CLASSIC SOAPS RETURN — ON THE WEB<

New episodes of the long-running soap operas All My Children and One Life to Live returned to the screens today (Monday), nearly two years after they were canceled in 2011. But the screens, more than likely, were computer screens or the screens of smartphones and tablets, rather than TV screens. The soaps’ return was engineered […]

HIGH FRAME-RATE TV SHOWS ON PIRATE WEBSITE

A handful of TV broadcasts shot at the ultra-high-definition 60-frames-per-second rate, have been turning up on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent network, TorrentFreak.com, which tracks BitTorrent usage, said today (Monday). Most of the videos reportedly are boxing and mixed martial arts affairs uploaded by Michael Stat of HFR [for High Frame Rate] Movies. Stat noted that […]

TWO AND A HALF MEN — WITHOUT THE “HALF”

The CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men is due to roll out an eleventh season this fall, with Ashton Kutcher and Jon Cryer signing new one-year contracts. But the “Half” in the title may refer to the number of episodes in which Angus T. Jones appears. Maybe fewer. Maybe none Entertainment Weekly reported over […]

IRAQ YANKS LICENSE OF AL JAZEERA

The Iraqi government has suspended the license of Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news network and other local TV channels that it claims have incited violence by devoting coverage to recent Sunni protests. The Communication and Media Commission (CMC) particularly singled out Al Jazeera’s coverage of weekend coverage of a crackdown by government security forces […]

FOX REFUSING CHINA’S PAYMENT FOR PI

Marking the latest dispute between Beijing and Hollywood, 20th Century Fox is refusing to accept about $23 million that China claims is its share of the box-office receipts for Life of Pi, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Monday), citing studio executives. The dispute, the newspaper said, involves a new VAT charge that China has […]

HELEN MIRREN WINS ACTING QUADFECTA

Helen Mirren had already won acting’s trifecta — best actress trophies at America’s Academy Awards, Britain’s BAFTAs, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s Golden Globes. Now, she has become the first actress to win the quadfecta — adding an Olivier award — Britain’s equivalent of the Tony award — to her collection, all of them […]

MOVIE ACADEMY TO EXPAND MEMBERSHIP

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the group that hands out the Oscars annually — has often been accused of being a club of older, white males; however, the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that it may relax its cap on membership — there are 5,800 voting members — and […]

BRITISH STUDIO TO EXPAND TO ATLANTA

Pinewood Shepperton Studios, which has successfully lured many of Hollywood’s blockbuster productions to its massive studio facilities in Britain, announced today (Monday) that it plans to expand onto U.S. soil by forming a partnership with River’s Rock, an independently managed trust, to develop a site south of Atlanta for the production of film, TV, music […]

BLAHS AT DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE; HURRAHS OVERSEAS

The domestic box office remained sluggish over the weekend, with the top film, Pain and Gain, pulling in $20 million — at the low end of most analysts’ predictions — while the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller Oblivion dropped by a little more than half in its second week to $17.4 million. Moviegoers left the comedy […]

TODAY STAFF LOVES LAUER

Kathie Lee Gifford, who hosts the fourth hour of NBC’s Today show with Hoda Kotb, collected the signatures of hundreds of Today show staffers to support Matt Lauer against accusations that he engineered the firing of Ann Curry as his co-host of the first two hours of Today, the New York Daily News disclosed today […]

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