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 [...]

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 [...]

SCENE: The rec room in a basement of a suburban home.
At a table strewn with lead figurines and hex-graph paper sit FOUR PLAYERS and a DUNGEON MASTER, behind his dragon-emblazed standing folder.
DUNGEON MASTER: Did you hear about Gygax?
JAPHETH BLIGH (8th-level warrior): What’s that? A troll? I’m taking out my +5 Longsword–
HELVETICA the MEDIUM (6th-level Cleric) [...]

In Today’s (3 March) IMDb Studio Briefing this little article hung out near the bottom:
Consumers Hanging Up on Cell-Phone Video
Few people are watching clips of television shows and other videos on cell phones, according to a report by research firm Diffusion Group reported in today’s (Monday) New York Times. “All our research keeps pointing at [...]

I love movies. I love Hollywood, and Hollywood cinema. Fresh-popped popcorn gets me a little high, and I think the little changeover cues in the corners of the frame are cute. And God help me, I’m just as hooked on television as everybody. But there are quite a few things about Hollywood I hate.
Most [...]

I am becoming very confused.
The WGA is still on strike, but they made a side deal with Worldwide Pants, David Letterman’s company, giving his shows a waiver. But they’re not extending the same deal to Leno or Kimmel, because unlike Letterman they do not own their shows. This disregards the fact that CBS has a [...]

Today’s take on the WGA strike originates from an essay on SFGate by Noah Hawley, a novelist and writer for “Bones.” The piece is called “What the writers strike is really about,” and like all op-ed columns written by striking writers it conveys a certain veracity. In fact, Mr. Hawley makes one of the most [...]

Susan D. Whiting, the executive vice president of the Nielsen Company and chairman of Nielsen Media Research, wrote a small piece for the opinion page of the San Francisco Chronicle with the dynamic, original title “The Changing Media Landscape.” You can read it here.
In it, she naturally talks about television. It’s not dead, apparently. There’s [...]

It seems the trend of out-of control teen stars now extends to non-real ones.
From Yahoo! News:

CULVER CITY, Calif. - Kirsten Storms, who voices the snippy cheerleader Bonnie Rockwaller in the animated Disney TV series “Kim Possible,” was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol.

I know the “Kim Possible” franchise rather well. Disney [...]

Attention US Readers! I don’t do a lot of activism here (aside from complaining about things) but this matters to you. Today your favorite internet radio stations are participating in a “day of silence” to call attention to a new copyright law going into effect on July 15th. It will raise royalty payments that internet [...]