This month Harvey Weinstein, the famed (and sometimes feared) Hollywood film producer and studio boss, has been on a promotional roll. No wonder. In the coming days, one of Weinstein's new films, The Intouchables, will go on general release in the US.
As stories go, the film is undoubtedly heartwarming; it features a quadriplegic who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a black immigrant in Paris. But the film is in French, with subtitles. And while Weinstein has had some unlikely wins before (think of the silent film The Artist, which won five Oscars), it could be a challenge to persuade American audiences to watch a subtitled, arty film about physical disability. Especially when it competes with films such as Spider-Man 3, when Americans are on vacation.
But as Weinstein embarks on his trendy gamble, there is something else equally intriguing at work in the visual entertainment world. A couple of weeks ago, I attended the New York premiere of the HBO series The Newsroom, a television series based on a CNN-style newsroom. This was a glitzy, fascinating affair, full of big names in the media and arts, who duly purred with pleasure when Aaron Sorkin, the series' creator, silkily declared that his show was intended as a “love letter” to the media world.