Mark Lynch

  • Good Luck, Newspaper Business!

    Journalists of all types are having difficulty grasping that theirs is an industry that has peaked.

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    Mark Lynch

  • End Celebrity Fasts & Boycotts Now!

    Dear Mia: I trust, Mia, that by now you’ve fully recovered from your fast for Darfur. It was noble of you, though a bit naïve, I have to say.   Africa is one of my passions, Mia, so I’m not belittling your intention, and I know you’re intelligent enough to know that the complexities of…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Madoff’s Sons Didn’t Know? Really?!

    Since the Bernie Madoff saga broke, most people have agreed on two things: It is impossible that he could have continued a scam of this complexity without those closest to him being aware of it, and it was going to become a movie. It’s looking as if this film of financial destruction will have long…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Making Sense of SAG

    Actors, though intermittently celebrated, have only recently shed a scurrilous and shady reputation. With industrialisation and mass leisure time came the opportunity for them to make money and gain some respectability. The talkies, firmly established not long before World War II, gave actors, through inspirational films, propaganda and service entertainment, the chance to reach a…

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    Mark Lynch

  • YouTube + Film Studios = Disaster Movie

    It must be ironic, rather than conspiratorial, that just as a Stockholm court jails two individuals responsible for the Pirate Bay and SAG reaches a tentative and contentious deal that YouTube has successfully seduced some big content providers. Obviously Google is not desperate for cash, but it certainly is desperate do something with YouTube, a…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Clint Eastwood Is a Closet Feminist

    The Clint Eastwood reappraisal is over — he’s a Great Director.   It’s contestable which film turned the sentiment of the jaundiced eye, but I would say "Bird." By the time he made "Unforgiven," everyone was in on the act. And no wonder. What a masterpiece that film is, a Western as a loose American…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Why Susan Boyle Struck a Worldwide Chord

    The international reaction to 47-year-old Susan Boyle’s performance singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables" in the auditions for "Britains Got Talent" last week has surpassed anything that could be managed and executed by a battalion of PR experts. Her modest story as much as her singing has captured the imagination of an unlikely…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Actresses Are Their Own Worst Enemies

    A very safe generalization about actresses in Hollywood is that they got there through their talent and hard work. Yes, there is a multitude of bimbo celebrities — many of whom make a better living than their more talented sisters — but they inhabit a media-made Hollywood rather than that of the filmmakers. Despite the…

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    Mark Lynch

  • Does Fox Have a Download Double Standard?

    The dismissal of Fox News’ Roger Friedman for downloading and reviewing a copy of  "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is not too surprising. However, it does reek of double standards. Back in January, the Sunday Times of London, which, like Fox, is owned by Rubert Murdoch, published an article headlined "Pirate-sharing Films Throttle Hollywood" that offered a…

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    Mark Lynch