The Ex-Online Editor's Blog

LIVE BLOGGING FROM CONNECTICUT'S MONSTERMANIA

2009-06-12T20:38:00.001-04:00

MonsterMania, a massive horror-movie convention, will be held in Connecticut for the first time ever!

Starting Saturday at 3 p.m., I'll be live blogging the crap out of it.

Not on this blog, you see, but at Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger.

ONLINE-ONLY NON-PROFIT LAUNCHES JUNE 23

2009-06-11T15:25:00.001-04:00

Valley Independent Sentinel Launches June 23 -

FANGORIA WEEKEND OF HORRORS, NYC!

2009-05-31T18:43:00.002-04:00

Streaming video? Check.
Flip Camcorder for interviews? Check.
Cover It Love for live chats? Check.
Verizon MiFi for multiple computers? Check.

Now let's just hope it all works.

If you're a horror geek, you know that the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors is returning to New York City this Friday.

For complete coverage, live from the scene, click here.

2009-03-30T10:20:00.001-04:00

I Sell the Dead co-stars this dude
http://ping.fm/O2lpk

2009-03-30T09:10:00.001-04:00

works with everything except my newstimes blog!

2009-03-30T09:04:00.001-04:00

Tryin' out ping.fm.
check one, syballence, check, check one, syballence

DAVE HARPLE FAMILY FUND

2009-03-26T17:25:00.002-04:00

Chris Ware, a photographer at The News-Times in Danbury where I work, asked me today to spread the word about a fund he and a group of Dave Harple's friends set up.

Dave Harple is a veteran photographer at The News-Times and one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Working with the him since 2003, I can also tell you he's an old-school bad ass.

Please consider helping Dave.

Here is Chris' e-mail about the fund:

As many of you know, my good friend and co-worker has been struggling with cancer. A group of us started a fund raiser several months ago, which has been very successful. To continue with our efforts to help Dave and his family, we have launched a website that best illustrates Dave and his incredible work as a photographer at The News Times in Danbury, CT.

Please forward this link

VISIT THE HARPLE FAMILY FUND WEB SITE.

-- eugene driscoll

READ THE NEWS-TIMES LIVE BLOG TONIGHT

2008-11-04T19:26:00.001-05:00

Videos, chatroom, latest news. CHECK OUT THE NEWS-TIMES LIVE BLOG.

Richard Christy Blog Transcript

2008-06-21T06:55:00.002-04:00

Richard Christy of the Howard Stern Show is the nicest man alive! Click here to read my live blog during Christy's appearance at the Fango Weekend of Horrors! Just click the replay symbol to make the magic come alive.

THREE GEEKS AT FANGO, PART II

2008-06-20T15:33:00.000-04:00

Glen and Brian have been at each other's throats for 90 minutes, as I hope you can tell from the photo above.

They've worked together on low-budget horror films, one of which I reported on for the late NewsTimes180.

On set they fought like cats and dogs, too.

This weekend's Fango will undoubtedly end with bloodshed.

THREE GEEKS AT FANGO

2008-06-20T14:51:00.001-04:00

Hello world.

This blog is reporting all weekend from the 2008 Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in beautiful Secaucus, N.J.

First some BREAKING NEWS, courtesy of Glen Baisley, an indie horror writer/director from Light & Productions.

The Fango cons' glory years were undoubtedly when in was held at The New Yorker in midtown Manhattan.

NEXT YEAR FANGO IS FINALLY RETURNING TO NYC, WITH A SHOW AT THE JAVITS CONVENTION CENTER.

It'll be great to get away from this Jersey air, because not for nothing, Secaucus smells like rotten vegetables.

'CELEBRITY' SIGHTINGS:

In our first 10 minutes in the Crowne Plaza, we spotted Chris Jericho, Ken "Dawn of the Dead" Foree, Joe Zaso and Fangoria Managing Editor Michael Gingold.

I'm here with gore make-up artist Brian Spears of G&S Effects and Baisley.

It was awkward as first, as Spears and the Bais have been feuding all week over who should replace Tim Russert on "Meet the Press."

In fact, they're fighting right now.

CHECK BACK LATER FOR TOTALLY RAD DISPATCHES!

Jessica Biel in CT?

2008-06-15T13:32:00.001-04:00

Looks that way. Check out the post in "Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger."

CT Film Festival's Impact on Danbury

2008-06-01T07:21:00.002-04:00

The numbers are still being crunched, but The News-Times of Danbury has a story saying the city did OK by the CT Film Fest.

Read the story here.

Read the blog post here.

(Uh, full disclosure -- I wrote 'em)

2008 CT FILM FEST AWARD WINNERS

2008-05-25T19:33:00.000-04:00

Click here for the complete list

CT Film Fest Live Blog at 10 a.m.

2008-05-25T07:58:00.002-04:00

Pull yourself away from Meet the Press to talk movies at 10 a.m. today.

I'll be using CoverItLive.com to blog live from the awards brunch for the CT Film Festival in Danbury.

Today is the festival's last day, with screenings all day in downtown Danbury.

CT Film Fest site here.

CT FILM FEST LIVE BLOG

2008-05-23T21:17:00.002-04:00

I'm blogging live from the CT Film Fest Awards ceremony this Sunday at 10 a.m. in Danbury.

If you were in Danbury this week, did you see any movies? What did you like? What did you hate? Come chat Sunday at 10 a.m.

www.newstimes.com

Click here to check out the live blog set up.

CT FILM FEST DANZBERRY SCHEDULE

2008-05-20T08:49:00.001-04:00

Is available here . .

CT Film Fest Survival Guide

2008-05-19T11:25:00.001-04:00

Check it out, a pretty much complete list of useful stuff regarding the CT Film Festival, which kicks off in Danbury Tuesday.

Hilarious Doc About CT Duckpin Bowling

2008-05-17T11:19:00.002-04:00

Playing this week at the CT Film Fest in Danbury.

Check out a clip and my review!

Inside Danbury's Palace Theater

2008-05-16T20:58:00.002-04:00

Part of the old Palace Theater is opening Tuesday for the first night of the Connecticut Film Festival in downtown Danbury.

The place hasn't screened a movie since 1995.

Check out this video of the 80-year-old theater's interior, which looks remarkably good after all these years.

Tickets for the opening night festivities ("Flyboys" plus a catered after-party) are 25 bucks and can be had at www.ctfilmfest.com

CONNECTICUT FILM FESTIVAL

2008-05-15T13:20:00.003-04:00

Check it out . . . I have a new work blog.

It's called Hollywood Chainsaw Blogger and is the place where The News-Times o' Danbury is storing all its Connecticut Film Festival coverage.

The festival starts Tuesday night in downtown Danbury, and folks are psyched!

Did I mention the link?

Paperless Paper

2008-04-28T09:03:00.001-04:00

Ooo fah.

On Saturday, The Capital Times, the city’s fabled 90-year-old daily newspaper founded in response to the jingoist fervor of World War I, stopped printing to devote itself to publishing its daily report on the Web. . .

...“We felt our audience was shrinking so that we were not relevant,” Clayton Frink, the publisher of The Capital Times, said in an interview two days before the final daily press run. “We are going a little farther, a little faster, but the general trend is happening everywhere.”

The transition in Madison, while long foretold — The Capital Times was doubly part of a dying breed, being the afternoon paper in a two-newspaper town — has hardly been neat and clean and cathartic.

More than 20 members of the newsroom staff lost their jobs, mainly through buyouts, but also through layoffs. Each departing journalist was profiled in the final paper, and lives on at the Web site Madison.com under the headline “A Fond Farewell to Talented Colleagues,” with a “class photo” taken next to the presses.

STORY

Can You Say Pretension?

2008-04-27T11:23:00.003-04:00

I've always hated the "society" page. This garbage in The Washington Post caused me to claw my eyes out.

Was that the reigning Miss America (Kirsten Haglund) sitting a few tables away from Mark Penn, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's embattled campaign guru, who was just a few hundred feet away from rapper-producer Will.I.Am, who created the pro-Barack Obama YouTube hit video "Yes We Can," who stood not too far from Meghan McCain, Sen. John McCain's daughter?

Yes, yes, yes -- and yes.

Gulp.

RIP KENNETH KEITH

2008-04-27T11:16:00.002-04:00

My most vivid memory from junior high:

Kenneth Keith died in jail this week. AMAZINGLY, his obit was printed in newspapers across the country.

Sirius Ratings

2008-04-27T11:03:00.002-04:00

The Howard Stern Show on Siruis satellite radio has 1.2 million listeners, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.

At XM, Stern rivals Opie & Anthony are pulling in 171,000.

Howard Stern 100 on Sirius is the most listened to channel on satellite, with a 0.04 AQH rating and a cume of 1,210,000 listeners 12+. His Stern 101 channel has a 0.01 AQH and a cume of 501,100. Over on XM, Opie & Anthony's Virus channel pulls in a 0.01 AQH 12+, with a cume of 171,300.

On a side note, Sirius channels 100 and 101 are going out of service every few minutes today!

The Utter Awfulness of '88 Minutes'

2008-04-20T12:00:00.003-04:00

Wow.

The reviews for Al Pacino's "88 Minutes" are not so good.

