August 2007 Archives
One of America’s favorite crazies, Crispin Glover (here’s his notorious Letterman appearance), is back with another cinematic provocation. It’s entitled “It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” and Glover’ll be touring with it, presenting it Dec. 7-9 at the Egyptian Theatre with a Q&A. You’ll want to see it, so get your tickets now!
What, you’re thinking that maybe you don’t want to see it? Well, consider that his previous movie, “What is it?”, was called “the fever dream of a crazy person,” and take in this vaguely disturbing art for the film, along with its description:
“‘It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.’ goes into uncharted cinematic territory with screenwriter Steven C. Stewart starring in this semi-autobiographical, psycho-sexual, tale about a man with severe cerebral palsy and a fetish for girls with long hair. Part horror film, part exploitation picture and part documentary of a man who cannot express his sexuality in the way he desires, (due to his physical condition), this fantastical and often humorous tale is told completely from Stewart’s actual point of view – that of someone who has lived for years watching people do things he will never be able to do. Here, Stewart’s character is something of a lady killer, seducing a troubled, recently divorced mother (Margit Carstensen), her teenage daughter and any number of other ladies he encounters along the way. According to Crispin Glover, Stewart wanted to show that handicapped people are human, sexual and can be horrible. He also states that ‘It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.’ will probably be the best film he has anything to do with in his entire career.”
“Glover's latest film is another mind-bending foray into unexplored cinematic territory that will challenge expectations and defy conventions. The screenwriter, Steven C. Stewart, is also the star (Stewart had cerebral palsy and passed away shortly after filming).
“The film begins in a nursing home with our ‘hero’ lying helpless on the floor. While he is being carried back to his bed, his world shifts to a place where his charm is recognized and the ladies swoon, enabling some torrid sexual conquests. But years of frustration at being an outcast have planted a dark and evil seed. Soon his actions take a morbid turn.
“Glover uses his visionary cinematic skills to bring to life the graphically explicit psychosexual fantasy world of a man shunned by women and society but who lusts after intimacy, acceptance, and long hair. The beauty of his direction is his ability to create an atmosphere that is strange and unsettling, yet sensual and erotic. Through Stewart's caustic fantasy life, Glover subverts the conventional devices of a suspense film and creates an audacious statement on the conundrum of sexual politics from an outsider's perspective.”
Did we mention Glover’ll present it Dec. 7-9 at the Egyptian and then explain it to you afterwards? Because he totally will!
And by the way: Glover says this is what he did with his earnings from the “Charlie’s Angels” movie.
Since advertisers tend to be a little wary about being associated with child slavery, CBS is showing them an “early cut” of the series to allay their fears. Ad buyers're still taking a wait-and-see approach to the show, though.
CBS hasn’t gone to the trouble of doing the same for critics, who started the whole hullabaloo in the first place back in July at the TV Press Tour. Things have spiraled further out of control for the network, with reports about how the production flagrantly and cynically skirted child-labor laws, injuries on the set and so on.
It’s produced much media hand-wringing, ranging from this “Mr.-Moonves-tear-down-this-show” screed to this if-life-gives-you-lemons-publicitywise-make-lemonade take. And all, with no one writing about the show actually having seen an episode.
CBS’s little sister network UPN had a similar problem once that they likewise mishandled: A reality show entitled “Amish in the City” had critics livid that the network was trivializing the participants’ faith, and a TV Press Tour session with UPN executives focused on that nonstop. Later in the day, UPN finally screened the first episode and most of the concerns were pretty much allayed. Had UPN unveiled the show before their executive session, they could’ve spared themselves a lot of headaches and vitriol.
That CBS has not seen fit to let anyone see “Kid Nation” less than three weeks before its premiere suggests that perhaps they do have a problem on their hands. Certainly, all the kids-in-anguish drama that was manufactured for the trailer is likely being second-guessed. And any delightful kids-accidentally-drinking-bleach montage has no doubt wound up on the cutting-room floor, as well.
But CBS’s wall of silence isn’t going to work forever, if, in fact, it’s even working now. As our pals Larry Craig and Alberto Gonzales have learned, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up (OK, in their cases, it was the crime, too). It’d be nice – not to mention refreshing – if CBS’d come up with a coherent response and let us see the friggin’ thing already.
Enjoy those episodes of “The Office” on your iPod while you can: NBC-Universal and Apple can’t reach a pricing agreement, so, come December, its programming will no longer be available from iTunes.
Not good news for iTunes, as NBC’s content accounts for 40% of its video downloads. And iTunes, of course, is the go-to site for digital downloads. Which apparently has gone to its head – NBC’s not the only company hacked off that Apple controls all iTunes pricing and not the only business that thinks it should be making more money off their iTunes offerings.
Of course, if Apple caves in to NBC, then other companies will want similar say over pricing their wares, and that’s anarchy, people. On the other hand, Apple needs what NBC and these other companies provide more than they need Apple. Which is not to say that those companies don’t need iTunes.
This could get messy. Can’t our digital brethren all get along? (Short answer: Well, no, not while everyone’s still trying to figure out how to make themselves some money off these Internets.)
* UPDATE: In a “We’ll Show YOU” move, Apple today announced it won’t be offering NBC’s new shows – “Chuck,” “Life,” “Journeyman” and “Bionic Woman” – on iTunes this fall. New episodes of shows already on the air will still be available. Kids, kids – can’t we all work this out? And NBC – $4.99 for an episode of a TeeVee show is crazy talk.
* ANOTHER UPDATE!: As coincidence would have it, I spoke with "Chuck" star Zachary Levi this afternoon, and asked him about it. His response:
“That’s kind of a bummer. Damn! I was hoping people would find us at places like iTunes like people found ‘Heroes’ and ‘The Office.’ I hope they can clear that up. I’m an Apple guy. I love Apple and I obviously love NBC, so I hope they can work something out.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have found our intermediary in this little spat. Let the healing begin.
I don’t know who Lehigh University journalism professor Kimberly Meltzer is, either, but she or a flunky sent me an Email offering her insights on Katie Couric’s first year in CBS’s news-anchor chair.
