1. Twitter’s bidding value has reached $4 billion, pretty good for a service whose purpose its own CEO can’t even pinpoint. Another Twitter exec said there are no plans to parlay Twitter into a news network, but Mathew Ingram says in some senses it already is one (and have you watched CNN?), as is social media in general. Twitter can also be used to crowdsource a story for Tim Burton.

2. We’re finally (hopefully) done with two long, drawn-out movie studio stories: Disney has sold Miramax to Filmyard Holdings, and MGM can now officially relaunch itself anew. But we’re not yet done with the long, drawn-out story of who will take over the MPAA. For a time it was said to be Democratic politician Bob Kerrey; now the name is Republican politician Tom Davis. And we’re not sure what the future of the British film industry will be without the long, drawn-out Harry Potter series to rely on.

3. Awards season is shifting into middle gear: Winter’s Bone is really cleaning up, winning at the Gotham Awards and the Torino Film Festival and leading the Independent Spirit Award nominations, which also had a few surprises; the National Board of Review liked The Social Network best; Sundance has announced its competitive slate (and the out of competition fare); the Academy has released the animated and live-action short Oscar nomination shortlist; and Roman Polanski accepted a Best Director award from the European Film Awards via Skype.

4. Blockbuster is hoping a new ad campaign (“We’re not closed yet!”) and a new pricing scheme (“Hopefully you’ll return this late!”) will rescue it. In contrast, the only thing rising faster than Netflix is the volume of articles on the rise of Netflix, which leads David Poland to offer his familiar “Wait a minute” perspective, while Dian L. Chu wonders if a crash is possible, and Paul Carr wonders why the studios don’t like Netflix more.

5. Wii console sales have declined precipitously; at the Xbox’s 5^th birthday mark, there are no new consoles on the horizon; and Disney is shifting attention from console to online and mobile games. And why not, with games like Angry Birds garnering lots of money and new addicts.

6. Hard to keep track of all the piracy and copyright news lately: The US government has shut down over 80 websites suspected of piracy, Fox has gone after an online script trader, Viacom is appealing the YouTube case, Pirate Bay lost an appeal, prosecutors dropped a case against an Xbox hacker, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by a 16-year-old illegal downloader, Google will try out new anti-piracy measures (which make Greg Sandoval wonder which side Google is on now, Team Copyright Owner or Team User), and China (Team China) is fighting intellectual-property abuse.

7. Google’s looking to make a library distribution deal with Miramax, part of a larger plan to feature more long-form content on YouTube. Google’s plan to acquire Groupon fell through, though, ending an already tough week that saw the company investigated for antitrust allegations by the European Union and having to respond to criticism that it helps corrupt businesses. But hey, at least it’s not MySpace.

8. A UK court ruled that paid news aggregator services have to pay newspapers when those services feature newspapers’ online content, even just headlines and short extracts, which could have significant implications (though the ruling will be appealed, of course). Something like Google News (and WAYM!) is ok because it’s free and ad-supported, not subscription-based.

9. Half of the Grammy nominations went to indie artists and labels, but Leonard Pierce says it’s more complicated than that. Spotify took a big financial loss last year, but Bruce Houghton says it’s more complicated than that. Fergie won a Billboard Woman of the Year Award; I wish it was more complicated than that.

10. Good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Ad Volume Standards, The Netflix Challenge, DirecTV May Drop Channels, Walking Dead Closes Writers’ Room, Copps Criticizes Media, Good TVeets (#liesshowrunnerstellyou edition), Terriers Coverage, US Worried About Rep on Canadian TV, Net Neutrality Vote, Comcast Dispute, Attention Span Issue.

The VC is one way the Wii, like much about video game culture, is profoundly nostalgic.  New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a current blockbuster, is another.  In some ways NSMB Wii is just another in the long line of Mario games stretching back almost thirty years to Donkey Kong.  Mario must rescue the princess from evil creatures.  While overcoming obstacles and enemies he finds powerups and hidden secrets to help him along.  In an era of spectacular computer-generated 3D image-making, NSMB Wii is cheerfully 2D.  Compared with the earlier Wii game Super Mario Galaxy, with its clever use of spherical settings, it’s refreshingly, retro flat.   But some innovations mark this game off from vintage Super Mario.

One is the “super guide,” which becomes available in single-player mode after a number of failed attempts to finish a level.   When activated, the super guide screens a movie of Luigi completing the level in expert style, modeling the right way for struggling novices much as a more experienced and proficient sibling or friend might have done in the old days.  This feature allows frustrated noobs like me to figure out a fairly challenging game.

Another new feature is a multi-player mode, where up to four people work together — or at odds with each other — as Mario, Luigi, and Yellow or Blue Toad.  You can boost higher jumping off another player’s head, throw each other across chasms, nudge each other off ledges, or hog the powerups that spring from the question-mark blocks.  Shigeru Miyamoto, the auteur of the Marioverse, has said he noticed contrasting demeanors in players of the different modes.  The player going alone has on the focused game face, evidently absorbed in beating the game.  Those playing in a group, by contrast, are social — talking, laughing, encouraging or competing.   The way NSMB Wii combines these two modes has positioned the game as a hybrid of so-called casual and hard-core, appealing at once to the Wii bowling party crowds seeking communal diversion and to those for whom play is serious business.  It also makes the game a ideal multi-generational experience, with a more proficient parent guiding a child — or vice versa.   (Marketing to the whole family is evidently on the agenda of game companies as this ad for Walmart and the PS3 clearly shows.)

But even as the game offers this new format, it exploits the nostalgia factor in the way it lets expert adult gamers relive their years of initiation into gaming by playing with novice kids, in a way that lets the grownups’ skills carry the youngsters along.

Nostalgia is potent because it promises to return to us the lost time we yearn to recapture.  For adults who grew up with Nintendo, or even those like me who wish they had, games like NSMB are powerful throwbacks, at once pushing old concepts in new directions and reviving the spirit of past adventures.

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For more on video games and nostalgia see Zach Whalen and Laurie N. Taylor (eds.), Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games (Vanderbilt, 2008).

I have previously written in more personal terms about my own history of playing and not playing video games at my blog zigzigger.