Toronto 2014: The Year of Biopics and the Brit Actor
As Toronto 2014 heads into the home stretch several trends have come into focus. Trend #1. It's not only the year of the actor -- it's the year of the British actor. Witness Tom Hardy's portrayal of a...
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Comic Giant Grant Morrison Journey Into Horror With Legendary's 'Annihilator'
Grant Morrison deals with big concepts and bigger ideas. And in the world of comic books, the Scottish writer who has taken on the X-Men, Batman, Superman and more is known for telling mindblowing...
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An Open Thank You Letter to Priyanka Chopra
Dear Priyanka Chopra, When I met you in person in Tampa Bay for the annual IIFA Awards Weekend, I realized how much you've inspired me. So in the aftermath of getting the chance to meet you, I wanted...
View ArticleThe New Year Starts Now
I think this is my favorite time of the year. September should really be considered the New Year. I used last week as a way to get everything together, so I can hit the Jewish New Year at least up and...
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Americans in Paris: Whit Stillman and The Cosmopolitans
The Cosmopolitans, pilot episode, August 2014 (Amazon Studios via Amazon Instant Video) The first episode of Whit Stillman's The Cosmopolitans is now available online. Part of the third season of...
View Article(VIDEO) IPTV Even Better Than Mobile for Music's Vevo
COLOGNE, Germany - Mobile better, IPTV best. That's the equation for music video brand Vevo. Whilst mobile viewing has boomed for the service, which is the modern inheritor of MTV's crown, the lounge...
View ArticleFirst Nighter: Cera, Culkin, Gevinson Distinguish 'This Is Our Youth'
In Kenneth Lonergan's revived 1996 play, This is Our Youth, a Steppenwolf production transferred to the Cort, what specifically does the playwright mean by "this"? Well, he sees the three characters as...
View ArticleInterview: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Craig Johnson on The Skeleton Twins
From the moment they joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2005, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader set about creating an impressive roster of memorable characters and unforgettable impressions that made...
View ArticleReThink Review: The Skeleton Twins -- Movie Siblings (Finally) Done Right
Considering the fact that most people on the planet have siblings, you'd think that the movie industry would do a better job of portraying sibling relationships. But as far as I can remember, only two...
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Wrapping up the Toronto Film Festival
As inevitably must happen, my stay at the Toronto International Film Festival comes to an end. There's an almost ceremonial feeling to the moment when I remove the lanyard with my press credential...
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Miriam Linna Is Nobody's Baby -- Her First Solo Album Shimmers and Soars
Miriam Linna sat down with me at Norton Records Headquarters in Brooklyn to discuss her debut solo album, Nobody's Baby, earlier this summer. Linna was as surprised as anyone by the fact that, after...
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Show and Tell It Like It Is: Elizabeth Cook Pulls Some Apron Strings in...
Elizabeth Cook's guilty pleasure is Nashville. Better make that Nashville, the setting for an outrageous TV show with fictional country-western singers, songwriters and Music Row executives who play...
View ArticleThe Great Songwriter and Producer Bob Crewe Dies at 82
"I'm hearing it in sky blue. You're giving me brown." So says a real-life character named Bob Crewe in the play and movie Jersey Boys. He's producing a recording of the song "Trance" by Billy Dixon and...
View ArticleStories of Joan
"Most of the media industry's problems can be boiled down to simple math -- or is it physics? Whichever it is, it's not good. "On one axis, we can plot the dynamic force of advertising rates,...
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Even First Ladies Have to Deal With Red Tape
With the Ken Burns docu-series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History airing shortly on PBS, this seems a good time to share a snippet of their family history. Specifically, the pages that follow are...
View ArticleAre Taylor Swift and Katy Perry Really Fighting Over John Mayer?
Meow! The entertainment news industry is all a titter today about a brewing feud between two of the brightest stars of pop: good girl Taylor Swift and girl-kissing bombshell Katy Perry.A brief recap,...
View ArticleHow The Notorious B.I.G. Turned Fear and Rage Into Genius
Twenty years ago, Christopher George Latore Wallace -- also known as The Notorious B.I.G; Big Poppa; Biggie -- made an indelible mark on the landscape of popular music with the release of his debut...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Henry Rollins
Dear Henry, This letter is a response to your article on LA Weekly called "Fuck Suicide" (and your subsequent apology). This is my 7th attempt to write this letter. The previous six were, honestly,...
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The Congress Challenges But Thrills
I'm going to save you 10 bucks, but it's not on a movie. Take an ordinary piece of paper and cut out a section about a centimeter square. Then place it on your tongue and go see The Congress. Sure as...
View ArticleVampira: Tracing the Life of a Forgotten Legend
Maila Nurmi is the most famous person you've never heard of. She made a monster, a sexy, daring, subversive monster called Vampira that, beginning with a short-lived local TV show in 1954, transformed...
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