Trailer Watch: Major Movie Star

The trailer for Jessica Simpson's newest cinematic effort "Major Movie Star" hit the interwebs today. I liveblog this masterpiece below

Major_Movie_Star-Trailer
Uploaded by aszle

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00:00:20 - Steve motherfuckin Guttenberg!!!!

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00:00:55 - Is that Vivica Fox? It is! This must be the definition of rock bottom.

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00:01:12 - Vivica needs a breath mint...and a new agent.

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00:01:40 - Simpson's screaming caused my brain to liquefy and shoot out of my ears. I'm pretty sure they are going to find me face down on my desk in a pool of my own blood. omit flowers.

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00:01:51 - Vivica: "I think I just threw up in my mouth"...me too.

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00:01:55 - More Guttenberg!!!!!!!!!

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00:02:18 - fin

I feel like I need a shower now.

Just a Thought...

...If there is a prolonged writers strike, who is going to write all the awards shows? Do they even have an Oscar broadcast? If they do, it will be interesting to watch these people come up with their own cute little quips and one-liners. Just like watching a trainwreck is interesting.

I can't believe I'm about to say this but...America would miss Bruce Vilanch.

Apparently the picketing was over at Time Warner yesterday which is not where I was. I apparently missed a pretty good turnout, including a ton of a-list actors showing up for support.

Today the focus of the picketing, both on the east and west coasts, was all at Fox/News Corp.

FYI...Next week's Office was the last finished episode before they shut down for the strike. Same goes for Family Guy. That mean if the strike continues past next week you can kiss new episodes of each goodbye. Word is the episode of the Office that was about to be filmed before shutting down was one of the funniest yet. I don't know if they are just messing with us by saying things like that, but the plot of the episode is Michael & Jan have Jim & Pam over for dinner. How can that not be funny?

Thursday Afternoon Randomness

- There is yet another recall of a toy made in China. This time around it's Aqua Dots, a popular toy used in arts & crafts projects. Aqua Dots are small, sticky, colorful plastic dots that can be arranged into different designs and fused together by spraying with water. Aqua Dots look and feel like little colorful candies, if ingested (and here is where the recall comes in) the glue covering the dots metabolize into the powerful DATE RAPE DRUG GHB. So basically, little kids are playing with a toy that looks like candy, they inevitably put the sticky candy looking thing in their mouth, and they are ruffied worse than a sorority girl on a Saturday night. Lead in paint is one thing, but toys that turn into date rape drugs? Come on, how do you let that happen? Who is your Quality Control guy, Creed Bratton?

Anyone going to the Aqua Dots party at the Delta House this weekend?

- Do you ever listen to your mp3 player on shuffle and come across music you didn't load onto the player? I'm not just talking about a song you forgot about, but a song you would never in a million years download. I seriously think my mp3 has become self aware...and it hates me. How else do you explain Tori Amos and DeBarge's "Rhythm of the Night" ending up on there?

- I walked over to NBC today to snap some shots of the WGA protesters and show my support, but they were nowhere to be found. Bummer. I'll try again tomorrow.

- Some of the strike captains started an "official" blog of the strike...United Hollywood.








- Ebony & Irony?










I will leave you with the trailer for There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's first movie since Punch Drunk Love. I don't know much about it other than that it is starring Daniel Day Lewis...that's enough for me, I'm sold.

Hey Hey, Hey Ho, I Saw This Episode Two Years Ago!

Well it happened. At midnight yesterday the WGA went on strike. Starting yesterday morning writers picketed in shifts outside of studios in both NYC and LA.

The writers are going to have plenty of time on their hands now, maybe they should consider using that time creatively and coming up with something a little more clever than "On Strike" for their signs.

The first casualty of the strike are shows that depend on a team of writers to create material daily based on current events including The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report. Networks have announced that new episodes for these shows will not air for at least a week; repeats will air in their place.

Some shows like Cashmere Mafia, that were meant to be mid-season replacements, may or have been shelved for the time being just in case they are needed down the road to replace existing shows that run out of new episodes. Other shows like Lost or Entourage may not have enough scripts to finish a full season; Lost in particular may shorten its season to 8 episodes. Some shows, the Heroes spin-off for instance, have been canceled altogether.

Stars have also hit the picket lines as a show of support. Julia Louise-Dreyfus was on a picket line in the shadow of a billboard for her show The New Adventure of Old Christine. Amy Poehler was outside of NBC supporting SNL writers and Tina Fey, who writes and stars in 30 Rock, joined the shows writers as well. The Office star Steve Carell, who has a writing background, refused to cross picket lines and go to work yesterday. Jay Leno pulled up to the protestors outside of his Burbank studio on a motorcycle and handed out boxes of Krispy Kreme Donuts.

