Showbiz Sandbox 128: Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas

December 5, 2011

Tis the season for holiday movies and there is no shortage of Yuletide titles to choose from. Thankfully film critic-at-large Alonso Duralde comes to the rescue by sifting through decades of Christmas movies in his book “Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas“. He highlights some of the classic, and not-so-classic, films worth watching during the holidays and explains why this year’s “Arthur Christmas” is having trouble finding an audience.

It’s also the time of year when acclaimed movies and music from the past 12-months begin picking up nominations for annual awards. Last week nominees were announced for the Independent Spirit Awards and the Grammys with many more to come.

Over on Broadway ten shows earned more than $1 million during Thanksgiving week as the theater going season kicks into full gear. The hit musical “Book of Mormon” even turned a profit thanks in part to high ticket prices.

We also cover the week’s top entertainment news stories, including Madonna’s Super Bowl gig, the end of Napster and why musician Elvis Costello doesn’t want you to buy his new boxed set.

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Showbiz Sandbox 86: Why TV Viewing Is Rising As Moviegoing Declines

January 3, 2011

On more than a few occasions during 2010 one could hardly fault moviegoers for feeling as if they’d been duped as they left theaters. Movieline journalist and author Alonso Duralde believes that in at least seven instances films were misrepresented by their marketing campaigns. He discusses, among others, the arthouse movie that was sold as an action thriller, the riotous comedy that isn’t funny at all, and a princess tale disguised as a swashbuckling adventure.

Marketing could hardly be the primary reason 2010’s box office was down slightly from the previous year’s record earnings. With ticket sales off by an estimated 5.36% the only thing propping up film grosses were higher ticket prices, which noticeably rose over the past year.

On the other hand, Nielsen reports that Americans are watching more television than last year, around 34 hours per week. Unfortunately for the major broadcast networks which once ruled the airwaves, viewership has become fractured as it spread out across hundreds of cable channels. The only big TV winner during 2010 was living sporting events, which accounted for eight of the top ten highest rated shows of the year.

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Showbiz Sandbox 14: Zooey Deschanel Proves It’s Twee To Be You And Me

August 3, 2009

First off, we took care of a little internal business by welcoming entertainment journalist Michael Giltz as an official co-host.

Alonso Duralde joins us this week. Alonso is the film critic at MSNBC.com and the author of “101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men“. His reviews are featured regularly on The Rotten Tomatoes Show. A member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Alonso spent six years as Arts & Entertainment editor at The Advocate where he is still a contributing writer. His work has also appeared in such publications as the Village Voice, Movieline, Detour among many others. This month Alonso will be curating a the series “So Bad They’re Brilliant” at the American Cinematheque. You can follow him on Twitter at @MSNBCalonso.

We asked Alonso to join us because of a story he wrote for msnbc.com called “Do You See What I Twee?”, as it related to the latest movies. He described the essence of twee as “avoiding the fashionable, the obvious, the predictable, the mundane in an attempt to be, for lack of a better phrase, showily unshowy…It’s about replacing one calculated technique of visual and cultural cues with another.” It’s an apt description of one of the more popular movies out this summer, “(500) Days of Summer,” and its lead, Zooey Deschanel. We also just love saying the word “twee.” Read more