FILMMAKER’S CNN STING BACKFIRES

Conservative commentators and Fox News are distancing themselves from James O’Keefe, the filmmaking activist behind the now infamous and discredited ACORN tapes, who allegedly tried to trick CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau into boarding a boat filled with sex toys, try to seduce her, tape the entire scene, edit it, and then submit it to a [...]

ABC TO SELL TIME ON SOME SHOWS TO LOCAL STATIONS

Saying that her network was “breaking a 60-year tradition,” Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group, outlined on Wednesday a plan to sell time slots ordinarily reserved for national advertisers on ABC programs to local station. The plan is set to be implemented during the last two weeks of October on several programs as local [...]

GLAAD CLAIMS BIG INCREASE IN GAY TV CHARACTERS

In its latest “Where We Are on TV” report, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said Wednesday that more gay and lesbian characters are being featured during the new TV season than ever before. The study found that 3.9 percent of all characters on network primetime television are gay or lesbian — 35 [...]

LAW & ORDER: LOS ANGELES MAKES SOLID DEBUT

NBC drew solid numbers Wednesday night for the series debut of Law & Order: Los Angeles, which attracted 10.52 million viewers in the 10:00 p.m. time slot, to edge out CBS’s new drama The Defenders with 10.38 million. The opening episode of the NBC series even topped lead-in Law & Order: SVU, which drew 9.25 [...]

VETERAN ANNOUNCER ART GILMORE DEAD AT 98

It was the announcer’s voice, oldtimers will remember, that signed off countless hit radio shows: “Art Gilmore speaking. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.” And it was the voice that ushered in early TV variety shows: “Live, from Television City in Hollywood!” It was a voice heard in movie trailers for such classics as [...]

THE END OF THE VIDEO STORE?

If Netflix, Redbox, iTunes, and video-on-demand have taken a heavy toll on Blockbuster, they are taking an even heavier one on small mom-and-pop video stores, the Wall Street Journal observed today. “Technology,” it observed, “is killing the video-rental store — and a piece of American culture with it.” The newspaper cited a survey by SNL [...]

DISNEY PROMOTING SECRETARIAT AMONG CHRISTIAN GROUPS

Disney is heavily promoting its Oct. 8 release of Secretariat among what it calls “faith-based audiences,” using a strategy similar to that employed by Warner Bros. in its marketing of The Blind Side, the Hollywood Reporter reported today (Wednesday). The trade publication notes that a lengthy bible quote which opens the movie is included in [...]

BONNIE AND CLYDE DIRECTOR ARTHUR PENN DEAD AT 88

Director Arthur Penn, whose films include Bonnie and Clyde, The Miracle Worker, Little Big Man, and The Missouri Breaks died Tuesday in New York at age 88. Penn was nominated for an Oscar for Bonnie and Clyde (one of ten nominations for the movie), but lost to Mike Nichols for The Graduate. “It’s hard to [...]

HOLLYWOOD LEGEND TONY CURTIS DEAD AT 85

Actor Tony Curtis has died of cardiac arrest in Las Vegas at age 85. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work opposite Sidney Poitier in Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones (1958), but he is probably best remembered for his role in Billy Wilder’s comedy classic Some Like It Hot (1959) with Jack Lemmon [...]

WILL ANYONE CATCH A FALLING (LONE)STAR?

Fox’s Lone Star, one of the best-reviewed new shows of the season, was canceled Tuesday after a second week of dismal audience numbers. The show attracted just 3.79 million viewers, making it the lowest-rated show on any of the major networks on Monday night. It faced impossible competition during the 9:00 p.m. hour, however. On [...]

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