Number of comments: 153 In its day, Paul Thomas Anderson's oil-drilling epic had to take a back seat to the Coen Brother's nihilist No Country For Old Men. But a few years later, this Blood will not be washed out.
The web...
Number of comments: 9 If there's anything Hollywood hates, it's paying for stuff it used to get for free. And throughout 2009, CAA has given the industry the biggest FU in entertainment history, charging visitors for...
Number of comments: 139 For months, the evidence mounted and mounted that James Cameron's long awaited Titanic follow-up was going to be the biggest let down since Phantom Menace. No one wanted to believe that more than we...
Number of comments: 40 Despite ongoing economic collapse, American audiences are still finding the cash to reward studios for producing the most mediocre slate of films in memory with attendance at US theater up five...
Number of comments: 139 Another slew of awards and nominations came in this weekend and the result is that this year's stagnant deathmarch of an Oscar race got a tiny bit shaken up, or at least it got a bit more confusing....
Number of comments: 13 After a slow build-up, Oscar season is coming in like a lion. Mandela! Tom Ford directing! An Alice Sebold novel! This weekend's got prestige written all over it.
THE LOVELY BONES
The Story: A...
Number of comments: 104 For 12 years, the world has awaited director James Cameron's follow up to Titanic. Today, the misguided prayers of a zillion fanboys have been answered, and they will be sorry.
We stand before you...
Number of comments: 37 The producers of reality television want you to know they are as upset as you are about the post-apocalypse circus they've unleashed on America and they are really trying to do something about it....
Number of comments: 30 Are you a There Will Be Blood kinda guy, or an Eternal Sunshine kinda gal? The choice of our favorite movie of the decade is one of the most important we as individuals can make.
There is no more...
Number of comments: 49 Next week the world's critics will have their (completely meaningless) say about whether James Cameron's 3D extravaganza was worth waiting a decade for. But today, a couple British papers are jumping...
Number of comments: 14 World stand-up comedy today was greeted with news that should make the hard-working comedians of the world very nervous. Pauly Shore is now one lawsuit away getting his fingers on the trigger of...
Number of comments: 22 Hard to see anyone knocking the teenage vampires off their perch this weekend — especially as Up In the Air is only in limited release — but a few old stalwarts are reporting for duty and...
Number of comments: 15 If you thought you might be rid of Vinnie Chase and the boys anytime soon, think again (insert Ari Goldesque homophobic epithet here). The gang is taking it to the big screen!
After a season in...
Number of comments: 28 There were two shots left at shaking up this year's horrifically locked in Oscar race: the musical Nine and Avatar. Well, after today's very mixed reviews of Nine, it looks like Oscar's only got one...
Number of comments: 24 The Sundance Film Festival announced the complete line-up for its 2010 festival built around the trend beloved of the intelligentsia — teenagers running amok.
Disillusioned, out of control and...
Number of comments: 12 Hollywood has a new kingpin, and its not Comcast's Brian Roberts. Cynthia Stafford, a Hawthorne homemaker, has decided to cash in her $30 million dollar lottery prize on the dream of becoming the...
Number of comments: 56 The official announcement today that Comcast will take over NBC/Universal marks the greatest counter-revolutionary change in show business history with flyover country now postioned to put its stamp...
Number of comments: 9 It's almost too easy. Picture the nation's reporters in these dying days of media, toiling away in crumbling newsrooms where no sunlight has penetrated since before basic cable. Suddenly in their...
Number of comments: 18 If ever a contest was needing shaking up, it is this year's Oscar derby which has a serious dearth of beloved, breakout movies on the board. But today's Spirit Award nominations did only kept the...
Number of comments: 74 When a franchise dies, all of Hollywood sheds a tear. But when a franchise dies prematurely, while it still has years of cash to give, Hollywood goes to battle stations. And tonight, Hollywood stands...
Number of comments: 20 It's certainly not a best-case scenario, but in the face of all fears, the end of Jay Leno's ratings free fall doesn't seem bad. At last there are signs the NBC's Jay Leno experiment may have turned...
Number of comments: 22 Each winter, with the coming of awards season, the colors of America's multi-plexes turn from bright pastels to dismal browns and grays as Hollywood strains for gravitas with their takes on the most...
Number of comments: 37 Peter Jackson's long-awaited adaptation of beloved book The Lovely Bones has been one of the few remaining question marks in the Oscar race. It finally faced critics yesterday and the results are all...
