Posted Aug 3rd 2007 12:39PM by Celly
Ashley Olsen may not emulate homeless bag ladies like her sis Mary-Kate -- but she's still receiving style inspiration from the streets! (Yeah, bitches, we know, we know. It's Ashley, not Mary-Kate.)
All dolled up in a business casual leather miniskirt, striped nylons and a pair of sensible 5-inch Divine Brown stiletto pumps, the usually well-dressed celebutwin revealed her new dominatrix/secretary look to the world. What are her rates? Can she type?!
Ashley, who did not check into rehab for anorexia nervosa, was nearly unrecognizable as she walked down a Los Angeles sidewalk on Thursday! Need a ride to the office?!
Filed under: Paparazzi Photo, Olsen Twins, City Of Industry, Fashion
Posted Apr 17th 2007 9:15PM by TMZ Staff
In what is surely the understatement of the year, Variety reports that YouTube will soon be taking advertising, but that "[k]ey to the new venture will be making sure that those who upload video actually own the rights to it."
Um, ya think?
What's so astonishing about YouTube is what an overpriced sack of liability it really is: For starters, Wall Street types say it only makes $15 million a year in revenue - that's more than a teaspoon less than the $1.65 billion price Google paid for it.
But before we go thumbing our noses at Google CEO Eric Schmidt, we have to admire the sheer chutzpah of his venture's latest tactics. Schmidt, speaking at a conference of nerds and internet geeks, said that a new tool, dubbed "Claim Your Content," would soon be available to irritated content companies like Viacom, currently suing YouTube for a cool billion dollars. As if the 'content' on YouTube were simply lost children who'd gotten separated from their parents while shopping at Sears. Puh-lease.
So, why is Google willing to place such a hefty bet on a crack-fiend of a lawsuit magnet like YouTube? Because, while it seems like bad form to demand that companies 'claim their content' after it's been pirated, Schmidt thinks he can get away with it -- and make billions in the process.
He just might be right. Piracy is a losing battle online, no matter how many kiddie porn-sniffing Labradors the MPAA trains. Sure, Lucky and Flo -- the MPAA anti-piracy pooches -- have sniffed out 1.3 million pirated DVDs in Malaysia and the Philippines, but their noses don't work online. Schmidt knows this. Sumner Redstone knows this.
Google is basically saying, "Your stuff will go online - one way or the other. Why not split the profits with us?"
It's an incredibly arrogant argument, but it's also an undeniably compelling one.
Filed under: TV, Music, Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry, You Might Want to Rethink
Posted Apr 12th 2007 7:25PM by TMZ Staff
Were I a less morally-scrupulous blogger, I would be tempted to break this (faux) exclusive: "Sirius-XM in Talks with Don Imus." Even though I have no knowledge of this, and even though it's probably true, such talks may be short-lived and ultimately doomed. Here's why:
* Even on satellite radio, advertisers matter. XM is filled with them, and consumer brands consider Imus rat poison. And as Business Week columnist David Kiley noted, "Imus's influence is transcending the size of his audience...[It's] about a quarter of Limbaugh's weekly following and less than half of Stern's. But blue-chip and family-oriented advertisers like Chrysler, Bigelow Tea and The New York Stock Exchange are prepared to pay top dollar to flog their brands on Imus; his show commands advertising rates of $1,333-$1,500 per thousand listeners versus about $1,000 for Limbaugh and Stern, according to industry sources." Not anymore. Strike one.
* Sirius' biggest star, Howard Stern, simply detests Imus. Viz, Stern's on-air rant against him: "If it was me and I did something stupid like that I would just go on and say, 'I'm not going on Al Sharpton's show. Al Sharpton is a piece of s**t. He's just a human being that is bankrupt, and he should pay his bills ... I would rather just leave the radio than apologize to that man...' I like Al Sharpton, by the way."
Alienating off your top talent to hire less popular, radioactive talent? Uh-uh: Strike two.