As the strike goes on more shows will go into repeats and we will see an influx of news shows (whose writers are part of a different union) and reality shows. Eventually they are going to run out of ideas for shows so I have decided to take advantage of this and pitch the following reality shows to the networks:

The Pimp hosted by James Lipton - James Lipton takes 12 dorky guys and turns them into pimps. The winner will get a pimped out green and gold (green for the money, gold for the honey) Cadillac Coup de Ville and his very own Ho train.

My Kakamayme Bat Mitzvah - spin-off of My Super Sweet 16, we follow a jappy Jewish 12 year old as she plans her Bat Mitzvah. These girls drive their parents crazy trying to have like the biggest Bat Mitzvah like ever. The first episode we will watch Shira as she plans her "The Devil Wears Prada" themed party. Marvel as Shira throws a temper tantrum because daddy bought her a silver BMW and not the pink one she wanted (keep in mind she is only 13).

The Real Housewives of Camden NJ - You've seen the Real Housewives of Orange County, now see how the other side lives. We go inside the most dangerous city in the country and follow the housewives as they live their day to day lives. In the first episode we see the housewives sit around gettin their hair did and talking shit about their baby daddies.

White Noise hosted by Rosie O'Donnell - Rosie O'Donnell talks about whatever she wants...the show won't actually be called White Noise, that's just the sound you will hear as blood shoots out your eyes and ears as you watch Rosie.

Rape Island with David Copperfield - No explanation necessary. The show sells itself!

Yeah, But I Can Still HEAR You Costas!

NBC kicked off its "Green Week" last night by turning off the studio lights at the tail end of the Football Night in America Broadcast and broadcast the remainder of the show, the halftime show, and post-game show by candle light.

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” officially will become a “green” show this weekend, as it kicks off an initiative that will see the broadcaster televise 150 hours of environmentally-themed content this week across its broadcast and cable networks, online sites and mobile platforms. … Green week will start one hour into “Football Night in America,” at 8:00pm ET. That’s when studio host Bob Costas will explain the initiative. … About 90 seconds before the end of the pre-game show, NBC literally plans to turn the lights out, having the pregame crew finish the show in the dark. The studio lights will stay off through the halftime and post-game shows.

During the halftime show Costa's claimed that the energy saved doing the "dark" show could power an average household for one year.

While other networks have begun to jump on the "green" bandwagon, NBC really seems to be the first network to fully embrace the green movement (even their website has "gone green") which is not surprising considering their unabashed love affair of all things liberal and Democrat.

I applaud NBC for their initiative in theory, but in practice I think the dark studio missed its mark. When you consider the the size of theCO2 footprint that is left by the air miles logged by the teams/announcers/analysts/crew, the energy used to power Lincoln Financial Field, and the incessant babbling of Bob Costas/Kieth Olbermann/Al Michael/John Madden (the biggest babbler of them all), having the studio lights off for a while starts to feel like an empty gesture...especially when they decide to keep the Toyota sign lit (gotta keep the advertisers happy).

In the end what did this symbolic gesture accomplish? NBC gets to show off how "green" they are, GE will sell more energy efficient light bulbs, and we didn't have to look at Olbermann's goofy mug. Great, but where do we go from here? What happens when Green Week is over? This is a conversation that the world needs to have, and not just during halftime of a football game.

Where's Al Gore when you need him?

If they really wanted to conserve energy last night, they should have turned the lights off at the Linc so no one had to watch the Eagles stink up the joint.

Looking for tips on what you can do to be more "green"? Check out The Daily Green, a great "green" website for regular people.

This May Get Ugly - The Possible Writers Strike

Over the past few days and weeks I have had multiple conversations about the looming writer's strike in Hollywood. Most people I have spoken with are aware that there is a strike on the horizon, but because they are not directly involved with the TV and Film industry they are not entirely sure what the whole thing is about.

In its most basic form the situation is like this.
On one side of the negotiating table is the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and on the other is the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP). The AMPTP is the group responsible for negotiating on behalf of Hollywood (networks, studios, producers, etc.).

The two main issues:

• Residuals on DVD sales - This issue has been around since the late 80's, when Writers fought to get greater residuals on VHS sales. They eventually gave in on this issue because back in 1989 nobody thought TV shows on VHS would be a big thing. Fast forward to present day 2007, TV shows on DVD are BIG business. The problem is that the agreement in 1989 and subsequent agreements have been written in a way that writers are still getting the shaft on residuals for DVD sales of their work. Obviously they don't want to get shafted again this time around.
  
