Holy smokes. Bram Cohen (creator of Bit Torrent) and Dan Glickman (chief of the MPAA) are holding a joint press conference today in the American Film Institute at 5pm EST (2pm PST). If anybody digs up a Webcast link, or has any quick conduit of information about the announcement, please share in the comments section. I have a feeling this will be either meaningless ("...strategic partnership to explore future possibilities…") or huge ("The MPAA will use Bit Torrent technology to release pay-per-download movies."). [via Cinematical]

While you're waiting for your mind to be blown (or your time wasted), here is a worthy read from the LA Times. It's about the dying era of the mass moviegoing audience. "The era of moviegoing as a mass audience ritual is slowly but inexorably drawing to a close, eroded by many of the same forces that have eviscerated the music industry, decimated network TV and, yes, are clobbering the newspaper business. Put simply, an explosion of new technology — the Internet, DVDs, video games, downloading, cellphones and iPods — now offers more compelling diversion than 90% of the movies in theaters, the exceptions being 'Harry Potter'-style must-see events or the occasional youth-oriented comedy or thriller." A stylishly written analysis follows.