* The business model of satellite radio may be shifting from backing up dumptrucks filled with cash to more fiscally prudent deal-making. Together, XM and Sirius have nearly 14 million subscribers; combined, they expect to add another 3.5 million net new subscribers if they finally merge this year. But the losses are just as staggering: XM lost $256 million last quarter; Sirius lost $245 million. That's over half a billion dollars in red ink in one quarter. And rampant piracy of Stern's show on BitTorrent and other websites means subscriber growth will be a challenge.
Even assuming Imus could get a gig on satellite, let alone on YouTube or the web, he faces yet another major problem: Guests. Or rather, the lack of them: Politicos like Sen. Chris Dodd and Barack Obama would rather be injected with the Ebola virus than be seen with Imus now; business moguls wouldn't do satellite because he'd lack the combined reach of TV and radio. And the loss of his MSNBC simulcast means that neither serious broadcast journalists like NBC's Brian Williams nor print superstars like Newsweek editor Evan Thomas will be permitted to do an Imus show. Strike three.
Finally, there's the question of whether the public even wants to hear from this guy anymore. As Bob Herbert points out in his NYT column, Imus has a history of hateful, disgusting speech that many people are simply not willing to leave in the past. Writes Herbert, "The real question is whether this controversy is loud enough to shock Americans at long last into the realization of just how profoundly racist and sexist the culture is... It appears that on this issue the general public, and the women at Mr. Imus's former network, are far ahead of the establishment figures, the politicians and the media biggies, who were always so anxious to appear on the show and to defend Mr. Imus."
Friends, Imus may be a celeb, but even the heaviest hitters don't get four strikes. He's outta there.
Filed under: Howard Stern, City Of Industry
Posted Apr 6th 2007 3:42PM by TMZ Staff
Stunning news from the Happiest Place on Earth today: Disney brass has decided that all people, both gay and straight, are now welcome to purchase the "Fairy Tale Wedding" package at Disneyland and on Disney cruise ships.
Per the AP, "The company said it made the change after being contacted by a gay couple who wanted to use the wedding service, which offers ceremonies at Disneyland in California, Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disney's cruise ships."
(Memo to Bob Iger: Synergy opportunity! Ordain Isaiah Washington as a Universal Life Minister, and let the healing begin!)
To tell the truth, we're disappointed, but not for the reasons you might think.
Yes, of course, we're dispiritedly bracing for the inevitable hateful and disgusting harangues from the lunatic fringe of talk radio, wherefrom disparaging and offensive punchlines will emanate.
And we're not looking forward to it, but have come accept the inexorable truth that for Bill Donohue or some other religious fulminators, Disney's decision is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to decry another rending of the fabric of American moral this or that.
Yes, we're even prepared for the South Park-ing of this uniquely fraught cultural war moment.
But really, what disappoints us most is that shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "The L Word" had fraudulently lead us to believe that gay people are inherently more fashionable and stylish than heterosexuals. The fact that an actual gay couple actually wanted to use Disneyland as the location of their nuptials contravenes such a noble postulate.
There is one bright spot: At last, we truly are all equal -- if only in our tackiness.
Filed under: City Of Industry
Posted Apr 5th 2007 4:23PM by TMZ Staff
After "Kill Bill" and "Sin City" re-injected high kitsch into the American cinema, we here at City of Industry were particularly interested in what the critics would say about Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodgriguez's newest, critic-proof films: Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and Tarantino's "Death Proof," which are being released as a double feature entitled "Grindhouse" -- this weekend on 2,624 screens.
By far, my favorite review of the directors' combined 3-hour slasher & zombie hodgepodge comes from the Christian Science Monitor's Peter Rainer, who writes of Tarantino's newest:
"Tarantino devotes a great deal of time to scenes of the women just sassing each other – at times it's like a grindhouse version of 'The View.' [but]...Tarantino may have moved beyond the grindhouse conventions he has routinely championed. The extended sequences with the women in 'Death Proof,' before the blood and the vroom-vroom set in, could be his newfound attempt to humanize his people instead of treating them as car-crash mannequins. He has such a good, loosey-goosey feeling for the back-and-forth jabber of girlfriends that you almost wish he had jettisoned the skidding U-Turns and just made a film about women hanging out."
