HISTORIC MOVIE STUDIO SAVED FROM WRECKING BALL

Britain’s famed Twickenham Studios has been saved. Twickenham — where such films as the Beatles’ Help and A Hard Day’s Night were filmed (as well as such classics as The Private Life of Henry VIII, Alfie, The Italian Job (1969), Blade Runner, A Fish Called Wanda, An American Werewolf in London, Interview with the Vampire […]

CONGRESSMEN ENTER BULLY BATTLE

Twenty members of Congress have reportedly signed an online petition started by a high-school student asking the MPAA to set aside the R rating for Bully, the theatrical documentary about teenage bullying due to be released later this month by The Weinstein Company. The bipartisan group of congressmen, led by Democratic Rep. Mike Honda of […]

STOP ONLINE PIRACY ACT APPEARS STOPPED

Congress has yet to vote, but it now seems apparent that in the battle between the movie studios/television networks/recording industry and the Internet, over the House and Senate antipiracy bills, the Internet has won. Deluged with protests from Internet users generated by a slew of leading websites, including Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Reddit, several lawmakers […]

PETITION CALLS FOR OVERTURNING IRANIAN DIRECTOR’S SENTENCE

Amnesty International on Wednesday headed a delegation to the Iran Mission to the United Nations that delivered a petition signed by more than 20,000 people calling for the reversal of the sentence meted out to award-winning director Jafar Panahi for making “propaganda against the system.” He was sentenced to six years in prison and barred […]

FIRED CRIMINAL MINDS STARS REHIRED

In an unusual, if not unprecedented, turnaround, two stars of the CBS series Criminal Minds who were fired before the start of the current season, have been offered their jobs back, the Los Angeles Times reported today (Tuesday). One of them, A.J. Cook, has accepted and will return in May. The other, Paget Brewster, may […]

TITLE OF ABC PILOT DRAWS WRATH OF PTC

ABC may have been asking for trouble — courting it even — by titling the pilot for an upcoming sitcom Good Christian Bitches. If they were, they struck gold on Wednesday when the Parents Television Council urged its million-strong members to sign a petition protesting the title. “ABC’s decision is not only an affront to […]

TV SHOW ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON’S AUTOPSY POSTPONED

Plans by Britain’s incarnation of the Discovery Channel to air a reenactment of the Michael Jackson autopsy have angered Jackson’s fans and family, who have launched a petition campaign urging the cable channel to cancel it. In a letter sent to Discovery chief David Zaslav on Wednesday, John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the […]

COOKIE MONSTER LAUNCHES WEB CAMPAIGN TO HOST SNL

Cookie Monster wants to make the trip from Sesame Street to 30 Rockefeller Plaza to host NBC’s Saturday Night Live. The fuzzy blue creature, who already has guested on more television shows than any of his other Sesame Street neighbors — including a couple of appearances on Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central show in 2008 — […]

OLBERMANN’S SUSPENSION: “NOT A PUBLICITY STUNT”

MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann returned to the air on Tuesday after an “indefinite” suspension — that lasted precisely two days — for violating a company rule barring its hosts from contributing to political campaigns without permission. Although his return to the air was likely to boost ratings for his show, Olbermann insisted, “This was not […]