Browse FishbowlLA September 2005 archives - FishbowlLA

From the FishbowlLA mailbox

Mike — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 13:58:36 +0000

FishbowlLA occasionally gets pitches from brand publicists suggesting sponsorship deals. And look, we’re no angels. If anyone ever pitches us a product that we actually thought would be of interest to our readership (you know, a mousepad with cute little pictures of fishbowls, a role-playing-game set at a major Southern California daily newspaper, that sort of thing), we’ll jump. But usually, the products are things like, well, things like wines aimed at the young adult market with slogans like ‘Unscrew it, let’s do it.’ Case in point:

To the Editor,

I’m contacting you in regards to a media partnership opportunity. We are planning a series of wine tasting events for our client, Virgin Vines, to take place nationwide from Oct-Dec. There will be approximately 9 events total for each market. I’m writing to see if FishBowl LA would like to be the media partner for the LA events.

Virgin Vines is a new brand of wine from Brown Forman distributors and mega-brand Virgin. It’s targeted at young adults age 21-29. Virgin Vines motto is, “Unscrew it, let’s do it.” (The bottle has a screw cap…) Some of our key objectives:

continued…

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It’s a slow, hot, ashy Friday

Mike — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 13:24:28 +0000

… and nobody’s actually getting any work done. I can tell. You’re all just burning Rilo Kiley songs from your office iTunes server, and worrying about whether your ex now knows your look at his/her Friendster profile. So it’s a wonderful time to take a look at the offerings at the website of this blog’s tender-yet-firm foster parent, mediabistro.com. There you’ll find:

- Tips on how to pitch to Variety’s new V Life Weekend section. Remember, it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, which means that overpaid Hollywood executives need your insight on how to spend their kingdom of God-less weekends.

- Next Thursday, mediabistro.com presents a seminar on breaking into ghostwriting, taught by experienced ghostwriter Laurel House. I’m actually thinking of hiring someone to ghostwrite a few FishbowlLA items, so email me if you’re interested.

- Wow, these mediabistro.com party-goers in San Francisco think they work in ‘media and film.’ In San Francisco! That’s so cute!

- My sister over at FishbowlNY writes up Jon Stewart’s appearance at a Magazine Publishers of America conference in a Proust-like multi-parter. (And here!)

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LAT Subscription Call Center Hijinx

Mike — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 10:19:04 +0000

In yesterday’s LA Weekly interview with Andrés Martinez, Nikki Finke surprised Martinez with a question about subscription phone solicitations:

Are you aware that phone solicitations by the L.A. Times in recent weeks to try and get subscribers – and it’s clear they’re reading from a script since I’ve had this told to me over and over and over again by friends and acquaintances – ask if you’re angry about the political content of the paper. And before you’ve even answered, they go, “I want you to know that we’re bringing in a lot more conservative voices and conservative columnists.” Which frankly shocked me.

I didn’t know that.

Your reaction?

I’m not aware of that.

I wasn’t aware of that either, so I called the LAT subscription line this morning posing as ‘Mr. Smith.’ (I know, lousy alias, but I’ve never been much for tradecraft.) Mr. Smith told the customer service person that he had heard from friends that the paper was going to be tilting its politics more conservatively– in which case, he would be interested in subscribing. No script was launched into (of course, this was an incoming call, not an outgoing one) but the customer service rep did say that the paper was planning on adding new reporters and editors in order to become “more, what do you call this, associated with the people… less liberal, less political.”

Then I blew my cover and said I’d prefer that the paper become more liberal. Oops.

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United Talent Agency? A Little Less So This Morning: Aloni, Lotsa directors to CAA

Claude — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:59:26 +0000

FISHBOWL L.A. EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood’s talent agents have a rich tradition of trying to nibble the competition to death, rather than swallowing it whole. Today, Creative Artists Agency took another bite out of United Talent Agency, luring over it UTA’s motion picture literary department head and agency partner, Dan Aloni.