Oh, and they sent a sentence explaining her street cred, too. Meltzer, author of “Irreconcilable Differences: An Analysis of Television's Difficult Marriage with Journalism Through the Lens of Its Anchors, 1950-2006” (apparently, she was paid by the word, starting with the title), was a former assistant to Couric, so her views may be somewhat colored based on how well or poorly Katie treated her.
"Couric has become a personality type, against which all other anchor personalities are compared and contrasted. She achieved this status while on the Today show. Viewers and critics now measure her CBS performance against this well-developed and ingrained archetype she and NBC created while in her former role."
On Katie going to Iraq:
"It is also with the 'Today Katie' back story in mind that we fear for her safety as she ventures to Iraq, perhaps more than we would with either of her competitors. Even though CBS has returned to a more traditional hard news format since Couric debuted last year, we still remember Today's Katie and all that we knew about her.
"Critics and competitors will watch to judge her CBS anniversary performance; fans will watch to be reassured that she is alive and well. And some viewers will actually watch to hear her report on the situation as she finds it on the ground."
Finally, on how journalism is screwed:
"In terms of predicting what will happen to journalism next, history points to the increasingly fluid boundaries of the craft. The threat of new technology and new forms of news media to the existing journalistic community in general does two competing things: They make the community cling even more steadfastly to its present and traditional principles and standards, and, in some instances, force it to be flexible in adapting and reinventing it so that it doesn't become obsolete and expendable.
"We've seen the return in the course of the past year to a more traditional news broadcast, and we've seen all three network news broadcasts create anchor blogs, webcasts, podcasts and make use of new technology in other ways to try to maintain a more mobile and tech-savvy audience."
OK, I guess that was useful.
Well, someone’s gotta feed the Beckham tots
$250 million sure doesn’t buy what it used to.
David Beckham, that British soccer hero who was handed $250 mill to transform America’s blasé attitude toward the sport, continues his reputation this side of The Pond as an utter bust, falling victim to yet another injury that pretty much ends his first Stateside season. Which translates his paycheck to: $50 million per goal, $50 million per hour and $50 million per nation filled with fans and potential fans feeling like they’ve been ripped off.
So much money hasn’t been desultorily tossed out a window since Dick Cheney’s White House threw all those billions at Halliburton to lose in various cubbyholes in Iraq.
Hence, the responsibility for actually working in America has fallen to Becks’ wife Posh Spice, who has landed a job on ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” playing the challenging role of Victoria Beckham. “Ugly Betty,” you might recall, was a show that was all about not rewarding the anorexically trim and superficial and brain-dead.
Of course, a mere six weeks ago – six weeks? How coincidental – that’s how long Becks’ll be out of commission – Posh was insisting to Your Mayor that she wasn’t moving to L.A. to rev up an acting career:
"I must be the only person in Los Angeles who doesn't want to be in film. … Did you see 'Spice World'? It wasn't that good. I wasn't really that good. I'm not coming to L.A. to form a career, you'll be glad to hear.”
As Larry Craig might note, the devil’s in the details: Notice she said she didn’t want to be in film, but didn’t mention TV.
Not that we like to say “We told you so” (though, of course, anyone who has such a chance absolutely cherishes such an opportunity), but Your Mayor noted what thoroughgoing b.s. the Beckham hype machine was back when otherwise sane minds got steamrollered by it.
And yet somehow, shockingly, sane, dispassionate intelligence is valued waaay beneath blithering idiocy. Which explains why you and I will never see paychecks in the seven (or even six) figures, while Posh – with her 50, 60-word vocabulary and perhaps fictitious jewel-encrusted vibrator – will never be challenged in her assumption that she’s far better than us.
Just think how many promising athletes the Galaxy might’ve signed for $250 million. Worse, consider how many insightful media pundits might’ve profited from such a financial outlay (take me out of the equation, 3, maybe 4).
From the outset here, we’re going to warn those under the age of 17 to just skip this entry, because it’s inappropriate for you. As Kaitlin Olson of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” notes below, “That works. That warning really makes people not watch.”
Are they gone? OK.
First, if you haven’t seen it yet, you must watch this probably NSFW video at funnyordie.com featuring “Sunny/Phillie’s” Brain Trust or very little of what follows will make any sense. (For those who refuse to watch, your loss, but we’ll recap simply by saying that Danny DeVito has needs, and fortunately for him, having them met is contractually mandated.)
So DeVito, Olson and “Sunny/Phillie” stars/writers/executive producers Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton were at USC today, autographing T-shirts in the 100-degree heat for two solid hours.
Meeting/greeting with fans complete, the four stepped inside the “Sunny/Phillie” trailer that’s on a tour of college campuses and was making a pathetic but heartbreakingly endearing effort at cooling the air. And so, fighting off heat-stroke, they began discussing what most civilized people routinely discuss:
Giving Danny DeVito hummers.
You may recall we recently described the three dynamics operating when booking presenters for the Emmy Awards: This is Mutually Beneficial, I Need Help Promoting My Show and I’m Doing You a Favor.
This proved so profoundly popular and edifying that we’re going to do it again, with the second wave of announcements of celebrities who will give trophies to other celebrities. And we’ve added a new category!
This is Mutually Beneficial: Marcia Cross, America Ferrera.
I Need Help Promoting My Show: Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey, Joely Fisher and Brad Garrett, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jennifer Love Hewitt.
I’m Doing You a Favor: Stephen Colbert (his appearance last year – “I lost to Barry Manilow!” he wailed to Jon Stewart – probably ensured him a win this year), Ellen DeGeneres (she hosted last year; she needn’t accept a demotion like this, particularly since Ryan Seacrest swiped her gig).
And now, the new category:
What More Do You Want From Me? (celebrities who have comforted and oiled the Emmy machinery beyond the call of duty): Kyra Sedgwick, Jon Cryer.
Both, you may recall, hosted that ghastly early-morning announcement ceremony unveiling this year’s nominees, even though they themselves have never won an Emmy (and in fact, both left last year’s awards show branded losers). If these two walk away Sept. 16 without a heavy pointy object in their clammy hands, they need to understand that they’re in an abusive relationship with Emmy and need to realize that the love apparently only goes one way and they need to quit coddling the Academy with their star power and find something else better to do on the evenings of future ceremonies. Maybe start up a little Mah Jongg club together.
