AP - The Tokyo International Film Festival opened with stars including Hollywood actress Sigourney Weaver strolling a "green" carpet made of recycled plastic bottles.
AP - The Tokyo International Film Festival opened with stars including Hollywood actress Sigourney Weaver strolling a "green" carpet made of recycled plastic bottles.
AP - A robe worn by Barbra Streisand in "The Way We Were" sold for nearly $6,000 and an outfit from "Meet the Fockers" went for $3,500 at an auction of hundreds of the entertainer's personal items. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment News | 19 Oct 2009 | 4:18 am
Shows on a Network: CBS has picked up two projects from Samuel L. Jackson's production company. One is a comedy about the wife of a congressman who inherits her husband's seat when he dies in the middle of his term. Sounds funny! There's also a drama about an emergency-room doctor with unconventional methods. Were not sure if Jackson and CBS teaming up is the official end of Jackson's awesomeness, the official end of CBS' wholesomeness or simply the official end of the world. [THR]
Fox in Rehab: Fox has snatched up Sam Laybourne's comedy Rehab, a show centering on a man who fakes a trip to rehab so he can get close to his high school sweetheart who's now a rock star. Laybourne, who's currently writing/producing Cougertown, has also worked on Arrested Development. So this show could really go either way. [THR]
Dog Daze:Wilmer Valderrama is set to star in a Fox sitcom based on the life of Cesar Millan, a guy who has built an empire as the "Dog Whisperer." Hung co-exec producer Emily Kapnek will write and produce the comedy, marking her second time working with Valderrama. Last year she wrote the pilot for The Emancipation of Ernesto, which was mercifully put down. [Variety]
Drew Scary:Mike Mitchell has singed on to direct Warner Bros.' Monster Squad, described as pretty much the best thing ever: a "supernatural action comedy." The script has been floating around since 2000 and has passed through the hands of several writers. Along the way, the title changed from Nightcrawlers. It centers on a nerdy father who must team up with his childhood bully to conquer his lifelong fear of monsters. If they could find a way to make this George McFly and Biff Tannen we'd be very happy. [THR]
Rust Belt:Walter Salles and Jose Rivera, the duo behind The Motorcycle Diaries, will direct and write the film adaptation of Philipp Meyer's novel American Rust. Universal will get the first crack at the film about two longtime friends from a desolate Pennsylvania steel town who dream of escaping to California, only to get stranded when they're implicated in a crime. That's what they get for not dreaming of New York. [Variety]
MONTREAL - Bob Sirois is wading into an old and unresolved debate dating from the 1955 Rocket Richard Riot - whether there's bias against French-Canadian players in the NHL. The former Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 19 Oct 2009 | 12:30 am
The Screen Actors Guild has made permanent the status of interim national executive director David White. The guild said in a news release Sunday that White has also been named the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 19 Oct 2009 | 12:14 am
David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel went on TV yesterday to criticize Wall Street execs and their mondo salaries. But did Obama's lackeys upbraid the Wall Streeters or were the criticisms muted? Depends on who you ask. The Washington Post says "top Obama administration officials sharply criticized Wall Street firms planning to pay big bonuses," while the Wall Street Journal says "the administration's tone appeared muted compared with attacks made earlier in this year." Let's look at the quotes.
"They ought to think through what they are doing, and they ought to understand that a year ago a lot of these institutions were teetering on the brink, and the United States government and taxpayers came to their defense. They have responsibilities, and they ought to meet those responsibilities." —David Axelrod
"Not only do they come for a bailout . . . they're now back trying to fight a consumer office and the type of protections that will prevent another type of situation where the economy is taken over the cliff by the actions taken on Wall Street and financial market." —Rahm Emanuel
Anytime Rahm gets out that many words without profanity, it counts as muted. So WSJ wins! [WSJ and Washington Post]
Hedge fund founder and inside trader Raj Rajaratnam is also, apparently, a terrorist supporter. A recently uncovered 2007 investigation showed that Rajaratnam donated $2 million to the American branch of the separatist Tamil Tigers. Rajaratnam was also entangled with the Tigers in 2005 and 2006 when a charity he founded donated $3.5 million to a front group. Rajaratnam's lawyer, of course, denies any involvement with the Tamill Tigers, but he doesn't say whether the avowed hip hop lover is working on anything with M.I.A. [Dealbook/NYT]
Now we know exactly how bad things are for Team Balloon.
Early Sunday morning, Larimer County sheriff deputies, crime scene investigators and child-services officials raided the...
