In an appearance on ABC TV's Good Morning America, director Michael Moore was interviewed about his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story. In the course of the interview with Chris Cuomo, Moore chastised ABC for indulging in exploitive labor practices that are now all the rage across America- namely classifying long-term employees as temporary workers so they don't receive health care benefits. To watch the interview click here

By Lee Pfeiffer

If David Carradine ever referred to coming out of the closet, he meant it literally. In an interview that will appear on a new cable series titled Celebrity Ghost Stories, the late Kung Fu star will say he felt his closet was haunted by the ghost of his wife's first husband. Carradine says on one occasion, the ghost sent a message to him by using one of his old ties with a Grateful Dead logo on it. We're not making this up, folks...The series will also feature first hand ghost stories related by Joan Rivers and Scott Baio. Aren't these people scary enough without having to relate such stories? The show promises to be absurd, stupid and insulting to anyone's intelligence. The American public will love it. For more click here

Taking advantage of the mania for theatrical 3-D movies, Sony has announced it will begin to market televisions capable of telecasting 3-D programming next year. With sales of present high-end TVs leveling off, the industry is looking for the next big thing to excite consumers. Sony says the TVs will be be designed to accommodate popular video game technology as well as Blu-ray players. The caveat is that, once again, there are two competing formats. If the industry doesn't learn its lesson this time and agree on on industry standard, we could see a replay of battling formats that led to the disastrous "wars" between Betamax and VHS and HD and Blu-ray DVDs. For more click here

Another gem from the on-screen movie descriptions of American cable TV giant Cablevision. Remember, someone gets paid to write these summaries...

Psycho (1960) - A woman on the run stops at a 12-room motel with showers, run by mother-fixated Norman Bates.

Sure, that's right...the primary point Alfred Hitchcock wanted to convey to audiences was that Norman's motel had showers..

By Lee Pfeiffer

The nation's long nightmare is finally over: after seemingly endless promotions, Jay Leno's new nightly prime-time show debuted on NBC. For my money, Leno is still the best of the comedic chat show hosts, barring Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. NBC made  a major blunder by forcing him into retirement despite the fact he was still the ratings king of the late night talk show circuit. The experiment to replace him with Conan O'Brien may turn out to be a major faux pas, as The Tonight Show is now lagging in ratings behind David Letterman - something that rarely happened during Leno's reign. Leno had the last laugh, however, by negotiating a new contract that has him on the 10:00 PM time slot five nights a week. Three months after he hosted his final Tonight Show, the affable Leno premiered his new show - and the only remarkable thing about it was how unremarkable it was.

The show felt like any old edition of The Tonight Show. Leno entered to rapturous applause, high-fived the audience and gave a boiler plate monologue about current events. The laughs were adequate, but it was clear the writers didn't work up much extra sweat to make this monologue special in any way. The usual zany filmed sketches were peppered through the show. One featuring an unsuspecting young woman who is lured into a car wash where the staff perform extravagant musical numbers was clever for the first few minutes, but it dragged on far too long and the non-responsive demeanor of the "victim" did nothing to add to the laughs. There was a mildly funny homo-erotic sketch featuring band leader Kevin Eubanks and a Leno look-alike. More successful was Leno's dusting off of the tried-and-true gimmick of re-editing a legitimate news interview in a comedic vein. In this case, President Obama's 60 Minutes interview was tailored to make it appear as though he was giving absurd answers to questions posed by Leno.

Writer Steve Vertlieb informs us of the following tribute to a classic TV series:

October, 2009, marks the fiftieth anniversary of Rod Serling's immortal fantasy television series "The Twilight Zone," which premiered over the CBS Television network on October 2nd, 1959.  I've been asked by Roger Hall at Film Music Review to write a special look back at this landmark imaginative series.  For this unique retrospective the popular sci-fi web magazine, The Thunder Child, has also asked to participate in the celebration by lending their own graphics and individual layout design to my original text.  Both versions of this affectionate tribute to Rod Serling and his legendary creation can be accessed by clicking onto the links below.  It is our hope that these somewhat ethereal recollections will rekindle cherished memories of the finest fantasy/science fiction series in television history.