Number of comments: 50 The evidence continues to pile up that the film the world is waiting to see will, in fact, be the next Phantom Menace. And now, adding to the evidence: an exclusive Defamer eyewitness testimony of...
Number of comments: 42 The last five weeks of every decade generally bring a frenzy of media list-making. However, in this first decade of the blogging era, the cataloging of best and worsts should approach H1N1 emergency...
Number of comments: 24 Show business does not (yet) have its own judicial branch empowered to imprison and, if necessary, torture people who commit unspeakable crimes against studio profits. It does however, have an even...
Number of comments: 90 For over a decade, the world has waited for James Cameron's follow up to Titanic. But now that Avatar has at last arrived how are we to prepare ourselves for the fact that it might be godawful?...
Number of comments: 26 Seems only yesterday our culture was run by racism-ranting heiresses, rampaging redheads and self-mutilating pop stars. Suddenly, the whole culture is being run by bleacher-sitting T-shirt-wearing...
Number of comments: 8 The White House is set to announce the guest list for its first state dinner, and among the few invitees from Hollywood are Messieurs Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen, sealing the DreamWorks trio's...
Number of comments: 42 And thus an era ends. As rumored she would, Oprah Winfrey announced today that she will give up her syndicated show to focus on building her cable network.
Oprah ends a 25 year run that puts hers up...
Number of comments: 193 She's made more bombs than the Krupp Arms Works and yet Hollywood keeps giving her the keys to its kingdom. This weekend, Sandra Bullock is back again in The Blind Side.
When she burst into public...
Number of comments: 14 In a few months, after New Moon leaves the theaters, we will celebrate the milestone of being halfway through our national Twilight journey, with only two more films to go. But first we have to get...
Number of comments: 25 From the start it has been one of the most annoying criminal cases, and now it's ending as irritatingly as it began. Canadian prosecutors dropped assault charges against Black Eyed Peas manager...
Number of comments: 17 Across the spectrum of diversity standards, Hollywood's bar hasn't been raised since Robert E. Lee sat on his plantation porch swing. A new report put out by the Writers Guild of America/West details...
Number of comments: 20 It was too much to ask, but in the legends of television, Heather Locklear has been endowed with the powers of a superhero. And now we finally know, even even Amanda can't ride in to save us from...
Number of comments: 68 The decade in cinema is ready to go out with a bang; with six weeks left in 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the 13th highest grossing film of the year; a fact which says everything and nothing.
But as...
Number of comments: 54 Sometimes in the movie business you have to work hard for your publicity and sometimes you can just let the world know the buffet is open and start serving.
Columbia Pictures probably thought they...
Number of comments: 17 It's never been a good time not to be a guy in Hollywood, but if there were a bad time, it would be the moment when Sony pops the champagne cork on its grosses for 2012 and Terminator: Salvation.
•...
Number of comments: 47 Sanity is a relative term in the realm of Hollywood directors who generally function on a mental health continuum ranging from borderline OCD cases on the benign end to paranoid schizophrenic...
Number of comments: 32 After a flurry of rumors and counter-rumors, it appears that Ken Ober, the former host of MTV's Remote Control, has in fact passed away at age 52.
In his passing, Ober broke a great internet...
Number of comments: 15 When an apocalypse-themed movie rakes in truckloads of money, no copy editor on Earth, looking to top to a weekend tallies story, could withstand the temptation of the epic cataclysm metaphor waiting...
Number of comments: 6 We hope 2012 is enjoying its 15 minutes. Sure the movie had a humongous weekend at the box office, but even a Mayan-prophesied can not withstand an assault by a certain group of of teenage vampires....
Number of comments: 9 When show business spots a corner of public consciousness not colonized by product placement and paid endorsements, its experts spring to work to take care of that.
Twitter has been around for years...
Number of comments: 20 Buyer beware this weekend at the box office. There's a little something targeted for everybody out there, but every film comes with some major red flags.
2012
The Story: As per Mayan...
Number of comments: 45 After the recent tepid results of the sixth installment in the Saw series we held was some mad hope that this particular wave of yuckiness might be at an end and the era of self-dismemberment...
Number of comments: 18 It has been noted that all political careers end in failure. So too must all show biz careers end in bombs. A shame AMC can't just quit while they're ahead, but then, that wouldn't be show biz.
•...
Number of comments: 48 The news keeps getting better and better for NBC's Jay Leno experiment. Not only are Jay's own ratings falling to unimaginable low depths, sinking affiliates' news shows, but now the bottom is...
Number of comments: 37 In a decade since the launch of Titanic, the eyes of humanity have focused on the James Cameron laboratory wondering what leap forward would emerge, what gifts he would bestow on our species?