"This may be the most preposterous movie of the year. It is certainly the most ridiculous movie starring an Oscar-winning actor."
-- USA TODAY

"At every possible turn "88 Minutes" wears its stupidity with pride, like a kid who's super-excited about stuffing pencils up his nose."
-- Tribune's Metromix

"'88 Minutes" holds you in a state of acute suspense, keeping you wondering until the very last minute whether this is the worst Al Pacino movie ever made."
-- New York Post

"With its lumbering efforts at black humor and phony pretense to moral complexity, 88 Minutes is an ugly specimen on just about every front, and I've half a mind to spill the beans on how this disreputable excuse for a thriller ends—not that there's much reason to care."
-- Village Voice

"Why is Al Pacino in 88 Minutes? Even the most prolific actors—and Pacino isn't that prolific—only get so many films. And of all the scripts out there, why choose one that requires him to explain that he didn't know the dead woman was a hooker when he slept with her, and that whoever's framing him for the crime must have pumped his semen out of the dead hooker and into the corpse of a former student, because he knows he never slept with her?"
-- The AV Club

And what's with Al's 80s do?

Knuckleheads!

2008-04-20T10:33:00.002-04:00

Frank Rich says . . .

Cokie Roberts of ABC predicted in February that young voters probably won’t show up in November because “they never have before” and “they’ll be tired.”

However out of touch Mr. Obama is with “ordinary Americans,” many Americans, ordinary and not, have concluded that the talking heads blathering about blue-collar men, religion, guns and those incomprehensible “YouTube young people” are even more condescending and out of touch. When a Washington doyenne like Mary Matalin, freighted with jewelry, starts railing about elitists on “Meet the Press,” as she did last Sunday, it’s pure farce. It’s typical of the syndrome that the man who plays a raging populist on CNN, Lou Dobbs, dismissed Mr. Obama last week by saying “we don’t need another Ivy League-educated knucklehead.” Mr. Dobbs must know whereof he speaks, since he’s Harvard ’67.

The most revealing moment in Wednesday’s debate was a striking example of this media-populace disconnect. In Mr. Gibson’s only passionate query of the night, he tried to strong-arm both Democrats into forgoing any increases in the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax! That’s just the priority Americans are focusing on as they lose their houses and jobs, and as gas prices reach $4 a gallon (a subject that merited only a brief mention, in a lightning round of final questions).

FULL COLUMN HERE

Brush Fire!

2008-04-20T10:22:00.004-04:00

The battery on the camcorder ran out precisely as firefighters put water on flames approaching a radio tower.

Now if only I could get the freakin' embed feature to work.

Click here.

Uh, Yeah, the Apocalypse Is Upon Us

2008-04-13T20:01:00.002-04:00

Just heard from CBS news:

1. The World Bank is urging action after riots broke out around the planet concerning rising food prices.

2. The average price hit at average of $3.37 per gallon

3. The "Prom Night" remake won the weekend box office, taking in $22.7 million.

Kansas Is Finally Cool Again

2008-04-11T18:42:00.000-04:00

Uh huh

2008-03-31T08:18:00.000-04:00

"Ever since James Franklin’s New England Courant started coming off the presses, the daily newspaper, more than any other medium, has provided the information that the nation needed if it was to be kept out of “the dark.” Just how an Internet-based news culture can spread the kind of “light” that is necessary to prevent terrible things, without the armies of reporters and photographers that newspapers have traditionally employed, is a question that even the most ardent democrat in John Dewey’s tradition may not wish to see answered."

Uh huh . . .

Hmm

2008-03-30T07:33:00.001-04:00

"Watergate and Vietnam had shown how essential a sophisticated newspaper could be, had proven that while the daily chase of sirens might belong to television, the examination of real issues would demand smarter, comprehensive coverage.

Television would be the new tabloids, but newspapers would hire more and better writers and transform themselves into the new magazines.

And magazines? Shit, they were going to be publishing masterworks if they wanted to compete with the best newspaper writing. Twenty-five years ago, newspapers -- the big ones at least, those controlling their markets -- were unrivaled in their relevance."

Full story. . .

Idealism, Man!

2008-03-01T08:27:00.002-05:00

Network:

And Justice For All:

Grandma Caprio's Online Guestbook

2008-02-28T20:58:00.001-05:00

Artie Lange's grandmother died.

Pay tribute to her online here.

The Jimmy Kimmel/Ben Affleck Tape

2008-02-25T08:24:00.002-05:00

Even McLovin' is in it

Gary Busey Freaks People Out

2008-02-25T07:09:00.001-05:00

Artie Venturing Toward Death Town

2008-02-24T09:20:00.003-05:00

Here is Artie Lange's latest appearance on Conan. Artie's act has apparently become ALL about narcotics.

Will he make it through 2008?

Artie from his "Mad TV" days:

Artie from two months ago (via HowardStern.com):

I Was Quoted In The New York Times, Sorta, Well, 12 Years Ago Kinda. Actually It Was More A Description Of My Reaction

2008-02-23T23:34:00.002-05:00

I like that the NY Times archives are clear and free these days!

Read this story.

The part about "in what looked like shock, they declined in unison to talk today," THAT WAS ME! ! !

Stuttering John Speaks

2008-02-22T18:44:00.001-05:00

After what seems like an eternity, Stuttering John talks about leaving "The Howard Stern Show."

From the Adam Carolla radio show.

Dance Revolution

2008-02-16T09:19:00.000-05:00

RIP Roy Scheider

2008-02-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

The chase scene from "The Seven Ups."

90 Seconds

2008-02-03T09:26:00.000-05:00

Brock Lesnar, the ultra-hyped ex-WWE wrestler, made his UFC debut last night.

Lesnar a 6-foot-4 giant, lasted 90 seconds.

The former WWE superstar took on former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, and was found wanting. Simple mistake. Bingo. The game was over for him. Such is UFC.

It does not take a great deal to commit errors at this level of mixed martial arts.

If boxing is the brutal art, this was brutal chemistry – as Lesnar was made to submit to Mir 90 seconds into the opening round.

Whole story . . .

Don't Mess With James Gandolfini

2008-01-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

By the end of this two-minute clip, you'll want to wack the Fox announcers.

Hadn't that dude ever seen this?

Tracy Morgan Is Hilarious

2008-01-30T22:15:00.000-05:00

TV Reporter Looks Up

2008-01-30T08:33:00.000-05:00

NY Times On The Wire

2008-01-21T09:15:00.001-05:00

They have a piece reacting to David Simon's column from the Washington Post.

“The Wire” has been a darling of the media, often seeming to survive on critical love. The Web is full of vitriol both for and against Mr. Simon’s portrait of a newspaper turning on itself. Ratings are down for this season (suggesting once again that journalists are more fascinated by their business than the public is).

But there are other villains in the story of the daily newspaper that do not lend themselves as well to television. A secular shift in consumer habits and a corresponding outflow of advertising has put many papers back on their heels. Mr. Simon and “The Wire” flick at those broader challenges, but the series mostly shows an institution collapsing from within.

Read it all . . .

Stern's Old Foe Out At K-Rock

2008-01-20T19:57:00.000-05:00

Tom Chiusano, the CBS Radio executive who weathered the departure of Howard Stern and the disaster of Free FM, is leaving WXRK-FM, the New York station he has run for 23 years.

Starting next month, Mr. Chiusano will become a consultant to the station, CBS announced on Friday.

Some observers believe that Mr. Chiusano can be considered one more casualty of Mr. Stern�s defection to satellite radio at the end of 2005. Joel Hollander, the radio operator�s former chief executive, was the first. He left in April.

"Ever since Howard left, that group has been in a tailspin," says an executive at another radio operator. "[Mr. Chiusano's leaving] is a classic case of downsizing in a compressed marketplace."

WXRK was among the nation�s top billing stations in the days when Mr. Stern hosted its No. 1 rated morning show. In the shock jock�s last year on terrestrial radio, the station had revenue of $51 million, according to BIA Financial Network.

In 2006, K-Rock flipped to all-talk WFNY, or Free FM, dropping the alternative rock format that had filled the non-Howard parts of the day. Ratings plunged, and revenue that year fell 63% to about $19 million.

READ IT ALL . . .

David Simon In The Washington Post

2008-01-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

Great article today in The Washington Post where "Wire" co-creator and ex-Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon talks about the trends he saw while working in Baltimore in the 1980s.

At the moment when the Internet was about to arrive, most big-city newspapers -- having survived the arrival of television and confident in their advertising base -- were neither hungry, nor worried, nor ambitious. They were merely assets to their newspaper chains. Profits were taken, and coverage did not expand in scope and complexity.

In my newsroom, I lived through the trend of zoning (give the people what's happening in their neighborhood), the trend of brevity (never mind the details, people don't read past the jump) and ultimately, the trend of organized, clinical prize-groveling (we don't know what people want, but if we can win something, that's validation enough), not to mention several graphic redesigns of the newspaper.

He also writes . . .

Isn't the news itself still valuable to anyone? In any format, through any medium -- isn't an understanding of the events of the day still a salable commodity? Or were we kidding ourselves? Was a newspaper a viable entity only so long as it had classifieds, comics and the latest sports scores?

Stuttering John Movie

2008-01-18T08:46:00.000-05:00

Things keep looking up for Stuttering John, a Long Island guy who started out as a college intern asking celebrities inappropriate questions on "The Howard Stern Show" before making the improbable leap to Ed McMahon's old seat on "The Tonight Show."

National Lampoon, Inc. (AMEX:NLN), the most widely recognized brand in comedy, announced today that it has acquired the worldwide rights to “One, Two, Many,” written by, produced, and starring “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno’s,” John Melendez. “National Lampoon Presents One, Two, Many” will receive a theatrical premiere on April 10, 2008.

“I’m a huge fan of National Lampoon,” said John Melendez. “Having my movie become part of this iconic comedy brand is a great honor. I’d be speechless, but as my wife would tell you, that’s impossible!”

