Showbiz Sandbox 40: Taylor Ain’t Swift At The Grammys

The highlights of this week’s entertainment news were the Grammys and Sundance. First though, there was “Avatar”, “Avatar”, and more “Avatar”. The 3D wunderkind was number one at the box office again and has sold roughly 56 million tickets in North America so far. “Titanic” sold roughly 128 million admissions in North America, so if “Avatar” did that, it would gross about $1.2 billion in the U.S alone.

But there is more going on in the entertainment world besides “Avatar”. The music world gathered for the Grammys on Sunday, January 31. Geoff Boucher from the Los Angeles Times and David Wild, one of the writers on the Grammy telecast, join us to discuss the hits (Pink’s performance), the misses (Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks) and what was going on backstage (Alice Cooper hangs with Smokey Robinson).

The Grammys weren’t the only prizes handed out over the weekend. Sundance announced its festival winners and Alison Willmore, a senior editor at IFC.com, stops by to talk about her favorite festival films and a few she recommends skipping. Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 39: Chez Sundance

Co-host Karen Woodward puts a moratorium on any more talk of “Avatar”, James Cameron’s 3D sci-fi epic which continues to break box office records. So instead, we skip straight to Sundance, where the atmosphere has gone from recession (last year) to depression (this year). J. Sperling Reich is in the snowy, cold ski town and fills us in on the movies everyone in Park City is buzzing about.

If you can’t make it to Sundance this year, no worries, you’ll be able to catch a few of the festival’s selections on YouTube.

Also in movie news, anti-smoking activists are claiming that Sigourney Weaver’s line “Where’s my damn cigarette” in “Avatar” should have earned the film an R rating. What set of rules is the MPAA going by when they come up with some of their absurd ratings?

After a brief fly by of the SAG Awards, we head over to television land.  Things have calmed down in the Conan vs. Leno vs. NBC war, but Michael Giltz and Karen must not have gotten the memo. They argue over who was wronged more by the whole debacle. Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien hosted his last “Tonight Show” on Friday.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 38: Gender Matters In Hollywood

The New Year may have started off slow, but 2010 is heating up! “Avatar” is on track to top “Titanic” as the highest grossing film of all time, The Golden Globes were handed out on Sunday and of course the late night talk show war has really taken some interesting turns.

Dylan Stableford who writes The Wrap’s Media Alley column joins us to talk about his post, “The Vilification of Leno: Loud, Nasty and Fleeting.” Will audiences warm up to Jay Leno again? Who was the bad guy in all this fracas? Leno, Conan O’Brien, or NBC?

In movie news, director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire dropped out of “Spider-Man 4” and Sony now says it plans to reboot the franchise with a younger actor.

Finally, though she didn’t win a Golden Globe, director Kathryn Bigelow is earning critical praise for her film “The Hurt Locker.” Academy Award nominations have yet to be announced, but she appears to have a lock on one, and may be the first woman to win the best director Oscar in the history of the awards show. Women in Hollywood and the film industry is a topic we discuss frequently here on Showbiz Sandbox thanks in part to Karen Woodward. Joining us to discuss the issue today is Matthew Hammett Knott Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 37: Conan and Leno’s Late Shift Shrift

It’s official: Simon Cowell will be leaving “American Idol” this season and NBC (finally!) admits that airing “The Jay Leno Show” in primetime five nights a week was a mistake. Cowell is headed off to start a new reality talent show, “X Factor”, while Jay Leno is headed back to his old late night time slot, at least for a half-hour. But where will Conan O’Brien’s tonight show end up? Right now NBC wants to push him back a half hour.

In theaters, “Avatar” just will not go away. It stays firm at the top of the box office again this week. “Daybreakers” staring Ethan Hawke, also did well in its debut, but the Amy Adams vehicle “Leap Year” didn’t leap anywhere.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) tries to sell us on 3D television and video rental service Netflix reaches an important agreement with Warner Bros.

David Colker, a business reporter covering technology for the Los Angeles Times gives us the low down on CES, espcially all the 3D televisions announced at the show (which aren’t even available for sale yet). Do consumers even want 3D television? More importantly, how are we prepared to wear those funny 3D glasses at home? Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 31: Blind Sided By Adam Lambert’s Double Standard

While we all still may be sluggish from all the turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving, the North American box office sure wasn’t. It set a record for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as once again “The Blind Side” surprises everyone. The Sandra Bullock movie defied expectations to earn another $40 million over the five-day period, almost topping “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” as the winner this weekend. Proof positive that Sandra Bullock is a movie star.

So is George Clooney, whose “Up In The Air” opens on Friday. According to Claudia Eller of the Los Angeles Times the film is proving to be a marketing challenge for its distributor, Paramount. Apparently the studio is afraid Jason Reitman’s humorous drama about corporate downsizing may touch a raw nerve. But how could this critically acclaimed movie be a marketing challenge? We’ve got two words that might help Paramount’s advertising campaign: George. Clooney. Sheesh, maybe we should be marketers.

