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January 30, 2006
How to cover David Mamet in the Times
Dave Itzkoff: "Mr. Mamet thought it was perfect source material for a television series but felt that he lacked the stature to get it made by himself. Then, while directing an episode of the FX police drama, 'The Shield,' he realized that the show's creator and executive producer, Shawn Ryan, could help him pitch the concept around Hollywood. As Mr. Mamet explained, 'My attitude was always, 'I don't need your money, why don't you'' -- and here he used a phrase deemed appropriate only by sailors and vice presidents. 'Shawn pointed out this was perhaps not the most effective approach.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/arts/television/29itzk.html?ei=5088&en=a698ae64209a8be2&ex=1296190800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=allPosted by irons at 09:54 AM
January 29, 2006
Stephen Colbert on his Report's set design
From an Onion AV Club interview: "One of the things I said to the set designer -- who has done everything, I mean even Meet The Press, he does that level of news design -- was 'One of your inspirations should be [DaVinci's painting] The Last Supper.' All the architecture of that room points at Jesus' head, the entire room is a halo, and he doesn't have a halo.' And I said, 'On the set, I'd like the lines of the set to converge on my head.' And so if you look at the design, it all does, it all points at my head. And even radial lines on the floor, and on my podium, and watermarks in the images behind me, and all the vertices, are right behind my head. So there's a sort of sun-god burst quality about the set around me. And I love that. That's status." http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705Posted by irons at 10:14 AM
January 27, 2006
Millions and Ebert
Roger Ebert's review of Danny Boyle's unreasonably cute family film "Millions" mentions that the screenplay came out of a Martin Scorsese interview in which he declared an affinity for a book about the lives of the saints. The screenwriter, Frank Cottrell Boyce, also credits the interview in the film's commentary, incidentally revealing that the interviewer was Ebert. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050317/REVIEWS/50309002/1023Posted by irons at 07:12 PM
January 24, 2006
Veronica Mars survives WB/UPN merger
Hallelujah. Maybe they'll stop trying to run it against Lost now. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/business/media/24cnd-network.html?hp&ex=1138165200&en=dbda2b1a607616ca&ei=5094&partner=homepagePosted by irons at 01:08 PM
January 19, 2006
gubmint v google over porn
Google's fighting a subpoena from last year for a stunning trawl of miscellaneous porn-related search queries, including "a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period." The government's on a fishing expedition, trying to demonstrate that last year's unconstitutional won't-someone-think-of-the-children online indecency law was nonetheless effective. Effectiveness seems beside the point to me, but the Bushies have always had their own special view of the constitution's role. http://WWW.lostremote.com/archives/007208.htmlPosted by irons at 11:03 AM
January 10, 2006
Contrasting the Brokeback Mountain and Titanic movie posters
Who knew? http://www.posterwire.com/archives/2005/11/21/the-cowboy-way/Posted by irons at 02:57 PM
January 05, 2006
One in six children think that broccoli is a baby tree
And 99 other miscellaneous "things we did not know last year", brought to you by BBC magazine. The assertion that Deep Throat made $600 million is probably bogus, though. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stmPosted by irons at 12:55 PM