Mumblecore short Joe Swanberg's Quiet City is a "film prank," included on the new DVD for mumblecore classic Quiet City. Get this: it actually makes fun of the genre's hackneyed, but adorable stylings! Too self-referential! Click to see the trailer for the a.) hauntingly beautiful, or b.) jaw-grindingly self-indulgent trailer for the original Quiet City, directed by Aaron Katz. [Vulture]
Oh my. You really must watch this video, after the jump, of an addled NYObserver president Robert Sommer explaining to MSNBC host Tucker Carlson why his peachy paper endorsed Barack Obama this week. Our favorite line? "We like to view our readers as some of the smartest, most insensitive-most-Some of the most brightest readers in the country and especially New York." Aww...television is hard.
Yesterday we poked fun at the Huffington Post for tagging their Heath Ledger posts with Tuesday's second fastest-rising Google search term "Keith Ledger." But according to commenters, tipsters and your mom, it turns out they did it on purpose, in order to catch web traffic from the legions of deaf, misspelling Google searchers who have never read USWeekly ever.
Orange-headed TV scumbag Lou Dobbs will not run for President. Because the Harvard-educated man of the people doesn't really want to spend too much time with those people. "I'm too impatient with the blathering fools who make up the crowd that attends the political process," he tells TVNewser. Also personally offensive to the only guy looking out for the working man: "standing there at chicken dinners, talking about all the things that really don't matter." Let Lou Dobbs eat his chicken dinner in peace, people! The man is hungry. Hungry for change! (And chicken.) [TVNewser]
One day after her first column hit the streets, the New York Press has accepted the resignation of its sex columnist, after Jezebel pointed out similarities between Claudia Lonow's column and the work of Village Voice Media sex columnist Dan Savage. Lonow was "unaware that using questions from Savage's column was a breach of journalism ethics," reads the statement from editor David Blum."We apologize to our readers, and to Dan Savage, for this error in judgment." [NYPress]
So much for Rupert Murdoch's crazy scheme to be smart and take the Wall Street Journal's website free: "The really special things will still be a subscription service, and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive," the News Corp chairman said today at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Ooh, what could these "really special things" be? Top-secret News Corp blueprints for how best to simultaneously puss out and alienate readers and advertisers? [WSJ]
SCANDAL in the UK as a Guardian media commentator revealed to the House of Lords that rival papers The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph have "have a pact not to write about each other's parent companies." Shockingly, none of this involves Rupert Murdoch in any way! The Daily Mail is England's anti-Europe, severely moralistic conservative paper that features unparalleled coverage of celebrity gossip and scantily-clad photos of maybe famous people. The Telegraph is the boring Tory version of same. The papers' owners are all presumably rich British people with titles. The pact is a disgrace to journalism itself and would surely never be necessary in the US, where no newspaper would ever shy away from covering the owners of a competitor if it weren't for the fact that their readers don't give a shit. [Guardian]
WWD is reporting that editor Ingrid Sischy is leaving Interview magazine. Funny that, because 14 days ago, when we reported the rumor that Sischy was on her way out, whopper-master and Interview spokeslady Rachna Shah said this to the Observer: "The Gawker item is absolutely not true." WWD got a tetch hissy with us via email. "You guys jumped the gun on that," they wrote. Goodness. WWD's long piece today on Sischy's life and times at Andy Warhol's Interview doesn't mention their original story. To be fair, it's possible that Shah's bosses might have given the flack false information. Not uncommon, but always uncommonly silly. Whoops! The renowned Sischy is leaving the paper after a 23-year tenure, citing partner Sandra Brant's decision to sell her interest in Brant Publications, Interview's parent company. After the jump, Interview's press release on Sischy's departure. At least, that's what we think it is. UPDATE: From a partner at consulting firm HLGroup: "Neither the client nor the publicist involved passed on incorrect information. When the question was asked 14 days ago, Ingrid Sischy was in fact on holiday in South Africa. She had not resigned, nor was her intention at that time to resign."
Oh Demi Moore, with your naughty magazine cover splashes. What does the gestating kid (that would be Scout LaRue) pictured at left in your iconic 1991 Vanity Fair portrait think about the magazine's February cover of you? How about your racy appearance on the cover of the subtly-titled V? And she thought her exit from the womb sixteen years ago would be the last time she had to take an up-close-and-personal look at her mom's vadge.
