Rotten Tomatoes has unearthed a 1941 review of Orson Welles' classic that single-handedly took down its decades-long perfect critics' score. From The Hollywood Reporter: Citizen Kane's score across 116 reviews has been reduced to a mere 99 percent "Fresh." The ranking slip is due to a single negative review that was recently unearthed by Rotten Tomatoes as part of the site's Archival Project, which focuses on resurrecting critics and publications of the past and adding archived reviews to classic films. The project discovered a Citizen Kane review that ran in the Chicago Tribune in 1941 and is only available online as a scanned newspaper clipping. Last month, the review was quietly added to Kane's page.

The review's headline is incredibly on point, given the circumstances: "Citizen Kane Fails to Impress Critic as Greatest Ever Filmed." If that sounds like somebody went to the theater with rather high expectations, the review confirms as much. "You've heard a lot about this picture and I see by the ads that some experts think it 'the greatest movie ever made,'" reads the review. "I don't. It's interesting. It's different. In fact, it's bizarre enough to become a museum piece. But its sacrifice of simplicity to eccentricity robs it of distinction and general entertainment value." The review went on to pan the film's iconic use of shadow ("it gives me the creeps and I kept wishing they'd let a little sunshine in"), yet praised Welles in the title role ("a zealous and effective performer").

The critic apparently didn't put their real name on the piece, but, as Boing-Boing pointed out, used the common-at-the-time pseudonym Mae Tinee (say it aloud). But whoever wrote it managed to pen a bomb that took 80 years to effectively detonate and blow up Citizen Kane's perfect score. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the first Citizen Kane reviews were added to the site in 2000 and the film most likely had a consistent 100 percent score for the past two decades -- until Mr./Ms. Tinee's dismissive takedown was discovered.

A viral internet joke becomes a real-life, good-natured 'battle' for a lot of people with the same first name. Behind the scenes of the 'JoshFight.' From a report: It began as a joke, Josh Swain emphasized. Spring, a year ago. As a pandemic surged, and millions idled at home, Swain, an engineering student at the University of Arizona, was very bored online. He noted that every time he tried to create a social media account, the name Josh Swain was already taken. An amused Swain logged onto Facebook, gathered every "Josh Swain" he could find into a group message, and offered a brash challenge, which was basically this: On April 24, 2021, everyone named Josh Swain should meet at these select coordinates -- 40.8223286, -96.79820002; it turned out to be farmland in Nebraska -- and duel for the right to be The One and Only Josh Swain. "We fight, whoever wins gets to keep the name, everyone else has to change their name, you have a year to prepare, good luck," Swain wrote.

Over time, Swain's terse, off-the-cuff, throw-down to all Josh Swains became a viral internet meme, leaping the curb from a bored joke into something quite real. The battle would broaden from Josh Swains to anyone named Josh, with Joshes from all over suggesting they, too, would come to Nebraska for a fight to be the The Only Josh. Terms of engagement were offered: they'd fight with foam pool noodles. Last Josh Standing wins. A public location was settled upon. (The original one turned out to be a private farm.) There was even a charitable angle: Supporters were asked to make contributions to the Nebraska Children's Hospital and Medical Center Foundation, and bring an item for the local food bank. On Friday, Joshua Swain, 22, got on a plane for Nebraska. And this past Saturday, on a grassy field in Lincoln, it actually happened. Josh vs. Josh vs. Josh vs. Josh vs. Josh, in the JoshFight of the Century. "It was insane," Swain said. "I can't describe it. It's so heartwarming, so incredible. It was a beautiful day."

Spotify is increasing the price of many of its subscriptions this week across the UK and parts of Europe, with the US seeing a hike to Family plans. The Verge reports: Subscribers have started to receive emails informing them of the changes, and they will affect Student, Duo, and Family plans across parts of Europe and the UK, and Family subscriptions in the US from April 30th. Single Spotify Premium subscriptions are unaffected. Spotify family is increasing from $14.99 to $15.99 per month in the US. Fortunately, Duo, Premium, and Student pricing will remain the same... for now. The bigger hits to pricing will affect users in the UK and Europe.

