Showbiz Sandbox 13: Hooliganism At Comic-Con (Or Lack Thereof)
July 28, 2009
We had a plethora of panelists this week, all of whom were in San Diego over the weekend to experience Comic-Con first hand. KPBS’ Cinema Junkie blogger Beth Accomando covered the event for National Public Radio, Todd Gilchrist was there for Cinematical, SciFi Wire‘s news editor Patrick Lee made the trip, as did Phillip Nakov from MovieSet.com and Harry Medved, who helped out with Fandango’s coverage of the event as their director of public relations. Also joining in on this week’s fun is New York Daily News writer and Huffington Post blogger, Michael Giltz.
If you weren’t one of the 126,000 people attending Comic-Con, this episode will fill you in on what you missed. There was whole day devoted to 3D movies, which apparently isn’t just a gimmick anymore. The big hits of Comic-Con were “District 9”, “Avatar”, “Kick Ass” and “Iron Man 2” and the biggest miss was Roland Emerich’s next movie “2012” which is either so bad it’s good, or so bad it’s just plain bad. Irrelevant whether it wowed people at the convention or not was “Twilight: New Moon”, because fans just wanted to see Robert Pattinson . Hundreds of young girls, their moms and a bunch of sensitive men camped out overnight to get into a jam packed “Twilight” panel. The festival was “the redemption of “New Moon” director Chris Weitz, who was clearly adored by his cast. It was definitely the panel with the most security.
This year marked the first appearance by Tim Burton (as a presenter), Peter Jackson and Terry Gilliam. Johnny Depp stopped by to say two words (literally) in promotion of Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Read more
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Showbiz Sandbox Special Episode: A Look Inside TMZ’s Michael Jackson Scoop
July 24, 2009
When pop singer Michael Jackson died unexpectedly at the end of June news organizations all over the world frantically tried to keep up with the story. What was noteworthy, and what will surely be a historical footnote to Jackson’s death, is that mainstream media such as newspapers and cable news networks were not the outlets breaking the story. That privilege belonged to the upstart celebrity news site TMZ.com. Before it broke the Jackson story, TMZ was primarily thought of as an online version of the National Enquirer and was better known for running stories about Christian Bale’s profanity laden temper tantrums.
However Stephen Brook, a press correspondent for London’s Guardian newspaper and deputy editor MediaGuardian, believes that it is precisely the salacious content TMZ has a reputation for running that gives the site its power. Less than 24 hours after the event, Brook wrote an article for the Guardian which detailed how TMZ managed to be the first media outlet to correctly report the story of Jackson’s death, possibly six minutes before he was officially pronounced dead. Brook’s article was reprinted all over the world in dozens of newspapers and websites.
In this special episode of Showbiz Sandbox, Brook explains how he put the story together and discusses some of the highlights from his piece. Read more
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Showbiz Sandbox 12: I Want To Be Korbi!
July 20, 2009
Korbi Ghosh of Zap2it’s Korbi TV blog joins us this week to discuss a bunch of television news including the Emmy nominations. Korbi‘s blog shares scoops, spoilers and breaking news with a community of fellow TV fanatics. She often appears on the TV Guide Channel, delivering her expert opinion on the television topic of the day and has filmed guest spot appearances on series such as “Scrubs” and “Greek.” Michael Giltz, whose writing appears in the New York Daily News, the Huffington Post and the Advocate also joins us this week.
The Emmy nominations were led by “30 Rock” which garnered a total of 22 (plus, noms for supporting cast Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer and Tracy Morgan!) A surprise nomination for Jim Parsons for Actor in a Comedy Series (the the underrated “Big Bang Theory”), Simon Baker (“The Mentalist”), and Farrah Fawcett, nominated posthumously for “Farrah’s Story.” Snubbed one again were “Friday Night Lights,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and that show’s host, Cat Deeley. Read more
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Showbiz Sandbox 11: Wild About Michael Jackson (…and Neil Diamond)
July 13, 2009
Rolling Stone contributing editor David Wild joins us this week to discuss the Michael Jackson memorial. Wild is an Emmy-nominated television writer and a best selling author. on top of his work with Rolling Stone. He recently worked on the magazine’s Michael Jackson tribute, and was also instrumental in putting together the pop star’s memorial at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. He explains some of the realities and feelings taking place behind the scenes at the event. He also has a new book out titled He Is… I Say: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Neil Diamond
Audiences weren’t wild about “Bruno,” which won the weekend box office race, but didn’t perform as expected. Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock’s “The Proposal” continues to perform well – well enough that Reynolds has been offered the role of The Green Lantern in Warner Bros’s upcoming movie. Was he a better choice over Bradley Cooper and Justin Timberlake? Does anyone even care about “The Green Lantern”? Anne Thompson addresses that, and the future of film criticism in her blog Thompson On Hollywood. Read more
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