I’m going to take the rest of the week off for the holiday.
I wish all of you in the U.S. a lovely holiday surrounded by those you love.
Those of you in other countries, I wish you a quiet time on the Internet as we in the U.S. gorge ourselves on turkey and then fall into a food coma.
See you next Monday!
Uncategorized | Jennifer C. Rodland | 
November 26, 2008 5:40 pm | 
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In the 1990s, each year seemed to be hailed as the Year of the Woman when there had been enough meaty roles for women to fill out the Academy Awards slates for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. (Some years, the nominees were a real stretch. Sharon Stone in Casino? Courtney Love in the movie about Larry Flynt? Really?)
These pronouncements always made me mad. It was not a victory for women when female actors were given 5 lead and 5 supporting roles that were decent. It was a victory for women when it was nearly impossible to pick the best of these roles and performances from the myriad available.
But, this year, three of the biggest box office winners emerged from the pocketbooks of women: Mamma Mia!, Sex and the City, and Twilight. Other more traditionally male movies made more money. The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ironman (or is it Iron Man?). The usual summer blockbusters were there, smashing records and captivating the country.
But the blockbusters had the ridiculous budgets and the ridiculous expectations. These girly movies had considerably lower budgets and very low expectations. SATC seemed to made only to mollify the fans of the tv show. It was as if it wasn’t expected to make any money, let alone place in the top 10 grosses for the year so far.
Mamma Mia! had even lower expectations, but one must never discount the power of ABBA to propel it to #6 for the year so far.
And Twilight. Twilight had the expectations, but it had a miniscule budget, and it made back the entire investment in one day. I don’t know where it will fall in the receipts for the year, but it is a huge success to have everything after day 1 of release be profit.
Does this make women the new Hollywood power brokers? Or is it just the natural offshoot of the waning chick-lit fascination, as the popular books from this movement are brought to the theaters?
Uncategorized | Jennifer C. Rodland | 11:00 am | Comments (0)
I was completely unprepared for the creepy trailer for Brad Pitt’s new movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, about a man who ages backward. Our intrepid hero, played by Brad and some other actors, begins as an old man and, I guess, ends much younger, as a baby perhaps.
The makeup looks extremely plastic and weird. And, of course, I immediately go to the logistics: how can someone be born as an old man? How does that pregnancy work? This is not the sort of thing I need to see first thing in the morning.
Read a glowing review from Reuters. And view the trailer.
Edited to add: I’m not alone, but apparently I’m a bit behind in my assessment. The evidence:
‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ Looks Creepy!
Another Creepy Look at Benjamin Button
Brad Pitt meets Fitzgerald in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’
And he is born aged but small. Whew!
Tags: brad pitt, the curious case of benjamin button
brad pitt, the curious case of benjamin button | Jennifer C. Rodland | November 25, 2008 10:46 pm | Comments (0)
In general, I am a fan of HBO series. They have tighter writing, they aren’t constrained by sponsor input or censoring, and they tend to get some of the best actors–those who wouldn’t think of doing network television are still drawn to HBO shows.
After watching the cliffhanger of True Blood last night, though, I was reminded of the worst part of getting hooked on an HBO series: the horribly long hiatus. We have to wait until summer 2009 to find out how the cliffhanger elements play out.
* Spoilers follow *
At least seven months to find out what is up with Mary Ann. Seven months to find out where Sam is going with all that money. Seven months to find out just how annoying a newly created vampire with a Christian chip on her shoulder can be. And seven months to find out whether my wonderful Lafayette is dead, knocked out, or turned into a vampire.
I think I will have to read the entire series of books by Charlaine Harris. I don’t know if I can stand to wait so long to find out what is up.
Tags: hbo, true blood
hbo, true blood | Jennifer C. Rodland | November 24, 2008 4:54 pm | Comments (0)
Wow. $37.5 million in one day for a movie that cost $37 million to make. Not too shabby.
On the heels of this success, New Moon has gotten the official greenlight from Summit Entertainment: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1130001163.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
Tags: twilight
twilight | Jennifer C. Rodland | November 22, 2008 9:28 pm | Comments (0)
According to Reuters, SAG leadership will ask members to vote on a strike authorization.
I support the actor’s union in doing what is needed to ensure fair payment for its workers. Even after all of the public education done before and during the writer’s strike, so many people still think everyone in the entertainment industry is rolling in money. And some are–the studio executives. Marquee name actors make a good living, but there are countless other no-name actors who are essential to the shows and movies we watch but who don’t have the name recognition to argue for more than the absolute minimum pay rate.
Salary.com gives a median income for actors living in the 90036 zip code of $55,0000. By comparison, the median income for a Chief Operations Officer in the same zip code is $471,000.
The struggle of the actors union mirrors the struggle of all organized labor in the U.S.
Workers have watched their wages stagnate, while the compensation packages of top executives have grown exponentially. Currently, the median income in the U.S. is $48,000. The median income for CEOs was $14 million in 2004. CEOs make 291 times what the average worker makes.
Business guru Peter Drucker believed CEO pay shouldn’t be more than 25 times average pay for a company. According to a recent Business Week article, Drucker “hated high CEO pay on every level: what it said about the individual as a leader, how it undermined the smooth functioning of the organization, and the way it tore at the fabric of society as a whole.”
