Dear Mr. Pacino. No.

An Actor's life is undeclared war; Years of toil, endless rejections and withering defeats at the hands of an implacable enemy, all endured in stifling and unwarranted anonymity. Then one day a fortunate few - very few - are offered a role so perfectly crafted, it blends the unique and potent melange of their talent, passion and years of devotion and training into a cinematic experience of such irresistible force, their name and the scale of their gift are seared into the public imagination with neither hope of, nor wish for redemption.

Al Pacino is such an Actor.

His appearance as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's masterful tryphtic has secured a rightful place as one of the outstanding roles of modern cinema. His sinuous conjoinment with Gabrielle Anwar in 1992's, 'Scent of a Woman' is a masterclass in subtlety and holds a special place in history as the most sensual foreplay to have ever required parque flooring.

And now he wants to be on 'Dancing with the Stars.'

Currently on a promotional tour for his latest movie, Ocean's Thirteen, he told Time Magazine he doesn't rule out the idea of being on the ABC reality show, but that fans shouldn't hold their breath as he might be too shy to follow through with the idea.

This last line should cause every true fan of cinema to exude a sigh of relief that would register on the Richter Scale. An Actor of Mr. Pacino's caliber and latitude can choose any role he wants and the results will be memorable and universally admired.

But 'Prancing with the B-List' isn't one of them.

I think I need a Martini...

Hollywood Reporter, June 13, 2007:
"Veteran comedy director James Burrows, who helmed the pilot for Fox's upcoming comedy series 'Back to You,' has come aboard the show as an Executive Producer and house Director.

"Back to You," from 20th Century Fox Television and Levitan/Lloyd Prods., stars Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton as co-anchors who reunite at a NYC TV station. Burrows joins Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd as Executive Producers on the series. He will direct most of this season's episodes."

Ironically, considering it relates to a sitcom based in a Newsroom, this must be among the most depressing news I've read in months. This is the man whose parsimonious inability to leave a camera on one shot for more than three seconds utterly crushed any chance for the Audience to enjoy the Actors hard work in 90% of Cheers' seven-season run, and in every other show for which he has inexplicably been given the same post.

If you need a black armband I still have some in stock.

Six Years, and NBC has moved on...

In an unwelcome addendum to an earlier post, NBC is once more displaying the shrewd Audience judgment and overall sensitivity that have allowed it to secure the unenviable distinction of being the lowest rated Network in the history of the medium.

On September 11th, 2001, 2,996 people died in the worst single act of terrorism ever perpetrated upon this proud and glorious nation. For the sixth anniversary, the pea-brains at the Peacock have decided to commemorate the day with a two-hour special.

...of 'The Biggest Loser.'

Are they already so blase about the heinous events in New York and PA that they can calmly allocate the only special programming on the Anniversary to the season debut of a reality show? I'm not suggesting they should provide blanket reportage and hours of sombre music, but a tangible acknowledgment of the immeasurable loss of so many unfulfilled lives and their implicit potential, and of the emotional impact that is a daily 'reality' for the wives, mothers and families who are left would hardly be too much to ask...Would it?

Or perhaps that would not be so profitable.

What do you all think of this?

Has it come to this?

In an unwelcome addendum to an earlier post, NBC is once more displaying the shrewd judgment and overall sensitivity that has enabled it to secure the unenviable ignominy of being the lowest rated Network in the history of the medium.

On September 11th, 2001, 2,996 people died in the worst single terrorist act ever committed in this proud and glorious land. For the sixth anniversary, those in charge at the Peacock have decided to commemorate the tragedy with a two-hour special.

...of 'The Biggest Loser.'

Are they already so blase about the events in New York and PA that they can calmly allocate the only special programming on its Anniversary to the debut of yet another reality show? I'm not suggesting they should provide blanket coverage and hours of sombre music, but some acknowledgment of events themselves and the ongoing impact being stoically endured by the families would hardly be too much to ask...Would it?

Or would that kind of programming not be as profitable?

Janus is Alive and Well in NYC.

June 12.
As you've undoubtedly heard, Isaiah Washington is no longer among the cast of Grey's. He insulted gay people, then tried to do a 'rewind' with unconvincing apologies and explanations until, finally, ABC dropped his contract.

But their moral indignation is less than convincing. In the past, ABC has condoned the portrayal of gay male characters as either serial killers, mass murderers or suspected deviants in no less than three popular daytime dramas.

In 2000, All My Children's Bianca Kane 'came out' to the world, and instantly shot to prominence in the show's overall landscape. Sadly, such treatment is something to which her male peers can still only aspire. In 2005, One Life to Live featured a married D.A. who was secretly gay, and who, in order to keep his secret and protect his career, dispatched a positive litany of people with a gleeful sang frois that would leave Bundy positively chartreuse with envy. In the same year, a gay male College student was the focus of unbridled vitriol after being suspected of using the Date Rape drug on two female Freshmen.

