| Tuesday, July 22, 2008 |
| Batman busted! |
Christian Bale (a/k/a Batman) was arrested in London after his mother and sister claimed they assaulted them. Could this be another Eminem thing?
Scotland Yard said the British Hollywood star was released on bail to a date in September pending further inquiries. The 34-year-old actor was arrested at Belgravia police station, in central London, earlier today after attending by appointment. Bale was questioned over the claim — made by his own mother and sister. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said earlier: �A 34-year-old man attended a central London police station this morning by appointment. �He was arrested in connection with an allegation of assault." Bale was arrested just hours after he attended the first European screening of the new Batman blockbuster, The Dark Knight.
He was out in time for the screening.
On another note, did you notice that most of the significant characters in this great American classic are played by Brits? Bale -- British. The late Heath Ledger -- British. Michael Caine -- British. The Americans include Maggie Gylenhall (she and her brother both did star turns with the late Ledger), the great Morgan Freeman, and "two face" himself, Aaron Eckhart, who I think is a Yankee. Just sayin... Meanwhile, some cheeky bastard at the LA Times has an eye gouging casting suggestion for the next flick. Kick her man stealing ass, Batgirl!!!
| Labels: Batman, Christian Bale, entertainment, Hollywood, movies |
posted by JReid @ 11:16 AM   |
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| Monday, July 21, 2008 |
| Boobs rebuffed |
 No, not those boobs. The ones at the FCC...
In a decision that clears CBS of any wrongdoing for airing the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that featured Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction,” a federal appeals court overturned the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission levied against the station, calling the fine arbitrary and capricious. The decision was handed down early Monday by a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that the fine was unfair because the commission, in imposing it, deliberately strayed from its practice of exempting fleeting indecency in broadcast programming from punishment. The commission also erred, the judges ruled, by holding CBS responsible for the actions of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, who were characterized by the judges as “independent contractors hired for the limited purposed of the Halftime Show.” “Like any agency, the F.C.C. may change its policies without judicial second-guessing,” the court said. “But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure.”
Whew! What a relief. Now, where can Janet Jackson go to get her career back?
| Labels: decency police, entertainment, FCC, Janet Jackson, Justtin Timberlake |
| posted by JReid @ 3:36 PM |
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| Saturday, February 23, 2008 |
| And now for a ... 'Lost' theory... |
Okay, yes, I know it's obsessive and a bit lame, but I was just perusing the Lost site, and reading some of the theories about who is in that coffin that Jack alone visited. All we know is that it's a man with a teenaged son, whom the Oceanic Six know, but don't care to visit in at his final hour. My theory: it's Michael. He escaped from the island without the other castaways, betraying them, and he's the only character with a son who would be a teenager by then (Walt.)
Just sayin...
Update: This person agrees with me. And if you scroll down in comments, someone called U2FL speculates that Michael is also the "spy" that Ben has on the "rescuers'" boat.
You've got to love this show!Labels: entertainment, Lost, TV |
| posted by JReid @ 11:58 PM |
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| Saturday, February 09, 2008 |
| Don't fool me! |
| News reports say there's a tentative deal in the L.A. writers strike. They'd better make a deal. Mess with my "Lost" and "Prison Break" nights and I'm liable to freaking lose it... Labels: entertainment, television, writers strike |
| posted by JReid @ 3:11 PM |
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| Wednesday, November 14, 2007 |
| Quick take headlines: shootin' and spyin' |
An FBI inquiry finds that Bush and Condi's private army in Iraq killed 14 of 17 civilians without cause in September.
The nation's new attorney general gets something right, finally giving up the security clearances needed for the Justice Department to investigate his predecessor's -- and those he was lacky to -- domestic surveillance. We await word on whether the Dems will cave on immunity for the telcos that helped out with the government's giant information shovel.
The WaPo has an interesting -- if a bit "duh" -- article on oil as a geopolitical weapon.
Bush's GOP lackeys on the Hill (I make the distinction to separate them from the Democrat and Independent lackeys on the Hill) demand that the Dems retract their Iraq war cost report putting the cost at $1.5 billion. After all, that report might turn Americans against the war ... HA!!!
Good news for the Clinton campaign: NY Guv Elliot Spitzer drops his licenses for illeal immigrants plan.
A new Pew Poll finds Black America more pessimistic than at any time in the last 20 years.
And Kanye West's mother's death following plastic surgery is sad ... and should sober people up about how dangerous plastic surgery can be. Earth to ladies: it's not your mother's Botox brunch. Meanwhile, Kanye issues a statement. ... and the doctor who says he refused to operate on Donda West says she ignored medical advice and that doing so may have led to her death.
Labels: Blackwater, celebrities, domestic spying, entertainment, Iraq war, Kanye West, Michael Mukasey, news headlines, polls, spending |
| posted by JReid @ 9:14 AM |
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| Tuesday, November 06, 2007 |
| Steeee-rike one! |
The Writer's Strike is in its first full day (it started on Monday), with WGA members walking the picket line in New York and L.A. for the first time since 1988. Back then, it cost the industry $500 million. This time, some experts are putting the potential price tag at $1 billion.
What's behind it? In a nut shell, you know when you miss your favorite primetime show (like I very rarely did with "Lost" or "Prison Break," when the damned Tivo failed to record...?) Well you can normally go online to the network's website and download an episode (or stream it) ... but before you get to watch, you have to watch an interstitial advert. In most cases, trying to skip the ad will only cause the whole bloody thing to start over again, until you relent. Writers who work on those shows feel that if the studios are making money on those ads, then they should get a cut. In principal, I think they're right. Also at stake, writers (there are about 12,000 in the Writers Guild, of whom 7,000 work regularly,) want to re-open the DVD contracts. Alex Strachan of Canada.com explains:
- The [studios] want the already negotiated DVD formula - 0.3 per cent of sales, or roughly four cents for each DVD sold - to apply to new media like online downloads and Web streaming. The writers say that is unacceptable. Furthermore, they want to re-open the DVD clause, noting that consumers spent more than $16 billion on DVDs last year.