Junior Achievement's Volunteer-Coordinated Program is an Answer for the Call to Service HOUSTON, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For seven straight days starting... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 11:15 pm
The Kanye West and Spike Jonze collaboration We Were Once a Fairytale was supposed to debut on iTunes on September 8. It didn't. Tonight it finds its way online and it's, well, as strange as you'd expect. It starts off like any other hip hop video (nightclub, booze, honeys), turns into a bizarre on-camera therapy session and ends with a few minutes of creepy hallucinations and one felt puppet. It drags in the middle and the metaphor is a little obvious, but all-in-all this video was probably worth the wait. (It helps that no one was actually waiting). Plus, the special effects are awesome. [The Playlist]
The comments didn't sit well with Thompson, whose campaign took a nice shot at America's Mayor and said he was trying to scare voters. “This is a tired Republican campaign tactic — scare people into voting by threatening their personal safety,” said Anne Fenton, a spokeswoman for the Thompson campaign. “It didn’t work for Rudy Giuliani during his abysmal presidential bid [Note: BURN!], and it’s not going to work for Mike Bloomberg this year."
After breakfast, Rudy and Mike marched in the Howard Beach Columbus Day parade in Queens. Then they swung by the Empire 25 and shared a large popcorn at a late showing of Where the Wild Things Are. So good. [NYT]
Reuters - Since making his debut in a 1951 Osamu Tezuka manga, the beloved Astro Boy has been retooled as a fondly remembered 1960s black-and-white animated series and, subsequently, full-color renditions in 1980 and again in 2003. Source: Yahoo! News: Entertainment Reviews | 18 Oct 2009 | 9:41 pm
When it comes to trusted sources of film casting information, an interview with actor Matthias Schweighöfer in German GQ falls somewhere behind Variety and somewhere in front of a guy who works on the Universal lot. So with that caveat we pass along news that, according to Schweighöfer, Jude Law and Robert De Niro are going to be in Kenneth Branagh's Thor. For speculation on who they might be playing, see the Ain't It Cool comments. Those guys know their Thor. [Ain't It Cool News]
He's not out of the woods, but director Roman Polanski is out of jail, at least temporarily.
The director's French lawyer says that the 76-year-old director is receiving...
Stephanie Pratt has taken a detour from The Hills into the drunk tank.
The reality TV trainwreck was busted on suspicion of DUI early this morning after a night of...
"Unforeseen personal problems" may well be the downfall of rock and roll. The latest victim is Def Leppard, who cancelled the 23 North American shows left on its tour with Cheap Trick. In a message on its website, the band said: "We know how truly blessed we are to have such committed fans. That's why we've agonized over this decision. Even if just a single concert, we don't take cancelling shows lightly, but unfortunately life’s commitments need to be the priority." As sorry as the guys are for the fans, they're probably a little more sorry for themselves. They were reportedly taking in $700,000 a show. [Mirror]
Little Falcon Heene might be flying high (or not), but Balloon Boy's parents are in big trouble.
Criminal charges are on the way for the "storm-chasing" Richard and Mayumi...
People may not like her, but Sarah Palin won't let that stop her from offering her opinion on Sen. Max Baucus' health care bill. The former governor of Alaska and current lady of leisure posted a 1,000 word-essay entitled “Good Intentions Aren't Enough with Health Care Reform” on her Facebook page last night criticizing the bill's cost and taking a few shots at the man she'll try to unseat in 2012:
"In January 2008, presidential candidate Obama promised not to negotiate behind closed doors with health care lobbyists. However, last February, after serving only a few weeks in office, President Obama met privately at the White House with health care industry executives and lobbyists."
She also knocked Obama for not being able to find people jobs.
“Should we believe the administration’s claims about health care when their promises have proven so unreliable about the stimulus?”
The most surprising part about Palin's essay isn't its relative coherence or the lack of outlandish, "death panel"-type claims, but the 17 footnotes. Ibid? Come on.
The verdict's in: Where the Wild Things Are is not too scary for Hollywood.
Director Spike Jonze's version of the Maurice Sendak children's classic beat back the bad buzz...
Sometimes there is a good reason for LA traffic.
Such was the case when major roads were blocked off in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon to accommodate the 30,000...
Not only was the actress out at Voyeur until 1:30 a.m. the night before her court...
Trent Reznor wrote a song called "Ringfinger" on his first album, and now he's finally ready to put something on that digit.
The 44-year-old Nine Inch Nails...
"Texaco used to pay for the Metropolitan Opera to exist. Armstrong Tile used to pay for Jacques Cousteau. Sponsorship. If American Express said that they wanted to take care of Mad Men, not put any ads in it, and say, "American Express presents Mad Men," and even have Don Draper throw the card around once in a while, that incredible purple card, the one Eisenhower had -- that is the past of advertising, not the future of advertising.