And both these stories aired just weeks after GLAAD lauded the network for its portrayals of gay people.

ABC might say these were isolated aberrations from less enlightened times? Not true. All My Children has just wrapped a storyline in which an androgynous, cross-dressing rock star was suspected of having massacred half the female population of Pine Valley. He then entered a clinic, returned as a she, and was immediately confronted by hordes of angry town-folk eager to turn her into a Prada Piñata for these ghastly but unproven crimes.

ABC made no conciliatory statements regarding these plots, nor was anyone even cautioned, let alone fired. And it bears considering who would ultimately make such a call; ABC is a branch of Disney, a corporation not exactly famous for strident homophobia.

With a track record of storylines as disparaging as these, and the pungent hypocrisy implicit in dismissing an Actor for a gay slur, while allowing three major shows to portray the same target group as universal, homicidal deviants, it's pretty clear Mr. Washington is not the only ABC employee who should be shown the door.

Oda Mae carries the day...

June 11, 2007.
With Rosie and her orchestrated media debacle now a fading memory [we wish] the execs at The View have been pooling their diminutive mental resources to elect a new panel member who could adequately inhabit the departed Diva's sizable Birkies; And the candidate of choice is mere days away from assuming her new role: Whoopi.

Kathy Griffin, Rosanne Barr, Ricki Lake and Gayle King were all contenders, but Whoopi, it seems, has carried the day. All that remains is to make it official.

She's certainly qualified to comment on other people's efforts in any major media; A four-time Oscar host, she's won a Grammy, an Emmy, an Oscar and a Tony, and appeared in over 100 movies. Even Rosie has hinted she approves.

What this news might do to 'The Donald's' cardiovascular readings, however, is not yet clear. But I suspect he'll find a way to let us know...Shrinking violet that he is.

Bye-Bye, Bob...for now...

"After 35 years as the host of "The Price Is Right," Bob Barker hung up his microphone for good on Wednesday. Or did he? The 83-year-old icon has said he would happily return to the "Price" if a replacement host isn't found by the time the new season starts in the fall." Source: NY Daily News. June 8, '07.
__

Bob Barker is one of the old school; A polished performer, dedicated to his audience, he's built his entire career on hard work and talent not tawdry publicity stunts, and in three decades of public life he has remained utterly scandal free. The entertainment realm needs more people of his caliber, not less. But he's more than earned the languid joys of retirement and I'm sure we all wish him well.

I must confess, though, the notion of Bob returning for a sequel is far from unattractive - One of the replacements under consideration by CBS is George Hamilton. I'm no fan of game shows per se, but I'm not sure I could endure the prospect of one being fronted by someone so pigmentally gifted, he looks like a Chesterfield Sofa.

NBC boosts their ratings - for the Ads??

June 8, 2007:

"You may recall the live commercials with Ed McMahon on The Tonight Show....The last live ad aired in 1995. On Tuesday, NBC will reintroduce viewers to the live commercial, again on The Tonight Show, with a commercial for a satellite navigation system...The spot will be played before the second regular commercial break, which will include a taped commercial for the firm...With the new live spots, NBC hopes to keep viewers' attention through the commercial break and get their clients' messages through the clutter."

[Source: Hollywood Reporter. Abridged.]
____

Most television executives want people to watch their shows. NBC, which has just scored the lowest show ratings in US Network history, has decided to resurrect methods they already abandoned once, to increase their ratings for the commercials instead.

The audience is the most precious commodity any Network can acquire. Entertain and enlighten them by creating enjoyable, intelligent, well-written shows and the reward will be vastly superior numbers who then witness - and respond to - the constituent commercial involvement.

NBC has just suffered the ignominy of ratings so staggeringly low, the entire audience would fit in a phone booth...And their response is to find new, and increasingly desperate ways to repel the few that remain. Extraordinary.

The collected IQ of the managing executives at Rockefeller Plaza must read like the mercury on a crisp, Spring day.

Tale of the 'Idol' Tape: Jordin Vs Blake

From 'Hollywood Grind', "American Idol finalists Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis are attractive, talented and have millions of adoring fans. That's where their similarities end...."

The mark of true greatness is to be known across the World by one name; Garbo, Brando, Elvis... And the atonal, drool-flecked non-entity who wins this irrelevant freakshow will soon join this illustrious crowd...

By Christmas they'll be known to every sentient being on the planet as, "Who??"

"The following takes place between 6am and "...ZZzzzzzz

June 6, 2007:

Albert Einstein once said, 'Touch a hot stove for a second and it feels like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a second; That's relativity.'

The last 24-hours in the life of Jack Bauer seemed like eternity.