- The [studios] want status quo for at least two years, while they analyze the economic effects of a changing media landscape. The entire economic model is changing, they say, and they don't want to be locked into a long-term deal until they know how the future will play out. Costs are rising faster than new revenue streams are coming in, they say.
The writers, for their part, want what they consider to be a fair percentage of any profits from new revenue streams, regardless of the overall picture. The site has a great explanation of the strike and the potential fall-out here. A clip:
Moviemaking and TV production is a cutthroat business at the best of times. And if the dispute turns nasty - and there are indications it will - all bets are off as to how it will play out in the end.
An extended strike will have lingering after-effects, too, as it will take the writers several weeks at least to pen new scripts once a new deal is reached.
Until then, the striking members of the Writers Guild of America, which represents some 12,000 writers on the U.S. east and west coasts, will be without a paycheque.
And because the actors, directors and production crews - the people who actually make the TV shows and movies - are obligated to report to work until their own contracts expire next June, the show will go on.
For now, anyway.
Here's why: The networks and movie studios, anticipating today's crisis, have been stockpiling scripts for the past six months.
Moviegoers won't notice a shortage of new big-budget studio movies at their local theatre for at least a year. TV viewers won't be affected until the beginning of the February sweeps period, except for those late-night talk shows and weekly sketch-comedy programs like Saturday Night Live and MADtv.
Nothing will happen, in other words, until the actors and directors join the writers on the picket line. More on the specific implications from Sunday's Variety:
Latenight shows:
NBC's "Tonight Show" and "Late Night," along with CBS' "Late Show" and "Late, Late Show" are all expected to go dark today. Ditto Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report." ... ABC still wasn't saying what would happen with "Jimmy Kimmel Live," though odds suggest it'll shut down, too.
Robert Morton, the former Letterman producer who was at the helm of NBC's "Late Night With David Letterman" during the 1988 WGA strike, said Letterman and Leno feel compelled to back their union --even though, as performers, they could still be on the air Monday if they wanted.
"I think they have to show support for their writing staffs," said the producer, who now heads Panamort Prods. ("The Mind of Mencia"). "Even if they want to go back, they have to give their writers due respect."
It's widely expected the major latenight skeins eventually will return to the air, as they did in 1988.
"You want to be supportive of your guild, but when you have people making $600 a week possibly losing their jobs, you have to think of them, too," Morton said. Current TV series:
Right now, studio execs say they've got a month of production left to go on single-camera dramas and comedies -- that is, if scripts are in tip-top shape and can shoot without any changes. Soaps:
Most have a backlog of completed episodes and scripts that should keep viewers in a lather through year's end.
After that, it's possible network execs and producers could use existing story outlines to write scripts themselves, as happened in 1988. Game shows:
Most shows don't have WGA scribes or can get along without them. Exceptions: syndie powerhouse "Jeopardy" and the daytime version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" are WGA shows.
However, as with many quizzers, both shows tape episodes far in advance.
It's understood producer Sony has enough segs in the can to keep the show in originals through April. And "Millionaire" will tape its final seg of the current season this week, ensuring no repeats this season. Reality shows:
... well, let's just say you're going to be seeing a lot of them.
The other interesting twist is the impact the strike could have on the political season. As we lead up to Iowa and New Hampshire in January, many of the Democratic candidates in particular, but also Republicans like John McCain, are making the rounds of the late night comedy shows, including Leno, Letterman, and the must-do Comedy Central duo of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. With the writers on strike, there'll be no doing that. That could be particularly bad for candidates like Obama, who just did SNL this past week, and who is counting on younger voters to put him over the top. It probably won't affect frontrunners like Hillary and Rudy as much, since they take more incoming from the late night talkers than anything.
Meanwhile, the powerhouse producers of hits like Fox's "The Shield" and ABC's "Desperate Housewives" -- the so-called "show runners" who both produce and write their hot series, are in a bind, and Variety reports most of them will respect the picket line, meaning that if the strike runs long, and the networks run out of their stockpiles of shows, viewers of some of the most popular shows on television could be in jeopardy.
Hey, more time to read, I suppose...Labels: entertainment, TV, writers strike |
| posted by JReid @ 3:28 PM |
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| Thursday, May 24, 2007 |
| B-listers unite! |
| Tyrese, Ginuwine and Tank (all good singers, none huge album sellers) will team up to release an album. Labels: entertainment, Music |
| posted by JReid @ 9:05 PM |
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| Wednesday, March 14, 2007 |
| Damn ... you ... SANJAYAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! |
Who is Sanjaya Malakar sleeping with ... and how can we get him ... or perhaps her ... deported...?
No, seriously, it helps to remember that 'American Idol' isn't really a singing competition, it's a reality show, and every year, the producers assemble a cast of 'Real World' worthy characters (typically short-handed as, "the fat guy," "the punk rock chick," "the rock guy," "the teen idol," "the black girl who really can sing but gets voted off way to early" etc.) This year, they just happened to get lucky and find two really great singers to go along with the pack. Lakisha and Melinda ARE this year's show. All the rest, is pure Sanjaya.
Labels: American Idol, entertainment, Lakisha Jones, Melinda Doolittle, Sanjaya Malakar, TV |
| posted by JReid @ 9:36 PM |
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