After 15 seasons on Howard Stern’s radio show, John Melendez, known to Stern fans as “Stuttering John," is entering his fourth-season on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Besides being the show’s nightly announcer, Melendez is also involved in comedy sketches and correspondent pieces.

Full press release here . . .

John's website here . . .

I was a huge fan of "hero to the stupid" back in the day. I hope his movie is funnier than this:

American Gangsters Ain't So Sweet

2008-01-18T08:40:00.000-05:00

Caught a good article on "Editor and Publisher" about the bs embedded in "American Gangster."

"The picture is 1 percent reality and 99 percent Hollywood," (ex-federal judge) Johnson says. "Frank was illiterate, Frank was vicious, violent. Frank was everything Denzel Washington was not."

On Wednesday, several former Drug Enforcement Agents who investigated Lucas filed a class-action lawsuit against General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal claiming the film defames them and grossly misrepresents the truth. Produced by Brian Grazer and directed by Ridley Scott, the film has grossed more than $129 million at the box office and won largely positive reviews.

Read the whole shebang here . . .

Reporters Everywhere Watch The Wire

2008-01-16T08:41:00.000-05:00

Good story in The Washington Post saying blogs are abuzz with "Wire" talk.

I watched episode three last night, where staff members of The Sun were given the "we're going to do more with less" speech. It was cringe-inducing in its truthyness.

From The Post (Simon is co-creator David Simon, a former Sun reporter):

There's no feud so passionate as a newspaper feud. Plenty of reporters are "Wire"-heads, but this year as a bonus they can be outraged or entertained by Simon's take on their daily grind.

The newspaper part of the plot involves a reporter who just might be making stuff up. Cost cuts and shortcuts at the newspaper have parallels at the police department, and both institutions flounder in their efforts to portray and protect.

What sparked Simon's online blast about Carroll and Marimow was a post on Slate.com by Deputy Editor David Plotz, who sounds like a fan but who said he was "praying that [Simon's] fury at the Sun won't overwhelm his genius for storytelling."

As fast as the reviews have been coming in, Simon has been e-mailing responses, provoking counter-responses and commentary on the commentary on the commentary. Jim Romenesko's Poynter.org blog, journalism's online water cooler, ran the mock-exasperated headline: "Write about David Simon and you'll probably hear from him."

(Funny. My cruddy blog hasn't heard from him. Sigh.)

"Wire" creator David Simon also took a pot shot at the Internet by having the executive editor mention the electronic age (Simon's newsroom observations are about 10 years behind the curve).

Tom Cruise Scientology

2008-01-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

This video is getting a lot of attention. I know nothing about it, but I'm not so sure about the "we get people off drugs, we rehabilitate criminals" part.

UPDATE: Video pulled.

Cloverfield Review, START TO FINISH

2008-01-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

Why the Internet stinks, reason 1,001:

Dimwit from the Stern Fan Network gives away the entire "Cloverfield" film:

DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

MY CLOVERFIELD REVIEW

I'm not going to be vague in my review like the others have. Quite plainly: If you don't want spoilers, get out now. I was a member of a test panel that included four or five other people that didn't even know what the hell Cloverfield was. (Only one recognized JJ in the opening credits and asked "Is this the LOST movie?") I'm actually kind of upset I let myself be in on this panel, to tell you the truth. So much of this film demands to be seen in a theater with surround sound, the works.

The film opens with HUD adjusting his camera on what I guess is either a tripod or a desk. He explains that he's making a film for Robby who's leaving NY to go to Japan and be a part of Tagruato. He's wearing a Slusho shirt from the webstore. I didn't see any strange hidden things in his room, but I wasn't really focused on that kind of stuff. He says that Robby's gonna be a part of a Slusho presentation this afternoon and that everyone's gonna show up to lend him support. He says that they're gonna trick Robby into thinking this is his celebration/going away party but they really have a surprise party planned later that evening.

Fast forward to the Slusho presentation. Ganu Yoshida is present among a long panel of Japanese representatives. Robby is translating. Robby translates for Ganu that Robby is "part of a team of great, young minds that will lend their talents to making Slusho appealing to American sensibilities." (I'm paraphrasing, of course. I don't remember this speech verbatim.) A couple of reporters in the audience ask Robby about several 'controversies' surrounding Slusho and Tagruato and Robby looks to be caught off guard. He stammers trying to answer and Ganu doesn't offer an answer, or appear to be phased at all by the question. We hear HUD say *beep* under his breath. The reporter presists, asking Robby if he's aware that Tagruato has come under scrutiny for their "deep sea explorations" which many believe to be hazardous. Ganu still says nothing. Robby stammers some more and HUD goes "Come on, man." Robby finally speaks and says that Tagruato has many advisors on their board, and points to one guy, and asks the reporter if she's also heard the theory that competitors are drumming up these theories in order to damage the company. Ganu looks pleased, HUD says "Way to go!" and the camera cuts over to a display table.

PRESENT: HUD, ROBBY, MARLENA, HAWK, BETH.

Two Japanese women are handing out free Slusho. The scene opens with one of the cups nearly eclipsing the camera, as HUD drinks it. Marlena asks for more than one cup. Beth turns down the free Slusho that Robby offers her and he doesn't drink any either. They both seem to be eyeballing each other like something's wrong. Robby asks where Jamie and Lil are and HUD says they're working. (It's later revealed that Lil and Jamie are decorating the apartment for Robby's party and that's why they're not there) Robby then asks if Jamie is still with Teddy. Marlena takes a huge gulp of Slusho, rolls her eyes and says "unfortunately". Nothing else to note here. Except that the Slusho bots are present. They're mechanical and synchronized on a display to dance to the Slusho theme song. There are some TV monitors too which are playing Slusho commercials. (Different from the commercial on slusho.jp - less 'crazy' I guess, and completely animated. The only thing similar to the commercial on the net is that a duck explodes and several Slusho bots come out of it and start dancing.)

Cut to the party. Jamie's standing at HUD's side (probably why she isn't in the trailer) talking about how she can't believe that Teddy didn't come to the party. (subsequently, we never see Teddy in the movie) Marlena walks over and tells Jamie that she's isn't surprised, seeing as how he hasn't kept a date or even been the same person since he came back from his trip. Jamie tells her to stop lecturing her. We hear talking from behind the apartment door and Rob walks in. They yell surprise. A lot of footage from the teaser. HUD walks around to ask people what they wanna say to Rob before he leaves. A lot of the teaser was used, and a lot more is new. Jamie officially becomes annoying. All she does is rattle off about her 'hotness' and blah blah blah. Then she says something about Teddy and HUD shifts the camera away but we can still hear Jamie droning on and on. Everyone's dancing to Wolfmother ("Woman" has been replaced with "Joker and the Thief"). The rumble from the teaser comes after the lyric "as she's standing in a field of clover." (This was the one 'hidden' thing I paid attention to because I love the song) Something flies past the apartment window which prompts everyone to head to the roof. Same "fireball" scene from both trailers. Everyone runs back into the apartment and turns on NY1. Same newscast from the teaser except there's more of it. Jamie won't shut up about wondering if Teddy is OK. Marlena actually turns to her and tells her to shut the *beep* up. Big positive reaction from the test panel.

Another rumble comes from the roof and everyone runs out of the apartment. Jamie tries to reach Teddy on her cellphone. She can't get him so she goes to a Taxi and the camera shifts away from her. Rob wants to know where Beth went. Marlena, Lil and Rob look around from her but can't find her. The statue of liberty head comes down the street, smashing into the Taxi Jamie just got into. Jamie's dead. I don't think I've ever been this happy to see a movie character die.

More and more people come running in from other parts of the city. Police officers arrive to bring everyone to a 'safe place' in the city and ambulences arrive to take away the injured. Long shot of Jamie being taken out of the cab, with something made of metal sticking through her abdomen. We suddenly hear coughing and the camera pans back in the other direction and people are emerging through a cloud of asbestos, very reminiscent of 9/11. One of the police officers orders more medics immediately. HUD turns to Rob and says "Maybe it's over?" Hawk walks over and says "Don't count on it" and points to signal that the national guard has just come in. The camera walks over to them as the last of the "Slusho 7" try to communicate with them. They're ignored. Marlena persists in questioning them. One turns to her angrily and says "Get the *beep* out of the city, go with them" and points to the police officers. They walk over and Marlena is bitching about the guy's attitude. Something hits a building and we see the monster's face through the asbestos when HUD turns around.

OK. About the monster. It's not Cthulu, it's not a Minotaur, it's not a dinosaur. It's way bigger than any of them. The face is scaly, and looks somewhat human and has red eyes. Completely red. Now comes the national guard firing at it from the trailer. HUD continues to shoot, but the rest of the characters are pulling him away. They get into a police van and Rob asks the officer whether or not a "girl named Beth" has been detained. The police officer says he's not worried about collecting names right now, just getting individuals out of the city. HUD assures Rob that Beth is OK but Rob only tells him to "get that *beep* camera off of me." Marlena is grabbing her stomach. Lil asks what's wrong and Marlena says "It's probably just that *beep* IBS. Every time I'm under a lot of stress, I have to *beep* Hawk mutters "lovely" and all of them laugh, except Rob who's looking out of the windows at people as they pass them by, trying to spot Beth, but he doesn't.