Only Fox could transform a taught, engaging, peerlessly well-written drama into Days of Our Lives with occasional gun play. This season was pitiful.

Hollywood wins legal fight against sanitized DVD's

July 10, 2006:

"LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter): A federal judge in Colorado has handed the entertainment industry a big win in its protracted legal battle against a handful of small companies that offer sanitized versions of theatrical releases on DVD."

The Judge said that companies who take a movie, cut out the swearing and any nudity, then sell or rent this cleansed version to audiences who would never touch the original are breaking the law and violating the Studios' copyright....Yet American network television does the exact same things [and much worse] and no representative of a studio or Director utters one single word of complaint??

The studios are reaching audiences they would otherwise have no chance to acquire, and the Actors are gaining fans and admiration from the very same group. Meanwhile the studios are receiving $1,000's in royalties from hundreds of extra sales of a movie in a format they are apparently too short-sighted to be creating themselves!

...What exactly are we missing here?

ABC Wants to Disable Fast-Forward on Your DVR

July 8, 2006.

Let's begin by stating the obvious: American television is about money. First, last and always. Not art, not entertainment, and certainly not people. Actors and Audiences are treated with equal disdain and viewed only as pawns with which a Network can serve and placate its only true love -- The advertising community and their hugely profitable commercials.

Previously, this disdain for the audience has been held in check and some attempt was made at discretion, but this news from ABC tears away any remaining vestige of doubt and frankly beggars logic.

In a way it could be viewed as bravery - They have decided to abandon any further pretense and openly treat the viewers as the brainless, irrelevant advertiser-fodder their past behavior [in common with other networks] gave ample evidence they believed them to be.

And this news comes just as ABC have completed their up-front advertising sales for the next year, grossing a stunning $2.3 billion. That's $200 million more than the same period last year - but still only 75% of the total advertising they intend to make the audiences endure.

...And still they want more.

Each of their shows involves six or more 'Producers,' who collect gargantuan salaries for doing amounts of work most rational people couldn't locate with a magnifier. To pay for all this intellectual dead-wood the network then infests these shows with commercial breaks so protracted and intrusive, viewers are compelled to either change channel or switch off.

Then the Networks have the guileless impertinence to complain about falling audiences.

Now comes the news that their next ploy is to corrupt the entire procedure so that not only will anyone possessed of the intestinal fortitude to endure this avaricious assault not be able to skip the commercials, they are to be actively forbidden to do so because the Network [ABC for now, but keep watching] doesn't find it acceptable.

This is condescending, pecuniary, drool-flecked greed and a lamentable example of the audience-decimating stupidity of which all networks are increasingly guilty, and of which ABC should be especially ashamed. Actors are not cattle, and audiences are not sheep. If the Networks could learn this, their success with both could exceed their most fervent dreams.

...Were a rationale even needed for why I do what I do, before you lies one isolated example whose persuasive capacity requires little explanation.

Actors, Writers Want To Expose Hidden Ads [Source: WCBSTV.com]

November 17, 2005

This situation is almost beneath parody. A group of overpaid, under-worked, pseudo-intellectuals in designer suits sit in gleaming tower blocks, dreaming up shows of such staggering inanity they wouldn't challenge the intellectual powers of a hamster; Then another group of suits, suitably adorned with the prerequisite pony-tails, gleefully embark on countless hours of sycophantic toadying, persuading advertisers to display their products in these shows as part of the 'essential' placements that are seen as a vital and acceptable aspect of their precious new project, and the sub-textual rationale for its entire existence.

And when this latest example of intellectual bankruptcy mercifully crashes in unmourned flames, having enjoyed viewing figures that would be insufficient to populate a card game, yet another group of suits are summoned to the Boardroom altar to spend several hours in intense discussions, desperately trying to define why people won't watch??

Meanwhile, the Actors on whose shoulders is rested the unpalatable chore of persuading the great American public they're watching a real show, not a 40-minute love-fest for the Sponsors are given little reward; and even less respect. Thousands of Actors are suffering continued and unwarranted anonymity because the Networks are so dangerously obsessed with the desire for profits, they no longer feel it necessary to create entertaining shows that would require those Actors' indulgence.

And apparently they don't even care.

Lindsay Lohan says she'll never do a nude scene

Thursday, June 23, 2005.

"Said the Actress, ‘I don't think that's what needed to win an Oscar’ Actress Lindsay Lohan braved the sunshine to walk the red carpet at the "Herbie: Fully Loaded" premiere on Sunday. In an interview with Access Hollywood's Billy Bush, teen star Lindsay Lohan says she will "never" do a nude scene..."

On behalf of the entire male population of the planet, may I just say...Whheeewww!!

That is such a relief, I can't even tell you. Now we can all begin the long, painful process to recover from the nightmares induced by the possibility she just might.


[Source: MSNBC.com]