From classics to horror October 27, By Tony Rutherford. Save Post a comment. Along with turkey, Santa, and snow, the Thanksgiving through Christmas holiday period represents the second best time of year for moviegoing, except for the summer. One site has over 2, titles. Aside from the visual effects, the theme re-packages a favorite for the season… just believe.

In the first sequel, he has to find a Mrs. Clause while in No. He soon finds himself defending the homestead from a pair of idiotic, bungling burglars. Written by John Hughes. The massive department store had two sets of art deco elevators closed in The movie inspired a Broadway spin off. A Christmas Story TV, Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon take on a 21st Century holiday phenomenon — visiting sets of divorced parents over the holidays.

Having avoided the dreaded visitations by going on trips, the couple gets caught on the news grounded in the states.

Ho Ho Holiday movies: From classics to horror

Will they still be a couple after enduring all those meddlesome single parents? However, this predecessor for Internet dating has the two writing each other as pen pals, who eventually decide to meet each other. How many times will they do it again? Charles Dickens introduced us to Tiny Tim and Scrooge back in the s. The first adaptations to film of the story came in the form of shorts and the first feature length version rolled in The Muppets Christmas Carol.

This is a creative wonder that has its base in traditional, not digital CGI animation. Believe it or not, Astaire declined to be a part of the pic. Legendary Vincente Minnelli directs. When originally released, the Jimmy Stewart film played to modest attendance despite Frank Capra as its director. Shot in black and white, colorized, then remade four times. Cary Grant as angel Dudley comes to visit the parsonage of David Niven and Loretta Young, where the minister has been struggling with pressing financial problems of faith.

Fred MacMurray accompanies the body of a budding actress back to her hometown in Pennsylvania. But there are hundreds of stories about artists in their 60s and 70s who are broke because they never made a dime from their hit records. And real success is still a long shot for a new artist today. Of the 32, new releases each year, only sell more than 10, copies. And less than 30 go platinum. The four major record corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are rich and obviously well-represented.

Recording artists and musicians don't really have the money to compete. Only 15 percent of American Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music. One-third of that revenue comes from the United States. The annual sales of cassettes, CDs and video are larger than the gross national product of 80 countries.

Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for.

And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners, originators and performers of original compositions. This opinion is one I really haven't formed yet, so as I speak about Napster now, please understand that I'm not totally informed. I will be the first in line to file a class action suit to protect my copyrights if Napster or even the far more advanced Gnutella doesn't work with us to protect us. I'm on [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich's side, in other words, and I feel really badly for him that he doesn't know how to condense his case down to a sound-bite that sounds more reasonable than the one I saw today.

I also think Metallica is being given too much grief. It's anti-artist, for one thing. An artist speaks up and the artist gets squashed: Don't get above your station, kid. It's piracy when those guys that run those companies make side deals with the cartel lawyers and label heads so that they can be "the labels' friend," and not the artists'.

Recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free under the old system, so new technology that exposes our music to a larger audience can only be a good thing. Why aren't these companies working with us to create some peace? There were a billion music downloads last year, but music sales are up. Where's the evidence that downloads hurt business? Downloads are creating more demand. Why aren't record companies embracing this great opportunity? Why aren't they trying to talk to the kids passing compilations around to learn what they like? Why is the RIAA suing the companies that are stimulating this new demand?

What's the point of going after people swapping cruddy-sounding MP3s? Cash they have no intention of passing onto us, the writers of their profits. At this point the "record collector" geniuses who use Napster don't have the coolest most arcane selection anyway, unless you're into techno.


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For the most part, it was college boy rawk without a lot of imagination. Maybe that's the demographic that cares -- and in that case, My Bloody Valentine and Bert Jansch aren't going to get screwed just yet. There's still time to negotiate. Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it's a lot more profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture artists.

And since the companies didn't have any real competition, artists had no other place to go. Record companies controlled the promotion and marketing; only they had the ability to get lots of radio play, and get records into all the big chain store. That power put them above both the artists and the audience. They own the plantation. Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we're in a world half without gates.

The Internet allows artists to communicate directly with their audiences; we don't have to depend solely on an inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to radio, press or retail and then sits back and hopes fans find out about our music. Record companies don't understand the intimacy between artists and their fans. They put records on the radio and buy some advertising and hope for the best. Digital distribution gives everyone worldwide, instant access to music. And filters are replacing gatekeepers.

In a world where we can get anything we want, whenever we want it, how does a company create value? In a world without friction, the only friction people value is editing. A filter is valuable when it understands the needs of both artists and the public. New companies should be conduits between musicians and their fans. In a world where music costs a nickel, an artist can "sell" million copies instead of just a million. The present system keeps artists from finding an audience because it has too many artificial scarcities: The digital world has no scarcities.