Thus the outcome of this strike vote and these labor negotiations have a tremendous bearing on the future of labor in the U.S. And, more important, it will affect how we spend our evenings and weekends over the next few months. Remember the wasteland of reality television of last winter? I do, and it makes me shudder.
Remember the great shows we watched before the strike that didn’t come back until this fall? You know, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Heroes, 24, and Dirty Sexy Money? Only Chuck has shown any legs, getting critical acclaim and finally showing increasing ratings. (Friday Night Lights and 24 have not yet returned to the network airwaves.) Heroes has entered freefall and let some of its writers go in an effort to regain its ratings power. And Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money have been cancelled. Which shows will be destroyed be an actor’s strike?
Let me know what you think about all of this. Do you care about an actor’s strike? Do you care about the power of organized labor? Do you love reality programming and look forward to a winter and sring of American Gladiators, Exploit My Kids, and Lock My Neighbors Dog in the House so I Won’t Hear It Barking?
Tags: actor’s strike, labor unions, reality television, sag
actor's strike, labor unions, reality television, sag | Jennifer C. Rodland | 6:59 pm | Comments (0)
Well, repeats of Jericho. No need to bother with repeats of the other CW shows that have a lot of competition, such as Gossip Girl or Supernatural.
Read more about it: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cw21-2008nov21,0,2829359.story
Uncategorized | Jennifer C. Rodland | 1:03 am | Comments (0)
Even if I hadn’t read the books and developed a passing interest in seeing the movies, I would find it hard to hide from Twilight mania.
It is compounded because I live in the Portland area, where a good portion of the movie was filmed. When Jennifer Aniston was here, I didn’t even know until the last day when I drove by the filming location. But when the kids were here filming Twilight, it was as if the local media was following their every twitter and tweet. Now that the movie is out, the stations offered those of us lame enough to stay home last night a tour through the filming locations so we can see each and every one as it is used in the movie.
The reviews are decidedly mixed, but I think we all know that it won’t matter to the target audience.
When I was little, I remember my mom going ballistic when Tracy Berry of KEZI gave Song of the South a negative review. “It’s a Disney movie,” she sputtered. As if that somehow forgave the racism inherent. The time when it was made would be a much better argument for overlooking the racism, but I certainly didn’t have the wherewithal to make that sort of argument at the time.
As I’ve gotten older, I have seen blockbuster after blockbuster get negative reviews, yet still positively rake it in at the box office. Certain viewers will see a certain type of movie no matter what the reviewers say. It makes we wonder why we even bother to review them. I mean, really, do any of the critics think their negative reviews will keep anyone who is planning to see Twilight stay home?
Tags: twilight
Uncategorized | Jennifer C. Rodland | November 21, 2008 12:00 pm | Comments (0)
I just heard that Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone were cancelled: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b69940_sources_daisies_eli_stone_dirty_sexy.html
This makes me very sad, even though I expected it. Pushing Daisies was so much fun to watch every week. I enjoyed the hyperintense colors, the fairy-tale narration, the occasional musical interludes, and the wonderful cast. I wish them all continued success in the future.
And I was just getting back into Dirty Sexy Money after a rocky beginning to the season.
The most unfortunate thing is that these shows will likely end on cliffhangers, as they weren’t sure they would be cancelled. Bryan Fuller has talked about a comic book or movie adaptation of PD, but it remains to be seen whether these ideas will come to fruition.
Tags: dirty sexy money, pushing daisies
Uncategorized | Jennifer C. Rodland | 4:04 am | Comments (0)
I’ve made no secret in my life that I’m a big fan of Dean Winchester on Supernatural. I began watching the show because of the Gilmore Girls connection and the gaping hole left when the X-Files began to suck. I liked Sam (Dean from Gilmore Girls), and for the first few episodes, I enjoyed his desire to make ethical rules for hunting. Dean was coarse and somewhat belligerent.
But as the series went on and each actor grew into his character, I became smitten with Dean. Like all girls, I love a bad boy, especially on tv. (Logan Echolls anyone?) And hot as Jared Padalecki is, he will always seem too young to me. As Dean, Jensen Ackles looks much older than his years, and something about him just floats my boat. It is interesting to see the difference in his facial features and demeanor when he is Dean and when he is Jensen. He strips off about 10 years when he is off camera.
I’m really looking forward to tonight’s episode where we (I hope) get a better idea of Dean’s time in hell and possibly a Dean sex scene. His sex scenes only happen off-screen, so this could be our only chance.
Jumping out of the shallow end, at least until 9pm tonight.
Edited to add: Here is a fun preview of tonight’s episode: http://www.tvshowsaddict.com/supernatural-season-4-episode-10-heaven-and-hell-preview/
Tags: supernatural
supernatural | Jennifer C. Rodland | November 20, 2008 1:00 pm | Comments (0)
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From the San Francisco Chronicle: FCC needs to get tough on network neutrality http://bit.ly/9IhbpP - posted on 12/08/2010 08:48:36Just watched The Box. Nonsensical is putting it mildly. - posted on 11/08/2010 21:11:13Ugh. Britney Spears will appear on @GLEEonFOX: http://bit.ly/9YYakM - posted on 10/08/2010 13:52:21
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