PHOTO FINISH AT BOX OFFICE

UPDATE: Final Figures: Cowboys & Aliens: $36,431,290 The Smurfs: $35,611,637 (Difference: $819,653) With Universal’s Cowboys and Aliens coming in well below analysts’ forecasts and Sony’s The Smurfs coming in well above them, the result was a rare tie for first place — at least so far as Sunday’s studio estimates were concerned. Each studio figured […]

COWBOYS, ALIENS AND CAPTAIN AMERICA SMURFED ON FRIDAY

Who wudda smurfed it? The Smurfs was the top movie at the box office on Friday, smurfing in an estimated $13.3 million and smurfing out Cowboys and Aliens, which had been favored to win but ended up in second place with around $12.99 million. Captain America, which many predicted would wind up in second place, […]

GLORIA STEINEM KNOCKS NBC’S PLAYBOY CLUB DRAMA

At the television critics summer press tour, Gloria Steinem, the feminist writer who famously worked as a bunny at the Playboy Club in order to write an article about it, was asked what she thought about NBC’s plans to air a dramatic series based on the goings-on at the Chicago club in the 1960s. “Are […]

NBC: LEAST-SEEN TV?

NBC, which once attracted 25-30 million viewers or more on Thursday nights with its Must-See TV comedy lineup and E.R., barely drew a tenth of that audience this week. Reruns of its comedies between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. averaged just 2.16 million viewers, while a repeat of Law and Order: SVU at 10:00 p.m. […]

HEAD OF U.K. PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION TO STEP DOWN

The latest casualty of the News Corp telephone hacking scandal is the chairman of the British Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Peta Buscombe. Buscombe announced today (Friday) that she will not seek to remain with the PCC after her current term expires in January. However, reports indicated that she may leave as soon as a replacement […]

NEW SHOCKER IN BRITISH HACKERGATE SCANDAL

The mother of an eight-year-old girl who was murdered in 2000 has been informed that Scotland Yard has found evidence that her voicemail was hacked by a private detective working for News of the World. Published reports in the U.K. noted that even while the newspaper was campaigning for a law targeting child molesters following […]

NEW ADVERSARY LANDS IN MOVIES’ COMIC-BOOK WAR

In another battle of comic-book characters, Cowboys and Aliens will do battle with Captain America at the box office this weekend, and most forecasters are saying that the battle is likely to be close. They’re giving the edge to the newcomer, saying that it should bring in around $40-45 million, while Captain America: The First […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: COWBOYS AND ALIENS

The reviews of Cowboys and Aliens are about as mismatched as, well, cowboys and aliens. Critics either buy the ridiculous concept (this is not a comedy, by the way,) or they don’t. Most don’t. Rex Reed in the New York Observer calls the plot of the movie “idiotic” but allows that it could prove to […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.

With a title like Crazy, Stupid, Love., the producers would appear to be making it easy for critics to bash it. The remarkable thing is that many are turning that title inside out. A. O. Scott in the New York Times, for example, begins his review by writing, “Crazy, Stupid, Love. is, on balance, remarkably […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE SMURFS

The Smurfs is receiving little of the admiration that critics bestowed on that other movie with characters who were blue and in 3D. But here and there it is picking up some mostly favorable reviews. Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times observes that the funniest moments in the movie “are either raunchy or scandalous,” […]

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