Having...
Number of comments: 19 If there's one thing Hollywood loves it's a young overnight success. And if there's one thing Hollywood loves to destroy, it's a young overnight success. Congratulations Taylor Swift, the spotlight...
Number of comments: 31 Last week, the Huffington Post unveiled the editor of its new LA-local site, one Billy Silverman who came with an illustrious resume having previously served as producer Brian Grazer's cultural...
Number of comments: 45 In the eyes of the fanboy international, geek auteur Joss Whedon will always be too good for television. And lucky for him, Fox didn't ruin those creds by calling the nerds' bluff and keeping his...
Number of comments: 77 For a brief moment in the early 90's, the X Generation dared to dream that the world could be a better place. Or at least it could be a more, kinda less, in your face, making such a...
Number of comments: 5 Changing the ownership of two of show biz's major trade journals will either change everything, or change nothing at all. In Hollywood, you're always safe betting on the latter
• These late days of...
Number of comments: 13 You can't believe everything you read on the internet, even when you are the one saying it. Just a few days ago, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry declared the band through after reading of Steven...
Number of comments: 48 In their quest to reshape television, NBC passed a critical milestone on the way to the primetime experiment's end this week — ratings fell below their own ridiculously low benchmarks to judge...
Number of comments: 9 Media can stare at itself all it likes, but it takes sitting across the table from today's news monster to really see what journalism has become. In a fascinating diagram, director Jason Reitman has...
Number of comments: 54 As a nation, we have clearly settled the question of whether it's okay for Britney Spears to fake a concert. Of course it is. But leave it to Australia to stick their mitts right back in that can of...
Number of comments: 8 In a time of chaos, the wise mogul keeps his enemies close, and his off-their-rocker trainwreck creations closer.
• Donald Trump is now getting into bed with his worthiest apprentice/prodigal...
Number of comments: 21 When a new James Cameron movie appears, Hollywood's industry watchers reach for their abacuses, first to tabulate the obscene amounts the film cost, and later, generally, to add up the obscene...
Number of comments: 51 This is not how rock bands are supposed to die. Bands are supposed to go out in a blaze of charred hotel suites, blood feuds and drug overdoses. Instead, Aerosmith's end came in a blog entry.
In a...
Number of comments: 38 It's not the stocking stuffer Disney hoped for. After spending $180 million on the biggest 3D picture to date, looks like the Iger family might have to make make due with Hyundai's instead of...
Number of comments: 12 The Oscar season begins in earnest this weekend. But will the moviegoers bite?
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
The Story: George Clooney and Jeff Bridges star. Based on the true story of a US Army...
Number of comments: 64 You may not have known you wanted it, but now you're going to get it. 3D redux is here with its biggest tentpole to date, Disney's $180 million Christmas Carol, followed shortly after by the release...
Number of comments: 13 Since he first stepped into the solo spotlight, Justin Timberlake has been Hollywood's prince in waiting, just one perfect role away from claiming his crown as the biggest star in the world forever....
Number of comments: 22 Once when searching for the stuff of films, we looked towards epic military confrontations and doomed luxury liners. But today director Danny Boyle has ushered in a new age of blockbuster films about...
Number of comments: 34 This was supposed to be the beginning of a new era, built around a new kind of pop culture. But when the director of Napoleon Dynamite's new film can't even get a national release, the dream is...
Number of comments: 3 Just like Murdoch to go and ruin everything for everyone. Just when the studios had a great excuse with this recession thing to slash salaries and fire everyone in sight, along comes Rupert singing...
Number of comments: 9 If this pans out, it's a huge showbiz announcement. Nikki Finke has posted that Oprah Winfrey has decided to give up her CBS-syndicated show and move her eponymous daytime chat show to her own cable...
Number of comments: 23 Poor Guitar Hero. All they want to do is show cartoons of rock stars bouncing around and having fun, and now everyone's gotta get all uptight about it.
First Activision, Guitar Hero's maker, had to...
Number of comments: 43 In the annals of international quirk, nothing in recent years has touched more hot buttons than HBO's Flight of the Conchords series. But now that dream could be coming to an end.
Corduroy, 70's and...
Number of comments: 6 While five young suspects in the robberies of some of Hollywood's finest celebrity homes have been arrested and await their day in court, one has remained at large, wanted and labeled dangerous by...
Number of comments: 3 It's a season for endings and beginnings and new beginnings and final endings and a reboot or two. Today's trades make Hollywood look like one of its own over-handled franchises.
