CINEMA BuzzFEED - Week of 6 October 2013

Jedi Light-sabers Become a Reality


Physicists at Harvard and MIT have discovered a way to bind photons together in order to form a new molecule which behaves almost exactly like the Star Wars deadly light-sabers.

Harvard physics professor, Mikhail Lukin told CMG, "Most of the properties of light we know about originate from the fact that photons are massless and do not interact.  What we have done is create a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other so strongly that they act as though they have mass and bind together to from molecules.  The physics of what's happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies."

No one has begun to build actual light-sabers; however, with a trilogy of new Star Wars movies in the works by Disney - this is great PR.  "Let the force be with you".

Battling the Pirates


In the last week of September, Google took down a record-breaking 5.3 million content pirated links from its search engine.  That's equivalent to nine links every second.

According to Google, they have significantly increased their take-down rate to requests from copyright holders.  The response started in February, when the take-down rate hit 3.8 million per week.  In March it had risen to 4.5 million and peaked at the September, record rate  of 5.3 million spanning 37,413 domain names from 5,407 copyright owners - that's a 4000% increase over the first take-down which Google started in July 2011.

This is welcomed news for both Hollywood and movie exhibitors as pirated films dramatically eat into movie attendance. In the past, the movie industry has condemned Google, and other search engine providers, for doing too little to prevent pirated content online.

Hillary Themed Projects Get the Boot


As a follow-up to a CMG post of last month on the movie "Rodham" which is a portrayal of a young, up-and-coming, and in love Hillary, throw Monica under the bus, Clinton two other projects that were in the works by CNN and NBC were cancelled last week.

CNN dropped a planned docu-drama after the network received strong back-lash from both Democratic and Republican operatives, while NBC abandoned its planned miniseries, "Hillary" that was to star Diane Lane.  An NBC spokesperson, stated "After reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movies/miniseries development, we've decided that we will no longer continue developing  the Hillary Clinton miniseries."  The series was to be "partly fictionalized" .

Regarding CNN's decision, the Huffington Post reported that Charles Ferguson, who was to direct the docu-drama, said "Nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in helping me make this film. Not Democrats. Not Republicans".

The feature film, "Rodham" is still, sort of, in the works.  However, the New York Times reported that the project currently has "no cast or financial backing".  The film's expected release date was originally set for late 2014 or early 2015. Carrie Mulligan, refused the role to play Hillary.

Let's face it, is any of this necessary? There are over 50 books and a number of movies about Hillary, do we really need more?  Do we need to have more flash and propaganda about a candidate right before an election?

Best
Jim