Last week, “Mad Men” graced us with the immortal line “I don’t speak ‘moron’” (delivered while watching a focus group of women trying different cosmetics). This week, Roger (John Slattery) – who’s banging Joan (Christina Hendricks), the ad firm’s world-weary secretary – gets to deliver not one but two misogynistic bon mots:
* In a bar where the women don’t seem to be all that interested in him, he opines, “It’s like they hit 30 and somebody puts out a light.”
* When Don (Jon Hamm) invites Roger to dinner at his home, Roger hits on his wife (January Jones). Later, he apologizes: “At some point, we’ve all parked in the wrong garage.”
Are you starting to get the feeling things will not end well for Roger, no matter how much milk he mixes into his vodka?
Anyway, the inevitable backlash against the wildly acclaimed “Mad Men” has begun, since falling into lockstep and liking a show everyone else likes doesn’t draw much attention to one’s critical acumen: In the past week, I’ve come across two separate disses of the show, both essentially grousing that the production design is too rich and the rest of the show is too shallow.
Both, it turns out, were written by women, whose niggling ulterior motives seem to be to decry the attitudes of the show’s male characters. These women actually dare to challenge the preconceptions of fictitious men. Dames these days!
It’s one thing, of course, to take issue with the show’s pervasive sexism. It’s another to translate that into saying that the show trucks in some sort of overall crappy gestalt that renders its aesthetic anemic.
“Mad Men” doesn’t, under any circumstances, celebrate its characters’ sensibilities; it’s, in fact, careful to provide foreshadowing of what happened post-1960 (when the show is set) that underscores how backward their thinking is. At the same time, it allows viewers to wallow in transgressive behavior, just as “The Sopranos” did, and just as many other breakthrough mainstream entertainments did.
If viewers find themselves empathizing with the “Mad Men,” they likewise are challenged as to why they’re doing so – just as those who grew to love Tony Soprano had to confront his more violent impulses – which makes these all-style-no-substance arguments feel, ultimately, as empty as the lives the “Mad Men” aren’t aware they’re living.
- “Mad Men:” 10 tonight; AMC.
Oh, and if you've missed any or all episodes, AMC is thoughtfully running a marathon of the first seven Sunday beginning at 10 a.m. TiVo away.
“The Daily Show” chooses the damnedest times to go on hiatus: Imagine the comic hay they could be making out of the Larry Craig scandal.
Thankfully, others have been stepping up to provide comfort and solace in Jon Stewart’s stead:
“Countdown with Keith Olbermann’s” “Dragnet” parody.
Larry Craig’s smoove airport pickup techniques.
More smoove airport pickup techniques – if you don’t have a box of chocolates, a puppy’ll do.
Seen others? Post links in your comments. Just make sure they’re funny.
Boy, you go to all the trouble to create a TV show that won’t be confused for any other, and this is the thanks you get: “Kid Nation,” one of our new favorite whipping boys, is in the soup, again: The Writers Guild and AFTRA are looking into allegations of abuse on the set of the “Lord-of-the-Flies-Lite” show.
“The folks who write, produce and shoot these shows were subject to illegal and unfair working conditions,” WGA president Patrick Verrone told TV Week. “They don’t get paid overtime, they violate consecutive days of work [rules], they don’t get meal breaks. We’ve been saying that for two years now. It’s unfortunate that this kind of business model is now treating kids the same way they’ve been treating adults.”
“We are concerned about reports of abuse arising from ‘Kid Nation,’” AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, for the acronym-challenged), said in an issued statement. “AFTRA is investigating whether the terms and conditions of the Network Code were violated in the production of ‘Kid Nation.’ We will take all legal and moral steps available to protect the rights of the performers and children on this program.”
“Producers have admitted to writing scenarios that contestants are asked to carry out,” lovely and talented acquaintance-of-Your-Mayor Maria Elena Fernandez writes. “And contestants have revealed that they work long hours and are often asked to do different takes of scenes to make them more interesting or controversial.
“For these reasons, union representatives argue that the shows have writers who should be compensated according to union guidelines and that some contestants are performers who could be covered under collective bargaining agreements.”
“Kid Nation” executive producer Tom Forman insists the children participating were not “employees,” though they were each given $5,000 for 40 days of participation. But it’s indisputable that Forman and CBS will be making money nonetheless off of presenting the kids’ labors as an entertainment. So I guess we can say that if they weren’t employees, Forman and CBS engaged in child slavery. That should go over well with the folks who might be induced to watch the show.
Here’s how Larry Craig should’ve handled his press tete-a-tete yesterday, courtesy the comedy troupe Little Britain.
Katie Couric really doesn’t want to read those “Katie: One Year Later” stories.
Instead, she’s traveling next week to the Middle East, where she’ll sit in war zones rather than endure the pundit navel-gazing over her rocky first year as anchor of “The CBS Evening News.”
She’ll be in Baghdad on Tuesday and Wednesday, ostensibly getting a sense of the situation on the ground as the White House is busy polishing the report General David Patraeus was supposed to, but won’t, give to Congress about the situation in Iraq. An interpreter working for CBS News was murdered in Iraq recently, and Kimberly Dozier has endured 25 operations after being injured in a blast in May 2006 that killed cameraman Paul Douglas and sound-man James Brolan.
From there, it’s on to Damascus, from which she’ll report on Thursday and Friday.
Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the newscast, shrugged off the timing of Couric’s globe-trotting in a chat with the Associate Press, telling them, "I don't do anniversaries."
Bet he would if Couric’s ratings were better.
After some grim going, “Rescue Me” has lightened up agreeably in the past couple of episodes. And tonight’s episode continues the trend, with Tommy (Dennis Leary) stumbling through another date with Beth (Amy Sedaris), his captain’s daughter. Remember how she took a cellphone call from her shrink mere seconds into their first date? This one doesn’t get any better.
Tommy also has another friskily bewildering rendezvous with Gina Gershon’s horny mystery woman, attends another fractious family AA meeting and battles a newfound fear of heights that has befallen him after his father (Charles Durning) informed him that he suffered from same as a child.