In the UK, Spotify Student is increasing from 4.99 to 5.99 pounds per month, with a Duo subscription (for two people) moving from 12.99 to 13.99 pounds a month. Family users will also be hit with price increases, with the Spotify Family plan (up to six accounts) jumping from 14.99 to 16.99 pounds a month. Similar price increases will affect Spotify users in some European countries, too. Ireland and a handful of other European countries will see both Student and Duo increasing by a euro each per month, to 5.99 and 12.99 euros per month respectively. The Family plan in Europe is also increasing from 14.99 to 17.99 euros per month. Some countries in Asia and South America will also see similar price increases.

All existing Spotify subscribers in the US, Europe, and UK users of Spotify will have a one-month grace period before prices are automatically increased, so existing subscribers will see an increase during the June period of billing.

The New York Times reports: Netflix still rules the streaming universe. As of the end of March, it had 207.6 million total paying subscribers, with about 67 million in the United States, the company noted in an earnings report on Tuesday. But its main competitors — Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+ and AppleTV+, as well as the old-guard streamers Amazon Prime Video and Hulu — have cut into Netflix's share of viewers' attention... according to the data firm Parrot Analytics, which has developed a metric to rate not only the number of viewers for given shows, but their likelihood of attracting subscribers to a streaming service.

In its latest rankings, Parrot reported that Netflix's share of total demand — a measure of the popularity of its shows — was slightly above 50 percent for the first three months of the year, compared with 54 percent a year ago and 65 percent in the first quarter of 2019. In other words, competitors have started eating into Netflix's dominance.

That showed up in the numbers. For the first quarter of 2021, Netflix reported the addition of four million new customers, below the six million it had forecast. The company expects to add only one million new customers for this current quarter ending in June. Netflix shares plummeted about 10 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday, after the earnings announcement...

Although competitors are gaining ground, Netflix is in its best financial shape of its history. It hit a milestone at the end of last year, when it said it would no longer look to borrow money to fund its content slate. Another way to look at it: Netflix finally became a truly profitable business after topping 200 million subscribers, each paying an average of $11 a month. In other words: Its competitors are still losing lots of money on streaming.

destinyland writes: Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be coming back — with a new home online. Though Netflix didn't pick them up for another season after 2019, "We still want to keep making new episodes," series creator Joel Hodgson explains in an online video on Kickstarter. (Also available through the URL MakeMoreMST3K.com.)

And with 12 days left to go, 18,969 online fans have already pledged $3,348,705, funding six new episodes...

But in addition the first $2 million funded the creation of the Gizmoplex, "our very own virtual online theatre," while the first stretch goal was also funded — the creation of MST3K apps for Android, iOS, and streaming services like AppleTV and Roku. "I'm tired of other people deciding if our show lives or dies," explains Crow T. Robot in the Kickstarter video. "I wanna do that." New host Jonah Heston adds, "If we want MST3K to keep going long-term, maybe networks aren't the most reliable option. Maybe it should be up to the fans to decide how long we keep going..."

Their next stretch goal of $4.4 million would fund three more episodes, but will also allow them to invite backers to the Gizmoplex for live monthly events, "for at least a year." And if they reach their goal of $5.5 million, they'll fund three more episodes — so an entire 12-episode season — as well as 12 short-subject films.

The ultimate hope is to host frequent live screenings, premieres, and community events in the Gizmoplex — while fans can even host their own MST3K watch parties whenever they want. And their Kickstarter page even suggests they might someday extend the Gizmoplex into virtual reality (accessible on computer and headsets).
I still remember how back in 2008 Joel Hodgson answered questions from Slashdot readers. "I've been a fan so long, I can't even remember when," posted CmdrTaco.