They turn down a street and hear another roar, and catch another glimpse of the monster, and drive in the opposite direction. HUD never seems to be able to turn in time to get a clear shot of it, and we only see its leg stepping on something. They make it to a detainment center where people are being treated for inhaling asbestos and other injuries. A medic walks over and asks if any of them sustained any injuries. Lil says Marlena isn't feeling well. Marlena says "Jesus Lil, I have IBS, do you have to make me announce it to everyone!?" The medic says he wants to observe Marlena anyway. Rob says he has to get to a phone. A medic escorts him and HUD over to one. HUD stands close enough to Rob to hear Beth crying when Rob finally reaches her cellphone. Scene from the trailer. Rob explains to the medic that Beth is trapped under some metal in the city. He proclaims that he's going to find her. Everyone protests. Hawk says "Rob, you've seen what's out there..." and Rob says "I don't care what's out there! Listen to me, she's dying." An officer overhears them talking and says he's not letting anyone out of the detainment center. Rob says "What are you going to do, arrest me? With all of this going on?" The officer says he can't physically arrest him. Rob says "Then I'm going." Marlena runs over, apparently hearing the officer and Rob yell back and forth. Marlena tells Rob he isn't going anywhere and Rob says he is, and whoever doesn't want to is free to stay. HUD and Hawk both tell them they'll go with him. Lil says she will too. The officer says he's going to tag along to make sure they aren't in harm's way. They head for the door. Marlena trails behind, asking what's exactly out there. Officer says "We haven't been able to get a clear look at it... but whatever it is, it's winning." They get outside and Marlena asks "So where's Beth anyway?" Rob says "near the apartment." Marlena yells and says "YOU CAN NOT GO BACK INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!"

From here, the movie goes into regular suspense mode. More carnage is happening, more unclear glimpses of 'Mr. Grumpypants', yadda yadda. Marlena seems to be getting sicker. At one point she collapses. When she does, we can hear "ROBBY! ROBBY!" coming from nearby. They dig out Beth and head back to the detainment center. Beth is injured, with deep gashes on one of her arms. The officer calls in to lt them know another body has been found but as soon as he does, a car smashes right into him from the sky in what's one of the most brutal kills in a movie I've ever seen. They all look up. The Time Warner building is completely demolished and another roar is heard in the distance. They start walking back to the detainment center and hear strange fluttering noises. They see something, but this time HUD doesn't turn around. They all just run. Marlena says she can't run anymore after a while. Hawk and Lil grab on to her and Marlena drags her feet behind them. They finally get back to the detainment center. Marlena's vomitting and crying blood, hunched over, and we can vaguely see some movement in her stomach. The hazmat guys drag her away quickly. Rob and Beth get a moment to hug and HUD asks Lil what she and Marlena saw behind them. Lil shakes her head and we can hear screaming. HUD pans over to the tarp/curtain Marlena is behind. As he does, we can hear a police report over a walky talky saying "IT'S IN TIMES SQUARE, TIMES SQUARE! GO NOW!" and enforcement runs past HUD who now sees Marlena expanding. She pops and whatever's left of her body falls to the floor. As soon as it does, something rises up and attacks one of the hazmat guys, chewing completely through his neck. The other officers shoots at whatever this 'thing' is and it just jumps from the other officer's body on to his. The remaining "Slusho 7" high tail it. Marlena is dead.

More running, more unclear shots of the monster. They go through the subway in an attempt to flee the city. Something in the subway explodes and knocks HUD down. Rob goes over to pick him back up. HUD is okay, but winded and disorientated. They try to break in to one of the trains and do, but the explosion must have rendered it useless. They exit the subway the opposite side they came in and run right into where the monster is currently wreaking havoc. They run into a convenient store. Scene from the trailer. They're all discussing exit strategies. Rob says "I parked my car down the block... we'll go find my car." "Rob, I've seen it... Rob, it's a loss." Yes, the line is "it's a loss" not "it's alive". Store windows explode and they all try to find a back way to get out of. As they do, a seriously loud crash can be heard. The monster is down and out. They stop to look and HUD zooms in on its face. Scaly, vaguely human, emotionless, large penetrating red eyes. Rob grabs HUD and says "we're leaving." "Where?" Hud asks. "Back to the apartment." HUD says "Good, I hope your bathroom is still there." Everyone looks at each other nervously. They ask HUD a bunch of times if he's OK. He says "Dude, I had Wichcraft and Slusho today. Can you imagine what that does to your stomach? If I explode, the only thing coming out of me is Slushbots." No one seems to find it funny.

They get back to the apartment which is completely demolished. Windows, everything. Lil and Hawk walk around trying to call other people from the party. No one answers. Lil breaks down and says she can't believe two of her best friends have died in one day. "At least that thing is dead," Hawk says and holds her. HUD makes a break for the bathroom and we follow him in. He takes a *beep* shooting himself in the bathroom mirror. He's laughing over the fact that he's in the bathroom taking a video of himself *beep* From underneath the lens we can see blood trickling down. HUD pulls the camera away, refocuses it and see blood dripping from his eye. HUD gets up, pulls up his pants and goes into where the living room used to be. They're huddled around someone from the party who was trapped in the apartment. (she looks a lot like Marlena but isn't) She's crying blood like Marlena. They look over and see HUD crying blood as well. HUD's fading fast and Rob and Beth run over to him. The camera goes down to HUD's feet and splashes of blood are smattering on the floor. The camera comes back up, and the woman from the party is expanding. Lil and Hawk get up to run but only Lil makes it away. The woman pops. Small monsters that look reptilian jump out and attack Hawk. HUD starts to expand now. Rob and Beth run for one closet while Lil runs for another. Hawk and HUD are dead, but not before Rob can grab HUD's cam.

Beth and Rob hold the door back to keep the smaller monsters out. Rob's wrist gets bitten and he shuts the door on the tiny monster's head which decapitates it. A gun shot comes from outside, the door stops banging. Rob and Beth come out and Lil says she took the gun from the dead officer. We hear a cop yelling from outside, who apparently heard the gunshots. He tells them to evacuate now. They comply and ask the cop if the monster's dead. "I haven't heard anything," he says. Rob, still with the camera, says "That's a good thing right?" The cop shrugs. "Just means either it's dead or they are." Rob says he saw it lying there dead. The cop doesn't answer. He says they're getting in a hellicopter. They're transporting as many survivors out of the city as possible. "How many are alive?" Beth asks. The cop says not many are.

Hellicopter scene. Despite their protests, Lil and Rob are loaded into a different hellicopter than Beth. Beth looks out at Rob as the plane takes off. Rob's in the copter, no one wants to look at the camera. All of a sudden we hear a big familiar roar. Monster's back. He swatted the copter with enough force to send it spiraling. Lil falls out of the copter. Lil is dead. The pilot gains control as the copter is about to land on the bridge. Rob and a few survivors run out, but the monster grabs the copter, which still has the pilot in it, between his teeth. First real clear shot of the monster. It looks possessed, angry, *beep* crazy. Its teeth look like machetes and its eyes are now a darker red than before.

The other copter comes back and Beth runs over to Rob, grabbing him and bringing him to the other copter which is quickly grabbing the survivors. Before they can run over to them, the bridge is being snapped in half. They run in the opposite direction. Time lapses. They run into central park and hide. They don't profess their love for each other or anything corny. They hug and Rob can see that the camera's batter is getting low. He grabs it before it does and starts his "My name is Robert Hawkins" jargon. "Everyone's dead," he says. He pans the camera over to Beth, then back to himself and says "As far as I can see, we're the only ones who have survived. But if you found this..." Beth takes the camera away from Rob and sets it down. A few moments of Beth nursing Rob's injuries. Suddenly they can hear the monster approaching them, shaking the ground, yadda yadda. It gets closer and Beth screams. Rob embraces her. The camera's battery dies. End of movie.

MY GRADE: 8 out of a possible 10 Slusho's. The movie was *beep* great, lived up to the hype and a sequel is very doable.

Brad Renfro Dead At 25

2008-01-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

Wow.

Brad Renfro, a young guy once thought to be the heir apparent to Marlon Brando/DeNiro/Sean Penn, is dead.

According to the coroner’s office, a Brad Barron Renfro, with the same date of birth as the actor, died today. They have no cause of death yet; the investigation is pending.

His body was found in his Los Angeles home early Tuesday, his lawyer Richard Kaplan said.

Renfro was a kid when he received rave reviews in "The Client," an otherwise crappy movie.

Ebert said of "The Client:"

They are original and genuinely interesting, and the roles have been cast well. Brad Renfro is a movie newcomer who seems to be a natural actor. He's from Knoxville, Tenn., inexperienced except for school productions, but he has an unforced conviction and a lot of backbone and provides a strong center for the film.

Critics called him a natural actor, pointing to his work in "Sleepers," where he held his own in a cast that included Robert DeNiro, Jason Patric, Kevin Bacon and Brad Pitt.

From the 1996 Rolling Stone review:

The film's concern is for the abused boys, superbly played by Brad Renfro as Michael, Joe Perrino as Shakes, Geoffrey Wigdor as John and Jonathan Tucker as Tommy, who rightly dominate the film's first hour.

At about age 14, Renfro co-starred with Ian McKellen in "Apt Pupil," a movie where two the two performances were far better than than the actual movie.

From the NY Times 1998 review:

Mr. McKellen works all of his considerable wiles as a man who keeps his monstrousness under wraps. And if Mr. Renfro (''The Client,'' ''Sleepers'') can't match his complexity, he can put a diabolically wholesome face on Todd's budding viciousness. Both actors play their roles so trickily that tensions escalate until the horror grows unimaginatively gothic. By the time somebody is wielding a shovel as a murder weapon in the basement and there's an exclamation of ''Now we'll see what you're made of!,'' the story's cleverness is noticeably on the wane.

Bacon re-teamed with Renfro for the critically acclaimed independent flick "Telling Lies in America."