That's an intriguing idea, and one that's especially timely given the untimely death of Bob Clark. Tthe director got his start with horror schlock like "Black Christmas" and raunchy comedies like "Porky's," but the media -- and the world -- remembers him far more fondly for directing that near-perfect holiday film, "A Christmas Story."
Better get to work on that enduring masterwork for grown-ups, Quentin: As Bob Clark's tragic demise reminds all of us, no one lives forever.
Filed under: Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry, You Might Want to Rethink, The View
Posted Apr 5th 2007 3:28PM by TMZ Staff
You may think television exists to entertain you, or inform you. But sadly, you would be wrong.
TV exists solely to sell you nationally advertised beer, Buicks and burgers -- over and over again-- even if you just drove home with a sack of burgers and a case of beer in your new Buick.
And whatever you think of that model, you're kind of stuck with it.
Or, are you? News broke on Tuesday that Google, the Internet search giant that handles 44% of all the world's searches, has begun selling ads via Dish Network - the satellite TV service that reaches over 12 million households.
That's a big deal, because soon, you might start seeing a whole lot of new and different (read: local) ads on your idiot box, as TV advertising becomes commoditized. That is, given a more specific value.
Advertisers love commoditization, because increased competition leads to lower prices, and what business doesn't like lower advertising prices?
If you said, "Um, the TV networks, dimwit." you definitely advance to the bonus round: When TV advertising gets commoditized, TV networks suffer, since their ability to command premium prices is dramatically weakened.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that TV networks like Turner Networks, Discovery, Lifetime and ESPN all decided today to boycott eBay's new online advertising exchange. As the New York Times aptly points out, "Without the participation of cable networks, the eBay exchange will have no air time to sell to advertisers."
So, Google finds itself in an interesting quandary: Advertisers like Toyota and Home Depot and Microsoft all want commoditization. Big media outlets like Dish want commoditization. Now, if Google can just persuade the TV networks to voluntarily slash their profits, well, they'll have themselves a real barn-burner of a bright idea.
Filed under: TV, The Biz, City Of Industry, You Might Want to Rethink
Posted Apr 2nd 2007 3:58PM by TMZ Staff
Another irony land-speed record, shattered.
Just two months after Steve Jobs produced his essay, "Thoughts on Music" on his weblog, EMI, one of the world's big four record companies, has elected to take his advice and dump DRM, or Digital Rights Management anti-piracy software, on all the music it sells online (Beatles not included). It's enough to make you want to scream, "You weak-minded fool! He's using an old Jedi mind-trick!"
In February's "Thoughts on Music," Jobs argued that the reason why record labels ought to dump DRM:
"The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That's right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player."
In other words, why bother padlocking the back door if the front door is left wide open?
But instead of asking, "Why not lock the front door and the back door?" Jobs -- whose biases are self-evident with over 90 million iPods sold -- employs the old Jedi mind-trick and says both doors should be left unlocked.
So, why are the labels so willing to have Jobs lead them around by the nose?
In part, it's their own incompetence: The record labels' efforts to lock their "front door" of CD sales have been utterly ham-handed. As CNET's Molly Wood brilliantly explained Sony's efforts at safe-guarding its CDs:
"...You buy a [Sony] CD. You put the CD into your PC in order to enjoy your music. Sony grabs this opportunity to sneak into your house like a virus and set up camp, and it leaves the backdoor open so that Sony or any other enterprising intruder can follow and have the run of the place. If you try to kick Sony out, it trashes the place."
Oops; lawsuits.
The other reason? The labels have little choice but to do as Jobs asks: His iTunes has already nailed down 70% of the online music market, even though 97% of all music on iPods doesn't come via download. The labels have mismanaged their past so badly, they have no choice but to let Jobs run their present, and therefore their future.
Filed under: Music, The Biz, City Of Industry
Posted Mar 29th 2007 5:56PM by TMZ Staff
In Hollywood, unprecedented chutzpah is usually met with approbation, not probation.
