Thompson On Hollywood

Summer Movies: Women Want Sex and the City

The NYT's Manohla Dargis seems to think that there aren't many women's pictures coming out this summer. True, much of the summer movie advance buzz and online hype is about what the fanboys are interested in. The women's pictures, which appeal to one or two audience quadrants and don't necessarily target men, won't be blockbusters. That's one issue. (Another is the current phobia about putting sex in movies, like Speed Racer and Iron Man, because it will scare off men and younger folks. Please.)

But several movies in theaters now and still to come are aimed at women, from Made of Honor and What Happens in Vegas to the Meryl Streep Abba musical Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City. Even Get Smart, starring Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway, is going to pull women. And don't mess with Wanted's Angelina Jolie: she can kick ass on-screen as well as any male action star.

Finally, some marketing is starting to hit on Sex and the City, from Parker hyping her role as a mother on the cover of Parade, to early raves from Oprah and Fox News' Roger Friedman. Cinematical and Women and Hollywood debate Sex and the City's b.o. mettle. Carrie Bradshaw's getting married to Mr. Big? It will be huge.

Do I agree with Dargis that we could use more and better movies targeted at women? Fuck yeah!

Cyrus Reps Make Big Misstep

What were they thinking? Vanity Fair can shoot 15-year-old Disney pop star Miley Cyrus in a silk bedsheet if they want to. Clearly, mighty star photographer Annie Leibovitz was persuasive; Cyrus thought she was participating in something "artistic," she told People.com, adding that from now on she would "trust my support team."

But the reps behind the Hannah Montana family brand should be ashamed of themselves, not only for showcasing their teen star as a sex object, but misreading her fanbase. It's obvious and stupid. According to Vanity Fair's statement to E.T., Cyrus's parents were at the shoot. Here's the NYT and Reuters:

"For Vanity Fair, I was so honored and thrilled to work with Annie. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," Cyrus said in a statement published on People magazine's Web site.

The Disney Channel backed up the rising star saying in a statement that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."

No one from Vanity Fair was immediately available to comment.

But in a statement to the TV show "Entertainment Tonight," Vanity Fair defended itself.

"Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley," said the magazine's statement.

Regarding the photos on the Internet, Cyrus said these were "silly, inappropriate shots" and she was sorry if she had disappointed anyone.

"I appreciate all the support of my fans, and hope they understand that along the way I am going to make mistakes and I am not perfect," she said.

"Most of all, I have let myself down. I will learn from my mistakes and trust my support team. My family and my faith will guide me through my life's journey."

UPDATE: MCN's David Poland sees nothing to make a fuss about. The LAT's Mary McNamara. And Kim Masters on NPR.

Paramount Will Launch Iron Man Midnight Screenings

Demand is so over-heated for Iron Man--which word is, may actually be good--that Paramount is planning to play the game of debuting the film the night before, on May 1. The Arclight in L.A. is selling tickets to a Thursday night midnight show. At the same time the studio is worried that the film may be overhyped, so it's trying to keep most media breaks closer to release and not overheat expectations that this will be one BEHEMOTH of an opening. If Paramount says $45 million, expect as much as $70 million. Fantasy Moguls' Steve Mason reports that tracking is pointing toward a huge Iron Man opening of $60 million plus.

Here's one example of who's coming out of Iron Man way ahead: Robert Downey Jr., who talks to EW here.

Newsday to Sell to News Corp.

In need of cash to pay down his debts, Tribune Co's Sam Zell is selling Newsday to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which would now own three of New York's major metropolitan newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post. Regulatory issues could scotch the sale. Here's Variety, and Vanity Fair's long takeout on Murdoch at the time of the WSJ sale.

In related media news, editor Marcus W. Brauchli is expected to leave the WSJ, only four months after Murdoch acquired the paper.

[Murdoch photo-illo courtesy Vanity Fair, by Michael Elins and Peter Morgan]

41 Hours in an Elevator

Nick Paumgarten's harrowing New Yorker piece details how Businessweek writer Nick White goes out for a smoke one day and is trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. It ruins his life. He wants to blame someone for negligence. He loses his job. And he's still unemployed.

