Monday, September 21, 2009

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"What better way to start a new workweek than with a little fodder for the gossip mill, particularly of the Real Housewives variety? As in, who will be the Washington cast of Bravo’s hit franchise? Is this definitive? Who knows? But it’s based on the finest investigative journalism among this city’s most impeccable sources - stylists, hairdressers, maitre’d’s and party planners. The shooting starts any day now, if not already. For every woman on the list, there are at least another five who claim to have been asked but turned down the invitation. I’m out and about a lot, but I’ve met only one of these women. And there wasn’t a lot on the web about any of them. Still, when I ask around for casting details, these same names are mentioned over and over. So here are the presumed, ah, victims, I mean, Washington reality stars-to-be .." (WashingtonSocialDiary)



(image via NYSocialDiary)

"In 2008, the world was beginning to collapse on Rosh Hashanah and by Yom Kippur, a mere ten days later, it had cratered. Abby remembered saying to Jon during that Yom Kippur service, 'Don’t you dare look at your iphone to see what the market is doing. It’s a day to block out the world. It will still be there at sundown.' But it was impossible for him to resist- and he wasn’t alone. When they walked outside after the morning service, they could see a lot of devices in people’s hands. It was down a few hundred points, the sixth day in a row. They took a walk in the park that afternoon. It was a beautiful, crisp, perfect early Autumn day ... Now in September 2009, Jon and Abby looked around the room and thought about some of the people sitting there as well as others they knew. Much had changed over the year. In front of them was Jon’s brother, Bob. He couldn’t raise the money for his new fund so he closed it and sent his four employees packing. He put his home in East Hampton on the market in April. There was finally one bid at the end of August-- 20% below the asking price --which was already 40% less than he would have listed it at a year before. He took it." (NYSocialDiary)



"It has been left to Michael Moore, in his usual antic, flawed way, to enact a theatrical liberal insurgency. His new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, which opens Sept. 23 in New York and Los Angeles, ends with the familiar roly-poly figure in the baseball cap cordoning off Wall Street’s most blue-chip institutions in yellow crime scene tape. The scenes in which his cameras watch with a silent family from inside a small doomed house in Miami as the sheriff’s posse advances to repossess it are full of raw suspense. Just as painful is the laid-off worker at a glass company in Chicago, who tells the camera angrily: 'This happened because of bad business deals. I don’t make business deals. I make doors and windows.' Judging by the wildly different grievances offered to TV reporters by the Washington marchers, it wasn’t health care that drove them to take to the streets on Sept. 12. It was a muddled, media-fueled, generalized fury. The achievement of the GOP and its allies in cable, talk radio, and the Internet has been to convert the righteous discontent with joblessness inflicted by financial and managerial malfeasance into rage at the guy in the White House, whose health-care plan is the only thing on the horizon that might actually do those surly marchers some real-world good. (By the way, the ones who have heard of Michael Moore probably hate him and his liberal view of their grievances even more than they hate Obama.)" (Tina Brown/TheDailyBeast)



"Best line tonight at the 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards was from Tina Fey who said 'We want to thank our friends at NBC for keeping us on the air ... even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show.' Neat bitchslap, Tina. Considering this is the 3rd win for 30 Rock in the 'Comedy Series' category and the show won 5 Emmys overall Sunday night, she can probably ask Jeff Zucker to bear her next child (without the epidural) ... (Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston) was the critics' favorite. I would have given it this year to Dexter's Michael C. Hall. But Showtime has the most dimwitted and dysfunctional marketing/PR known to mankind and execs don't know how to promote their shows at awards time." (NikkiFinke)



"(Michael Jackson) branded his brothers in the Jackson 5 lazy moaners who just sat around relying on him to make them money ... The brothers didn't give me support," he snipes on one tape ... 'We'd be working on a TV show or video and they'd be sitting around moaning and groaning but I'd be watching and learning' ... ON JANET: He was consumed with jealousy when his favourite sister left home to marry pop producer James DeBarge in 1984. Within a year it was over. 'Janet is a tomboy. That is why it kills me to see her off and married. We did everything together and were just alike. We write a whole schedule for the day and follow it. It's a terrible loss' ... ON DAD JOE: "I would suffer if I had to spend a whole day with him. 'He would sit in a chair with a belt or a switch and we'd do our performance. And if we messed up he hit you. To tell you the truth, I never have felt close to him. He has always been like a mystery man.'" (Newsoftheworld)



"It was all sunshine and rainbows for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs at the box office over the weekend. The 3-D animated jaunt topped the charts with an estimated $30.1 million, a number that nearly tripled second place finisher—and fellow newcomer—The Informant! Sadly, it was stormy weather for the other freshman entries: Love Happens landed in fourth place with $8.4 million, while Jennifer’s Body collapsed in fifth, with just $6.8 million. As we do each Monday, here’s a breakdown of the top five at the box office." (Observer)

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