Somewhere along the line Renfro developed a nasty drug habit and found himself in trouble starting at roughly age 18.

Actor Brad Renfro was arrested by Florida cops in August 2000 and charged with grand theft after he and a buddy tried to boost a yacht from a Ft. Lauderdale dock. Renfro, who was 18 at the time of his bust, pleaded out and was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay the yacht’s owner $4000 in damages.

From IMDB.com:

Sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay more than $4,000 for repairs on a yacht he tried to steal in Fort Lauderdale. [5 January 2001]

While on probation in Florida, arrested May 16, 2001 for underage drinking as car was pulled over. Released from jail after $500 bond posted. [May 2001]

January, 2002 - Knoxville, Tennessee Brad was arrested and charged with public intoxication and driving without a license. He was stopped after a traffic violation near his house.

Ordered back to jail for remainder of probation by Florida judge due to his drunk driving arrest in January. [February 2002]

On December 23, 2005 he was arrested, together with 14 other suspects, during a random drug sting operation in downtown Los Angeles while allegedly trying to buy heroin.

Was arrested for allegedly trying to buy heroin from an undercover police officer in the skid row section downtown Los Angeles on December 22, 2005.

Had not acted for a year at the time of his arrest for attempting to buy heroin.

Renfro always seemed to be just on the verge of a comeback, with decent work in indie flicks such as "Ghost World" and "Bully."

Sad, huh?

Update from a post on the "Stern Fan Network:"

too bad every 25 year old soldier that gets killed in Iraq doesn't get this much publicity

Exactly.

Guy Who Co-Wrote Pulp Fiction Arrested

2008-01-15T08:08:00.000-05:00

Roger Avary, Hollywood's version of the fifth Beatle, was charged with drunk driving in connection to a crash that killed a passenger and sent his wife to the hospital.

Glen sent me this link, which references an LA Times story.

Avary won an Academy Award for co-writing "Pulp Fiction" with his pal Quentin Tarantino, but the two had a falling out, because Tarantino allegedly downplayed Avary's contributions (he supposedly made uncredited contributions to both "True Romance" and "Reservoir Dogs").

According to the LA Times:

Roger Avary, 42, was driving at 12:54 a.m. when the accident occurred outside the Ojai Lumber Co. building at 1900 E. Ojai Ave., said Capt. Monica McGrath of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Avary's wife, Gretchen, 40, was ejected from the back seat and was taken to Ojai Valley Community Hospital with serious injuries, McGrath said.

Another passenger, Andreas Zedini, 34, of Italy, died at Ventura County Medical Center after county firefighters had to extricate him from the vehicle, McGrath said.

Avary was arrested on suspicion of felony driving under the influence and was booked briefly into Ventura County Jail before he posted $50,000 bail, McGrath said.

Avary had most recently served as co-writer and executive producer of the movie "Beowulf."

The Wire Gets The Details Right

2008-01-13T10:58:00.000-05:00

I love HBO OnDemand for putting on episodes of "The Wire" a week early. I watched this Sunday's episode a few days ago and paid particular attention to the subplot involving The Baltimore Sun.

Does "The Wire" get the newsroom right?

Well, in my experience, the editors are a little too colorful compared to the real-life folks.

All in all, though, "The Wire" is getting some newspaper on-the-job truths out there.

Examples:

1. Man on the street:
In Episode 2, a reporter goes to Camden Yards to find a life-long Orioles fan. Finding a sane person with a good story takes forever. He asks lots of people, some of whom treat him like a telemarketer.

This is a variation on a basic, "man-on-the-street reaction" story. This is an assignment every reporter hates and "The Wire" shows why. I've never seen this portrayed on screen. It was cool to see.
On a side not, I prefer gas stations as the perfect spot for man-on-the-street interviews, as opposed to post offices or sidewalks outside shopping malls. People don't mind talking while filling up gas tanks.

2. Night Terror
There's a scene in the second episode where an editor wakes up in a cold sweat thinking he screwed up the numbers in a reporter's story.
Growing up and through college, you always hear about the daily pressure of working in newspapers. You think the stress comes from filing stories and hitting your deadline each day.
Then, when you start working in newspapers, you learn the pressure comes after the story is filed and before it appears in print -- when you start doubting a paragraph or thinking you got something wrong.
Anyway, the editor in "The Wire" (I think his name is Augustus) calls the newsroom and double checks with a night editor. The night editor is unusually jolly and quick-witted and essentially tells him "everything's Ok boss."
In my experience, people who work the night shift at daily newspapers aren't jolly. They're like this.
There's a sort of build-in antagonism between reporters and copy editors, because a copy editor is looking for holes (or, in some cases to punch holes) in your story.
In reality, the night editor in "The Wire" would have told the day editor "Your numbers are correct," then bad mouthed him all over the newsroom as soon as he hung up the phone.

3. Cops Look Through You
My favorite scene in episode two was about 5 seconds long.
A reporter is standing outside a crime scene, right on the yellow tape. Two detectives arrive and approach the scene. "Can I get a word?" the reporter asks.
Now, most movies and television shows would have the detective chat with the reporter for a moment, as is the two were long-time comrades.
In "The Wire," the cop doesn't even make eye contact with the reporter and keeps on walking.
This happens every day, all the time. I laughed out loud when I saw it.

4. Ego Maniacs and One Guy Who Knows Everything
"The Wire" features a boss editor who wants to win awards and loves to talk about "narratives."
This is true in some newsrooms.
The hero of "The Wire" newsroom is Augustus, a mid-level editor who shapes many stories in the newsroom, but fights with the people actually in charge.
Here's a scene from episode 1. BE WARNED: He throws about two dozen f bombs.

For people who don't work in newspapers, you may be surprised that the editor-in-chief isn't the guy having daily contact with reporters. However, this is the case. At the small papers I've worked, the managing editor is actually the guy who has the most influence over the stories and reporters -- and often rules with an iron fist.
Despite his importance, the public usually has no clue who the guy is and can't find his name anywhere in the paper.

Jon Hein on The Wire

2008-01-09T23:11:00.000-05:00

Jon Hein, creator of JumpTheShark.com and a co-host of The Wrap Up Show on Sirius' Howard 100, has an incredible column on why "The Wire" is the best show on television.

Really good reading. . .

Maybe We Should Hate America

2008-01-09T22:48:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post reports that just 1.2 million people tuned into Sunday's premiere of "The Wire," the greatest show in the history of television.

Yet "National Treasure 2" rakes in millions at the box office.

Sigh . . .

Obama, You're No Wire Fan!

2008-01-08T08:12:00.000-05:00

Funny article/letter/I'm not sure what because I just woke up in Slate about Barak Obama's television viewing habits:

Speaking of Obama, did you know that The Wire is one of his favorite shows? But—and here's the kind of scoop that makes Slate the must-read that it is—according to my colleague Chris Beam, Obama actually missed last night's premiere. I know Obama's busy, but The Wire is The Wire! Doesn't the Manchester, N.H., Radisson have HBO?

Read the whole shebang here . . .

One Last Wire Season 5 Review

2008-01-06T08:47:00.000-05:00

From The NY Times . . .

The fifth and final season of “The Wire,” which begins Sunday night, sinks deep into the Simonian bog, adding a new strand of narrative — the city room of a failing newspaper — to the dealers, cops, addicts, teachers and city officials who collide, and sometimes collude, but mostly bump up helplessly against immutable barriers of corruption, inertia and economic decline.

This season, like all the others, ‘‘The Wire’’ taps into a cold, cold place with many losses and few gains, a sub-zero-sum game.

The show’s gloomy fatalism is echoed in the real-life fate of a series that this week picks up where it left off: The drug trade changes hands, but never stops, and ‘‘The Wire,’’ which is unquestionably one of the best and most original series on television in decades, has never received an Emmy Award in a universe where “Boston Legal” has five and “Desperate Housewives” has six.

Complete article.

I LOVE WRESTLING FANS

2008-01-05T15:15:00.000-05:00

I think the gentleman is addressing Terry Funk.

UPDATED: Here is an article where the crying guy from the clip explains his emotion. The thing is, I'm familiar with 99 percent of the names he drops, as I was a huge old-school wrestling fan growing up, until Tito Santana refused me an autograph at the Westchester County Center sometime between 1982 and 1987.

The Wire: Settling Score or Shedding Light?

2008-01-05T06:45:00.000-05:00

From The LA Times (sister paper of the Baltimore Sun -- and Hartford Courant), an article about whether this season's Wire is simply a "fantasy revenge" for series co-creator David Simon, who is an ex-reporter.

Some Sun staffers said they think this season of "The Wire" could actually help illuminate the stresses on print journalism. Since Tribune took over in 2000, the paper has lost about a quarter of its staff; its last three foreign bureaus shut down at the end of the year.

"Maybe it will do us some good to have our story told and help viewers understand the circumstances facing a lot of American newspapers today," said Steve Kiehl, who covers urban affairs.

Still, others said they're weary of Simon's gripes, noting that the paper has gone through much more difficult transitions since he's left. The newsroom tensions in the early 1990s now appear mild compared with the current upheaval.

"David is a very talented guy; I'm sure he's going to say things that are true," said veteran reporter Michael Hill. "But you'd just like to see him here confronting the financial realities we have. Those of us who stayed here, yes, maybe we agree with some of his analyses, but we still put out the paper. We get a little tired of hearing what a terrible rag we work for."

Read it all. . .

Even Morons Love The Wire

2008-01-05T00:06:00.001-05:00

Check it out, from the E! web site, or the E! Entertainment Television web site. . .