There are countless ways to reach an audience. Radio is no longer the only place to hear a new song. And tiny mall record stores aren't the only place to buy a new CD. Now artists have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore, because the digital economy is creating new ways to distribute and market music.

And the free ones amongst us aren't going to. That means the slave class, which I represent, has to find ways to get out of our deals.

This didn't really matter before, and that's why we all stayed. I want my seven-year contract law California labor code case to mean something to other artists. Universal Records sues me because I leave because my employment is up, but they say a recording contract is not a personal contract; because the recording industry -- who, we have established, are excellent lobbyists, getting, as they did, a clerk to disallow Don Henley or Tom Petty the right to give their copyrights to their families -- in California, in , lobbied to pass an amendment that nullified recording contracts as personal contracts, sort of.

And again, in the dead of night, succeeded. That's why I'm willing to do it with a sword in my teeth. I expect I'll be ignored or ostracized following this lawsuit. I expect that the treatment you're seeing Lars Ulrich get now will quadruple for me. At least I'll serve a purpose. I'm an artist and a good artist, I think, but I'm not that artist that has to play all the time, and thus has to get fucked. Maybe my laziness and self-destructive streak will finally pay off and serve a community desperately in need of it. They can't torture me like they could Lucinda Williams. I want to work with people who believe in music and art and passion.

And I'm just the tip of the iceberg. I'm leaving the major label system and there are hundreds of artists who are going to follow me. There's an unbelievable opportunity for new companies that dare to get it right. How can anyone defend the current system when it fails to deliver music to so many potential fans? That only expects of itself a "5 percent success rate" a year?

The status quo gives us a boring culture. In a society of over million people, only 30 new artists a year sell a million records. By any measure, that's a huge failure. Maybe each fan will spend less money, but maybe each artist will have a better chance of making a living. Maybe our culture will get more interesting than the one currently owned by Time Warner.

Ask yourself, are any of you somehow connected to Time Warner media? I think there are a lot of yeses to that and I'd have to say that in that case president McKinley truly failed to bust any trusts. Maybe we can remedy that now. Artists will make that compromise if it means we can connect with hundreds of millions of fans instead of the hundreds of thousands that we have now.

Especially if we lose all the crap that goes with success under the current system. I'm willing, right now, to leave half of these trappings -- fuck it, all these trappings -- at the door to have a pure artist experience. They cosset us with trappings to shut us up. That way when we say "sharecropper! Here, take my Prada pants. Let us do our real jobs. And those of us addicted to celebrity because we have nothing else to give will fade away. And those of us addicted to celebrity because it was there will find a better, purer way to live. Since I've basically been giving my music away for free under the old system, I'm not afraid of wireless, MP3 files or any of the other threats to my copyrights.

Anything that makes my music more available to more people is great. MP3 files sound cruddy, but a well-made album sounds great. And I don't care what anyone says about digital recordings. At this point they are good for dance music, but try listening to a warm guitar tone on them. They suck for what I do.

Record companies are terrified of anything that challenges their control of distribution. This is the business that insisted that CDs be sold in incredibly wasteful 6-by inch long boxes just because no one thought you could change the bins in a record store. Let's not call the major labels "labels. They are the distributors. They're the only distributors and they exist because of scarcity. Artists pay 95 percent of whatever we make to gatekeepers because we used to need gatekeepers to get our music heard.

Because they have a system, and when they decide to spend enough money -- all of it recoupable, all of it owed by me -- they can occasionally shove things through this system, depending on a lot of arbitrary factors.

The corporate filtering system, which is the system that brought you in my humble opinion a piece of crap like "Mambo No. They've never been like Yahoo and provided a filter service. There were a lot of factors that made a distributor decide to push a recording through the system:.

How powerful is management? Who owes whom a favor? What independent promoter's cousin is the drummer? What part of the fiscal year is the company putting out the record? Is the royalty rate for the artist so obscenely bad that it's almost percent profit instead of just 95 percent so that if the record sells, it's literally a steal? How much bin space is left over this year?

Was the record already a hit in Europe so that there's corporate pressure to make it work? Will the band screw up its live career to play free shows for radio stations? Does the artist's song sound enough like someone else that radio stations will play it because it fits the sound of the month? Did the artist get the song on a film soundtrack so that the movie studio will pay for the video?