• Mobile, Online, "New Media" - Once again let's go back in time, in 1989 no one except Al Gore was thinking internet, so when deal were made online content was never a consideration. Now, in the current age of watching shows online, writers get nil for their work that is re-played online.
  

On the issue of "New Media" the AMPTP took the position that they still need to do research on where this growing industry is going. Hell, there are technologies that can come into play we are not even talking about today (just like the internet in 1989). This didn't please the WGA at all. Then the AMPTP proposed a re-structuring of the residuals system that wouldn't pay the writers a flat residual fee based on use and sale of the product, but instead writer's residuals would be tied into the profits. What they were saying was we won't pay you until we recoup our costs, and then you will get a percentage of the profit. To this the WGA basically said "fuck that! anyone can play with the books and make something look like a loser. We are paid residuals based on our work, not the success of the product which we have almost no control over." The AMPTP also proposed a re-structuring of how writers who are paid "above scale" are paid residuals. The gist of this was if a writer is paid X dollars over scale, then you wouldn't get paid anything until there is over X dollars in residuals. The WGA looked at this as the AMPTP turning a writer's payment for a script into a pre-payment on future residuals, where in reality they are two separate things. The original payment is for the product itself whereas residuals are supposed to be a payment for re-use of the product.

This last proposal set the WGA over the edge, they were so pissed off in fact that the AMPTP took the profit based proposal off the table, in a move saying "here look we are willing to work with you, calm your ass down!"

As far as I understand it, the two sides are not much closer on these or many of the smaller issues. The current agreement between the two expired at midnight Wednesday, and the writers union has already voted to authorize a strike. Keep in mind, an authorization doesn't mean strike; it just means they can call for one when the time is right. Negotiations continue but it appears a strike is coming.

What a strike will mean for us:
Hollywood has been preparing for a possible strike, stocking up on as much stuff they could before anything happens just in case. If the strike is short lived, then the impact would be small to the point that it would probably have no effect on us. But if it's a long drawn out affair then the effect will be much greater. The impact of a long strike will greatly affect TV; eventually they will run out of scripts rushed into production before the strike. New episodes of shows would start to peter out and we would see a lot more reruns and reality shows. Reality shows are not represented by a union and therefore can continue production of new product with or without a strike. We would also see a rise in news magazine shows. During the last strike show like 48 Hours hit it big, while some serialized shows never made it back. Also, late night shows like Letterman can't do a show without its writers, so we may see them take a long vacation as well.

I don't think the film industry will not be as greatly impacted because the studios have gotten a bunch of movies in the can already that they can release down the line. Plus if TV is shitty then maybe people will go to the movies more.

The impact that is not talked about as much is all the people who will have no work if sets and shows are shut down. I'm not so concerned about the actors, they will find work (if there is a long strike don't be surprised if you see some big names hitting the stage), it's the people who rely on making a living working on TV shows and on studio lots. I think they get screwed the most by this strike.

Obviously there is more to the strike; this is just the situation as best as I can understand it and put in a way I hope others can too.

If you want more info check out this write-up done by the good people over at Pajiba "The Looming Hollywood Strike".

If a TV Falls in the Woods has a good perspective from a writer out in LA.

Also, you can check out this piece in the LA Times - "A writers strike nobody wants."

I have used bits and pieces of these as references, they are chock full of info (especially the Pajiba guide).

Are They Looking To Adopt? Cause You Know, I'm Available

If I had to list my favorite celebrity couples Amy Poehler & Will Arnett would definitely be in my top 5, probably falling somewhere between David Duchovny & Tea Leoni and Boris & Natasha. So when I came accross the sneak peak of the duo's new Gap Ad, it brightened up an otherwise groggy post-Halloween morning.



They got in the mood for the holiday themed ad by talking about their vacation plans this year...

"We do what we always do — we rent a private jet and go up and then we call all our single friends and we say 'ha ha, how does it feel to be alone at Christmas' and then we dump jet fuel into the ocean — but only where there are endangered species."

Other ads in the series feature The Office's John Krasinki and James Marsden of X-Men and Superman fame.

More and more kids that grew up reading comic books and ruining grading curves are ditching the idea of going to MIT to become an engineer for NASA and instead are taking over film and television studios. You can see the results of this in the geek trend that has been embraced by Hollywood over the past couple of years, with its big budget blockbuster movies based on super-hero comics and video games, Judd Apatow movies like Knocked Up and Superbad that celebrate the average Joe, and a slew of new geeky TV shows like Heroes, Chuck, Reaper, Aliens in America, and Ugly Betty. It seems this geek love may now be spreading to the fashion and advertising industries as well.

I love it! Embrace your inner geek people! I'm gonna go watch some Battlestar Galactica.