The Wire, The Wire, The Wire—don't you get sick of critics saying this HBO drama is the best thing since TV was invented? Do you find yourself thinking, If it's so good, why aren't more people watching?

We did.

That is, until we watched the entirety of the first four seasons (as well as the first episode of this final season five, which premieres Jan. 6 at 9 p.m.), and we can only conclude the following:

Yes, it's really that good.

It only took them five years to figure it out.

The Wire, Season 5, Episode 1

2008-01-01T07:14:00.000-05:00

"Weak-ass mayor of a broke-ass city."

Ah, HBO OnDemand posted the season premiere of "The Wire" on New Year's Eve, and I almost forgot to watch the ball drop -- that's how much the show sucks you in.

A hole in the school budget is wreaking havoc on the city's finances -- the police department is owed hundreds of hours of back pay. The Baltimore Sun has one mid-level editor who knows his stuff and has a histroy -- but the place is run by a guy who uses the "more is less" mantra.

Good first episode . . . ah, The Wire is back!

Read a review by the great David Bianculli here.

Another Wire Season 5 Review

2007-12-31T08:12:00.001-05:00

The TV critic at The Baltimore Sun -- where one of this season's subplots takes place -- gives season five a mixed review.

Time and again, momentum is lost as the story shifts to the newsroom. Part of the problem involves the way Simon populates the city room with several non-actors.

Two of the first Sun staffers that viewers will see are played by former Sun columnist Michael Olesker and former feature reporter Laura Lippman. They look like two people stuck in cement before the camera mercifully leaves them behind. (Lippman is Simon's wife.)

Ed Norris, the former Baltimore police commissioner who plays a homicide detective on the series, is not an actor either, of course. But he has a natural energy and raw anger that are in perfect sync with the dominant sensibility of the series.

Other former Sun staffers with speaking parts include Scott Shane, now with The New York Times, and William F. Zorzi, who is a writer on the series. Zorzi's role is much larger than his onscreen talent.

Beyond Simon casting on the friends-and-family plan, there are other - more serious - problems with the newspaper story arc.

The best thing about the narrative is that it stars Clark Johnson as Augustus "Gus" Haynes, a no-nonsense city editor. Johnson, who was superb in his understated depiction of Detective Meldrick Lewis on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, enlivens every scene in which he appears.

But Simon, who is so skilled in creating multifaceted characters elsewhere in the series, makes Haynes a one-dimensional figure without flaws. He is a repository of all things good when it comes to big-city newspapers - things that the series claims have been mostly lost in devotion to the bottom line by media corporations.

Almost everyone in the newsroom is a cardboard character - in part because Simon writes it like a morality play.

READ THE REVIEW . . .

Even The Wall Street Journal Loves The Wire

2007-12-30T10:42:00.000-05:00

Solid article in The Wall Street Journal looks at the fifth and final season of HBO's 'The Wire.'

The show's getting huge amounts of buzz, partly because HBO has had a series of post-'Sopranos' misfires and partly because enough obsessive fans have spread the word about the show.

What the show lacks in numbers -- last season averaged 1.6 million viewers per episode premiere, HBO says, compared with 8.9 million for "The Sopranos" at its height or, say, 30.7 million viewers for an "American Idol" season finale -- it makes up for in cachet. A favorite among the hip-hop world and the intelligentsia, "The Wire" doesn't have casual fans -- those who watch, watch obsessively.

Read the full WSJ article here.

Worst Movie Of 2008

2007-12-25T00:13:00.000-05:00

I know it's early . . . but "One Missed Call? ? ?"

Howard Stern And Imus

2007-12-23T16:56:00.000-05:00

I forgot about "Lloyd Lindsey Young."

Trippy!

2007-12-23T13:01:00.000-05:00

Click the link below.

Stare at the center of the screen for like 10 to 15 seconds.

Look at your hand.

THE LINK BELOW

Don Rickles

2007-12-23T08:20:00.000-05:00

First Three Minutes Of Sweeney Todd

2007-12-22T23:21:00.000-05:00

I can't say I'm much of a Tim Burton fan -- Goth just doesn't do it for me.
Nevertheless, "Sweeney Todd" is getting some darn good reviews.

The NY Times says:

It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s been a long time since a movie gave me nightmares. And the unsettling power of “Sweeney Todd” comes above all from its bracing refusal of any sentimental consolation, from Mr. Burton’s willingness to push the most dreadful implications of Mr. Sondheim’s story to their blackest conclusions.

Here are the opening credits, as posted in a SFN forum.

How Common Is Your Last Name?

2007-12-22T22:53:00.000-05:00

Really cool database on the NY Times website.

Type in your last name, find out if it was on the list of the 5,000 most common names in 2000 and see whether it has become more common or less common since 1990.

Access the database here.

I found the database through the Stern Fan Network.

Nine out of every 100,000 people have my last name. My rank has gone up 156 positions since 1990.

More Raves For Wire Season 5

2007-12-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

This one was in Variety.

Apparently the lastest "Wire" season hits the nail on the head tackling modern newspaper journalism.

Belt-tightening by faraway corporate owners is triggering layoffs and causing foreign bureaus to be shuttered, causing years of hard-won institutional knowledge to walk out the door. Clueless editors seem more obsessed with awards than news, blithely telling their overworked staff to "do more with less." Investigative reporting, meanwhile, is too time-consuming and expensive, creating openings for those ambitious enough to cut corners -- and perhaps worse -- to thrive, while grizzled veterans grumble about what it would be like to work at a "real newspaper."

Here's the link.

Fangoria Fire

2007-12-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

My buddy Brian Spears (just wrapped shooting on "I Sell The Dea") told me today that a warehouse holding all the back issues of Fangoria magazine burned to the ground.

Now I wish I hadn't cut out all those gore shots from "Luther the Geek" back in the day to hang on my walls -- guess they woulda been worth something.

Here's a story from a blog of some type:

Then earlier this week, the publisher suffered more bad news: A fire roared through an Oregon, Ill., warehouse destroying loads of Fangoria back issues in the process. The issues were used to fulfill mail and online orders. The flames, according to www.fangoria.com, also destroyed back issues of Starlog, Star Trek and all of the company's movie tie-in titles. This means that Fangoria will no longer be able to provide back-issue orders for any of the company's past titles.

If you need that Fangoria issue from December of 2005, then, I suppose you're out of luck.

The fire, by the way, was no small blaze. The blaze erupted after a forklift driver punctured a gas line located close to a space heater. According to Fangoria, more than 100 firefighters from 20 departments arrived to help douse the flames. Fortunately, none of the 20 Fangoria employees in the building were hurt.

I feel bad for good ol' Fango, which I'm assuming will lose the revenue stream coming from its back issues. . .

First Wire Season 5 Review

2007-12-20T11:54:00.000-05:00

From TV GUIDE:

In its fifth and final season, HBO's brilliant and bleak The Wire may have saved the best for last. Portraying the worst of times for Baltimore's civic institutions (including the local Baltimore Sun newspaper), this 10-episode arc is audaciously plotted, deeply and darkly ironic, stating its theme early on as a weary homicide detective declares, "The bigger the lie, the more they believe."

The twists the complex story takes are too delicious to spoil, but be assured that, as always with The Wire, a little patience is richly rewarded. Longtime fans will glimpse characters from past seasons, a reminder that life, however tough, goes on. Though unsparingly honest, The Wire clearly loves this town and its characters — including, this season, a wry city editor (Clark Johnson of Homicide: Life on the Street), who's the smartest guy in the newsroom, which naturally is why almost no one listens to him.

ARTICLE HERE

Sam Raimi To Direct A Bad Horror Movie!

2007-12-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

Sam Raimi has exec. produced many horror flicks under his GHOST HOUSE banner, but for the first time since he started that company up he's actually directing one called DRAG ME TO HELL, a supernatural horror flick he co-wrote with his brother, Ivan.

What's interesting is that this isn't a new project. They wrote it right after ARMY OF DARKNESS. At that point it was called THE CURSE. No real details have come out, but the trades have a blurb about it being about "an unwilling recipient of a supernatural curse."

So, totally good news... But I must say, one bit in the Variety story has me a little worried. There's a quote from long-time Raimi collaborator, Rob Tapert, who will produce this flick that goes like this: "Sam calls it a 'spook-a-blast,' a wild ride with all the chills and spills that 'Evil Dead' delivered, without relying on the excessive violence of that film."

From here, via him

Cloverfield Review

2007-12-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

This is why the Internet stinks.

Try reading this incomprehensible fanboy "review" of "Cloverfield," a new monster movie with a trailer that's become an Internet phenom.

I'll take Roger Ebert anyday.

Thanks for sending, Glen.

Imus Bashing

2007-12-20T08:57:00.000-05:00

The History of Howard Stern, a mega-special on Sirius radio looking back to the shock jock's career, turned its attention today to the WNBC/Imus era.

In addition to interviews with the usual suspects (Robin, Fred), the History of Howard Stern also has former WNBC employees commenting on . . . well, just what a jerk Imus is.

One behind-the-scenes staffer talked about how Imus kicked an 12-year-old girl out of his studio; then they played an old clip of Imus flipping out on the air and hurling racial slurs at Robin Quivers . . .

The first days of "The History of Howard Stern" touched upon his dog days in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. and at WCCC in Hartford.

Good stuff . . .

Stop Ignoring The Wire!

2007-12-18T07:58:00.000-05:00

"Fans of HBO's "The Wire" often have that same aggressive enthusiasm, which comes from years of knowing that most lovers of "quality TV" have never even seen one episode of the series. Is that why so many viewers -- and Emmy voters -- resist this show? Because their friends and their TV critics push it too hard?