After 45 years, NBC's popular TV show "Saturday Night Live" has lined up its richest guest host ever. CNN reports: In one of the more surprising announcements in the recent history of "Saturday Night Live," the NBC variety show said Saturday that its next host will be Elon Musk, the eccentric CEO of Tesla and one of the richest people on the planet.
USA Today adds: The coveted slot, usually occupied by British actors like Carey Mulligan or former boy band members like Nick Jonas, is now reserved on May 8 for Tesla CEO and SpaceX chief engineer, Musk.

He'll be joined by musical guest Miley Cyrus...

The official Twitter page for "SNL" announced the news in its usual format, a photo of sticky notes with the guest's name. "SNL" captioned the tweet with three rocket ship emojis.

Spotify wants to be the industry's No. 1 distributor of podcasts -- and it's willing to forgo some revenue in order to counter Apple's push into podcast subscriptions. From a report: Next week, Spotify will launch its podcast subscription option for partners. But the company will be letting content creators keep 100% of the subscription fees: Spotify will not take a cut of podcast subscription revenue, sources confirmed, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. By contrast, Apple will keep up to 30% of podcast subscription fees under its program, which is launching next month. Currently, Spotify doesn't allow customers to pay for subscriptions through Apple in-app purchases -- and Spotify has been a very vocal critic of Apple's App Store policies, which has included lodging a formal complaint with the European Union alleging anticompetitive behavior. Similarly, you won't be able to purchase Spotify podcast subscriptions through Apple.

If possession is nine-tenths of the law, what happens when possession gets slippery? From a report: That's a question for a federal courtroom in Sacramento, California, where Apple is facing a putative class action over the way consumers can "buy" or "rent" movies, TV shows and other content in the iTunes Store. David Andino, the lead plaintiff in this case, argues the distinction is deceptive. He alleges Apple reserves the right to terminate access to what consumers have "purchased," and in fact, has done so on numerous occasions. This week, U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez made clear he isn't ready to buy into Apple's view of consumer expectations in the digital marketplace. "Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely," writes Mendez. "But in common usage, the term 'buy' means to acquire possession over something. It seems plausible, at least at the motion to dismiss stage, that reasonable consumers would expect their access couldn't be revoked." Apple tried other ways to slip away from claims of false advertising and unfair competition. For example, it tried the time-tested approach of challenging Andino's "injury" to knock his potential standing as a plaintiff.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vox: The company plans to start selling subscriptions to podcasts and keeping a slice of each transaction for itself. Apple CEO Tim Cook briefly mentioned plans to roll out a subscription feature during the company's keynote event Tuesday, without offering more details. But a person familiar with Apple's plans has spelled it out to Recode:

- Starting next month, Apple will let podcast publishers sell subscriptions to individual shows or groups of shows, and set their own pricing, starting at 49 cents a month in the US.
- Apple won't require podcasters to create Apple-only exclusive shows, but it does want them to distinguish between stuff they're already distributing via Apple and stuff going up on other platforms: That could mean ad-free shows or shows with extra content or brand-new shows that only exist on Apple.
- Apple will keep 30 percent of any subscription revenue creators generate in their first year on the platform. After that, Apple's cut will drop to 15 percent. That's the same pricing scheme Apple already uses for other subscription services, like TV streamers.

The new Apple TV sports a more powerful A12 Bionic chip that lets it play HDR video at higher frame rates. It also comes equipped with a redesigned Siri remote. The Verge reports: The new Siri remote has an iPod-style scroll wheel, a five-way click pad, touch controls, a mute button, and a power button that can turn your TV on and off. Meanwhile, the Siri button is now on the side of the remote, and Apple says that the voice assistant now works on Apple TV in Austria, Ireland, and New Zealand, in addition to the 13 countries where it was already supported. Finally, the new Siri remote's enclosure is made out of 100 percent recycled aluminum.

You'll get the new remote with the new $179 4K set-top box, or it's available separately for $59. As well as being compatible with the new Apple TV 4K, it also works with the 2017 model and Apple TV HD. Apple will also sell the remote bundled with the Apple TV HD for $149. Other features of the Apple TV 4K include support for 60fps Dolby Vision playback over AirPlay from a compatible iPhone, and the ability to optimize the colors of your TV screen using the light sensor on an iPhone.