Meanwhile, Franco (Daniel Sunjata) is shocked to discover who his former fiancée is now dating, and Lou (John Scurti) continues to have the most Daliesque personal life a TV show has ever depicted.
- “Rescue Me:” 10 tonight, FX.
Much Schadenfreude and mirth on the cable news channels today over the plight and humiliation of Larry Craig, the family-values-touting Senator from Idaho arrested for lewd behavior in a Minneapolis airport bathroom – not to mention his spectacularly ill-advised nationally televised statement in which he admits to perjury and blames all his woes on, yes, the media.
Consensus: Dude’s toast.
That out of the way, the scandal devolved into sitcom banter on MSNBC’s “Live with Dan Abrams,” in which Abrams, Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson were discussing the case, and Carlson mentioned he had once been propositioned in a men’s room (must’ve been the bowtie).
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Abrams declared (I’m paraphrasing); back up. Carlson clarified: Yes, he had been approached in a public restroom.
I’ve never been approached, Scarborough interjected with mock disappointment.
Carlson then continued to try to make his point, to little avail. What happened? Abrams wanted to know. Tucker explained that he went and got a buddy and they returned to the men’s room and grabbed the guy, hoping against hope that that would put an end to the story – apparently not realizing the anecdote could go in myriad directions at that point.
So Abrams pressed: Then what happened?
Increasingly sheepish, Carlson explained he smacked the guy’s head into a wall and summoned a cop. Abrams and Scarborough laughed their way through Carlson’s little tale of derring-do. Boys will be boys.
(No doubt as we speak, bloggers are Googling to see if they can corroborate Tucker’s tale.)
But perhaps it is hard to take seriously a story this salacious involving this much sanctimonious hypocrisy (newscasters also delighted in running – and rerunning – a clip in which Craig denounced then-President Clinton as a “naughty, nasty boy”). As Jack Cafferty noted on CNN this afternoon, you couldn’t write this stuff.
(Also: hilariously obsessive footage of the actual airport men's room in which the arrest took place, with the cameras roaming into stalls, peaking under doors at men's shoes, etc. That's journalism!)
Biggest disappointment with the Craig thing (dubbed Craigslust in the link above) – and no, it’s not the political hypocrisy; that’s become a given these days – is that, once again, one of my favorite stories of the past year – the loony-love-triangle astronaut (she’ll be pleading temporary insanity) – was yet again denied the attention she so richly deserves. As you may recall, Lisa Nowak’s quixotic cross-country drive – she wore diapers in order to cut down on her travel time and bathroom breaks in order to do, well, something to a romantic rival (Nowak had enough weaponry to make the next installment of the “Saw” movie series) – got lost in the shuffle of Britney Spears’ buzzkill of her coif and the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
And now, today, her announcement that she’ll be pleading not guilty by reason of temporary insanity is overlooked thanks to a Senator with restless leg syndrome. Girl can’t catch a break.
In honor of yesterday’s resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, liberal blogger Josh Micah Marshall has assembled a nice collection of Fredo’s Top-10 dissemblings. His roundelays with Senators Charles Schumer and Arlen Spector boast verbal acrobatics unseen since the Cirque du Soleil troupe got really smashed.
Well, here’s one way of staying in the public eye once your low-rated cable show gets the axe: Former CNN anchor Paula Zahn – who was memorably introduced to CNN viewers a few years ago with a quickly-yanked promo touting her sexiness – has again reluctantly re-entered our consciousness with the revelation of a diary detailing her tryst while married to one titan of industry with yet another titan of industry.
The story linked above is rather long given its surfeit of actual salacious information. We’re given a blind source promising, “It's quite lurid – let's leave it at that,” and that’s about it before a bunch of boring minutiae of the grubby bickering between Zahn and her ex.
A similarly embarrassing bunch of letters written by Hillary Clinton when she was a struggling, oh-so-deep college student popped up recently, which has inspired this latest public service from Your Mayor:
THE MAYOR OF TELEVISION’S TIPS FOR MAINTAINING YOUR DIGNITY THROUGH THIS WRETCHED LIFE
* Don’t ever write a friend, relative or acquaintance a letter.
* Don’t write anything down, not even a grocery list, unless the items on it are fairly generic and you have an operational paper shredder at the ready.
* Don’t ever write so much as an Email.
* Don’t blog, either.
* Don't commit an opinion or a personal anecdote to any medium that can be read - or even perceived - by others.
* Text-messaging is probably OK, since it’ll be hard for posterity to figure out what you were on about.
* Do not allow anyone to take a digital image of you that can be Photoshopped into a humiliating tableau.
* Do not venture out in public in a city filled with security cameras. Avoid ATMs.
* Probably best not to speak to anyone of the opposite sex, particularly in public but especially in private.
* Failing any of this, don’t even think about becoming famous.
The New York Times is constantly amazed that Stephen Colbert manages to call a lot of attention to himself, but then they only continue to encourage him, this time with a story about his broken-wrist antics.
As we previously noted, Colbert muscled himself past the White House gates, and got Tony Snow and Nancy Pelosi to sign his wrist cast.
Since then, he pestered NBC’s Brian Williams and CBS’s Katie Couric into performing the same service. The Times suggested that ABC’s Charlie Gibson is too much of a grumpy Gus to play along.
Gibson’s reticence scarcely seems to have had an effect on bidding on the cast on eBay, which is now up to a staggering $15K with almost a week to go. Nor does the fact that Bill O’Reilly and Tim Russert’s autographs also appear on the cast.
Proceeds go to The Yellow Ribbon Fund, a non-profit assisting injured servicemen returning from Iraq. Plus, since it’s spent weeks stewing in its own juices inside that cast, the winner’ll discover just what Colbert’s wrist smells like. (Hint: a little like his ice cream.)
TMZ took a breather from its usual celebrity-baiting to unveil the new list of “stars” who’ll be competing on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” this fall, and if they’re correct, the show’s actually inching toward luring real celebrities – or, at least, getting B- and C-list people rather than C- and D-listers.
Most bewildering/intriguing addition: Billionaire tech guru and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whom you’d think’d have better ways of spending his time. On the other hand, since he put a moratorium on kvetching about NBA referees on his provocative personal blog, maybe this’ll give him a new group of refs over whom to get livid.