Here's a video short of shots from the elevator camera. Oh my god. I'd have gone bonkers.

[Hat Tip The Circuit.]

Lohan Boosted NYMag.com to 9.6 million uniques

If anyone needs proof that media investing in online can pay off handsomely, New York Magazine is the poster child. Their February fashion issue featured Lindsay Lohan channeling Marilyn Monroe with no clothes on. That month NYmag.com's online traffic skyrocketed to 9.6 million unique views, a 120% gain.

Wildly Popular Iron Man Trailer Inspires Onion

This Iron Man news story from The Onion is hilarious.

Tribune's Zell May Have to Sell

The New York Times reports on Sam Zell's struggles with his new newspaper empire. Newsday may have to go, after all. Variety's Cynthia Littleton got there first.

Critics: The March of Time

There's been a huge outcry on the web about the current critics' crisis. (When did people start calling them crickets?) Here's a sampling:

My column and last critics blog entry with links. And responses from Spout and FirstShowing.

Sean Means is keeping a list of departed critics.

A spoof on the situation.

Is the Internet killing the film critic?

UPDATE: FilmSchool Rejects responds. And last but not least, Patrick Goldstein.

Pitt Fires PR, Decides to Go It Alone

Radar reports that Brad Pitt has let go his long-time PR rep Cindy Guagenti. He's going to take it alone, like his partner Angelina Jolie. I've long thought that Pitt's PR was well-handled; we'll see where it goes from here. Remember what happened when Tom Cruise and Pat Kingsley parted ways?

Here's Pitt's latest announcement.

Madonna Gets It On with Hubbie

Always candid and provocative, Madonna tells us more than we want to know about her sex life with husband Guy Ritchie.

UPDATE: Here's her cover story in Vanity Fair, which also features a Madonna photo gallery look back at all her Vanity Fair layouts. I had forgotten that she did her own series of Marilyn Monroe-inspired photos, long before Lindsay Lohan.

2008 Media Hot List

In a publishing universe beset by steep advertising declines, Adweek Media's eagerly awaited annual hot list is the one that tells all: it's about what's working.

Here are some noteworthy tidbits from the 28th edition: For the first time, global newsmag The Economist took the number one spot, jumping from number ten. Other returning titles from last year are Real Simple, More, Glamour and Martha Stewart Living. For the first time in three years, O, The Oprah Magazine, did not make the list. Condé Nast boasts a total of five publications: Vogue, Glamour, Condé Nast Traveler, Cookie, and Men’s Vogue, while Rodale has three titles: Women’s Health, BestLife and Bicycling.

Editor Adam Moss's multi-million investment in revamping New York Magazine is paying off, with a spot in the top ten. New York also grabbed Design Team of the Year for its creative output.

Men’s Health editor David Zinczenko earned the Editor of the Year award, and Men’s Vogue nabbed Startup of the Year.

Despite considerable online competition from celeb sites, People.com, one of the most trafficked magazine-generated sites, grew its audience by 48% in 2007, totaling 6.3 million monthly unique users. People.com won the Magazine Web Site of the Year award.

AdweekMedia’s 2008 Hot List:

Title Circulation Advertising Revenues

1. The Economist 720,882 +24%

2. Real Simple 1,986,605 +22.8%

3. Harper’s Bazaar 729,767 +26.8%

4. More 1,265,999 +25.4%

5. Vogue 1,273,546 +10%

6. Glamour 2,353,854 +18.2%

7. Family Circle 4,011,530 +17%

8. Martha Stewart Living 2,021,934 +24%

9. Condé Nast Traveler 819,683 +22%

10. New York 429,116 +16.3%

Selection to AdweekMedia’s annual Hot List is based on several factors, including: ad page and revenue gains; performance within a magazine’s competitive category; circulation gains; interviews with media buyers and consultants, and AdweekMedia’s own editorial judgment. Magazines must have at least $50 million in advertising revenue and publish 10 issues or more annually.