According to a new report by industry analysts Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling of Midia Research, songwriters are getting drastically short-changed in the music-streaming economy. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: The 35-page report, which is available here for free, lays out both the history of this dilemma and some (admittedly difficult) proposed solutions, but what may be unprecedented is the way that it lays out how skewed against songwriters the new music economy is. A handful of the many statistics from the study follow:

- The global music industry revenues (recordings, publishing, live, merchandise, sponsorship) fell by 30% in 2020 due to the combined impact of COVID-19 and a recession
- Streaming has created a song economy, making the song more important than ever, yet music publisher royalties are more than three times smaller than record label royalties
- Streaming will bring further strong industry growth, reaching 697 million subscribers and $456 billion in retail revenues, but the royalty imbalance means that label streaming revenue will grow by 3.3 times more than publisher streaming revenue
- The current royalty system assumes all songs are worth the same - they are not - and rewards poor behavior that dilutes artist and songwriter royalties
- Music subscribers believe in the value of the song: twice as many (60%) state that the song matters more than the artist, than think the artist matters more (29%)
- They also believe that songwriters should be remunerated properly: 71% of music subscribers consider it important that streaming services pay songwriters fairly

In a section titled "The Songwriter's Paradox," it lays out the ways that the song has become more important than ever, but, paradoxically, the songwriter has less income and influence:

- Big record labels have weaponized songwriting: In order to try to minimize risks, bigger record labels are turning to an ever more elite group of songwriters to create hits.
- The emergence of the song economy: The audience has shift its focus from albums to songs.
- Writing and production are fusing: As music production technologies have become more central to both the songwriting process and to the formation of the final recorded work, there has been a growing fusion of the role of production with writing. This has led to a growing body of superstar writer-producers.
-The industrialization of songwriting: Record labels are reshaping songwriting by pulling together teams of songwriters to create "machine tooled" hits - finely crafted songs that are "optimized for streaming." While the upside for songwriters is more work, the downside is sharing an already-small streaming royalties pot with a larger team of creators and co-writers.
- Decline of traditional formats: Songwriters have long relied upon performance royalties from broadcast TV and radio. However, as the audiences on these platforms migrate towards on-demand alternatives, performance royalties face a long-term decline. Similarly, the continued fall in sales means fewer mechanical royalties for songwriters.
- Streaming royalties: The song is the first in line culturally but it is last in line for streaming royalties. Of total royalties paid by streaming services to rights holders, between a fifth and a quarter is paid for publishing rights to the song. Labels are paid more than three times higher than publishers on streaming. An independent label artist could earn more than three thousand dollars for a million subscriber streams, whereas a songwriter could expect to earn between $1,200 and $1,400, and even then, only if they are the sole songwriter on the track. On average, songwriters will therefore earn between a third and a half of what artists do. After proposing a series of solutions, such as implementing "fan-centric licenses" and revised streaming prices, the report concludes: "What is clear is that today's' song economy is not working as it should and that everyone across the value chain will benefit from a coordinated program of change."

Here's something to do if that TV commercial is too loud: complain to the feds, who just might do something about it. From a report: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Monday asked for public help to determine whether to update rules to prevent broadcast, cable and satellite providers from sending commercials that are louder than the programming they accompany. "In particular, we invite consumers to tell us their experiences," the agency's media bureau said in a public notice. The action follows an April 13 letter from Representative Anna Eshoo asking FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to look into a reported increase in complaints about loud commercials. Eshoo wrote a 2010 law, known as the CALM Act, or Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, that underpins FCC rules that may be changed. The FCC has never sought to enforce the act, despite receiving thousands of complaints, Eshoo said. A recent press report said complaints to the FCC had increased "sharply," Eshoo wrote. "This worries me a great deal." Eshoo mentioned a March 31 report in Business Insider that said complaints to the FCC for the four-month period from November to February rose 140% compared to the same period a year earlier.

"Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, the nation's most valuable semiconductor company, with a stock price of $645 a share and a market cap of $400 billion, is out to create the metaverse," writes Time magazine.

Huang defines it as "a virtual world that is a digital twin of ours." Huang credits author Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, filled with collectives of shared 3-D spaces and virtually enhanced physical spaces that are extensions of the Internet, for conjuring the metaverse. This is already playing out with the massively popular online games like Fortnite and Minecraft, where users create richly imagined virtual worlds. Now the concept is being put to work by Nvidia and others.

Partnering with Nvidia, BMW is using a virtual digital twin of a factory in Regensburg, Germany, to virtually plan new workflows before deploying the changes in real time in their physical factory. The metaverse, says Huang, "is where we will create the future" and transform how the world's biggest industries operate...

Not to make any value judgments about the importance of video games, but do you find it ironic that a company that has its roots in entertainment is now providing vitally important computing power for drug discovery, basic research and reinventing manufacturing?

No, not at all. It's actually the opposite. We always started as a computing company. It just turned out that our first killer app was video games...

How important is the advent and the adaptation of digital twins for manufacturing, business and society at large?

In the future, the digital world or the virtual world will be thousands of times bigger than the physical world. There will be a new New York City. There'll be a new Shanghai. Every single factory and every single building will have a digital twin that will simulate and track the physical version of it. Always. By doing so, engineers and software programmers could simulate new software that will ultimately run in the physical version of the car, the physical version of the robot, the physical version of the airport, the physical version of the building. All of the software that's going to be running in these physical things will be simulated in the digital twin first, and then it will be downloaded into the physical version. And as a result, the product keeps getting better at an exponential rate.

The second thing is, you're going to be able to go in and out of the two worlds through wormholes. We'll go into the virtual world using virtual reality, and the objects in the virtual world, in the digital world, will come into the physical world, using augmented reality. So what's going to happen is pieces of the digital world will be temporarily, or even semipermanently, augmenting our physical world. It's ultimately about the fusion of the virtual world and the physical world.
See also this possibly related story, "Nvidia's newest AI model can transform single images into realistic 3D models."

EW reports: Felix Silla's friend and former Buck Rogers in the 25th Century costar Gil Gerard reported on Twitter that Silla died Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Coming in at just under 4 feet tall and only 70 pounds, Silla was the perfect choice for the mumbling Cousin Itt on The Addams Family. For years, audiences didn't see his face, the character covered in a full-length hairpiece, sporting sunglasses and a bowler hat... Silla did not provide the distinct mumbling voice of Cousin Itt. That was added by sound engineer Tony Magro in production...

He first came to the United States in 1955 and began his career touring with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for seven years. He worked as a trapeze artist, tumbler, and bareback horse rider. Eventually, he settled in Hollywood in 1962, where he became a stuntman. He went on to work in movies like A Ticklish Fair, TV shows like Bonanza, and appeared in the first pilot for Star Trek, "The Cage." His small stature often helped him find work, including as Cousin Itt, robot sidekick Twiki on the NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and even as a hang-gliding Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi...

He also excelled as a stand in, double, and stuntman working on projects such as Planet of the Apes, Demon Seed, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Towering Inferno, The Hindenburg, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, The Golden Child, Howard the Duck, and Batman Returns.
In 2018 one Las Vegas blog spotted Silla with Gil Gerard, posting a picture of the two side by side -- just as they'd posed decades earlier on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

While for that show Mel Blanc had provided the voice for Twiki the robot, the blog notes that Silla himself supplied the voice of Mortimer Goth in the Sims 2 videogame.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: In its first five months on the market, The PlayStation 5 has become the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in both unit and dollar sales. As revealed by The NPD Group's Mat Piscatella, this news arrives one month after the PS5 became the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in dollar sales. Despite that new record, the Nintendo Switch has continued its reign as the best selling hardware platform in both units and dollars during March 2021. However, the PS5 did rank first in hardware dollar sales in Q1 2021.