Cuban, you may recall, hosted a short-lived ABC reality show, “The Benefactor,” that was kind of an “Apprentice” knockoff. So “Dancing with the Stars” is the reality version of ABC’s “Private Practice,” which hired a bunch of people who used to headline their own shows – Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Taye Diggs – as supporting players in an ensemble cast.
And Cuban will be competing against:
* Vegas crooner Wayne Newton (many years ago, Your Mayor ran the overnight shift for an automated easy-listening radio station; my job consisted of making sure the music reels didn’t run out and, every 15 minutes or so, burbling some insipid folderol like, “For those beautiful moments, add the easy-listening sounds of 104.1 FM!” Invariably, around 3 or 4 in the morning, I’d get a call from a drunk woman requesting that I play “some Danke Schoen music.” So if she’s still alive, you know who she’ll be pulling for in this competition.)
* Aaron Carter, washed up at such an early age
* Erstwhile “Medicine Woman” Jane Seymour
* Tori Spelling, whose own reality show must not be humiliating enough
* Jennie Garth, who, after suffering a legion of indignities as Kelly on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” can’t really embarrass herself any further
* Boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
* Erstwhile “Hulk” Lou Ferrigno
* Nia Peeples, who never really quite got big enough to become washed up
* TeeVee journalist Richard Quest, whose CNN bio touts his “dynamic and distinctive style”
* Model/former Leo squeeze Gisele Bundchen
* Indie racer Helio Castroneves
* Sabrina Bryan, the youngest contestant and, as a star of the Disney Channel’s “Cheetah Girls” movies, one with actual dancing experience (though, reportedly, Mark Cuban made money while in college teaching disco-dancing)
Yeah, yeah, I know: Slow news day.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today, putting an end to a reign of error, Constitution shredding and possible malfeasance and corruption that was the subject of bipartisan Congressional revulsion – until Bush appoints his replacement, that is.
But what’s been on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News and apparently for much of the morning? The Michael Vick infomercial hawking dog food from China. As appalling as Vick is, was it really necessary for all three networks to carry the bloviating statements from Atlanta Falcons management?
Nicely played, “news” networks. Hey, we hear Owen Wilson’s in the hospital – get to it, willya? Then you can ignore Gonzales altogether.
* UPDATE: CNN thoughtfully interrupted its Vick coverage momentarily to deliver one of those unrevealing he-said/she-said reports that passes for journalism these days: Democratic apparatchik: “Good riddance;” Republican apparatchik: “There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing.” (Hard to get evidence when no one in the Administration can be bothered to testify before Congress, doofus; anyway, that’s pretty much what die-hard Falcons fans were saying about Vick.) Then back to file footage of Vick walking and talking.
After but one abysmal airing, Fox cancelled "Anchorwoman," its crap reality show about a crap anchorwoman trying to make a name for herself at a crap small-town Texas station. Reviews were largely -- uh, apocalyptic -- but even the notion that critics hated it could scarcely convince viewers to tune in.
Next week, in the same time slot, Fox will offer the hot new reality show "Bowel Movement."
Fox had similarly awful ratings for another reality show, "On the Lot," but since one of its executive producers was Steven Spielberg, they sucked it up and kept airing the show anyway. Its ratings got even worse, making even E! ratings look good by comparison.
Heartened by this, Spielberg announced a new Fox show, "Steven Spielberg's Bowel Movements," which Fox renewed through 2010.
“Parents of minors starring in ‘Kid Nation,’ the controversial new CBS reality show, signed away their rights to sue the network and the show's producers if their child died, was severely injured, or contracted a sexually transmitted disease during the program's taping.”
CBS’s lawyers – whom, I’m sure, enjoyed writing this particular legal document – indemnified themselves against pretty much every bad thing that could ever happen, up to and including every plague and catastrophe mentioned in the Book of Revelation. And 40 sets of parents happily signed the waiver. So Child Protective Services has another 40 families to investigate.
Commenters at Defamer.com have stepped up on this one, saving me the trouble:
* I imagine the average parental response to all this was something along the lines of "Look, are you going to kill my kid or not? I'm already late for my wax."
* This is the same waiver Britney has to sign every time the kids go to K-Fed's house.
* Rock avalanches, hypothermia and "loss of orientation in primitive areas"? When is this show on again?
This entry is dedicated to the Indiana State Fair, which recently banned trans fats in its funnel cakes and all the other crap foods it serves alongside the frayed bungee-jump ropes, rickety, tiny rollercoasters and skeeball kiosks. Having been to the Indiana State Fair, I can say that transforming it into a venue for healthy cuisine is like trying to turn the Special Olympics into Mensa: a sweet but misguided idea, because that’s simply not what it is.
Anyway, some Brits are all in a lather because they discovered that – egad – foods tied to cartoon characters aren’t particularly good for kids. Moreover, “Three-quarters of parents interviewed … said they thought it was irresponsible for companies to feature cartoon characters on unhealthy foods.”
I want to hear from the parents who thought it was a good idea, and then I want to see their kids model their “Husky Child” sportswear.
So here are some of the most egregious examples:
Bratz: Bon Bon Buddies Bratz Fabulous Biscuits contained 24.6g of fat, 15.4g of saturates and 37.6g of sugar per 100g.
The Simpsons, promoting Honey Nut Popcorn from Butterkist with 41.3g sugar per 100g.
Shrek the Third offered tickets if you bought boxes upon boxes of Kellogg's Frosties (37g sugar per 100g).
Spider-Man comics came in Nesquik Chocolate Cereal (36.1g sugar per 100g).
But my favorite was this: “(C)haracters from the film ‘Flushed Away’ on packs of Burton's Jammie Dodgers and on Kellogg's Coco Pops Straws.” Who cares how healthy or unhealthy the snacks were – people actually bought food associated with a movie about London’s sewage system?
So you thought the CNN/YouTube debate was surreal: Now, MySpace and MTV will “host a series of discussions between U.S. presidential candidates and Internet viewers.”
It’ll take place on several college campuses, stream live on both sites and feature 11 candidates from Hilary Clinton to Rudy Giuliani. Audience members can ask questions directly, while online participants can Email, IM or text-message questions, promising all manner of amusing technological glitches.
