Showbiz Sandbox 236: Getting Sleep At This Year’s Cannes Film Festival
May 19, 2014
It’s the middle of May so that must mean it is once again time for the Cannes Film Festival, one of the most anticipated and prestigious annual events of the international film industry. This year’s Festival du Film is stocked with titles by auteurs considered to be the world’s crème de la crème. Whether it’s a selection from festival favorite Ken Loach or a timely political movie from Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako, we’ll tell you all about the films that have been hits with the critics and attendees.
Meanwhile, cable and broadcast networks held their annual upfronts in New York last week to announce which series we’ll be watching next season (and which ones they’ve cancelled). The question is with most of the networks moving toward year round programming, are upfronts still an effective method to sell advertising.
The Federal Communications Commission finally published their open internet notice last week managing to please just about nobody. This comes as media companies continue to consolidate with AT&T announcing their plans to purchase satellite TV provider DirecTV.
Of course, we also cover the week’s top entertainment news stories including this year’s Eurovision Song Contest winner, labor disputes at the Metropolitan Opera and Conan O’Brien’s contract gets renewed.
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Showbiz Sandbox 149: Cannes Falls For “Amour”
May 29, 2012
This year’s Cannes Film Festival concluded with “Amour”, a film by Austrian director Michael Haneke, winning the Palme d’Or. The movie about an elderly couple in Paris features two renown French actors and was a hit with festival audiences. Anne Thompson from Indiewire’s Thompson on Hollywood blog says the jury rewarded many of the noteworthy films at this year’s festival, though entries with stars like Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman were rather disappointing.
Speaking of winners, last week Phillip Phillips was crowned the winner of this season’s “American Idol”. The big loser however may be the singing competition show itself, since it is no longer the most watched television show in the nation, a title it held for a historic seven years. That honor is now held by Sunday Night Football.
Apple rather convincingly shredded the antitrust suit tbe Justice Department filed against them and top publishers over the price fixing of e-books. Apple’s response points out a number of innacuracies in the suit and manages to bolster their own case, while notably not helping the publishers with their defense.
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Showbiz Sandbox 147: TV Networks Are Upfront About Their New Schedules
May 14, 2012
It’s the time of year when North American television networks put on big presentations to introduce their fall lineups to major advertisers; a process referred to in the industry as “the upfronts”. It’s also the time when TV audiences find out which of their favorite shows are sticking around for another season and which have been canceled. We’ll fill you in on some of the shows that didn’t make it some of the new series we have to look forward to this fall.
Adele continues to make news in the music world. Her album “21” sold 18 million copies last year which accounted for 1.6% of all the music sold around the world. The pop singer even helped the United Kingdom increase their share of global music sales to 13%.
Tom Hanks appears to be headed to the Great White Way to make his Broadway debut. So is Zooey Deschanel who will be starring in a musical based on Loretta Lynn’s autobiography “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.
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