AdweekMedia’s 2008 10 Under 50 List highlights the top magazines with under $50 million in annual revenue:

Title Circulation Advertising Revenues

1. Women’s Health 907,838 +145.6%

2. BestLife 496,053 +61.1%

3. Men’s Vogue 336,189 +122%

4. Cookie 436,197 +95.9%

5. Everyday Food 918,946 +25.9%

6. All You 843,874 +46.5%

7. Fast Company 749,095 +26.3%

8. Veranda 470,449 +15.2%

9. National Geographic Traveler 738,907 +19.6%

10. Bicycling 416,706 +12.3%

Ansen to Leave Newsweek After 30 Years

The deadline for 146 staffers to accept or reject a handsome buyout offer from Newsweek was March 25. The offer was too good--including a sweetened pension, health coverage until age 65, and two years salary-- for 30-year Newsweek veteran film critic David Ansen to refuse. "It was a good deal," he said. "They didn't want me to leave, which put me in a nice bargaining position. They may have been shocked at how many people took the offer."

While many of the 111 Newsweek employees who did accept it will leave May 30, the 62-year-old Ansen negotiated to continue reviewing for the magazine until year's end, at which point he starts a year-long contract as contributing editor delivering reviews and longer features.

As Newsweek prepares to move its Manhattan offices downtown near Ground Zero, "obviously the climate at newsmagazines is not great," said Ansen. "More cost-cutting, more trimming." Ansen looks forward to writing books, teaching, and "not going out to screenings every night," he said. "I want to watch DVDs of movies I might actually like and read a book or two. Face it, a lot of movies are not that interesting to write about these days."

Radar initially reported the Newsweek buyout.

The current harsh publishing climate has been hard on film critics. Gone from newspaper staff reviewer ranks are The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum, Newsday's John Anderson, The Village Voice's Nathan Lee, The New York Daily News' Jami Bernard and Jack Mathews, The Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington and The Atlanta Journal Constitution's Eleanor Ringel Gillespie. Some have retired and some have been pushed out. "It is scary; they're letting a lot of good people go these days," said Ansen. "It's like a return to the hard old days when I was growing up when anybody could be a movie critic, and they'd take somebody off the sports desk."

[Newsweek critic David Ansen, right, with Sidney Kimmel Entertainment's Bingham Ray, at this year's Indie Spirit Awards.]

Jamie Lee Curtis Poses Topless

For years my husband treasured a gorgeous black-and-white nude photo of Jamie Lee Curtis (taken by a friend). And now she's posing, on the eve of her 50th birthday, with no top for AARP Magazine. (She's under water.) I've always admired Curtis's honest approach to the vagaries of stardom, from the way she was raised, posing for PR shots as the child of working actors, to how folks deal with weight and aging here.

In 2002 she generated huge reaction for a photo spread she did for More Magazine, which was her idea, showing what she really looked like before and after 13 people made her up for a glamour shoot.

National Magazine Award Noms: New Yorker Nabs 12

For magazine editors, the ASME awards are their Oscars. Every self-respecting editor-in-chief, from Los Angeles Magazine's Kit Rachlis to Adam Moss of New York Magazine, wants to land as many noms as possible. The happiest editor in the world today is New Yorker's David Remnick, who gorged out with twelve.

Congrats to EW's Stephen King, nommed for his essay on J.K. Rowling. And to film critics Tom Carson (GQ) and David Edelstein (New York). And to my former Premiere Magazine editor Jim Meigs for his three noms for Popular Mechanics, including excellence in the 1-2 million circ category. That's a major turnaround for the once old-fashioned title, now replete with slick features and a hip online presence.

Here's Portfolio, the ASME site and Gawker, which created the snazzy graphic above.

The full list of nominees is on the jump:

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Photo Discovered

This recently discovered 1888 photo is racing around the Internet, revealing the allure that blind-deaf girl Helen Keller still holds. No other known photo shows her holding a doll--which was the first word Sullivan taught her.

