Child, such a larger than life personality. The rest of the cast turns in rather outstanding performances as well. Jane Lynch is brilliant in her brief appearance as Julia’s sister.
That said, what I really want to talk about here, is the narrative. The biographical narrative of Julia Child is definitely the more engaging story, but it weaves together nicely with Julie Powell‘s story and the film becomes a nice study by contrast of both characters.
Though she embarks on her project several decades later, Julie is essentially a foil for Julia. I don’t know whether it made me appreciate Julia’s perseverance even more or it just made me marvel at just how spoiled, self-indulgent and impatient Julie, and let’s face it, her generation, present company included, is.
Julia is an older woman taking years to realize the dream of publishing a cookbook, one that had phenomenal cultural impact, to be sure, but she didn’t know that at the time. Julie also publishes a book, but she does so by literally following the directions set down by Julia. Both began their quest because they had reached a point where they were floundering and bored with their careers. Both succeed with the support of patient, loving husbands, but Julia spent years trying to convince publishers her project was valid. Her fate was in the hands of others. Julie picked up a computer and started a blog. The public decided its validity.
So Julie’s quest takes only a year, yet even then her frustration level is so high she almost gives up over something as simple as a dropped dish. The crises Julie encounters are small, mole hills made into mountains. Julia’s crises are mountains but she treats them like mole hills. She has breakdowns, but those that she has are over major traumas, such as the realization that she won’t be a mother in spite of her deepest desires. And yet her reaction on screen looks very much like the reaction Julie has over a ruined dish.
It is such an unbelievably poignant moment because we sense that her heart is cracking, but that she is bearing it stoically, pulling it back together like the omelet in the scene so often shown in the previews for the movies. These are private crises, shared only by her and her husband. They are the only ones in the kitchen and only they will know what happened!
So many critics have been critical of the film because they find Julie’s story less compelling than Julia’s and thus that the film is slower and less fun in those parts. I share that assessment. But I don’t think the sole purpose of the film is to entertain. Nora Ephron twined the stories together that way for a reason and it is part of what makes the film so compelling. Julie Powell knew she was following in Julia Child’s footsteps, and that is why she made the butter offering to the portrait of Julia in the end.
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