"Neither of us wanted to see yet another event with a dozen candidates giving consultant-crafted answers," MySpaceTV general manager Jeff Berman told Reuters, adding that the result will be "unfiltered direct conversations." Yeah, will good luck with that. Have they ever seen these candidates? They have a perpetual teleprompter running in their brains; you couldn’t produce a spontaneous moment if you popped a balloon behind their heads.
Of course, the candidates’ stiff efforts to appear “cool” for the “kids,” who are after all “America’s future,” will be outdone only by the myopic craziness promised by the questions:
“What’s your favorite band?” “Don’t you think it’s unfair to have to take finals?” “My regular dealer got busted – do you know somewhere to get some X?” “SUP??!!?1!! KTNXBAI!!11!!”
Despite the advance hype re: Stephen Colbert’s “trainwreck” interview with Richard Branson about the newest member of his Virgin Air fleet, Air Colbert, it proved a bit of a wash, and not just because Branson tossed his mug of water on Colbert. Branson – “the rebel billionaire,” as Colbert repeatedly referred to him – just seemed to be rebelliously playful, hardly angry, when he flung his liquid; Colbert kept his cool, returned his fire – er, water – and Branson didn’t seem to mind, either. Rather than “uncomfortable,” as one advance review described it, it just came across as a comedy bit that wasn’t all that funny.
“The Daily Show’s” Rob-Riggle-in-Iraq thing this week really hasn’t resulted in much sustained hilarity, either (to be fair: not entirely unexpected). Riggle’s going to the doofus persona far too often. Not much of a Jon Stewart interview with Barack Obama tonight, either: The questions were a little too softball-lob-by, allowing Obama a lot of aw-shucks responses about meetin’ the people and the energy of our youth.
But everyone’s entitled to an off night.
The three stages of death Emmy presenting
Presenters at the Emmy Awards, it seems, falls under three categories:
1) This is Mutually Beneficial: The Presenter is hot, but not so hot that s/he couldn’t use some additional publicity, so Presenter’s presence gives his/her show a little more juice and spruces up the ceremony while it’s in its doldrums.
2) I Need Help Promoting My Show: Someone with a new show, or a show that needs a boost in the ratings.
3) I’m Doing You a Favor: Someone so successful that if they said “No” to presenting no feelings would be hurt, but – omigod! – they said “Yes!”
The first batch of Emmy ceremony presenters was announced today, and herewith, we thoughtfully parse them into the aforementioned categories:
This is Mutually Beneficial: Hayden Panettiere of “Heroes,” the cast of “Entourage.”
I Need Help Promoting My Show: Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights”), Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton (“Back To You”), Jimmy Smits (“Cane”), Kate Walsh (“Private Practice”), the cast of “Entourage.”
I’m Doing You a Favor: Steve Carell (“The Office”), Jon Stewart (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”), Kiefer Sutherland (“24”), Katherine Heigl (“Grey’s Anatomy”), the cast of “Entourage.”
But, wait, you interject, practically sputtering – how can you possibly put the cast of “Entourage” in all three categories? Are you off your meds, or did you just happen to wander too close to Anne Heche and catch whatever it is she has?
Hear me out, I respond. I almost gave Kiefer Sutherland the same treatment (mainly due to “24’s” stumble last season and its subsequent stagger out of the gate in production for next season), but in the end refrained because, after all, Mr. Sutherland already has his Emmy.
The “Entourage” group, on the other hand, are still trying to make a name for themselves. Yes, Entertainment Weekly does a story about them every other week, but that hasn’t translated into the sort of mainstream hit for HBO that “Sopranos” or “Sex and the City” were. In that way, that makes it a mutually beneficial arrangement.
On the other hand, it seems the heat has drifted from the show a bit, so the “Entourage” guys need the publicity.
On yet another hand, few in Hollywood seem to recognize that fact, and everyone here still loves the little wish-fulfillment fantasy (with a side-order of snark) that is “Entourage.” So the live audience will be far more jazzed to see the show’s cast up onstage (I think they’ve been pegged to present the prestigious Outstanding Achievement in Makeup in a Multiple Camera Production trophy) than most of the viewers at home will be.
The slow drip-drip-drip of information surrounding CBS’s upcoming reality show “Kid Nation,” a kinder-gentler “Lord of the Flies,” is probably starting to wear on the nerves of the network’s and show’s executives, particularly the latest revelation that the New Mexico state attorney’s office warned the production in advance that they were likely breaking the state’s child-labor laws.
From the story:
“Four children received medical treatment for accidentally drinking bleach, one child was burned on her face with hot grease while cooking in an unsupervised kitchen, and most of the children were required to work 14 hours or longer per day. They received a payment of $5,000 for their participation. …
“(T)wo weeks after a state labor inspector was turned away from the site, Andrea R. Buzzard, a New Mexico assistant attorney general, warned in a letter to lawyers for the production that the state did not agree with the network's interpretation of state labor law.
"‘We are not certain that those laws are limited to traditional “employment” relationships,’ Ms. Buzzard wrote, citing part of the state child-labor statutes that say that a child's frequent presence at a work site ‘shall be prima facie evidence that such child is unlawfully engaged in labor.’"
So, here’s what we glean from the story: The producers argued that the children weren’t employees of the network but instead camp attendees. But, understanding they could very well be in some sort of trouble, they wouldn’t allow state officials on the set and ignored requests for copies of the network’s agreements with the children, then bolted as soon as they were finished, rendering any further investigation moot.
“Kid Nation” executive producer Tom Forman obfuscated at length on this subject at TV Press Tour in July:
“I mean, the truth is, I think -- and this may be more information than you want -- it's less child labor laws than labor laws. One of the issues we run into when we make reality television shows or news and documentaries, the participants are just that. They're participants. They're not acting.
“We went ahead and made this show as we make every reality show with the understanding that they're going to do whatever they do, and we're going to tape it. We're not going to consider them actors. We're not going to feed them lines. We're not going to give them set schedules. And on that basis, we didn't see a labor problem.”