Or maybe "The Wire" has not been a sensation, despite its brilliance, because it takes work to watch it? You do have to concentrate. Most plot turns aren't spelled out, as it takes on social systems with the broad scope of a modern Dickens. And you have to keep track of a sprawling cast of non-cliched, morally open-ended characters, characters we rarely see on TV except as flat villains on "Law & Order." The show expects us to be smart."

Whole thing-a-ma-jig available at Boston.com.

Evil Reader Comments

2007-12-17T08:31:00.000-05:00

Newspaper sites around the country are trying to figure out the best way to deal with bone-headed reader comments -- smaller papers don't have positions such as "interactivity editor," so it's even tougher for them.

There's a good story explaining the situation on Poynter.org.

The Good:

The presumption at more and more news sites is in favor of allowing users to respond to news stories.

"After coming to online from a print background, after seeing penetration decline," Straus said, "it's very heartening to me that when you're online, your audience engages with what you're producing. But certainly we want to make the level of discussion better."

The Bad:

The situation was different in Miami. On the Friday after Taylor's death, MiamiHerald.com was reporting that police were in Fort Myers interviewing suspects in the shooting. Meanwhile, users started to overwhelm the site's feedback areas with speculation about the race of the suspects.

"It was impossible to keep the commenting on the straight and narrow," Frank said, estimating that more than one in four comments had to be deleted.

He turned off the discussion on the Taylor story and left it off until the next morning. From then on, articles focusing on the suspects generally didn't allow user feedback, while articles about other aspects of the case did.

In a nutshell:
"The challenge, editors said, is how to preserve those positive comments and discourage the personal attacks and racist screeds."

For No Reason

2007-12-16T21:12:00.000-05:00

No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood

2007-12-16T17:26:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The crime tale "No Country for Old Men," the oil saga "There Will Be Blood" and the legal drama "Michael Clayton" were among critical favorites that landed on the American Film Institute's list of the year's 10 best movies.

Also on the AFI's list, released Sunday, were the jewel-heist story "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," the stroke-victim tale "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," the road drama "Into the Wild," the pregnancy comedies "Juno" and "Knocked Up," the animated rodent comedy "Ratatouille," and the sibling comic drama "The Savages."

Unlike other film honors, the institute does not rank films or pick one as the year's best. The filmmakers behind the top-10 choices will be honored at a luncheon Jan. 11.

Many of the films on the list picked up Golden Globe nominations last week and are expected to compete for Academy Awards. Nominations come out Jan. 22.

Among Globe best-drama nominees were "No Country for Old Men," Joel and Ethan Coen's Texas thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin; "There Will Be Blood," Paul Thomas Anderson's California oil-boom epic with Daniel Day-Lewis; and "Michael Clayton," Tony Gilroy's corporate-lawsuit drama starring George Clooney.

The AFI also released a top 10 list of TV shows and movies for 2007, featuring "Dexter," ''Everybody Hates Chris," ''Friday Night Lights," ''Longford," ''Mad Men," ''Pushing Daisies," ''The Sopranos," ''Tell Me You Love Me," ''30 Rock" and "Ugly Betty."

The top 10 lists were chosen by two 13-member panels, one each for movies and television. Members included actress Melissa Gilbert, filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan and critics Leonard Maltin, David Ansen and Richard Schickel.

———

On the Net:

http://www.afi.com

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Mistake In My Name Is Bruce Trailer?

2007-12-16T13:19:00.000-05:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this trailer says "Ted Raimi" and "Ted Raimi."

It's Sam Raimi.

Isn't Ted Raimi dead? Did I just miss the joke?

Movie looks kinda funny -- especially the clip of Bruce running away while shooting everyone.

UPDATE: I'm thinking of Ted Demme. Wow, all these years and I thought Ted Raimi was dead.

Five Minute Scene From Dark Knight (new Batman)

2007-12-16T12:36:00.000-05:00

I love and hate this marketing scheme where a full scene from an upcoming movie is released as a trailer.

I think it started with the Dawn of the Dead remake, when the tour de force opening scene was positioned as the trailer.

Here is a(n) (opening?) scene from Dark Knight, the sequel to whatever the Christian Bale Batman movie was called (Batman Returns?).

Anyway, the scene is incredible, but I wonder if the rest of the movie will be as good?

That certainly wasn't the case with the Dawn of the Dead remake.

Anyway, watch it before they pull it off YouTube (I saw it originally on the SternFanNetwork, by the way).

Good Wire Interview

2007-12-16T08:30:00.001-05:00

IGN has a quickie Q&A with David Simon about the last season of The Wire.

Q: Why did you focus on the media, and more specifically, newspapers, for the fifth season?

Simon: Newspapers, which for the duration of the American experiment have been the primary means of monitoring government and other imposed authority, are now being eviscerated nationwide. The people who once held us all to some basic account are being laid off, bought out and attrited from newsrooms. And newspaper managers - who have so much contempt for their own product that they give it away for free, misreading the internet as advertising for the product, when it was the product itself - they tell us they are going to do more with less. You do less with less, that's why they call it less.

It made sense to finish The Wire with this reflection on the state of the media, as all the other attendant problems of the American city depicted in the previous four seasons will not be solved until the depth and range of those problems is first acknowledged. And that won't happen without an intelligent, aggressive and well-funded press.

The Driscoll Brothers Rock!

2007-12-15T19:10:00.000-05:00

From Canada:

Cookstown Road fire brings out best in Driscolls
Fire breaks out in a rooming house in the inner-city, then . .

. . . there were some dramatic rescues done by the unlikeliest of characters- the Driscoll Brothers. They were visiting the small house next door when they smelled smoke, and went out to look.

Ralph Driscoll: "Eugene ran in and actually I ran after Eugene to try and haul him out actually cause I didn't want Eugene to die. I mean a lot of smoke and flames had blown out through there, back-draft I believe they call it."

But, that didn't stop them. Eugene got to a woman boarder first: "I tried to wake her up five times and she wouldn't wake up, but she had a jacket on so I said shag it and I had no other choice I had to pick her up and I couldn't even see a door only thing I found a door cause all the lights were going off and on here with the fire trucks, fire department right."

If the Driscoll name rings a bell, it should. Ralph is the guy who clocked a cop one night at the St. John's lock up. "I got a bad name," says Ralph, "a lot of people think cause you're in jail, you're a bad guy, you're this and you're that, but I just wanna show people out there in society that, listen, guys like us got a heart, right, know what I mean? We didn't have to save these guys lives."

The fire had singed his hand, but today Eugene Driscoll was more interested in redeeming their family's reputation: "I still got heart, man. I still got a great heart, if I never had a heart I woulda sit down and had a beer last night and let them burn. No, I would never do something like that cause my heart's too great for that."

Funny Picture

2007-12-15T10:24:00.000-05:00

From LAist.com:

See lots more . . .

"I'll Give You My T-Shirt Money"

2007-12-15T09:45:00.000-05:00

Ever hear the cliche about comics being miserable SOBs when they're not on stage?

Check out this clip backstage at a 'Killers of Comedy' show. Be warned -- stand-up comedian Bob Levy drops more f bombs than a Goodfellas screening.

The Man Who Shot Dimebag

2007-12-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

I know like two songs from Pantera, but the story about Dimebag Darrell getting killed on stage is the wackiest story ever.

Blender has a great article profiling the guy who shot him.

Back home in Marysville, Ohio, people knew Nathan Gale as a big, weird guy who couldn’t hold down a job and loved Pantera. no one paid much attention to him, until the night last December when he climbed onstage and shot “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott in the head.

No Led Zeppelin Tour

2007-12-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

Kinda stinks, but instead of hitting the road with Jimmy Page, elder-statesman Robert Plant is touring this spring with . . . Allison Krauss?

Story here . . .

I Get All Artsy And Miss The News

2007-12-10T20:27:00.000-05:00

So I shot some video for The News-Times on Friday.

It was about 4 p.m., just as it started to snow.

"The first real snow of the season," I thought to myself. "I've filed my stories for daily, I'll fill the last hour by adding some precious snow flake video to the website."

So I go out and shoot some stuff on Main Street in Danbury, along with some stuff on White and Crosby streets.

I had to cut it short because the camera was getting drenched -- and the camera is worth more than my car, and life, put together.

Then I went back to the newsroom -- about 4:30 p.m. -- and edited the clips together. Then I had to edit them the second time because of some kind of technical error.

Here's the end result, which received lots o' hits on the website.

In the meantime, while I was editing, every major road in Danbury had shut down. Would have been nice to see some real traffic congestion, no? Luckily, there was a reporter who handled all that news-type news related to the storm.

I followed up today with an interview with the Danbury Public Works director. Again, it would have been nice to have had shots of cars from Friday, but what can I say. Ya live and ya learn. Here's today's video:

I also wrote a story for print about a move underway to expand Newtown Road, a busy state road in Danbury. For the online enhancement, I talked to a store owner who has been on the road for 30 years. I thought that video came out Ok.

More Wire Season 5 Promos

2007-12-09T19:13:00.000-05:00

The first is an instant classic.

MARLO

CARCETTI

OMAR

BUBBLES

RIP Lonnie

2007-12-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

A fan who wrote a song for Howard Stern and Beth O. died just as the song was gaining popularity.

This is a video from a NBC affiliate, which includes footage from a concert where the guy from Styx sings the song as the deceased guy's family looks on.

For some reason the TV anchor at the end of the report includes a Web refer to Howard Stern's hair at the end of the report.