The Columbia Journal Review kinda hates everything on the cable news networks, but we have to hand it to them—today's MSNBC interview with author Ben Shapiro does reach a new and impressive low. Shapiro wrote a book called Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House. This sounds like a man whose expertise on the political process should be celebrated on a national cable network! Contessa Brewer sat down with Ben and reinforced every single unfair negative stereotype about the vacuity of campaign coverage in something like two minutes. BREWER: "The only woman running in this case, Hillary Clinton, I was watching the debate the other night, looking at her beautiful skin, wondering if she's had any work done because I know that Botox and chemical peels and laser work and a little nip-tuck can make a world of difference." Ben, for those keeping score at home, doesn't think injecting botulism toxin into her forehead to temporarily hide signs of emotion and age would necessarily be such a bad idea for the 60-year-old senator. BREWER: "Ben, I think you're too young to know about Botox. I love the Botox. Next, we have an update on some reported UFO sightings..." [CJR]
Before Hillary Clinton showed us that she really does wear her heart on her sleeve (and it's a ladylike sleeve!) she backed out of a Vogue photo shoot because she was afraid of looking too feminine. Editor Anna Wintour was irked. But the Democratic candidate is featured in a February issue of Harper's Bazaar, along with six of the other running candidates. She is not, despite earlier reports, wearing a miniskirt and heels. After the jump, see the pictures of Clinton in all her high couture glory.
Vice co-founder and resident badboy mascot Gavin McInnes is, finally, officially, OUT at Vice. And VBS (Vice's MTV-partnered online video site) and even Dos & Don'ts, the last vestige of the magazine and brand his suddenly grownup colleagues still allowed him to helm. The news shouldn't surprise anyone who's read about Vice's new money and newer social consciousness. McInnes broke the news himself earlier today in an email to friends. "It's a long story but we've all agreed to leave it at 'creative differences,' so please don't ask me about it." Like Craig Kilborn taking 5 Questions to CBS, Gavin will soldier on with his photo mockery at streetcarnage.com. McInnes promises other projects soon, to be announced on his site "as they blossom into fruition like a hundred humid vaginas in the presence of God's boner." That's the kind of '90s retro edgy ANSWER Me! ripoff tone we miss from the new, "child soldiers are so sad" Vice. Full email after the jump. [Previously]
Not surprisingly, the phrase "Heath Ledger" was Google's fastest-rising search term yesterday. The second most buzzy? "Keith Ledger." Who is maybe a video game designer but definitely not a dead leading man. Even HuffPo couldn't get it straight, tagging many of their Ledger posts, including Bonnie Fuller's, with "Keith" instead of "Heath." The blunders weren't limited to the web. On Larry King last night, Daily News gossip columnist and Aussie (Just like Heath! Book him stat!) Ben Widdicombe was identified as "Ben Witticombe," much to his chagrin, we're quite sure. Notice any other bloopers from yesterday's frantic coverage of the actor's death? Let us know.
Some of the details surrounding Heath Ledger's death yesterday have been a little murky, with conflicting reports from various media outlets. Let's answer some of your basic questions.
Blogger obsession No. 1 meets blogger obsession No. 2 in this 1,185 word daydream by relatively unknown blogger John Ellis that's climbed onto Techmeme. If the market cap of the New York Times Co. falls below $2 billion, he says, "The company that has the most to gain from buying the New York Times is Google." Ellis envisions "a fascinating and challenging project: the reinvention of a great newspaper across multiple platforms and within a variety of applications" that will "attract people of great talent." Gee, who would that be. Not that it's a bad idea — it's just that by wishing for the Gray Lady to be taken over by media-savvy, deep-pocketed management eager to try new ideas, Ellis makes a great case for Rupert Murdoch.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, fabulist alert! The credibility of A Long Way Gone, the bestselling Farrar, Strauss and Giroux memoir from child soldier Ishmael Beah has been called into question by an Australian couple. It seems Beah may have spent a mere three months-not two years-kidnapped, drugged, running for his life, and watching his friends and entire family be raped and hacked to death. The outrage! Listen here, Ishmael, there will be no getting mixed up, we don't care how much brown-brown they made you take or how heavy your AK-47 was. Our rules about memoirs are very serious.
