Tempers flare over future of Italy's film studios

When it comes to animation, no one comes close to Pixar. When it comes to marketing, real life movies rule. But Pixar surprised us with their promotion of this year's upcoming film "Monsters University." While most studios rely on trailers, movie posters, and simple social media tactics to attract audiences to theaters, Pixar has gone one step further.

One of the world's great centres of movie-making tradition, the Cinecitta studios in Rome, is being riven by a bitter dispute over its future.

Fashion house Fendi is to pay for the €2.5m (£2m) restoration of Rome’s historic Trevi Fountain, the monument that starred in Federico Fellini’s 1960 classic film La Dolce Vita. Chunks of stone and plaster fell from the fountain’s ornate baroque facade last summer, loosened by snow and ice during the previous winter.

Feted for a career that has spanned 40 films and a half-century, Claude Lelouch voices one nagging regret: that he never made a Hollywood movie.Artistic differences, the French filmmaker told AFP in an interview, stood in the way of that, although he professes a profound love for America, where he made two of his films.The movie-making industry in the United States focuses on crowd-pleasers calculated to sell tickets, while Lelouch said his work is in the tradition of "cinema auteur, in which the filmmaker heeds, first and foremost, his own artistic voice.

I frequently make this reference in talks, though I can’t recall having blogged it yet. Here is one report from the front today: Corporate earnings have risen at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent since the end of 2008, he said, but disposable income inched ahead by 1.4 percent annually over the same period, after adjusting for inflation.

Deloitte strikes temporary deal wi

Yesterday, various news agencies reported that Hungary opted out of the treaty while Sweden and Czech Republic remained "undecided". However, the latest spin is that Hungary did not opt out yet and the gang of 26 will forge ahead without the UK. UK the "Big Loser" Having Fallen into "French Trap"?

Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan, Katherine Eriksson, 18 February 2010The Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913) was one of the largest migration episodes in history. Unlike today, during this era the US maintained an open border.