At this point, the fact that CBS will be profiting handsomely off the labor of kids to whom they paid a meager $5K each (for 40 days of up-to-14-hour days before the cameras) is going to raise questions not of child labor laws but of child slavery. Their next installment will have to be shot in Singapore.
You can just about hear Forman whining, “Why can’t they take their stupid old laws somewhere else and let us continue to be the Magic Factory we’ve always been? After all, we’re Hollywood, dammit!”
From the outset, “Deadwood” fans have always been the most inventive in their arguments as to why the show should be renewed. Hardly the most successful, obviously, but clever nonetheless.
We’ve been discussing fan attempts to resurrect cancelled shows of late, and for every failure – “Gilmore Girls” (the stars couldn’t be bothered to take The CW’s money no matter how much their fans were addicted to the show), “Everwood” (sure, some fans rented an amusement-park ride to parade before executives’ offices, but then they forgot to show up themselves) and “Veronica Mars” (no matter how rabid your fans may be, if there are less than two million of them, you don’t belong on broadcast-network TV) – there’s the shockingly surprising success of a “Jericho,” which a lot of people (myself included) wrote off when it returned from its midseason hiatus to a sizable drop in viewership.
Nonetheless, thanks to a quirky style of postal terrorism (40,000 pounds of peanuts poured into the CBS offices) and – perhaps even more importantly – Nina Tassler’s discovery of obsessive fan message boards revealing a depth of dedication to the show that she, frankly, didn’t envision (and probably unnerved her just a little), “Jericho” emerged from the ashes of TV’s landscape of nuked shows.
So, back to “Deadwood.” Since the series was on HBO, fans could play a card never before laid on the table: Bring back this show or I’ll cancel my HBO subscription. Didn’t work so well at the time, because, after all, they still had the “Sopranos” finale, and then David Milch’s new show, “John From Cincinnati,” which was desultorily cancelled after but 10 episodes. So this might actually work now, but wait! – “Flight of the Conchords” is so friggin’ brilliant. Damn you, HBO, for reducing the quality gusher to a trickle, albeit a trickle we can’t quit!
The second tactic: After HBO executive Chris Albrecht got into that nastiness in Vegas and re-entered rehab, I got a few Emails from fans vociferously arguing that Albrecht’s alcohol issues proved that he was guilty of some sort of TV-executive malpractice, that his thinking was too fuzzy and blitzed to make sound programming decisions; hence, his decision to cancel “Deadwood.” Again: Not remotely successful, not remotely actionable and probably a little dubious logically (Albrecht certainly managed to keep HBO financially profitable even given his problems), but, yes, brilliantly imaginative.
Fans emerged from the Deadwoodpile to urge critics to press the new HBO executives during TV Press Tour to commit to those two “Deadwood” movies we were promised when Albrecht cancelled the show. We tried, but they proved resistant, not to mention a little obfuscating – they had to have known they would be canceling “John From Cincinnati” in but a few short weeks but couldn’t say so, because they didn’t want to hack off Milch, because he wouldn’t give them those “Deadwood” movies, which they didn’t seem too keen on in the first place, since they kept saying the cast had all moved on.
And now, a “Deadwood” fan sent me a letter she had sent David Milch, which read in part (she granted me permission to reprint it here):
“In your most recent efforts – Deadwood and John from Cincinnati – you channeled an overriding vision of the collective in which each character came to act and sometimes even understand their part in a larger organism. It was a holistic view of the world that enthralled and touched me beyond measure and one that I [foolishly] began to think of as your own perception of it. Imagine my disappointment to find out otherwise…! In reality, sir, you seem to adopt an approach that is far from the Kumbaya vision of ‘we are one’ that you parlay so effectively on television.
“Contrary to what you may believe, Deadwood is not yours to do what you want with. When you put it into the world in 2004, it assumed a life of its own and touched millions of people in myriad ways that you [and no one else] can begin to fathom. While you may not consider yourself under obligation to these nameless and faceless people, your pseudo-philosophy on life would dictate otherwise (...)
“You have waxed lyrical on many an occasion of your interpretation of the artist as an emissary of god; if that is the case, sir, let me ask you think what happens when god's messenger decides to shut up? You seem to have been so blindsided by your ego that you – to use your own lingo –have lost sight of god, and by extension, his people.”
From there, of course, this fan confronted Milch with a put-up-or-shut-up proposition: If you actually buy these mystical horseapples you’re serving up in your series, then you ipso facto owe fans those movies; if not, you’re just another hypocritical hack to which none of your fans own any future allegiance. Brilliant! Well-played!
But there’s one last step to pressure those “Deadwood” reunion films, and here’s my challenge to a “Deadwood” fanatic: Go to imdb.com’s “Deadwood” entry,” click on each cast member and see just how busy they are. Not now, because there’s no script ready, but in a few months, when there very well could be. Based on some of the stuff these people have done, I’m guessing Timothy Olyphant (currently free, per imdb), Ian McShane (all projects in post-production; hence, currently free), Molly Parker (currently working on CBS’s “Swingtown”), Brad Dourif (hell, yeah, he’s available), Robin Weigert (safe to assume she’s currently busy, given an indie film project and a possible return to “Lost”), John Hawkes (shooting some indie, but then, he’s always shooting some indie – anyway, you get the idea; it wouldn’t be as hard to round them up as HBO suggests.
Today at noon East Coast time, a yawn-stifling 9 a.m. here on the West Coast, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and filmmaker Robert Greenwald are holding a press conference decrying what they perceive as the Fox News Channel’s ongoing efforts to lead a propaganda campaign to convince us to attack Iran with the same rudderless zeal with which we attacked Iraq.
Of course, some will argue that Greenwald – producer of the films “Uncovered: The War on Iraq,” “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism,” “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” and “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers” is a propagandist himself. Fair enough, but “propaganda” doesn’t necessarily mean lying, and Greenwald at least puts himself in the general neighborhood of facts, something the Fox folks can’t be bothered with when it’s just so much more fun to try to scare people silly, as this video, comparing Fox News Channel rhetoric in the run-up to the war with Iraq with its current blathering, suggests.
More copious Fox drum-beating can be found here.