As a content provider, I look at the networks and say their desire to reach this mass audience to preserve their advertising dollars is half the reason why their content slid. It's insane. It's insane to guess what people want. It's a joke. If you have no personal opinions, you should not be involved in the content business. You've got big businesses and they've got lots of money at stake and they have stockholders, and I understand why things move the way they move.
When I look at digital, the dark side of it for me is the physicality that's being presented alongside the Internet. I think about that movie The Matrix, and about these bodies that are human batteries that support computers. I met this guy who was creating software where you could watch Mad Men and you could chat with your friend while you're watching it, and things would pop up, and facts would pop up, and I said, "You're a human battery. Turn the fucking thing off! You're not allowed to watch the show anymore. You're missing the idea of sitting in a dark place and having an experience. Are you just like sitting with your phone and you're kissing your girlfriend and saying, 'I'm kissing my girlfriend! This is so great, we're having sex!'" EXPERIENCE THINGS!"
-- Matthew Weiner at yesterday's Mad Men panel at City Winery, part of the New Yorker Festival, when asked about sponsorship.
Our long national Balloon Boy nightmare, well, continues, as Larimer County, CO Sheriff Jim Alderden declared the entire thing to be a hoax and a publicity stunt by two people who suspiciously "met in acting school in Hollywood." After fooling Richard Heene into appearing at the Sheriff's office with the old "Come and pick up your flying saucer" trick, officials swarmed in and talked to the family separately, which helped them to determine that charges needed to be filed. "These people are actors...they put on a very good show for us, and we bought it," the Sheriff said this afternoon in a speech that seemed suddenly focused on covering the asses of the first responders rather than the family. The Screen Actors Guild has yet to comment on the Sheriff's remarks. [AP]
Italian author Claudio Magris receives the annual Peace Prize of the German Book Trade on the sidelines of the 61st edition of the International Book Fair in Frankfurt. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 1:54 pm
After a long and troubled production, Warner Bros.' "Where the Wild Things Are" found its supper waiting, and it was hot to the tune of $32.5 million, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office.
This week's A Night Out With... follows Gossip Girls' Penn Badgley's unlikely and somewhat uncomfortable trip to the dirtiest bar in the East Village: "As Mr. Badgley reached across to grab a watery Bud Light, he accidentally nudged someone with a tattoo of a revolver on his neck and quickly apologized. “That’s all right, brother,” the man said. “You’re beautiful-looking.” It's funny cause pretty boy's a long way from home. [NYT]
Roman Polanski was taken from jail to a Swiss medical center for an undisclosed medical condition yesterday. His lawyers will confirm only that he's in the hospital. Last week, it was reported that the director was "depressed." No word on what this means for the movie he was to finish from prison. [Reuters]
A picture taken on October 16, 2009 shows a sculpture "Le Parnasse francais" by French artists Louis Garnier, Simon Cure and Augustin Pajou displayed at the Versailles castle, outside Paris as part of... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pm
A picture taken on October 16, 2009 shows a sculpture "Louis XIV a cheval" by French artist Francois Girardon (1694) displayed at the Versailles castle, outside Paris as part of the "Louis XIV, the Man... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pm
A man looks at a painting on October 16, 2009 displayed at the Versailles castle, outside Paris as part of the "Louis XIV, the Man and the King" exhibition. Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pm
A picture taken on October 16, 2009 shows a painting in relief made out of white beeswax of Louis XIV by French artist Antoine Benoist displayed at the Versailles castle, outside Paris as part of the "Louis... Source: RSS feed - channel BNImagesEnter | 18 Oct 2009 | 12:24 pm
Top three: Where the Wild Things Are: $32.5 million; Law Abiding Citizen: $21 million; Paranormal Activity: $20 million. Unbelievably, Where the Wild Things Are did $2.5 million less than Couples Retreat did last weekend. When it comes to the visions of Spike Jonze and Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn, respectively, America has spoken. [Box Office Mojo]
A 49-year-old gay man who was savagely beaten by two men last week has woken up from his coma, and yesterday hundreds rallied against the attack they call a hate crime as the two suspects, both in their 20's, sit in jail after surveillance footage appeared to catch them in the act. In a local news report the other day, a friend of the suspect denied that the attack was a hate crime, while showing off his Leviticus 18:22 tattoo. Unbelievable. [Gothamist]
Curiously today, The Washington Postturns a critical eye toward the success of the low-budget horror film and Twitter/internet-fueled sleeper hit Paranormal Activity, daring to ask whether it's a little movie that could or a little movie that had a genius marketing team. The latter would and has seemed obvious, but let's get an oddly indignant, probably out-of-context quote from Douglas Rushkoff anyway!:
"This isn't some piece of propaganda that's so dangerous that movie theaters are refusing to show it, or even so potentially unpopular that theaters don't want to show it," he says. "This is a movie distributor looking for some way to create publicity about itself. . . . They're pretending there is some distribution obstacle that people's popular demand is going to overcome."
