January 2008 Archives

Poor TMZ crew. While waiting for Britney Spears to show up and actually enter the courthouse for an important child custody hearing, they've gotten a little slap-happy. They've set up for a late afternoon news conference expected to be conducted by K-Fed's attorney, and while waiting for him they've begun interviewing some weirdo wearing a dollhouse on his head as some sort of comment about his inability to pay his mortgage. Somebody even asked him who he supports in the presidential race. You could almost hear the candidates collectively muttering, "Please say Alan Keyes." This guy -- and those reporters and photographers who are encouraging his showboating -- are making the cracked-up Ms. Spears look pretty freaking level-headed.

The great thing about multimedia advertising these days is there are so very many ways for a company to "propel the propaganda out there," as Bush would say -- TV, radio, the net, billboards, buses, skywriters, postage meters, I could go on.
The bad thing is that means that when a certain advertising message must be canceled, there are so many places to notify that something somewhere is bound to be overlooked.
Pumped gas this morning at a Shell station whose video screen over the pump was playing a rather annoying NBC loop. It continues to hype Sunday's Golden Globes telecast as a star-studded, fashion-crazy, slightly tipsy hotel ballroom affair. Oops.

The truncated Golden Globes presentation on Sunday -- now down to a 9 p.m. hourlong news conference if they read names really slowly, plus some canned interviews preceding on NBC and God knows what after it -- has left those charged with covering entertainment news a bit confused about how to handle it. Do they just publish a dry, straightforward story dotted with movie and TV stills and a winners' list and bury it somewhere, or really cover the hell out of the fact that it's a far less colorful happening because of the writers' strike?
I myself, having covered Hollywood awards shows of all kinds since about 1990, vote for the latter. Ever since they became a televised event, the Golden Globes have been given way too much credibility given that they are determined by fewer than a hundred "journalists" covering show biz for media outlets in other countries, many of whom can have their votes influenced by, um, shiny objects.
I won't be going this year, but I would actually enjoy capturing the weirdness of presenting statuettes that go undelivered (do they mail them or have one of the aforementioned "journalists" hand-deliver them and then stick around expecting a free lunch?). Underdressed and unstyled stars trying to figure out whether to find a party (HBO already canceled its fete) or stay home in fuzzy slippers. Acceptance speeches Webcast on fan sites? This would be ever so much more interesting than the same old stuff that comes out of the Beverly Hilton every other year.
And you can bet the AMPAS board and Gil Cates, producer of this year's Oscar cast, are going to be wondering how the Globes' news conference format is received with fans at home as they brace for the possibility of a writerless, actorless, picketed Academy Awards next month.
Stay tuned...

Don't kill the messenger, I'm just reporting what I see.

There is somebody out there with two Web sites, one offering people a free Sony PS3 if they accurately predict Britney Spears' death, another offering an iPod Touch for the same prediction about Amy Winehouse.

Bad karma? Probably.