Arthur Penn's 1962 movie The Miracle Worker, based on William Gibson's Broadway play, won Oscars for both Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke.

Wired: Anderson Goes for Free!

In his April cover story, Wired editor Chris Anderson expounds on the new free economy, citing Yahoo, Google, Craig's List and other examples of wildly successful enterprises that provide free services. This article will surely chill the blood of entertainment execs who are terrified that all their hard-won revenue streams will trickle into nothing if they are forced to make their costly content available for free. As DVD sales continue to decline, what if the Blu-Ray vs. HDTV contest is irrelevant and consumers skip that upgrade altogether in favor of some mix-and-match combo of all the following: VOD, XBox, iTunes, Apple TV, Netflix streaming, and Amazon Unbox downloads?

I just had a conversation with a pal about the dwindling newspaper economy. We are not alone in expecting to read content online for free. When anything we want to find is behind a firewall, we get pissed. Another pal of mine routinely illegally downloads all his films. He expects to watch his entertainment for free.

Obviously there will be ways, whether it's iTunes or Google ads or sponsorships and product placement, for companies to gain value from content. But in a recent conversation with a studio head, I was struck when he admitted that they had just renewed their HBO Pay-TV deal. That he considered any radical shift in the ways the studios collect their revenues to be far off. He wasn't worried, because he's sticking with the old-fashioned theater/DVD/VOD/Pay TV/TV model for as long as possible. By taking this course and delaying the pursuit of an alternative distribution paradigm (which they are keeping in their back pockets), the studios risk eventually getting stuck with a lot of content nobody wants to pay for.

Wired also has an update on the Netflix $1-million competition to invent a new movie recommendation algorithm 10 % better than its own Cinematch. The probable winner: a Brit psychologist.

Vanity Fair Covers Comediennes

Page Six has the scoop on Vanity Fair's April cover story on today's crop of comediennes. Annie Leibovitz shoots Queens of Comedy Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman and Amy Poehler for the cover, while inside, they and Sandra Bernhard, Jenna Fischer, Chelsea Handler and Wanda Sykes impersonate the likes of Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan and Lil Kim.

Did you see this amazing photo of Amy Winehouse in The New Yorker? Talk about skanky. (Here's the piece that goes with it.)

Lohan Channels Sad, Nude Monroe

The person at New York Magazine who came up with the idea of shooting tragic ingenue Lindsay Lohan as late great Hollywood sexpot Marilyn Monroe should get a raise. (The issue will sell like hotcakes and traffic on the site will surge.) Like it or not, the girl can act and putting her and photographer Bert Stern together to recreate Monroe's last nude photo session was genius. It works. And Lohan's got the right stuff. (I just hope she's not heading toward a similar fate.)

Actually, folks in the office were passing around a poll that asks: If you had to be stranded on a desert island with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, who would you pick? To a person, everyone picked Lohan. Why? Messed up and badly parented as she may be, at least she has talent and a glimmer of intelligence to hang onto. The others are truly lost souls. (Thank God The Hottie and the Nottie tanked.)

More sexy nude photos on the jump. [Hat tip Gawker.]

L.A. Times Names Stanton as Editor

As times in the newspaper biz remain dicey and both the LAT and NYT face massive staff cuts and layoffs, Russ Stanton is taking over the helm as editor at the LAT. He plans to merge the editorial operations of the print and online editions. Good luck. It wasn't so long ago that many LAT writers labored over long features in the hopes of winning a Pulitzer prize. Now they're fighting for their jobs and the paper's survival. But the LAT brass know that making their online business pay is their only future.

Poland Vents on Old Media vs New Media

Every few months or so, Movie City News' David Poland goes on one of these rants about who's covering the industry on the old and new media side, usually involving swipes at the LAT and NYT Hollywood beat reporters and other rivals on the Internet.