 

www.americanmusicpreservation.com/TheTwilightZoneTribute.htm

http://thethunderchild.com/Television/1960s/ElementofTime.html

 

  

                                            

 

Remember the plot device in The Boys From Brazil? A society of former Nazis plan to use cloning methods to bring Adolf Hitler back to life. They needn't have gone to all that trouble. Given the number of times Adolf Hitler's name and image are invoked nowadays, you would think he really did conquer the world and that Josef Goebbels was running the international ministry of propaganda. During the Bush administration, left wing wackos routinely compared the president to Hitler for invading Iraq and now right wing lunatics are doing the same to President Obama (over a health care plan, yet!). This week marked the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII and American political pundit Pat Buchanan wrote a column saying Hitler had rather benign intentions but was pushed into war by Churchill! Not be outdone, an AIDS prevention group has caused controversy by producing a public service ad in Germany that depicts a couple having torrid sex. (The ad is far too provocative to be shown on American TV). As they disrobe and get down to doin' the dirty, the man looks into the camera and we see it's Hitler. This is followed by the on-screen message "AIDS is Mass Murder. Protect Yourself."  Predictably, the ad has caused outrage with even other AIDS prevention groups saying it presents a distracting and garbled message, not the least of which is that HIV automatically leads to AIDS and death. That was true in the early days of the disease, but as we now know, with proper treatment, HIV is no longer a death sentence. The ad unintentionally also trivializes one of the worst mass murderers in human history. Historians believe that Hitler's sex life was virtually non-existent, even with his mistress Eva Braun. He placed himself on a higher plane and prided himself in not indulging in the vices that tempted every day people. Watching Hitler and his lover rip each other's clothes off like scene from Porky's minimizes the horror he is associated with. Not helping matters is the fact that the chap who plays Der Fuhrer looks a bit like Dick Shawn's character from The Producers. Here's a message to everyone who wishes to invoke Hitler's image or name to make a political or socially significant point: don't do it because it will almost guarantee that your original message will be lost in a sidebar of controversy. To view the ad click here

By Lee Pfeiffer

One of the hallmarks of The Ellen DeGeneres Show is the tradition of every guest entering to rock music and engaging in a brief dance with the host. Audiences find it amusing to judge the often awkward moves of each guest. However, the record companies that own the copyrights to the songs played during this segment are considerably less amused. They are collectively suing the show's producers for over 1,000 instances of copyright violations. The suit says the producers should be savvy enough to know that they could not use the songs without permission. The suit cites work by Michael Jackson, Will Smith, The Beach Boys and many others. The producers might argue that the song use represents a case of "Fair Use", which allows copyrighted works to be used in certain instances without gaining permission from the rights holders. However, such instances are generally relegated to use of materials for news and informational purposes, which is how TV networks can routinely use clips from programs on other stations. How the case plays out can have some far-reaching implications for the industry. For more click here

In a review of the newly revised At the Movies program founded by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, the Los Angeles Times says the show has successfully returned to its roots: namely, serious, intelligent conversation about movies. The previous hosts, Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons were recently fired, as their audience had eroded. The general consensus is that the bulk of the criticism was against Lyons, the son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons, who was accused of being hopelessly out of his depth in analyzing movies. The new hosts, A.O. Scott of the New York Times and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune are said to bring a maturity back to the program, along with intelligent debate. For more click here

Fans of the acclaimed comedy series Psychoville have launched an on-line petition to convince the BBC to renew the show for a second season. We at Cinema Retro admit we are biased toward the show, since the madmen who created it, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton were kind enough to feature our magazine in one recent episode, which was a spoof of Alfred Hitchcock films. In an age of dumbed- down TV, you can make a difference and cast your vote to renew one of Britain's most innovative comedy shows clicking here.  Click here to read coverage of Cinema Retro's "debut" on the series.You can also view on line video regarding the petition on YouTube by clicking here

By Lee Pfeiffer

Much of the TV cable news universe has become a lot of hyperbole as some show hosts use increasingly theatrical techniques to increase audiences in the highly competitive industry. There are three major American TV cable news outlets: Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. Fox News has long dominated the ratings world by catering to conservative viewpoints. The election of Barack Obama has only increased ratings among those who oppose his policies. Similarly, MSNBC, which has a left-wing point of view, saw significant growth during the Bush administration, when its programs became harshly critical of the president's policies. CNN claims to be the network that tries to stride the middle of the road, though both conservatives and liberals claim the network favors the other side. The contentious world of cable news has made one thing clear: most viewers are not interested in a balanced viewpoint of the world, nor do they want to hear the other side of the story. Ideologues on both sides simply seek out shows and hosts they are most comfortable with in order to reaffirm their existing convictions.