Aloni is bringing to CAA a squadron of bigshot directors and writers, many from the comedy world, including Tom Shadyac (“Bruce Almighty,” “Patch Adams” etc.); “Wedding Crashers” director David Dobkin, “Batman Begins” helmer Chris Nolan, Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) Dean Parisot (“the upcoming “Fun With Dick and Jane”).

Aloni also represents Judd Apatow (“The Forty Year Old Virgin”), though it’s not yet clear if Apatow will decamp UTA for CAA as yet. Certainly, a fire-offering of several UTA mailroom interns is being sacrificed on Apatow’s front lawn even as we speak.

It’s the second Creative Artists foray into UTA’s henhouse in as many months, and it’s clear what CAA is up to: Breaking the stranglehold UTA has enjoyed on comedies: Back in July, Daily Variety reported that UTA film agent Jason Heyman and UTA television talent head Martin Lesack left for CAA, taking with them comedy superstars Will Ferrell and Dave Chappelle, as well as numerous sitcom actors as clients.

Developing…

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Media odds and ends

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:17:46 +0000

- Not to harsh on anyone’s poignant realization of their own mortality, but the last sequence of the ‘Six Feet Under’ finale that everyone keeps talking about as the greatest moment of television, ever? It was a Prius product placement. Hey, it made me cry, too.

- The WSJ profiles local blog Go Fug Yourself, which is about clothes and the bad celebrity choices they make.

- Speaking of dubious marketing ploys…

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Behind Geffen’s froth hides the real question about SKG

Claude — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 16:15:59 +0000

Lost in the myriad coverage of news that NBC Universal won’t pay
a billion dollars for DreamWorks is any discussion of how a triumvirate of arguably the most powerful Hollywood guys of their generation could have failed so utterly to build a successful conglomerate.

Spielberg remains a director for hire. Katzenberg is the Spielberg of animation. And Geffen’s business acumen, when focused and present, is legendary.

And yet: Dreamworks’ reality has not matched it’s hopes. Just drive around Playa Vista You’ll find marsh grass – not the 350,000 sq. ft. of DreamWorks motion picture, television, interactive and music studios that were to anchor a million square feet of development.

Drive through Santa Monica, and you won’t find POP.com, the long-forgotten, abortive DreamWorks web venture that sucked down millions.

Stop by Nashville, Tennessee where you won’t find DreamWorks Records Nashville – it’s being shuttered this month by its parent company, Universal Music Group. Not that it much matters: Toby Keith has just left the label to launch his own company, Show Dog Records (so much for man’s best friend) leaving what was left of DreamWorks Nashville with a handful of wannabe acts.

Of late, DreamWorks Television has been a wrecking yard of expensive, failed shows: “The Contender” bombed almost as quickly (though not as expensively) as “Father of the Pride” – making NBC Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly even more ashen-faced than usual.

continued…

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LAT editorial page: Michael who?

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 14:19:01 +0000

An attentive reader points out this sentence in today’s LAT DeLay editorial:

But the real scandal in Washington, as someone once said, isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal.

Just who is this ‘someone’? Well…

From Slate:

Michael Kinsley once noted that the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the scandal is what’s legal.

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Bring me your dissipated, burned-out masses

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:54:59 +0000

From today’s NYT, in an article about people who use craigslist to buy home furnishings:

A Turkish kilim ($75) came from a young woman who told Ms. Cullerton she was poised to reinvent herself in Los Angeles. She had been making party gift bags for 10 years. “The party’s over,” she said.

Every surface of her tiny apartment near the Holland Tunnel was sanded, stenciled, wallpapered or otherwise worked over – as distressed as its occupant. “She really seemed at the end of her tether,” said Ms. Cullerton, who noted bookshelves filled with self-help primers on anger management and toxin removal.

Welcome! You’ll fit in just fine.