Actually, maybe we should become linguistics experts instead. USC linguistics professor Paul R. Frommer was brought in by James Cameron – writer and director of a little upcoming release called “Avatar” – to develop the language of the 10-foot tall blue Smurfs – um. . . aliens – who inhabit Pandora, the setting for the film’s conflict.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 25: Mr. Television Grades Freshman TV Shows (and Leno Flunks)

Mr. Television himself is our guest this week, which means we talk a lot about TV. Marc Berman is the senior television editor at MediaWeek and creator/editor of The Programming Insider, a daily online bible focused on all things television that reaches more than 50,000 readers per day. He even has a daily companion podcast to catch you up on all the latest television news.

But first, “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Paranormal Activity” win box office kudos this week, earning the number 1 and number 3 spots, respectively (sandwiching “Law Abiding Citizen,” at number two, as if anyone cares).

Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman will step down as Hollywood’s top lobbyist next year. He claims that at the ripe old age of 65, it’s time for him to “move on back into the world of either academia, public service, or non profits….This is a very difficult job. From the outside world, this job has the perception of being very glamorous. People think Angelina Jolie goes home with me every night. It hasn’t happened yet.” Poor Dan. Maybe we know someone who knows someone who can work the Angelina thing out for him before he steps down next September.  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 23: Letterman and Polanski Go To The Dogs

We had a bunch of dogs as our guests this week, also known as Famous Men Doing Bad Things.

First we take a look a the North American box office. “Zombieland” won the top spot this week, beating out “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “Toy Story/Toy Story 2,” “The Invention of Lying” (which could perhaps be the title of this podcast) and “Surrogates” rounding out the top five.

Now, on to our dogs. David Letterman played the victim when revealing an extortion attempt against him. Allegedly a producer from the television news show “48 Hours” attempted to blackmail him with proof that Letterman had carried on several affairs with female staffers over the years. Karen Woodward and Michael Giltz debate whether Letterman is guilty of sexual harassment or was just being stupid.

Roman Polanski is our next dog. Should he serve more time in prison for committing statutory rape in 1977? For fleeing the country? Or does he get a free pass because he’s a talented filmmaker?  Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 21: Name Dropping At The Emmys and Toronto

Three very special guests join us on this episode to discuss the Emmy Awards and the Toronto International Film Festival, including Brill Bundy from Zap2it.com, Noel Murray from the Onion’s AV Club and David Poland from The Hot Blog and Movie City News. Before we get into either of those hot topics Michael Giltz and J. Sperling Reich duke it out over 3D movies while discussing this week’s North American box office topper, “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs”. Karen Woodward still isn’t convinced to see animated content, whether it’s 3D or not.

Brill wasn’t all that suprised by any of the Emmy Awards handed out on Sunday, except for maybe Jon Cryer’s trophy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy. Like last year, Both “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” repeated their wins for Best Drama and Best Comedy. In the end, it was host Neil Patrick Harris who stole the show, if not an Emmy for himself, by winning rave reviews for keeping the awards program light and fast paced (even at three hours).

Jay Leno began his new primetime talk show last week with enormous ratings, though Brill says it will take a few months, if not a year, before the show’s success can be determined. Certainly, having Kanye West as a guest, fresh from his stage storming moment at MTV’s Video Music Awards, was a major coup.     Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 18: It’s All Fun And Games Until Celebrities Start Dyin’

Landing at the top of the North American box office this weekend was “The Final Destination” with “Halloween 2,” directed by Rob Zombie, coming in third. Zombie may not be part of that Old White Male club of directors that the New York Times highlighted this week, but apparently he can make a successful film. After reviving the “Halloween” franchise, Rob Zombie will continue to advance the horror porn genre with a remake of the 1958 classic, “The Blob.”

The biggest story of the week was Disney’s purchase of Marvel Comics. What will this mean for “Iron Man”, “Spider-Man”, the “X-Men”, and “Fantastic Four”? Maybe we’ll find out when Disney continues its takeover of the world with their own version of Comic-Con; the D23 Expo in Anaheim. The four day event will celebrate — and sell — all things Disney with celebrity appearances and slick sneak previews of upcoming films, television shows and theme park attractions.

Speaking of theme park attractions, Michael Jackson’s death was ruled a homicide. (Okay it only feels like it’s becoming a theme park attraction.) Read more

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Showbiz Sandbox 16: Hollywood Thinks Outside The Redbox

David Poland of Movie City News joins us this week.  You might know Poland from his days at the Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly or Roughcut, but he is most known as the columnist behind The Hot Button which has morphed into his blog, The Hot Blog.  He can also be seen on DP30 or his new video podcast Super Movie Friends.  You can follow Poland on Twitter by visiting twitter.com/davidpoland.

“District 9” topped the box office in North America over the weekend with $37 million, but will it have legs?  Warner Bros saved a New Line movie once again with “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” which had been sitting on the shelf since last year.  It made a respectable showing with $19.2 million.

Some interesting/baffling/exciting movie news this week. Aaron Sorkin uh, is writing, uh, a draft of the Facebook movie, which, um, is a movie about social networking.  (Listen to the episode to, ah, get the joke).  And if you think that’s crazy, Warner Bros is putting together a movie based on the Legos toys, and Bryan Singer is directing a big screen version of “Battlestar Gallactica.” Will Starbuck still be dead? Does anyone care? Read more

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