Whether or not one believes Fox is ratcheting up the hysteria or whether there are enough Kool-Aid addicts for the network to sway opinion in a substantive fashion these days, the chief question is: Just who the heck’s going to fight Iran, anyway? With our military strained to breaking and being forced into tours of duty months longer than any reasonable human could withstand and with the suicide rate within the military jumping shockingly last year, we’re closer to that TV commercial’s bravado about “An Army of One” than we’d like to think.
Of course, some wingnuts are perfectly happy to advocate nuking the Middle East, then having Americans move into those Arab-eradicated territories (radiation levels be damned), then having President Bush instate himself as “President-for-Life.” And when other neo-cons aren’t certain whether such a proposal is a joke or a menace or a good idea, that red-pill-or-blue-pill conundrum from “The Matrix” isn’t feeling so much like science-fiction anymore.
Additional numbers from “High School Musical 2” continue to astound. Thanks to “HSM2” and its halo effect, last week cable network Disney Channel was the third-highest-rated network, period, behind only CBS and Fox. Disney scorched its mother network, ABC – it averaged 5.8 million viewers in primetime; ABC, a mere 4.4 million.
8.4 million watched the film on Saturday, and 7.5 million tuned in (again?) on Sunday. More fun facts, courtesy Disney: two out of three kids aged 6-11 and tweens 9-14 saw “HSM2.” Four out of five girls aged 6-11 saw it. Three out of eight world leaders watched it, two out of seven housepets watched it and 100% of the world’s omnipotent deities saw not only it, but all those who watched it, as well.
Come January, “Mr. Show” alumni on “24” will outnumber “Lost Boys” veterans: TV Guide is reporting that Janeane Garofalo will join the cast as a government agent.
Clearly, it’s type-casting for the sardonic Garofalo (who, like Mary Lynn Rajskub – who plays the perpetually petulant Chloe – appeared intermittently on “Mr. Show,” the sketch-comedy series that was a cult favorite amongst almost everyone, save those who actually worked for HBO): She played a cop in “Cop Land,” a political operative on “The West Wing,” a patriotic-ish crime fighter named the Bearded Clam on “Freak Show” and, otherwise throughout her career, acerbic, wise-cracking slacker gals who would never seek a government job.
So the “24” guys still may not have a clue as to what the plot will be next season, but at least they’re sure to have an interesting cast, and with Garofalo and Rajskub together again maybe the show’ll become the comedy it’s always threatened to evolve into.
As if college students need any more reasons to blow off studying: An online contest will reward one lucky essayist with a HAVA gizmo, which allows you to access your home TV’s cable/satellite/TiVo from your computer, thereby saving you yet another cable/satellite/TiVo bill. In other words, you can basically pirate yourself. (See? College students would benefit most from this, though they’re usually techno-savvy enough to figure out how to access anything they want online for free already, and also, pretty much everyone likes something for free.)
All you need do is click on the above link and cook up some b.s. essay about how great HAVA is. Winner gets the service, and you probably don’t even really have to be a college student to win, just make yourself sound really poor and needy and deserving. Perhaps a heart-rending soliloquy on how dodgy cable service is in the remote, plague-infested Africa jungle where you’re serving the Peace Corps will tug at the judges’ hearts.
Let’s not mince words: Fox’s new reality series, “Anchorwoman,” is a boldly transgressive piece of art that acutely reveals how we’ve allowed ourselves to be intellectually diminished. It’s also an utter, irredeemable piece of sh!t that makes everyone involved with it look like a thoroughgoing lobotomy patient.
Its concept: Lauren Jones (or whatever her name might be; I took scant notes and tossed the press release long ago), a wrestling diva and “Price is Right” model, decides she wants to read TeeVee news. A struggling channel in tiny Tyler, Texas (which I’ve visited: The city’s big contribution to global culture is a Fire-Ant Festival) decides to roll the dice and hire her as a teleprompter reader during the 5 o’clock news.
The Tyler community is scandalized, sort of, but the local talking heads “Anchorwoman” quotes are ever more blitheringly clueless than Lauren herself. The local anchor, bitter than she’s not quite as tall or nearly as blonde, opts to rest on her journalistic laurels, which, punishingly judicious editing suggests, ain’t much. “Anchorwoman’s” brutal subtext is that everyone’s an idiot and we all deserve the crappy news coverage we get.
Or: Conversely, “Anchorwoman,” unwittingly (or, perhaps, otherwise), is an insightfully blistering critique of the utter glib idiocy of TV news (thank God Hal Fishman isn’t here to see this). Because, on the whole, what Fox is revealing in this tiny Texas market is the medium writ large: Pretty faces, smiley-faced stories, cleavages to which attention must be paid (at the risk of sacrificing valuable facts). This almost seems the Fox network’s mea culpa for sister outfit Fox News Channel: We apologize, they’re saying, for reducing public discourse to this abject level.
There’s a cagey visual motif: frequent shots of signs on executives’ doors revealing readings in Braille. Because: A) The blind don’t need the visual bells and whistles that Lauren offers; B) The executives are blind to how they’re eviscerating the art of journalism; C) Both, proving meaningful discourse is doomed.
- “Anchorwoman:” 8 p.m. Wednesday on Fox Channel 11.
BlogTalkRadio is taking credit for resurrecting “Jericho” after CBS cancelled it.
Shaun Daily, host of a “Jericho”-themed program at the site, first suggested sending peanuts to the network as a form of protesting the network’s initially kicking the show to the curb. (You can hear that immortal rise to arms here.)
More than 40,000 pounds of peanuts wound up at the network, prompting Entertainment president Nina Tassler to order seven more episodes to air sometime this upcoming season. She would’ve held out until 80,000 pounds arrived, but the circus elephant specially trained to carry her through the executive suites was getting too big to fit in the hallways.
Hence, a valuable lesson for all network showrunners: Pick something kind of cute and kicky as your series’ visual meme. Recommended: Sprinkles Cupcakes, iPhones, Toyota Priuses. (“Pushing Daisies”’ creator Bryan Fuller is clearly thinking ahead, having his protagonist run a pie shop.)
Not recommended: Fried Twinkies, anvils, AK-47s. (The folks behind “Dirty Sexy Money” and “Big Shots” are clearly not thinking ahead, incorporating plotlines involving trannie hookers.)