While Poland makes some good points, I often feel that there's an element of envy involved in these outpourings. I agree with him that the LAT should let Claudia Eller loose--but the reasons why they wanted to defang her still exist: they aren't willing to take the inevitable heat from the studios.

I too admire Spout's Karina Longworth, but she is a child of the Internet; she's thriving in her fave milieu after trying to survive in a more conventional day job at Netscape Movies. Gawker Media's Nick Denton should give her the Defamer spot. She's not a witty charmer like Mark Lisanti--she's more of a NY film geek insider-- and there would have to be an adjustment, but she's a gifted blogger, and would bring her own following.

NYT and EW go to the Oscars

Yes, it's Oscar season and time for the NYT Mag's Oscar issue, dedicated to breakthrough performances. And another set of gorgeous photos (scanned by the kind folks at Livejournal). Here's my fave: James McAvoy. (I hope Atonement does well at the BAFTAs tomorrow.) Here's Lynn Hirschberg's story.

[NYT photo by Ryan McGinley; EW photo by Justin Stephens]

I also loved Ken Tucker's EW cover piece, The Year of the Bad Boys, on the year's two great villains, Anton Chigurh and Daniel Plainview, played of course by Oscar contenders Javier Bardem and Daniel Day Lewis.

Vanity Fair Does Hitchcock

Vanity Fair's Hitchcock homage is great fun. The Psycho montage is right-on. As if we didn't already know, Marion Cotillard is game for anything.

And Emile Hirsch and James McAvoy are creepily handsome in black-and-white for Strangers on a Train.

Gwenyth Paltrow is very Grace Kelly, perfect for To Catch a Thief. And Naomi Watts, Keira Knightley, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Charlize Theron capture the period. But while their photos are gorgeous, Renee Zellweger and Jodie Foster seem too strong and modern to be Hitchcock women.

And as coolly suave as Paltrow's Iron Man co-star Robert Downey, Jr. is here (maybe he needed to shave the beard and trim the uptick in his hair), only George Clooney or Hugh Grant could come close to Cary Grant. (Or AMC's Jon Hamm?) It reminds us what a tall order that is. Seth Rogen makes a brilliant comic choice for the crop-duster sequence in North by Northwest.

Isn't it weird that Rear Window's Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson are not looking out the window in their Rear Window shot?

[Hat Tip to lovehater]

Vanity Fair Party Cancelled

I'm shocked! Graydon Carter has cancelled the Vanity Fair Oscar party in deference to the ongoing--but on the verge of resolving--Writers Strike. Folks will definitely be in a party mood. Wonder who will step into the breach for post-Governor's Ball action? Elton John anyone?

Vanity Fair Cover Girls: Think Young

Rising ingenues Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, Ellen Page and America Ferrara are among this year's crop of Vanity Fair Hollywood issue cover girls. The cover is stilted, awkward and oddly sexless, considering the star wattage. Am I the only one who thinks that Juno star Page looks like she's in drag when she puts on a fancy designer dress? UPDATE: She looked like her cheerful Oscar-caliber self in black and white stripes at the Academy Luncheon on Monday. Here's a slideshow of past VF Hollywood covers; they get better as they go back. The first one was a stunner.

Paste's Art-House 100

I've never read Paste magazine, but nonetheless they're already publishing their third Annual Art Powerhouse 100, which "celebrates those who make the independent film industry possible." The list is pretty predictable. It would make more sense to do this a tad earlier, when the list might have some influence on the awards season. It now seems somewhat after the fact.

PASTE Magazine’s 3rd Annual Art House Powerhouse 100
Our Favorite Actors
Viggo Mortensen
Laura Linney
Forest Whitaker
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Naomi Watts
Cate Blanchett
Evan Rachel Wood
Natalie Portman
Don Cheadle
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Juliette Binoche
Daniel Day-Lewis
Josh Brolin
Christian Bale
Cillian Murphy
Parker Posey
Jack Black
Ryan Gosling
Nicole Kidman
Javier Bardem
Jake Gyllenhaal
Johnny Depp
Ellen Page
Casey Affleck
Emile Hirsch
Paul Dano
Jason Schwartzman

More Paste favorites on the jump:

Four California Newspaper Editors Lose Posts

It's not a good time to be the editor of a newspaper trying to ride the winds of change in the print media business. My daughter, 18, doesn't read newspapers at all. Neither do any of the students in my USC film criticism course. They read, of course--whether it's Rolling Stone or Rotten Tomatoes-- online.