But not today.
The Motion Picture Association today took the unusual step of issuing a month-long suspension of the ratings process for Roland Joffe's upcoming horror film, "Captivity." The film was planned for a May 18 release, but will not have to wait a full month before it can go before the MPAA ratings board, meaning that it will likely miss its planned release date if it wants to get a rating.
This all started a week ago, when "Captivity" billboards starting putting people off their lunch in L.A. and New York: Four graphic panels showed a young woman going through "abduction," "confinement," "torture" and "termination." As the Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez aptly put it, "I thought about ordering up a photo of the billboard for this column, but trust me, you don't want to see it. I felt like I needed to take a shower just from having been within a hundred feet of it."
Jill Soloway, who knows a thing or two about the portrayal of death from her stint as the executive producer of HBO's "Six Feet Under," blogged on the Huffington Post, that "it somehow managed to recall Abu Ghraib, the Holocaust, porn and snuff films all at once."
The MPAA says the 'art' work was "summarily rejected" but went up on billboards anyway. After Dark insisted it was a "communications error" with their printer, and said they'd be taken down. Six days later, they were still up. Finally, they came down, but were replaced with a defiant "'Captivity' was here." Hardly contrition, though Courtney Soloman, the film's producer, said "nothing like this can ever happen again."
Now, per the MPAA, "the production company and its distributors will also be required to clear not only all promotional materials but also the locations and venues of all advertising buys relating to the film" -- the first time such a demand has ever been issued by the MPAA.
Clearly, we're in for some interesting times ahead: In a recent interview with MTV.com, 'splat pack' director Eli Roth ("Hostel") had this to say: "Hopefully, we'll get to a point where there are absolutely no restrictions on any kind of violence in movies."
And as for After Dark, well, even more good news: They've just acquired the North American distribution rights to the suicide-themed comedy, "Wristcutters," about young adults who kill themselves and end up in purgatory. They're currently planning a campaign wherein teens are shown committing suicide by jumping off bridges, electrocuting or hanging themselves.
Filed under: Train Wrecks, Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry
Posted Mar 28th 2007 7:54PM by TMZ Staff
You have got to hand it to Disney. They know how to create demand for a film. Namely: Don't show it to anyone.
At a recent shareholder's meeting, Disney CEO Bob Iger was asked -- for the second year in a row -- whether "Song of the South" might be coming out on DVD. He was at pains to give a straight answer, saying, "Our concern was that a film that was made so many decades ago being brought out today perhaps could be either misinterpreted or that it would be somewhat challenging in terms of providing the appropriate context."
"South's" sixtieth anniversary might have been the appropriate context, but it passed last year with nary a commemorative gold-plated special collectors 2 disc platinum edition directors cut, which is how Disney keeps making money on shopworn chestnuts like "Peter Pan" -- keep 'em out of circulation for a while, then hype the hell out of 'em.
"South" has been in theaters four times in the intervening decades since its debut in 1946, but it has never been available on home video. Per the AP, you can see why: "The movie doesn't reveal whether it takes place before or after the Civil War, and never refers to blacks on the plantation as slaves. It makes clear they work for the family, living down dirt roads in wood shacks while the white characters stay in a mansion. Remus and other black characters' dialogue is full of 'ain't nevers,' 'ain't nobodys,' 'you tells,' and 'dem dayses.' "
The most "appropriate context," of course, would be in the home, where parents could discuss and explain to kids both what they're watching, and where stereotypes come from. Suppressing material like "South" is, at best, a missed opportunity and at worst, a white-washing of history.
Certainly, the rottenest thing that could happen to Remus would be to get the Aunt Jemima treatment in re-release: Over the years, the demi-goddess of pancakes has morphed from kerchief-wearing mammy of a slave, to a vaguely benevolent mother-figure with a string of pearls. Despite the image rehab, it's a name that's permanently tarnished; there just aren't ever going to be any black toddlers named 'Jemima' running around on the playgrounds of the future.
Here's hoping a "Song of the South" makes its way to DVD soon, filled with commentary and extras that explain, as well as entertain.