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Martinez gets Finked

Mike — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 13:30:17 +0000

New LAT editorial-and-opinion editor Andrés Martinez (~~to whom I would like to apologize on behalf of the blogging software we use, which does not allow me to put the accent on the ‘e’ in his first name~~ thanks, Choire!) sits for a Nikki Finke profile in the LA Weekly. Finke calls him “the personification of a riddle wrapped in an enigma when it comes to the right-versus-left political maelstrom that’s sucking subscribers out of the newspaper,” but what I think she really means is that, as befits an editorial-page boss, his world view is complex. Finke’s interview transcript is online along with the profile. Martinez has thoughtful things to say about the nature of editorial pages, and while the wild days of Kinsleyan experimentation and argument-bating appear to be over, it doesn’t sound like the LAT editorial page will revert to the boring gravitas of eras past. You have to admire a guy whose writing career includes a book about losing $50,000 in Vegas (and I’ve read it– it’s funny) as well as a series of well-researched editorials arguing against farm subsidies in the US. Because range is a good thing.

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Redeye Redux

Claude — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 20:09:19 +0000

Three groups representing flight attendants are calling for a boycott
of Disney’s “Flightplan,” bitching that the Jodie Foster picture portrays a flight attendant as (Beware: A spoiler this way comes!) a terrorist.

In the film about a mother looking for her missing daughter aboard a plane, a flight attendant colludes with an air marshal as part of a plot to extort a ransom from the airline. Other flight attendants are shown treating passengers rudely and being unsympathetic to Foster’s character, whom they think might be delusional. The groups contend that the Disney film could breed distrust of their members among real airline passengers.

Sadly, that is not why the film should be boycotted.

It should be boycotted because 2 out of 3 critics in America would prefer to be force-fed their own weight in brown dessert squares than watch Jodie running about like a rabid squirrel in “Panicplane,” as Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune rightly calls it.

Personally, I’d like a Dramamine right now. And some of those Terra Blue Chips? Miss? MISS!? And a pillow?!

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If You Don’t Release My Movie, Then The Terrorists Have Won

Claude — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 18:18:23 +0000

You have to give it up for Albert Brooks (in full costume and make up, below)

Even if the old man isn’t exactly on People magazine’s Sexiest People Breathing Unassisted by Ventilators hot list, he still knows how to whip up some press on the cheap.

Today, Reuters bought into the marketing plan of his new movie with gusto: Basically, Brooks claims its title, “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World” so terrified the execs at Sony, who suppossedly feared reprisals from al-Zarqawi, or as they say in the rental car business – “or similar” that they passed on his new docu.

One can almost hear the heavy sigh of Columbia Pictures flack Steve Elzer as he read the canned studio quote to Reuters’ Arthur Spiegelman:

“To those looking for truth in this manufactured controversy, here it is: We made our decision to pass on Brooks’ movie the same way we did to accept ‘Fahrenheit 9/ll’ — on the merits, with neither fear nor favor.”

Helpfully, for those looking for actual al-Qaeda tantalization, the government has been kind enough to put online an actual al Qaeda manual , available for download from the Dept. of Justice website. Even in it’s redacted form, it’s truly fascinating.

Then again, downloading this at work might be even more dangerous than prank calling the IRS commissioner. You’re on your own here.

Below, we’ve obtained a shot of Brooks (center left) and an assistant (center right, not identified) meeting with Sony’s president of production, Matt Tolmach (backbround, smiling) last month. Tolmach passed on the picture.

“Looking for Comedy In the Muslim World” will now be distributed by Warner Independent Pictures, in January after its president Mark Gill (below, second from left) conferred with some friends and decided it was just the kind of documentary he liked.

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Does this make them Patricide Girls?

Mike — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:39:37 +0000

Wired reports that around 30 models/journalists/muses from the extremely popular ~~porn~~ lifestyle ~~site~~ brand SuicideGirls.com– based not only in LA but across the street from Joel Stein’s house– have left the company, on bad terms.

A group of angry ex-models is bashing the SuicideGirls alt-porn empire, saying its embrace of the tattoo and nipple-ring set hides a world of exploitation and male domination.

The women are spreading their allegations through the blogosphere, raising the hackles of the SuicideGirls company, which has until now enjoyed a reputation as porn even feminists can love. It offers burlesque tours, clothes and DVDs in addition to a sprawling online library of naked punk and goth women.

