At least America's last remaining actually influential film critic is Roger Ebert, and not, like, David Denby. Because Ebert, who can no longer speak due to removal of his cancerous jaw, now just writes crazy mean blogs and reviews and columns, calling out everyone who bugs him. Like Ben Stein, and his stupid anti-evolution movie.
"Our show hits a nerve," Donnie Deutsch explained to a reporter from Success magazine when he asked to account for the appeal of his nightly CNBC talk show, The Big Idea. Apparently whatever nerve it was hitting wasn't the right one. TVNewser reports that the network has put Deutsch's show on hiatus, since "the idea of a 'success show' is not right in this economic climate." [TVNewser]
Our ongoing Pop Culture Doomsday stroked the infant cheek of awards season this morning when the hooded, cloaked cultists at National Board of Review anointed Slumdog Millionaire as their Best Picture pick for 2008. It's just the latest setback today for Paramount, which, with one notable exception, will chase the bitter aftertaste of rolling layoffs with an ice-cold glass of Button-Snub Ultra.
Concerned about the job prospects for the already-wealthy cads who made a pile in finance jobs? Sure, we all are. There's good news, though; corporate types who suddenly find themselves unemployed have all decided, en masse, to become personal trainers. These former office-bound A-type personalities are all lining up to sell their exercise services to, uh, you know, whoever may have some disposable income left.
As you may have already heard, a staggering 850 people were laid off from Viacom today. Torrents of blood washed down the halls of MTV on both coasts, with added security in wading boots posted on every floor for "observation" (translation: making sure downsized employees don't try to swipe a promotional copy of Trivial Pursuit: TRL Edition on their way out of the building).
Next Monday, Rupert Murdoch is planning a big bash for wife Wendi Deng Murdoch's 40th birthday on the Gramercy Park Hotel roof that has a six-figure budget and folks like Nicole Kidman and Barry Diller on the guest list. It's such a big deal that Murdoch made Michael Wolff (hey, did you hear he has a book coming out?) move his party for The Man Who Owns the News to Tuesday, according to Jeff Bercovici. They both sound like fabulous affairs. Especially compared to the staff Christmas party that the New York Post announced yesterday. News Corp. canceled its regular company-wide holiday bash last month. So, instead next Friday the staff are heading to their regular Midtown watering hole, Langan's. With a cash bar. Aside from the promised "sexy elves" and "special theme rooms," it'd be tough to tell this from any other Friday night at Langan's. Full invite after the jump.
♦ What's restaurateur Florent Morellet up to these days? He's taking memoir-writing classes and thinking about opening a new restaurant. [GS]
♦ The good news/bad news about Tom Valenti's West Branch. [Eater]
♦ An update on the goings-on at Pink Elephant. [GoaG]
♦ If you happen to be interested in opening a bar on the Lower East Side, a couple of new spaces just became available. [GS]
♦ Recession? What recession? A 2.2-pound Italian white truffle sold at auction for $200K last weekend. [Reuters]
♦ Tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, a convenient excuse for bars to plan lots of special events, naturally. [NYDN]
The other day, The View's resident conservative/pirate couture expert Elisabeth Hasselbeck chose to assail Deepak Chopra not with any of the clear, New Agey ammunition at hand, but with the ethnically questionable order, "Go light a bowl of incense!" This comment, er, incensed some Indians, who saw it as a potential slur.
Because not quite enough of your childhood dreams have been throttled and trampled by culture's unending descent into l'inferno, Paris Hilton would like to be Tinkerbell in a new movie. Yes! She's heavily lobbying for the lead in a Disney project about what would happen if the Peter Pan fairy's life got flipped turned upside down and she ended up a real girl. It's a neat idea, mostly because it's never been done before. (This also seems somewhat related, but it's really not). Page Six seems to think that Disney is actually considering hiring Hilton—who got undeserved "she's a comedic actress!" praise for her stupid election-season internet video (can we please retire the phrase "bitches" from the Funny lexicon?). Now why on earth would Disney do that?