Filed under: Gossip/Rumors, Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry
Posted Mar 27th 2007 8:03PM by TMZ Staff
It used to be, when a Hollywood studio underwent regime change, if you were lucky, the new chief let you keep a bungalow on the lot with a desk and a phone. Maybe you'd hang up a shingle as a producer, and still lunch at the commissary.
Now, thanks to Wall Street, things work a little differently.
TMZ has learned that former Paramount Pictures vice chairman and COO turned distributor Rob Friedman is closing in on about $600 million to finance a slate of movies over the next few years. The deal would put Friedman in partnership with foreign sales company Summit Entertainment, which would handle the overseas distribution of the films it would make or acquire.
Persons familiar with the talks cautioned that the agreement with investment bank Merrill Lynch wasn't final, and that terms were still being negotiated. But were the deal to close, it would essentially turn Summit into a brand new film studio, akin to independent outfit Lionsgate Entertainment. Lionsgate has successfully balanced releasing gory slasher pictures like "Saw" and "Hostel" with Oscar-bait such as Best Picture winner "Crash."
Insiders say the new venture, which would retain the Summit moniker, would be looking for popcorn-style fare that will play well on 2,000 screens. To date, Summit has already gotten into that sort of business: It's releasing the new Paris Hilton comedy "The Hottie and the Nottie" worldwide next year, as well as the overseas rights to higher-brow movies like "Love in the Time of Cholera."
In Friedman, Summit would have a valuable marketeer and picture-picker: He started in the mailroom of Warner Bros. Pictures, and worked his way up to president of worldwide marketing, overseeing franchises like "Batman" and "Lethal Weapon," as well as the Oscar winning "Driving Miss Daisy." When Friedman arrived at Paramount in 1997, he helped create the marketing strategy for "Titanic" in partnership Twentieth Century Fox; it would become the highest grossing film in history.
Recently, Merrill Lynch has been exceptionally active in Hollywood: The bank leapt into bed with Tom Cruise, securing $500 million worth of film financing at United Artists last month, and has also underwritten labels like Marvel Entertainment and producer Ivan Reitman. (Marvel has already used Merrill money to begin pre-production on the forthcoming "Iron Man.")
Calls to Summit Entertainment executives were not returned at deadline, and Friedman declined to comment.
Developing...
Filed under: Movies, The Biz, City Of Industry
Posted Mar 23rd 2007 7:26PM by TMZ Staff
Quick, what's easier to filter out: Porn, or the minors who want to see it? Faster than you can say "derrière" the answer seems to be: The former.
As the Washington Post reports today, the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law that "made it a crime for Internet site operators to let anyone under 17 have access to sexual material" has officially croaked. (It never took effect because the court banned enforcement pending the outcome of yesterday's case.)
The government had argued that software filters are ineffective at keeping out every last nipple and wiener, while the ACLU countered, (unconvincingly, in my opinion) that the COPA law "could result in a loss of appropriate and valuable content for adults, including information about safe sex or art galleries with modern photography."
Still, the anti-COPA ruling is a legal precedent that will make it all-but-impossible to further regulate online smut:
Per Information Week, "The American Civil Liberties Union and Focus on the Family agree on very little, but both said the ruling will make it difficult for lawmakers to adopt similar legislation to protect children from online pornography."
In other words, broadening COPA's reach would likely make it way too extreme, but narrowing its reach would make it even less effective than commonly available filters like "Net Nanny" or "Cyber Sitter."
The law was written in anticipation, but before the take-off of, broadband web video. The irony is, while the most egregious porn sites will continue to do whatever they please, the mainstream marketplace seemingly has regulated itself - and not out of fear of the government, but of community standards. TMZ's wildly successful because it toes that line so well: Just the hint of Britney's crotch; Miss USA's bust, sufficiently star-spangled to prevent your boss from going ballistic: Paparazzi photos that let you be savvy about what just happened, without feeling like you need to take a shower after viewing them.
Potter Stewart would be proud: He was the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who famously defined porn in 1964 by explaining, "...I know it when I see it."