“The recent accusations are a little upsetting,” said “Missy,” the co-founder of SuicideGirls. “We think they’re all pretty much unfounded.”

It’s refreshing to hear an embattled media company call the charges against it “pretty much unfounded.” So much more nuanced than old favorites like “categorically untrue” or “outrageous.”

Anyway, I’ve read some of these blog posts (such as the one here) to try to figure out what the issues are, but it all seems a little inside-baseball to us here at FishbowlLA HQ, where nobody ever gets tattoos or takes off their clothes. If anyone can explain it, please email.

(link via LAist)

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Sly back from the grave

Mike — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:15:07 +0000

Hollywood/print magazine synergy alert: American Media’s Stallone-centric Sly magazine will be returning to another bout on the newsstand despite its three-issue test run ending in a TKO. Reports WWD:

After crunching the numbers from the test, [AMI] has elected to publish a fourth issue, to be dated December/January. The magazine’s ad hoc editorial team of freelancers and Men’s Fitness staffers, which had been placed on hiatus, has resumed work on the title. “It’s nice to have an alternative magazine that comes from someone’s voice, someone’s perspective,” said editor in chief Neal Boulton.

Given Boulton’s involvement, I assume that Sly is being put together in AMI’s New York office. But if anyone sees Sly in Woodland Hills, please let me know.

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$1,000,000,000

Mike — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 11:45:45 +0000

Yes, a billion dollars. That’s how much the Tribune Co. owes in back taxes from its acquisition of Times Mirror, according to a Tax Court decision yesterday. Editor & Publisher has a thumbnail backstory sketch:

The closely watched tax case revolved around a 1998 transaction between the old Times Mirror Co., which Tribune acquired in 2000, and the Dutch publisher Reed-Elsevier. The deal, in which the Matthew Bender legal textbook publishing company went from Times Mirror to Reed-Elsevier, was designed to be a tax-free event.

Times Mirror ended up with $1.38 billion when the deal was completed. It argued in Tax Court that the transaction was a “corporate restructuring.” Times Mirror, then led by Chairman and CEO Mark Willes, later structured a similar deal to dispose of a health publishing subsidiary.

In 2001, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a legal opinion contending the deals were taxable sales. A hearing in Tax Court was held last December in Los Angeles.

The Tribune Co. is, of course, appealing.

What does a billion dollars mean for a company like the Tribune Co.? Well, LAT revenue last year was $1.07 billion (and people think the paper is worth somewhere north of $3 billion). So it’s as if a whole year of its biggest newspaper’s revenue was washed away. (Well, not exactly, because a lot of the liability will be covered by bonds the company issued over the summer in anticipation of an unfavorable court decision. But still, it’s a lot of money.)

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Feirstein fired up

Mike — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 11:01:55 +0000

In his semi-regular New York Observer column, screenwriter/journalist/inventor of the line “real men don’t eat quiche” (seriously) Bruce Feirstein grouses about the Los Angeles Times. You know the drill: out of touch with the community, panders to the East Coast media establishment, Michael Kinsley, etc.

Every morning at 5:30 a.m., I’m awakened by the thwack of newspapers being delivered to the block where I’m living in L.A. It’s in a neighborhood called Hancock Park-roughly the equivalent of Bronxville, or Carnegie Hill in Manhattan-where the residents are mainly doctors, lawyers and stockbrokers, with a smattering of show-business trash. Yet of the 20 homes on this block, while four get The New York Times, only three receive the L.A. paper. That’s right: In an upscale, Democrat-voting neighborhood, where every home should get the local paper, the vast majority of them don’t.

Feirstein does give kudos to Dan Neil and Steve Lopez and claims that “with each passing day, the paper actually seems to be getting better under the new editor, Dean Baquet.” Anyway, none of these is even newsworthy, and maybe I should stop reporting on the LAT criticism mini-industry until someone comes up with something new to say. Anyway, I love the image of Bruce Feirstein snooping around his neighbors’ stoops at dawn to figure out who gets which papers.

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