Waxman Leaves NYT

Finally, after a six-month book leave, the Sharon Waxman shoe has dropped. The NYT's ex-Hollywood correspondent made a brief comeback with a DreamWorks/NBC scoop. But the word inside the Grey Lady was that the L.A.-based mother of three was destined for the New York Metro desk. Now, she is going indie. When I wrote about her leaving the paper, Waxman insisted that she was not forced off the entertainment beat, that it was her choice. But she wants to keep covering entertainment, clearly. If she joins the Hollywood blogosphere with no holds barred, fasten your seatbelts. On the other hand, it's a crowded niche and she still has to make a living; and she is unlikely to be soliciting studio advertising.

Publicists Guild Nominations

I want to thank the Publicists Guild for nominating me for the second time for their Press Award for entertainment industry coverage. I am in great company: Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke, USA Today's Bill Keveney, Claudia Puig and Susan Wloszczyna, and Access Hollywood's Scott Mantz. I'll to go to the awards again and sit at my table anxiously wondering if I will have to go to the front of the Beverly Hilton ballroom and make a speech. (Last time I did not win.) I wonder if Nikki will show?

The Wire Tackles Journalism; So does The Simpsons

It usually makes me cringe when movies or TV try to show journalists on the job. So I was slightly nervous about The Wire creator David Simon delving into the inner workings of a metropolitan daily this season. I needn't have worried. The guy worked thirteen years as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun; it rings true.

But plenty of folks from the paper beg to differ. Here are features on The Wire:

NPR
The LAT
The New Yorker
The A.P.

Simon responds to criticism on Romenesko.

The Simpsons even takes a swipe at print journalism.

Sweeney and Charlie Q & As

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton talk to New York Magazine about the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman talk to Time about Charlie Wilson's War.

[Photos: Hoffman, Roberts and Hanks for Time; Depp and Burton for New York]

Goodbye Power 100, Hello EW's Smart List

This Friday, Entertainment Weekly will publish a new standalone special issue, the first Hollywood “Smart List.” The brain behind this rejuvenated list, which replaces the tired old EW Power 100, is my old colleague Sean Smith, ex-of Newsweek and Premiere, who worked with me on quite a few Premiere power lists. We prided ourselves on reporting the hell out of those lists, and that's what EW has done here, too. A phalanx of EW reporters canvassed the film industry, conducting hundreds of background interviews, seeking info on “the savants and the wunderkinds whose ideas are driving the film industry forward,” according to EW.

Needless to say, anticipation of which actors, directors, producers and agents made the list is already building. Those who can’t wait until the magazine hits newsstands Friday can find just who made the cut-- right here. The question is, having abandoned the old Power 100 model--which readers were far less interested in than the super-driven power-mongers in NY and LA--will folks care about this reinvention of the list? I suspect it makes for better reading, and focuses attention on some worthy folks like FX master John Knoll and composer Gustavo Santaolalla.

EW can't help but go back to some of the same old/same old list of names: Steven Spielberg, Bob Zemeckis, Dick Cook and Brian Grazer are still on there. But otherwise, it's pretty interesting: Number one is Judd Apatow, because "you can't argue with success," says Smith. "He has his finger on the pulse of comedy right now, he's king of it and made three stars out of Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill would never have been movie stars. He's made himself a household brand."