Swearengen Speaks

2007-12-09T08:59:00.000-05:00

There's an article in the NY Times today about Ian McShane, the great Swearengen from "Deadwood."

“Ian has something of his dad’s football player attitude in him, the professional athlete,” Mr. Milch said. “He’s dead game, and he’s no-nonsense and very tough-minded. He had so much to do in every episode, and he was often getting new scripts late,” but he never complained about it.

Mr. Milch said he originally envisioned Swearengen played by Ed O’Neill, perhaps best known as Al Bundy in “Married ...With Children,” but Mr. McShane’s audition led him to take the character in a different direction.

Mr. McShane, who played Swearengen for three seasons before “Deadwood” was shut down last year, said he came to be surprised by the character.

“There was humanity tempered by reality, and he was never sentimental,” he said.

Read the profile here.

Kevin Nealon On Weeds

2007-12-07T21:27:00.000-05:00

I've only recently discovered this really wonderful show . . .

Wire Copies Are Out There

2007-12-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

TV critics at papers all over the country received the first seven episodes of The Wire's fifth season Tuesday.

I am jealous.

Apparently David Simon isn't doing interviews because of the writer's strike.

WIRE SEASON FIVE PLOT LINES

2007-12-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Glen from Light & Dark for passing along this Wire item he spotted on 'Ain't It Cool News.'

HBO has apparently released plot descriptions of the first new episodes of the show. The following is from Ain't It Cool:

Episode #51: "More with Less"
Debut: SUNDAY, JAN. 6 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT)
Other HBO playdates: Jan. 6 (10:30 p.m.), 8 (midnight), 9 (midnight), 10 (10:00 p.m.) and 11 (8:00 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: Jan. 7 (10:00 p.m.), 10 (2:35 a.m.) and 14 (9:00 p.m.)
As McNulty (Dominic West) and the detail continue staking out Marlo's crew, recently promoted Sergeant Carver (Seth Gilliam) is welcomed by a cauldron of discontent from officers coping with unpaid overtime. Though he wants to keep his campaign promise to lower crime, Mayor Carcetti (Aidan Gillen) is strapped by his commitment to schools, and faces some tough choices. Col. Daniels (Lance Reddick) is forced to reallocate his resources, retaining Freamon (Clarke Peters) and Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson) for the Clay Davis (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) probe. Meanwhile, city editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes (Clark Johnson) and the staff of a local newspaper are reeling from corporate cutbacks, losing key personnel from both the metro and international divisions. Still, with the help of reporters Alma Gutierrez (Michelle Paress), Jeff Price (Todd Scofield) and Scott Templeton (Tom McCarthy), Haynes is able to break a front-page story that links a politician to a co-op drug dealer. Proposition Joe (Robert F. Chew), Marlo (Jamie Hector), Fatface Rick (Troj Marquis Strickland) and others meet in a hotel conference room to discuss divvying up drug frontiers across East Baltimore's county line.

Teleplay by David Simon; story by David Simon & Ed Burns; directed by Joe Chappelle.

Episode #52: "Unconfirmed Reports"
Debut: SUNDAY, JAN. 13 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: Jan. 13 (10:30 p.m.), 15 (11:30 p.m.), 16 (midnight), 17 (10:00 p.m.) and 18 (8:00 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: Jan. 14 (10:00 p.m.), 17 (2:00 a.m.) and 21 (9:00 p.m.)
Although he tells Sydnor that the Davis investigation could be a "career case," Freamon keeps a wary eye out for Marlo, who takes care of some unfinished business and strikes a business deal with Barksdale (Wood Harris). Carcetti throws the police a bone by removing the cap on secondary employment, sending the detectives into fantasy-job reveries. With an eye on the state house, Mayor Carcetti's chief of staff, Michael Steintorf (Neal Huff), tries to find good news for the mayor while blaming the Royce administration for the Campbell revelation. Davis turns to Burrell (Frankie Faison) for help with his problem, but the commissioner's hands are tied. At the newspaper, executive editor James Whiting (Sam Freed) outlines a Pulitzer-worthy series in broad strokes, trumping Haynes while liberating the ambitious Templeton. Fed up with broken-down cars and unsolved serial murders, McNulty decides to take matters into his own hands.

Teleplay by William F. Zorzi; story by David Simon & William F. Zorzi; directed by Ernest Dickerson.

Episode #53: "Not for Attribution"
Debut: SUNDAY, JAN. 20 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: Jan. 20 (10:30 p.m.), 22 (11:00 p.m.), 23 (midnight), 24 (10:00 p.m.) and 25 (8:00 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: Jan. 21 (10:00 p.m.), 24 (1:45 a.m.) and 28 (9:00 p.m.)
Carcetti's master plan for the police department is leaked to the press, sending the brass into a panic. Marlo turns to Proposition Joe to help with an enviable problem. Whiting and managing editor Thomas Klebanow (David Costabile) drop a bombshell on the newspaper staff. Michael (Tristan Wilds) finds temporary respite from his life on the corner by taking Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) and Bug (Keenon Brice) on a trip. McNulty shares some inside info with Gutierrez, but her subsequent story doesn't cause the splash either envisioned. Undaunted, McNulty looks for a new ally in Freamon.

Teleplay by William F. Zorzi; story by David Simon & William F. Zorzi; directed by Ernest Dickerson.

Episode #54: "Transitions"
Debut: SUNDAY, JAN. 27 (9:00-10:00 p.m.)
Other HBO playdates: Jan. 27 (10:30 p.m.), 29 (12:30 a.m.), 30 (12:30 a.m.) and 31 (10:00 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: Jan. 28 (10:00 p.m.) and 31 (3:10 a.m.)
Campbell (Marlyne Afflack) tries to smooth out the transitions in the police department. The newspaper scramsbles to confirm surprising news from City Hall, but lose out to the TV media in scooping a high-profile grand jury appearance. As Marlo tries to win favor with the Greeks, Proposition Joe pays his last respects to a fallen colleague, and prepares to make himself scarce in anticipation of a showdown. Freamon enlists the help of a past partner to help with the investigation.

Teleplay by Ed Burns; story by David Simon & Ed Burns; directed by Dan Attias.

Chevy Chase, Howard Stern Bury The Hatchet

2007-12-06T08:17:00.000-05:00

Chris Serico, the Lower -- or, heck Upper or Mid -- Hudson Valley's best blogger, had a cool interview with Chevy Chase recently.

He posted excerpts on a Suburbarazzi blog he contributes to for The Journal News website over in Westchester County, N.Y.

Serico asks Chase about his once-heated (very heated) fued with Howard Stern. Stern famously called Chase's house and harassed the hired help.

I saw Howard this summer and, you know, those kinds of things, they die down. I think he felt bad about what he’d done. And he likes me and he likes Jayni and he’s a likable guy, and it went our way. And it was a great help to have him do that. He has so many listeners, you know. And initially it wasn’t such a great help when he did what he did to us, because we don’t have any listeners. [Laughs.] It was kind of like beating a dead horse after a while.

He sort of started to lay off I think when I called him a few years back. I said, “Look, I can’t go to a Knicks game, I can’t go to a Yankee game with my daughters, because people yell out thing like, ‘Hey, no wonder Howard Stern says you’re a pr***,’ or just stuff that’s just hideous.”

So, I called and talked to his producer (Gary Dell’Abate) and said, ‘Look, do me a favor, tell Howard what’s happening and about how it’s affecting my family,’ and Howard got on the air apparently and said, ‘Look, this is business and it’s not anything to do with a personal issue. Leave him alone.’ And I thought that was a nice gesture back then.

Serico knows his 'SNL' background, because he also mentions the backstage fist fight between Chase and Bill Murray. I think it's mentioned in the Tom Shales "SNL" book that came out a few years ago.

Oh, by the way, my copy of that "SNL" book was stolen from my desk when I worked at a weekly paper also published by The Journal News -- I wonder if I should consider Serico a suspect?

Hmm . . .

Wire Short Prequels

2007-12-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Hollywood Reporter said yesterday "The Wire" is releasing a few short films (probably three to five minutes) looking a the background of three characters:

Two of the shorts are devoted to the characters Prop Joe and Omar, depicting them as children who show flashes of their adult personality traits. A third short features William "Bunk" Moreland (Wendell Pierce) and Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) in McNulty's first day on the job.

Simon produced the shorts at the same time he worked on the series finale, though they don't have any specific relevance to this season's story lines.

HBO did the same thing for "Big Love," and they were mildly entertaining.

McNulty's Prominent In New Season of The Wire

2007-12-04T23:04:00.000-05:00

According to Zap2It.com, McNulty seems to be the main focus of the latest -- and last -- season of "The Wire."

After spending much of season four as a supporting character, Dominic West's Jimmy McNulty will be front and center once again this season (West also directed an episode). The season opens with he and the rest of the special detail continuing to stake out drug dealer Marlo (Jamie Hector), while Col. Daniels (Lance Reddick) re-assigns Freamon (Clarke Peters) and Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson) to the investigation of state Sen. Clay Davis (Isiah Whitlock).

Meanwhile, the city editor of the Sun (Clark Johnson, who also directs on the series) works with a team of reporters to break a story linking a politician to one of the co-op's dealers. In addition to Johnson, new regulars this season include Tom McCarthy ("Boston Public," "Flags of Our Fathers") and Michelle Paress, along with Neal Huff and Michael Kostroff, both of whom had recurring parts on the show in the past.

As it did last season, HBO will make "The Wire" available on demand six days before each episode's on-air debut. The season premiere will go up on HBO On Demand on Monday, Jan. 31.