The article later goes on to interview some fans who participated in the film's marketing by "demanding" that it screen in their cities, all of whom knew that it was marketing and were entirely comfortable with it:
"Obviously, this was just a marketing gimmick. But it was a well-crafted one that allowed the viewer to 'play along.' "
If this all seems incredibly obvious to you, congratulations: you are not a naive sucker who was born yesterday. [WaPo]
Artist Shepard Fairey, who was sued by the Associated Press for using one of their photos as the basis for his famous "Hope" poster, and who in turn sued them back for his right to use the photo under fair use, has admitted he's been lying almost all along about which photo he used. The crux of the AP's argument has been that the photo they think Fairey used, of Obama sitting alone, was not altered enough by the artist to count as fair use. Fairey now admits that, while he originally thought he used a photo of Obama sitting next to actor George Clooney, he realized early on that he was wrong and didn't change his story in court or in interviews.
"The artist expressed his remorse in his statement, saying that he is taking "full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone. I am taking every step to correct the information and I regret I did not come forward sooner. "
He added: "I am very sorry to have hurt and disappointed colleagues, friends, and family who have supported me in this difficult case and trying time in my life."
Fairey's statement said he regretted that his actions would distract from the issue of fair use for artists. "Regardless of which of the two images was used, the fair use issue should be the same," he said."
If you're like us, you spent your weekend wondering about Balloon Boy's next move. What? You have a life? We envy you.
For our part, we've been pondering the options...
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the members of the band The Swell Season who will forever be known as the couple from the movie Once, broke up last summer, but have a new album coming out together. In today's Times, David Carr talked to them about that:
“The usual thing, I guess, would be taking some time apart and not seeing each other,” Ms. Irglova said. “And yet, we’ve had the music together, so somehow we’ve been forced to just get over ourselves and whatever struggles we might have. We just locked into that friendship thing and continue to love each other in an unconditional way.”
“Like Glen always puts it, you live your life, and the residue of that life you lead becomes the music,” she said, adding, “The same way it turned from friends to lovers, it somehow managed to turn the other way around at the end of it, which I’m delighted about because I’d hate for it to be drama.”
It's really a delightful article even if you're not already a fan of the band. (It also contains the interesting trivia that Glen Hansard spent a month in Africa with Edward Norton.) [NYT]
A clump of hair believed to have been trimmed from Elvis Presley's head when he joined the Army in 1958 has sold for $15,000 at a Chicago auction house. Source: FOXNews.com | 18 Oct 2009 | 7:29 am
Have you ever seen anything like this? Quincy Jones was talking with Ginny Mancini about wunderkind Gustavo Dudamels inaugural gala with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Source: FOXNews.com | 18 Oct 2009 | 7:18 am
The Jackson Family is warring over the in clusion of Michael Jackson's three children in an upcoming A&E reality show about the clan. Source: FOXNews.com | 18 Oct 2009 | 6:48 am
The TLC network has sued Jon Gosselin for allegedly breaching his contract as a star of the hit reality show "Jon & Kate Plus 8." Source: FOXNews.com | 18 Oct 2009 | 4:03 am
Now we know exactly how bad things are for Team Balloon.
Early Sunday morning, Larimer County sheriff deputies, crime scene investigators and child-services officials raided the...
He's not out of the woods, but director Roman Polanski is out of jail, at least temporarily.
The director's French lawyer says that the 76-year-old director is receiving...
Stephanie Pratt has taken a detour from The Hills into the drunk tank.
The reality TV trainwreck was busted on suspicion of DUI early this morning after a night of...
Little Falcon Heene might be flying high (or not), but Balloon Boy's parents are in big trouble.
Criminal charges are on the way for the "storm-chasing" Richard and Mayumi...
The verdict's in: Where the Wild Things Are is not too scary for Hollywood.
Director Spike Jonze's version of the Maurice Sendak children's classic beat back the bad buzz...
Sometimes there is a good reason for LA traffic.
Such was the case when major roads were blocked off in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon to accommodate the 30,000...
Trent Reznor wrote a song called "Ringfinger" on his first album, and now he's finally ready to put something on that digit.
The 44-year-old Nine Inch Nails...