At the start of the process back in August, as LA bureau chief Smith commandeered seven film reporters in LA and three in NY, he found that it was hard to steer clear of old "power list" habits. "We kept slipping back into power discussions," he says. "We had to rethink. I kept telling them we were free to recalibrate, to consider the overall influence on the future of the industry." The list gets more surprising the farther down you go--including an entry for one Roderick Jaynes, the well-known editor of the Coens brothers' movies--a fake name for the Coens themselves.

Here's the top 20 of the top 50, with the rest on the jump:

Entertainment Weekly's 50 Smartest People in Hollywood:
1. Judd Apatow, director/writer/producer
2. Steven Spielberg, director/producer
3. James Cameron, director/producer
4. Ari Emanuel, partner of the Endeavor Agency
5. Will Smith, actor/producer
6. Meryl Streep, actor
7. Peter Rice, president of Fox Searchlight
8. Tyler Perry, actor/director/writer/producer
9. David Heyman, producer
10. John Knoll, visual-effects supervisor of Industrial Light & Magic
11. Brian Grazer, producer
12. Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios
13. George Clooney, actor/director/producer
14. Jerry Bruckheimer, producer
15. Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment
16. Peter Jackson, director/producer
17. Will Ferrell, actor/producer
18. Robert Zemeckis, director
19. Tom Rothman, co-chair of Fox Filmed Entertainment
20. Ben Stiller, actor/director/producer

Lippman Joins LAT

It's always interesting to see how my fellow journalists fare when they try to go over to the PR side. Some can do it, some can't and I have to say I am delighted that ex-WSJist John Lippman, after a flirtation with Sitrick & Co. , is returning to journalism via the LAT, where Lippman will replace business side editor James Bates--who is going to Sitrick! Welcome back.

Vanity Fair: Geffen vs. Redstone Redux, Coppola Speaks

They're at it again: rival billionaires David Geffen and Sumner Redstone trade barbs in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. Apparently, the DreamWorks vs. Viacom war is not over. Pamela McClintock reports.

Here's a sampling of the Bryan Burroughs piece:

In a series of talks with Vanity Fair beginning in August, Redstone’s men have blamed Geffen, the mischievous music turned film magnate, for practically every bad press notice they have received, even the reports of trouble in Redstone’s marriage. “This is all Geffen,” an executive close to Redstone told me. “We know what’s going on. He’s doing all of this. He’s relentless. He and Sumner, when they’re in a fight like this, it’s war. It’s war.”

When I first relayed these sentiments to Geffen, he exploded. “Whoever said these things, they must be out of their minds,” he said, his voice rising with each syllable. “I am not responsible for the public discourse about Mr. Redstone at all. He is. To imply I have anything to do with his image problems is just shameful. The lawsuits with his children and the statements he has made on the record speak for themselves.”

But Geffen, who to his credit had no problem speaking on the record, was only warming up. “I don’t care for Sumner’s behavior,” he went on, “and I have that in common with a great many people in the entertainment business. I don’t like the way he treats people. Most of all, nobody is going to treat me or my partner [Spielberg] in that manner and stay in business with us. Nobody.”

The December issue also profiles Francis Ford Coppola; here's his online Q & A.

Blogger Attacks Variety Slanguage

As a Variety staffer, I enjoy throwing around slanguage like prexy, helmer, boffo and pics with legs. They're ingrained in my brain. What's not to like? This acerbic Brit blogger takes issue with Varietyese, especially as it applies to our film criticism. There is an argument to be made that slanguage works better in the print edition of an entertainment business trade than it does online, where it's read by millions of industry-philes all over the world. So we tend to tone down the headlines a bit on Variety.com.

Here's the Variety slanguage dictionary. And Variety editor Tim Gray, the master of the witty headline and author of The Hollywood Dictionary, is interviewed here by NPR.

Does Varietyese annoy you? Or are you fond of it? Update: Kristin Thompson mounts a defense with the headline: Crix Nix Variety’s Tics.

New York's Edelstein vs. Time's Corliss

Film critics David Edelstein of New York and Richard Corliss of Time are having a pissing match over Rush Limbaugh and masturbation. At least I think that's what they are debating.