These factors affect the decisions that go into the system. All these things are becoming eradicated now. They are gone or on their way out. We don't need the gatekeepers any more. We just don't need them. And if they aren't going to do for me what I can do for myself with my year-old Webmistress on my own Web site, then they need to get the hell out of my way. I still need the old stuff. I still need a producer in the creation of a recording, I still need to get on the radio which costs a lot of money , I still need bin space for hardware CDs, I still need to provide an opportunity for people without computers to buy the hardware that I make.

I still need a lot of this stuff, but I can get these things from a joint venture with a company that serves as a conduit and knows its place. Serving the artist and serving the public: A new company that gives artists true equity in their work can take over the world, kick ass and make a lot of money. We're inspired by how people get paid in the new economy.

Many visual artists and software and hardware designers have real ownership of their work. I have a year-old niece. She used to want to be a rock star. Before that she wanted to be an actress. As of six months ago, what do you think she wants to be when she grows up? What's the glamorous, emancipating career of choice? Of course, she wants to be a Web designer. It's such a glamorous business!

When you people do business with artists, you have to take a different view of things. We want to be treated with the respect that now goes to Web designers. We're not Dockers-wearing Intel workers from Portland who know how to "manage our stress. I feel this obscene gold rush greedgreedgreed vibe that bothers me a lot when I talk to dot-com people about all this. You guys can't hustle artists that well. Don't try to compete with them.

I just laugh at you when you do! Maybe you could a year ago when anything dot-com sounded smarter than the rest of us, but the scam has been uncovered. The celebrity-for-sale business is about to crash, I hope, and the idea of a sucker VC gifting some company with four floors just because they can "do" "chats" with "Christina" once or twice is ridiculous. I did a chat today, twice. That's not worth million bucks. I live on tips. Occasionally, I'm going to get stiffed, but that's OK.

If I work hard and I'm doing good work, I believe that the people who enjoy it are going to want to come directly to me and get my music because it sounds better, since it's mastered and packaged by me personally. I'm providing an honest, real experience. When people buy the bootleg T-shirt in the concert parking lot and not the more expensive T-shirt inside the venue, it isn't to save money.

The T-shirt in the parking lot is cheap and badly made, but it's easier to buy. The bootleggers have a better distribution system. There's no waiting in line and it only takes two minutes to buy one. I know that if I can provide my own T-shirt that I designed, that I made, and provide it as quickly or quicker than the bootleggers, people who've enjoyed the experience I've provided will be happy to shell out a little more money to cover my costs. Especially if they understand this context, and aren't being shoveled a load of shit about "uppity" artists.

It's exactly the same with recorded music.

The controversial singer takes on record label profits, Napster and "sucka VCs."

The real thing to fear from Napster is its simple and excellent distribution system. No one really prefers a cruddy-sounding Napster MP3 file to the real thing. But it's really easy to get an MP3 file; and in the middle of Kansas you may never see my record because major distribution is really bad if your record's not in the charts this week, and even then it takes a couple of weeks to restock the one copy they usually keep on hand.

I also know how many times I have heard a song on the radio that I loved only to buy the record and have the album be a piece of crap. If you're afraid of your own filler then I bet you're afraid of Napster. I'm afraid of Napster because I think the major label cartel will get to them before I do.

I've made three records. I like them all. I haven't made filler and they're all committed pieces of work. I'm not scared of you previewing my record. If you like it enough to have it be a part of your life, I know you'll come to me to get it, as long as I show you how to get to me, and as long as you know that it's out. Most people don't go into restaurants and stiff waiters, but record labels represent the restaurant that forces the waiters to live on, and sometimes pool, their tips.

And they even fight for a bit of their tips. Music is a service to its consumers, not a product. Giving music away for free is what artists have been doing naturally all their lives.

Courtney Love does the math

Record companies stand between artists and their fans. We signed terrible deals with them because they controlled our access to the public. But in a world of total connectivity, record companies lose that control. With unlimited bin space and intelligent search engines, fans will have no trouble finding the music they know they want.

They have to know they want it, and that needs to be a marketing business that takes a fee. If a record company has a reason to exist, it has to bring an artist's music to more fans and it has to deliver more and better music to the audience. You bring me a bigger audience or a better relationship with my audience or get the fuck out of my way.

Next time I release a record, I'll be able to go directly to my fans and let them hear it before anyone else. We'll still have to use radio and traditional CD distribution. Record stores aren't going away any time soon and radio is still the most important part of record promotion. Major labels are freaking out because they have no control in this new world.

Courtney Love does the math | theranchhands.com

Artists can sell CDs directly to fans. We can make direct deals with thousands of other Web sites and promote our music to millions of people that old record companies never touch. We're about to have lots of new ways to sell our music: Artists aren't like you. We go through a creative process that's demented and crazy.