Good News...

So, there's been some good news of late - I got accepted to do an MA in Women's Studies at York Uni, so I'll hopefully be off to study in October, funding permitting (MA funding is a really awkward issue, as there's lots of competition). So I'm really happy about that!

And also, I was reading the F-Word blog on Monday (link on the feminist links) - and this is what's happened to the sales figures of lad's mags:

"Sales of lads’ mags fell a whopping 14.4% in 2006, according to reports in the Media Guardian (registration required).

FHM’s circulation fell nearly 26%, and Arena 30%, but I take most pleasure from the falling sales of the vile Zoo magazine, down 21.5% to just over 200,000 copies. The equally unpleasant Nuts magazine also saw its circulation decline 3.8%.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that the magazine buying public have been put off by the actual contents of the magazine. Instead, the business has been going online:

"A clue to the reason for the collapse in the market could be the rise in digital publishing. In the ABC Electronic figures, the digital men’s magazine Monkey, the first of its kind, recorded a debut audit of 209,612 for January. The results for Monkey, launched in November by Dennis, are not directly comparable to the measurement for print editions, but Dennis said the ABC result was twice its original target of 100,000 and meant the magazine had a rapidly growing audience of 18- to 30-year-old males. " "

*From The F-Word Blog 19th February by Jess McCabe*

So, although it looks like good news from the outset (yay hopefully the evil mags will be phased out over time?) - we will be still have men reading them online, yuk. Incidentally, I was in Edinburgh this weekend and checked out WHSmith at the station - the Lad's Mags shelves are in full view of anyone who happens to glance their way, and are definitely not 1.2 metres above the ground. I think it's just lip-service to 'appease' the scary feminists ;-)

Had a great weekend with my partner - went to see Happy Feet with subtitles and had a chinese meal to celeb Chinese New Year (cliched I know). Also bought Volver, Little Miss Sunshine and Blade Runner. Volver was fantastic, definitely deals with some feminist issues (abuse and women's relationships with each other) and so did Little Miss Sunshine with a highly dysfunctional family on a road trip to the Little Miss Sunshine contest that the daughter wants to take part in. Thought the grandfather was rather a dirty old man though.

I'm a bit annoyed at this film I've been wanting to see for ages - Brick - but it hasn't got subtitles. In fact, it's just been re-issued again without subtitles!! I had a similiar situation a few years ago when Donnie Darko came out on DVD without subtitles and has only recently come out with subtitles. I think it has to do with the companies that release films - and particularly this tends to happen with indie films or non-blockbuster films (which is the genre I find more interesting!).

One of the reasons I like non-english speaking films is that there are always english subtitles (but also World Cinema tends to be more refreshing and original!). So I'm frustrated because Brick got some great reviews, and I just want to see it as it looks interesting. Maybe someone can let me know that's its actually really bad and to not bother seeing it? :-D