As a result of yesterday's ruling, folks today can say the same thing.
Filed under: The Biz, City Of Industry, Hot Bodies
Posted Mar 22nd 2007 7:19PM by TMZ Staff
This wasn't supposed to be how it went down: A prestigious package of opinion pieces in one of the country's most-lauded newspapers, the Los Angeles Times, guest-wrangled by one of Hollywood's most powerful producers, Brian Grazer. As entertainment firebrand Nikki Finke snarked when the deal was first announced a week ago, Grazer's was a nothing-if-not-ironic menu of op/ed pieces: "Pitbull entertainment litigator Marty Singer wrote a piece about the 'power of allegations'; ...psychologist Paul Ekman -- who's a facial interpretation expert wrote about the subject of 'catching liars.'"
While Finke's headline summed up most folks' skeptical reaction: "Hollywood Producer is LAT Guest Editor; No Wonder He Assigns Essay About Liars."
So it came as a considerable surprise when it was the integrity of the Los Angeles Times Op-Ed editor, Andres Martinez, that would be called into question: After media blogger Kevin Roderick broke the story on his L.A. Observed blog that Martinez was dating Kelly Mullens, one of Grazer's publicists, the excrement really hit the whirling blades.
First, Martinez tried to explain things away in his LAT blog. It didn't cut much ice, especially after an announcement of Grazer's guest gig featured his girlfriend as the press contact. Then, per Roderick: "Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller, under heavy pressure from the news staff, scrapped the Current [LAT's Opinion] section that was to be published Sunday under the guidance of Hollywood producer Brian Grazer." Moments later, Martinez resigned, and even offered an unusual online explication of why. Speaking of opinions, a sampling of the L.A. Times feedback section suggests readers feel that both the paper's op-ed editor and its publisher are suspect here.
Click here... it's not over yet
Filed under: Movies, The Biz, Celebrity Feuds, City Of Industry
Posted Mar 21st 2007 3:31PM by TMZ Staff
The metaphor couldn't have been more sublime: Using old Hollywood icons to beat up on a politico reknowned for milking old Hollywood.
On Sunday, news reports surfaced about an anonymous* anti-Hillary Clinton attack ad that used much of Ridley Scott's famous "1984" Macintosh TV commercial to turn the Senator into Big Brother - albeit a 'bro with a blonde bob. In the end, the Apple logo morphs into an Obama "O" and lists the URL for Senator Barack Obama's campaign.
It's a nightmare scenario for candidates: Mash-ups are outside the control of campaigns, untraceable and highly-viewed. So far, it's been downloaded more than 1.5 million times ... and counting.
There's a larger question in all this is: If Apple CEO Steve Jobs is such an enormous check-writer for the Democratic Party, why have his killer lawyers at Apple not demanded that YouTube take down the post?
The reason might be that the Orwellian attack ad suits Jobs just fine: For one thing, the newly Oscar-christened Al Gore hasn't said definitively that he's not going to run for president. Leaving the ad up makes Hillary look evil and Obama petty (even though Obama's campaign has denied having anything to do with the mash-up.) Gore only benefits.
For another, Jobs clearly owes a lot to Gore, who in addition to being a member of Apple's board of directors, put his own credibility on the line by exonerating Jobs in a stock options back-dating probe last year.
As USA Today reported in January, "...Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president who joined Apple's board in 2003, described Apple's investigation into [stock options] backdating as 'exhaustive' and said the board had 'complete confidence' in CEO Steve Jobs and his management team."
We thought to ask Apple's PR department why, given that other media companies like Viacom are filing billion-dollar lawsuits over copyright infringement by YouTube, Apple seems not to have even sent over a pro-forma cease-and-desist letter about the 1984 mash-up.
Steve Dowling, Director of Corporate PR for Apple, would only say that "Apple doesn't have any comment on this video."
Developing...
* Anonymous no more: The Huffington Post has posted the guerilla ad creator's manifesto.
Filed under: Gossip/Rumors, TV, The Biz, Celebrity Feuds, City Of Industry