• What may be...
Number of comments: 28 Gossip Girl has courted outrage since its earliest episodes, and once again, right on schedule, outrage has shown up.
No doubt realizing they are being goaded (or perhaps not) the decency police...
Number of comments: 4 Showing the sort of bright and sunny leadership that has makes his brother Rahm such an uplifting presence, William Morris-Endeavor chief Ari Emanuel bucked up his troops this week with a poignant...
Number of comments: 11 Hollywood know it's all in the title. What else after all, distinguishes a Saw 5 from a Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant?
Since losing their brand, life hasn't been right for the Brothers...
Number of comments: 27 The revolution truly eats its children in the new media world. One day you're the harbinger of a new era; the next day you're desperately trying to cling to the some other harbinger's coattails....
Number of comments: 8 How the mighty tumble! Just yesterday, Hollywood trembled in awe before the Terminator series; creator of planet-devouring sequels and merchandising. Today, it goes on the auction block like the...
Number of comments: 46 It's not a good sign for your experiment in reshaping the face of network programming when the experiment's centerpiece muses aloud that, yeah, maybe things were better the way they were before.
In...
Number of comments: 10 Somewhere out there in Hollywood, there are a few dozen people who made bets that "scandal was never the way to win over audiences" kicking themselves, hard.
• Having his tawdry personal life ripped...
Number of comments: 16 Just because NBC can't make it work, doesn't mean somebody can't. TNT, announced this morning they will pick up Southland, the critically acclaimed cop drama Executive Produced by ER's John Wells,...
Number of comments: 8 In the past few months, Disney boss Robert Iger has been on a tear; first firing his beloved film chief, Dick Cook. Now scaling back the company's specialty division, the once hallowed Miramax, to...
Number of comments: 6 It had been rumored for weeks but Hugh Jackman made it official today; he will not be repeating his turn as Oscar's host.
A Jackman sequel had been much hoped for by the Oscar community. After two...
Number of comments: 9 If ever there were a weekend to be grateful for the entertainment value of costumed children demanding desserts, this is it. A ghoulish crop of openings awaits your movie-going dollar this Halloween....
Number of comments: 38 The gods of Hollywood do not like change. At all. So when Harvey Weinstein did the unthinkable and moved a hit show to another network, we knew it was only a matter of time until their wrath would be...
Number of comments: 9 For months, the entertainment press has with its relentless hype all but guaranteed us that This Is It, the Michael Jackson rehearsal documentary would become if not the highest grossing film of all...
Number of comments: 28 It's hard to believe that there is actually an inventor of product placement; like swine flu, it always seemed just nature's dark side. But someone thinks he did in fact invent it and is willing to...
Number of comments: 12 As we draw deeper into the Circus Maximus era, the search for material goes to ever more interesting places; namely this week, rehearsal documentaries, male strip clubs and ghost videos. But we'll...
Number of comments: 17 It's been four long months we've spent mourning the death of the self-anointed King, a life of pr exploitation which segued beautifully into an afterlife of pr exploitation. But at last it seems the...
Number of comments: 12 It's tough to be an Oscar favorite in October, five full months before the awards. And a little film called Precious is learning that it's even harder to be Oscar's front runner, especially if no one...
Number of comments: 50 Hollywood has been in awe this week watching the details trickle out about the group of teens arrested for burglarizing the homes of stars including Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom and Audrina Patridge....
Number of comments: 151 Just as America settled into a laissez faire consensus on office sex, some new confessions out of Fort Letterman have appeared to remind us of why we're all against the...
Number of comments: 8 For the first time since 1995, the Golden Globes awards will have a host, and that host will be idiosyncratic British comedy star Ricky Gervais.
We're struggling for the term for the opposite of...
Number of comments: 16 If ever there were an industry in need of an intervention, it is Hollywood. And today, Disney boss Robert Iger sat show biz down and said, I just can't watch you do this to yourself any more....
Number of comments: 16 Hollywood will always remember where it was when it first heard the news that Saw 6 had underperformed at the box office. Yes, times, are tough. Sure, media is in freefall; but who imagined it would...
Number of comments: 8 It's Halloween season at the multi-plex; which means that if today's brand of torture-centric "thrills" is not your cup of tea, cinema offers few reasons not to stay in your house and barricade the...
Number of comments: 17 It's a day of horrors for Hollywood; the goblins taking over the big-screen for our annual, mandated block when Only Scary Movies Can Be Released. And in the counting house, the scarier news that...
