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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated May 20, 2007 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
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Borat 20th Century Fox
The most profitable films aren't necessarily the ones with the best box office records. Over the long term, DVD sales have created an ever-changing 'Top 10.' Patricia King Hanson, executive editor of the American Film Institute's Catalog of Feature Films, says: "Some of the films that are going to be very high on the all-time greatest lists are likely to never have won an Academy Award." "The Shawshank Redemption," a movie that grossed a modest $28.3 million upon its 1994 release (and received seven Oscar nominations but no statuettes), has been ensconced in the No. 2 position on the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 movies list, just under "The Godfather," since 1999. More than 237,000 IMDB users have rated it. "Titanic," the all-time box office champ and Academy Awards victor (its 11 Oscars is tied for tops with "Ben-Hur" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"), is no longer king of the world, according to DVD rental figures provided by Netflix. James Cameron's shipwreck epic took the 1997 best picture Oscar over "As Good As It Gets," "The Full Monty," "Good Will Hunting" and "L.A. Confidential." Care to guess their current order of popularity on Netflix? The most rented in February: "Good Will Hunting." Just a tad under in second place: "L.A. Confidential," which is rented twice as often as third-place finisher "As Good As It Gets." Chop another 8 percent from that figure, and we get No. 4, "Titanic." "The Full Monty" lingers just below that. ("Titanic," however, still sells considerably more DVDs than the others, according to Nielsen VideoScan's 2007 figures.) In 1998, the AFI released its list of the 100 best American movies, culled from 400 nominees. This summer the Los Angeles-based organization will release the "10th Anniversary Edition." Many new additions are films that have been released over the past nine years, but some older films have been added to the list. Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" (1951), a devastatingly cynical look at the media circus surrounding a man trapped in a mine, and Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957), about a hobo who becomes a TV sensation, are ballot newcomers. "(There's a) whole subculture slowly evolving on the Internet," said Milos Stehlik, director of Chicago's Facets Multimedia. "People are recommending things to each other — that whole kind of viral, informal way of community-building around certain films. If enough of a core audience sees and likes a film and talks about it, [that film] gets a new life on DVD."
Two Labrador retrievers, named Lucky and Flo, became targets of DVD pirates in Malaysia recently after helping to sniff out nearly 1 million illegal DVDs there. The dogs are on loan for a month from the Motion Picture Association of America. "The dogs are a genuine threat to the pirated disc syndicates; thus the instruction to eliminate them," said Firdaus Zakaria, the enforcement director of Malaysia's Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. Lucky and Flo were pressed into service March 13. They soon sniffed out the massive shipment of pirated movie DVDs at an office complex in the southern Johor state. When the dogs stopped in front of locked doors, officials using crowbars found a cache of discs worth $2.8 million. Five Malaysians and a Vietnamese man were arrested. It was the first time dogs have been used by authorities anywhere to detect contraband discs, according to Mike Ellis, regional director for the film association. The association says its members - which include top Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Universal - lost $1.2 billion to Asia-Pacific movie pirates in 2006. Lucky and Flo are trained to detect polycarbonates, chemicals used in the disc manufacturing process. They cannot tell the difference between real and pirated discs, but they can detect discs hidden in shipments or concealed places. Malaysia is among the world's top illegal movie producers and exporters, Washington and the film association have said. It is one of 36 countries on a U.S. watch list of serious copyright violators. Officials say 5 million discs were seized in more than 2,000 raids in the Southeast Asian nation last year, and 780 people were arrested.
China's Ministry of Public Security has urged police to step up the fight against piracy, focusing on software, CDs and DVDs. Public security departments would encourage and offer rewards for information on piracy crimes, and endeavor to arrest the organizers and ringleaders of the piracy crimes, said the circular. Police seized 19.46 million illegal publications each month on average from July through September last year, more than double the monthly average for January to June last year.
Traders who peddle pirated DVDs, VCDs and videogames got a lecture on intellectual property rights from President Arroyo, who also offered them alternative sources of income. The President has ordered the filing of criminal charges against owners of malls and establishments selling pirated CDs. She also instructed Manila's Metropolitan Development Authority chairman to negotiate with the Land Bank of the Philippines for the possible conversion of a repossessed lot into a livelihood center, possibly for pearl ornament making, or halal food processing or selling.
Police and investigators from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Music Industry Piracy Investigations, and Microsoft worked together to catch two men with 5,000 pirated DVDs. The confiscated discs include copies of Happy Feet, Casino Royale and other films yet to be released to DVD. The two men are expected to face charges relating to the Copyright and Trademark Acts and face fines of up to $60,500 or five years in prison. end
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