As the hyperbole increases, so does the risk-at least as it pertains to advertisers. Take the case of Fox News personality Glenn Beck, who hosts a top-rated daily show that has made him an icon among the far right. Beck, who refers to himself as "a rodeo clown", is known for engaging in theatrical gestures that would rival those of Elmer Gantry.  However, when he recently referred to President Obama as a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of white people", a line was crossed that may have implications for all controversial talk show hosts. Beck's refusal to back away from the claim - along with his "dig-the-heels" follow-up defense of his statement - outraged liberals and caused even moderate conservatives to denounce what he said. More importantly, a liberal advocacy group began a petition campaign to target Beck's advertisers, saying their company should not want to be associated with such a program. The strategy has worked: dozens of major advertisers have pulled out of Beck's program. Fox News says the network has still kept most of the revenues as the ads were simply switched to other programs - and it's doubtful the network would ever cancel Beck, given the fact that he is a ratings powerhouse. Nevertheless, the ad rates on his show will almost certainly be dropped in order to attract advertisers. 

Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's top news analysis show Countdown, is a frequent critic of Beck and often refers to him as "Lonesome Rhodes", a reference to the phony country singer portrayed by Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd. However, Olbermann is also steeped in controversy and has plenty of enemies among conservatives, largely for his continued humorous lambasting of the Bush administration and virtually everyone on Fox News. You can be sure that right wing advocacy groups will be attempting to take a page out of the left's strategy of targeting advertisers of shows they believe are too controversial.

The situation raises the old argument about the fine line between advocacy and censorship. No one is suggesting that the government get involved in any of this, but targeting specific talk show hosts through the threat of boycotting their advertisers opens up a Pandora's Box of issues that can impact both sides of the political spectrum.  It remains to be seen what type of pressures, if any, will be put on talk show hosts by their networks in terms of cooling off these feuds, which have mesmerized audiences. Keith Olbermann denied that the absence of criticism against Fox News over a period of weeks had anything to do with published reports that he was ordered to tone down the rhetoric. As if to prove he was not part of any such agreement, he is as vitriolic as ever in mocking his arch rival Bill O'Reilly, the superstar of Fox News Channel. For his part, O'Reilly has refused to even utter Olbermann's name on the air, choosing to insult him through thinly-veiled references as a hate monger.  If corporate management did succeed in calling  a truce between their top personalities, it would be a mixed blessing as it is the controversial aspects of these shows that motivate people to tune in. For more click here

By Lee Pfeiffer

It's been a while since we had a great Larry King moment to share with readers, but this one's a gem. Larry, who prides himself on doing no advance research on his guests, relies solely on some notes provided to him prior to each interview. He can sometimes bluff his way through celebrity interviews, but when everyday people are guests, Larry is treading water to the next commercial break. on Monday night, Larry was interviewing Katie Hall, a woman who was victimized many years ago by the same rapist who is at the center of the bizarre tale that was revealed last week in which he allegedly kept a young girl captive for 18 years and fathered two children with her. King asked Hall, who was raped in 1976, a series of questions so insensitive you have to see it to believe it. Told by Hall that she had been returning from a trip to the grocery store when she gave the man who would end up raping her a lift in her car, King makes her describe the gory details of precisely how the man "consummated" the act, as though they were a couple on their honeymoon. King then asks her what the man did with the groceries that were in the car! To cap things off, he then asks Hall's husband if she told him about her experience many years later when they started dating, the sordid implication being that the man might have rejected her as being damaged goods. Told that he was aware of the crime committed against Hall, Larry asks the husband, "How did you feel about that?" This is Larry's favorite line to stall for time until the next break - no matter how insulting it is. He once asked Maureen O'Hara the same question after she related how her husband died in a plane crash.Click here to view