Posts Tagged ‘Mark Lisanti’

The operator of the cheeky new Blogspot page Trade Fools wishes to remain “anonymous on all fronts.” Which is fine by us. It worked for Mark Lisanti during the earliest days of defamer.com and doesn’t seem to have hurt the media profile of that Crazy Days and Nights dude either.

The site is a solid work-in-progress. For example, items like today’s “Whitney Houston Reality Crap: Who Had It First?” need to do more than simply note which mouth of the four-headed beast was quickest to the content buffet.

On the other hand, the poll question on the right-hand margin is pretty funny and a May 9 item shared some good info about Deadline contributor Don Groves. All told, Trade Fools is a welcome addition to the Hollywood-centric blogosphere.

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The Hollywood Reporter has added some editing fire power to its website. Per an announcement this morning, Seth Abramovitch has been appointed deputy editor, while Erin Carlson and Jordan Zakarin have joined the publication as staff editors.

Abramovitch once worked alongside Mark Lisanti as an editor of defamer.com. He also helped relaunch movieline.com and has contributed to gawker.com. Carlson comes over to THR.com from AP, where she covered TV, while Zakarin was previously an entertainment editor and reporter with The Huffington Post.

“I’m very happy to welcome Seth, Erin and Jordan,” said editorial director Janice Min. “Their talents and diverse backgrounds in online journalism will be an asset as THR.com continues to expand.”

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Ha ha. Former Defamer and Yahoo! movie blogs overseer Mark Lisanti has got a typically subversive take on Sunday’s 84th Academy Awards, at his new Grantland home. In light of the fact that this year’s ceremony “is throwing off roughly as much heat as an ice-fishing Yeti snacking on a Creamsicle,” he chose – instead of some last-minute buzz-o-meter readings – to cue up and live-blog the upset winner for Best Picture of 2005.

Here for example is the second entry in his retro, Crash Angeles extravaganza, which assesses the kinder-gentler aura now given off by the opening credits:

1:12 — “A Film by Paul Haggis.” There was a time, namely a good four years after seeing this movie, when those words would instill fear/dread/rage, but now that’s gone. He did the good James Bond! He’s fighting Scientology! He was on Entourage! Pretty big turnaround there. (Well, not the Entourage thing.) I’m kind of into him now.

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With the news that Mark Lisanti is leaving that swampy hole of self-hatred that is Defamer, the site is advertising for his old gig:

“Specifically, we are looking to hire a small handful of talented writers, of either the aspiring or proven variety, who have the ability to cut a unique swath through all of the tired bullshit and who can consistently deliver insightful and entertaining pieces about the accursed industry that consumes our souls when it isn’t already claiming our firstborn. Ideal candidates will have strong, original voices as well as a close familiarity with the machinations that make Hollywood and the culture of celebrity go ’round.”

It kinda sounds dreadful. But they’re forking up benefits and an actual salary, so who are we to snipe?

Hot, sexy Mark Lisanti says farewell at Defamer. From the post:

In an effort to keep this short and sweet, I’ll be climbing out of the blogging hamster-wheel this Friday, and though I wish I had exciting news about where my next paycheck will be coming from (or some great story about why I’m leaving other than “it’s time”), I’ll probably just be taking a little hiatus to figure out what’s next and work on some projects I haven’t had the time or energy for since, oh, mid 2004: writing that might not involve typing in a tiny box in a browser window, eating the occasional lunch, spending lazy afternoons standing in front of the Chinese Theater in a loose-fitting Power Ranger costume, shaking down tourists for money.

FBLA went to Radar’s party at the Standard Hotel last night and had a surprisingly good time. There’s always that moment, when fully dressed, one thinks, “To hell with it”, and decides to climb out of the pumps and stay home and eat in front of the tv.

But we went and were glad we did (although David Carr’s predictions were way off.) The magazine’s check-in chick had actually heard of FBLA. She directed us towards the PR guy who pointed out Maer Roshan, Tinsley Mortimer and Fabiola Beracasa, and more importantly, the bar. The Patron tequila people thought a solid ice bar would be just dandy, but they were wrong. We spent a great deal of time dragging people over to meet the half-frozen bartender, just to make sure she didn’t die of hypothermia.

Chatting with the boys from Patrick McMullan, we learned that they’ll be shooting the Vanity Fair party and they didn’t need a date for that, thanks. Clint Spaulding, besides shooting for McMullan, is working with the Maysles, which made him the coolest person in the room, not that he knew it.

HuffPost’s Julia Allison and her cute blonde friend, Via Osgood, were trying to get people to look at her camera and yap about Radar. She’s got a unique approach–look a little lost and maybe someone will help you. We steered her to the man-candy: Mickey Kaus, Andrew Breitbart and Jay Alexander. We rescued Matthew Belloni, editor of Hollywood Reporter Esq.–or maybe it was the other way around, as she thought he was an agent, with CAA or Endeavor.

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