I’m proud of TPN:: Box Office Weekly. I believe the editorial and critical content on these pages is of a generally higher level than most media-news blogsites. At the end of the film Ratatouille, the food critic Anton Ego put forth a splendid little summary of what criticism truly is. I’ll excerpt it here:
In [...]

Due to a few minor technicals involving the ENTIRE PODCAST NETWORK, I’m not going to try to upload a show this week. Smart people within the organization believe the trouble will be ironed out by next week, so I recommend that you simply go to boxofficemojo.com, dig up the weekend chart, and read it aloud [...]

Having seen “Arrangements,” I soon saw the importance of getting the film ready for it’s life on the festival circuit. The first step to this end is preparing a definitive tape master: the other is showing those who actually made the film the need to do so.
Really, nobody needed convincing: the short was shot and [...]

Box Office Weekly #113 (MP3 - 15 MB - 22 min)
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In today’s show, weekend box office figures, TV ratings and these stories: Britain truncates an American television series… Warner Brothers truncates New Line… and in this week’s commentary I go all Cassandra on you about the industry. All this and not a word from [...]

When I first came to Los Angeles in 1985, it was boom times for the industry. The recently burgeoning home video market, combined with the popularity of American Films overseas, assured film producers that if you were smart enough with your budget, you could turn a profit out of anything. The weekend I arrived the [...]

Readers of this blog will notice an essential difference between Daniel’s writing style and mine. I’m not talking about the profound ones: It is self-evident that Daniel is a quick-witted, cynical Hollywood insider, and I’m the droll, semi-academic media observer with a thing for animated chicks. No- I’m talking about title showings.
According to the style [...]

As we’ve learned from better science fiction, our creations sometimes surpass their original parameters. Sometimes they run amok (2001), sometimes they kill everyone everywhere (”Battlestar Galactica,” The Matrix), and sometimes they turn into charming naïfs (Data from Star Trek). Another unusual example can currently be seen during commercial breaks on American television.
Esurance, an online insurance [...]

The summer heat is beginning to be felt here in April: Comic-book movies are already jockeying for position. Next month sees the release of Iron Man, the Robert Downey Jr. starrer. And a few weeks later we get another Marvel comics release: The Incredible Hulk.
Everything about this new Hulk film seems to be in reaction [...]

Box Office Weekly #112 (MP3 - 15 MB - 22 min)
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In today’s show, weekend box office figures, TV ratings and these stories: CBS hopes you didn’t like that local anchor too much… someONE gets the recogNITION they deSERVE!… and in this week’s commentary Skot brings back the Trek-O-Meter for further analysis. All this and [...]

All this Star Trek talk has made me sort of nostalgic. When I think about it, it’s difficult to remember the details of any given show.
Something…
But there was definitely, definitely something I liked about one of the later shows. Something that sort of drew me back, again and again…
Something…
I believe it was some sort of [...]