It looks like there will be some additional drama at tonight's splashy "Champagne & Diamonds" party for the faded social networking site ASmallWorld and Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. (ASmallWorld informed us this morning, by the way, that Harvey Weinstein will not be attending personally.) A protest is planned by a group that objects to Leviev's record on human rights. Says a rep for Adalah-NY: "It's truly a small world for Leviev, as his companies are simultaneously involved in destroying communities in Palestine, Africa, and New York City. We will protest this outrageous celebration of worldwide human rights abuses and economic catastrophe by Leviev and New York's elites, because it ridicules the losses of homes, jobs and security being inflicted on working people worldwide." Sounds like Annie Churchill, Jennifer Creel, Amanda Hearst, and Annelise Peterson are in for a treat! The full press release is after the jump.
According to financially troubled magazine US News & World Report, the best college in the world is financially troubled Harvard, whose endowment has "suffered investment losses of at least 22% in the first four months of the school's fiscal year," according to the Wall Street Journal. Turns out all those colleges investing in real estate and private equity and commodities was only a brilliant idea for like ten years. This is a loss of $8 billion! So now the endowment is only like $29 billion. Is the Ivy League too big to fail?
When the Great Pop Culture Doomsday concludes, none among us will have houses left standing, let alone refuge, succor, or our Blackberries. In that sense, then, Real Housewives breakout NeNe Leakes was ahead of the curve by getting evicted from her mansion, but she is not going to take the attendant bad press lying down! Patiently, NeNe waited for Bravo himbo Andy Cohen to stop blogging about whatever "trashy hookaaa" he was fixated on, then hijacked Cohen's blog to release an official statement on the matter:
All subversive things in our culture must eventually be co-opted by the very things that they subvert. It's the American way. The American Apparel ad spoofer—who had a months-long run of fame for creating super-porny ripoffs of AA ad posters (which eventually turned out to be Photoshop fakes by the people at Stereohell)—has now become the subject of an actual American Apparel ad. In Vice magazine, naturally! Click through for photos of Dov Charney's victory over artistic mockery:
We weren't kidding yesterday when we expressed relief at teen-sex romp The Reader having supplanted Twilight as the movies' hottest new youth movement. Still, after Twilight's massive 62% box-office plunge in its second week of release, and with the only the random, pot-gorging snapshot of Kristen Stewart to replace that long-running plague of EW covers, we can't help our sniffling, lonely-ish concern at the edge of the black hole where Twilight used to be. But thankfully, we've found the one place in the world where the vampire romance remains a holdover — and how!
A feisty young blogger named Matt points out that John Edwards has not yet been given a job in the Obama administration. Shocking! As Matt points out, in his link, Edwards totally endorsed Obama last May, four months after he dropped out of the race and a mere week after Tim Russert famously declared the Democratic primary race "over" for Hillary Clinton. Despite the lateness of the endorsement it was universally acknowledged that Edwards wanted a job—then he had a sex scandal and now he will be lucky to get a job blogging about the law for Slate.
Lapdance Inferno! The two most pole-reliant professions came together as firefighters put out a blaze at the World Famous™ Body Shop strip club on Sunset this morning. No cause has yet been determined for what might have started the blaze, but we think we have a pretty good clue. UPDATE: Police have announced they are looking for a "stripper of interest" in the case named Nikita. Anyone who might have seen the Megan Fox-sexing exotic dancer in the last 24 hours is asked to call local law enforcement immediately. [LAT]
You won't get a massive apartment for $2.5 million, but you can stamp your name on one of the city's most prominent landmarks for that amount. Two plaques attached to the famed fountain in Washington Square Park were unveiled today. They're dedicated to Larry and Bob Tisch, the late fathers of Jon, Andrew, Laurie, Steve, and Jim Tisch. Sounds like the Tisch family got a pretty good deal. Poor Steve Schwarzman had to cough up $100 million for a plaque the same size outside the New York Public Library! [Curbed]
