You got Netflix? Or the Blockbuster version of the same service, where you play a flat fee and you can have as many movies as you like sent to your house? You might have thought you were the only one who ordered something, left it on your coffee table for months, then sent it back [...]

Box Office Weekly #107 (MP3 - 15 MB - 22 min)
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In today’s show, weekend box office figures, TV ratings and these stories: The best awards show this weekend took place in a magic shop in Santa Monica… A British theatre chain is cruel to an old, old man… and in this week’s commentary Skot [...]

Adding to Skot’s AA experiences:
There is a British pub in Woodland Hills called The White Harte, and Sunday night they held an Academy Awards viewing party. I wouldn’t normally plug a local place like that but they presented me with a faux Oscar for correctly predicting the best picture award. When pressed for a speech [...]

Sat through the Oscars last night. Taking it in glances:
• There was a general tone of weariness about the whole affair. After the long, drawn-out , contentious WGA strike, there is probably a need in The Industry for something light, traditional, conciliatory and uncontroversial. I know the feeling: After a protracted squabble or grinding contretemps [...]

Hollywood is holding its breath, waiting for a soggy climax to a difficult year to take place tomorrow evening. Yes, the Oscars are coming. But the anti-Oscars (no, I’m not talking about “real life”) have already been given out, over an hour ago, at a magic shop in Santa Monica.
The Golden Raspberry Awards celebrated its [...]

Hey, the Academy Award™ Nominations came out. This exciting fact received no written notice on Box Office Weekly– Until now, that is. (It was noted on the Podcast.)
Gee. Why is that?
Feels like 2005 all over again, if you ask me, especially at the top of the heap. A mound of umpity-ump indies and critical faves [...]

Box Office Weekly #102 (MP3 - 15 MB - 22 min)
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In today’s show, weekend box office figures, TV ratings and these stories: good news from Sundance, if you’re an Alan Partridge fan… viewers can’t get enough of them debates… and in this week’s commentary I review three movies with nothing, and I mean nothing, [...]

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 [...]

Everybody has been asking, what good is this writer’s strike doing? Unless you’re lucky enough to have David Letterman for a boss, you’ve been out of work for two months, forced instead to picket production companies in the dead of winter. Meanwhile the big media companies are seeing profits roughly equal to what they were [...]

Snarky title? Listen pal, I could have put EACH WORD in quotes.
Still, it’s pretty slim pickins around these parts for non-strike-related stories, so I’m happy to pass along a little press-release goodness to y’all. When the Golden Globes air next January 13, one highlight you can expect is watching Steve Spielberg accept the Cecil B. [...]