Guardian: Vanity's fair, life's not

If you look back and count, Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue cover stars have 83 Oscar nominations and 23 Oscars to their names. Ellen E Jones reports on the "curse" of the Hollywood issue. 
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AP: Sundance Channel unveils upcoming shows

Music giants Elvis Costello and Elton John are joining forces for a talk-and-tunes series to air on Sundance Channel. "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With ..." will be a 13-week series on which Costello plays host to artists and other personalities for an hour of discussion and performance. Frazier Moore reports. 
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LAT: There Will Be Catchphrases

Michael Ordona reports on the onslaught of catchphrases resulting from three Oscar contenders, "Juno," "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood." Ordona notes: "Case in point: the misanthropic oilman played by Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" - his devastating taunt to a bewildered foe, "I ... drink ... your ... milkshake!" has somehow crept into the lexicon of the moment. A fan video mashing up "Blood" footage and Kelis' 2003 hit "Milkshake" has more than 80,000 hits on YouTube."  
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iW NEWS | Doc Filmmakers Join Forces for Cinelan

Morgan Spurlock, Ross Kauffman, Eugene Jarecki, Jessica Yu and Steve James are among the filmmakers on board as advisors and contributors to Cinelan, the new short doc initiative being spearheaded by company CEO David Schrieberg. Based upon the creation of a steady stream of three-minute films, Cinelan will syndicate the docs via online and offline outlets, launching in partnership with Guardian News & Media, Picturehouse Cinemas and the Vizumi Network. Other filmmakers already on board include Marilyn Agrelo, Kiki Allgeier, Joanna Chejade-Bloom, Jeremy Chilnick, Mark Francis, Nick Francis, Grant Gee, Cameron Hickey, Liz Mermin, Lila Morgan, Al Morrow, Max Pugh, Jerry Rothwell, Katy Sevigny, Marc Silver, Floyd Webb and Jeremiah Zagar. Key execs on board for Cinelan, which is backed by Arts Alliance and formally launching at the Berlinale, include COO David Laks, as well Karol Martesko-Fenster, Wai Mun Yoon and filmmaker relations team Kiki Allgeier, Jeremy Boxer and Mark Rabinowitz. The company is currently accepting pitches from professional filmmakers and exploring other potential syndication partners. For more information, visit the Cinelan website. [Eugene Hernandez] 
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Guardian: Film fans will always have Paris

Great films have been made in many cities but two great film cities are pre-eminent. One is Paris, where the Lumiere Brothers staged the first movie show for a paying audience in December 1895 using their Kinematograph. The second is New York, where in April 1896 Thomas Edison's Vitascope was launched with a dozen short films accompanying live acts in a vaudeville theatre. Philip French reports. 
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NYT: In the Bronx, a Film School With a Down-to-the-Ghetto Name

It was in many ways a typical film-school scene. On a recent hot afternoon, a group of eager young students crowded around a big-time director, asking for advice about backlighting and the best way to establish a scene of anarchy. But the students quizzing David O. Russell, the director of "Three Kings" weren't enrolled at New York University or Columbia or any other august institution. They were from the Ghetto Film School, an unaccredited training program in the South Bronx that operates in the summer and on weekends during the school year. It gives teenagers a rigorous introduction to filmmaking and, despite the humblest of origins, has built up an enviable roster of Hollywood donors and supporters inside city government. Ben Sisario reports. 
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AFP: YouTube names video award winners

Free hugs, advice from a spastic ninja and band members performing on a stage of eight treadmills won users' choice awards, which YouTube announced on Monday. "Instead of seeing a way to share videos, they saw an opportunity for worldwide visibility and through their success have changed the landscape of how a 'star' is defined," Jamie Byrne, head of YouTube marketing, said in an online announcement of the winners. AFP reports. 
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AFP: African film world desperately seeking a boost

With cinemas closing, film subsidies shrivelling, and piracy on the rise, the thousands of film buffs in town for Africa's biggest film fest this week spent much time musing on how to keep African film alive across the continent. "Filmmakers need to make movies that interest the public, and the public needs to be provided with access to cinemas," said Dani Kouyate, a Burkinabe filmmaker who heads the Guild of African Directors and Producers. Claire Rosemberg reports. 
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AFP: Oscars show ratings rise in preliminary figures

Television ratings for this year's Oscars increased slightly according to preliminary figures on Monday, with female viewership increasing for the show hosted by comedian Ellen DeGeneres. Figures released by Nielsen Media Research showed a three percent increase on last year's audience, jumping from 38.9 million viewers to 39.9 million. Viewership for the Oscars has dipped in recent years. Last year's show hosted by John Stewart was the second smallest audience since 1998, and Sunday's figures were still well off the 42.1 million in 2005 and 2004's 43.5 million. AFP reports. 
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NY Times: Let Them Eat Foie Gras (Gift Bags Are So Last Year)

By the glow of candlelight, the Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg and 10 friends dined on foie gras and New York strip steak this week as they looked out over the lights of Los Angeles. The meal was gratis, and so was the Champagne, elegantly poured by silent, liveried servers at Soho House, a British-style private club practically created overnight in an empty mansion for the week leading up to Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. It caters to the whims of Hollywood celebrities while marketing an upscale lifestyle to discerning consumers on its guest list. This is the new swag, a twist on the widespread practice of giving to the already rich and famous. Sharon Waxman reports. 
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NY Times: And You'll Be a Moviegoer, My Son

"Mothers of America, let your kids go to the movies!" Always good advice, but the exhortation has dated a bit since 1960, when Frank O'Hara made it the first line of his poem "Ave Maria." "Going to the movies" has a quaint ring in the age of the plasma-screen home entertainment system, the iPod and video-on-demand. The movies are more than willing to come to us, which has inspired some sages, in and outside the film industry, to prophesy the obsolescence, or at least the increasing marginality, of paper tickets, bags of popcorn and big dark rooms lighted by a projector beam: the cultural ritual known dispassionately in the business as "theatrical distribution." A.O. Scott reports. 
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