From Variety:

ALPHABET ALL 'EYES' FOR CORPORATE DRAMA
Net taking a risk on sleuth skein
ABC has its "Eyes" on the latest project from "Fastlane" scribe-exec producer John McNamara. Alphabet's given a seven-figure put pilot commitment to the hourlong drama, which will revolve around a 21st century version of a detective agency .

What does "21st century version of a detective agency" mean? how did you sell that? Doe s it mean it's another Sam Spade rip off with slow pans and spedd up frames? Fastlane was a 21st century version of Mimi Vice and it bombed. Why would you sink money in a Simon & Simon version of FOX's last year mistake?

Here's my pitch..."It's crap meets crap."

More things that have to go

Independent movies about the Mafia.
I like a good Mafia movie, but how many tough guys do we need?

I just saw a film made by Danny Provansono, a convicted criminal going to jail for extortion. He claims that there is no such thing as organized crime, but he made a movie about mob bosses, sit downs, and guys getting whacked.

The movie is real good, especially for a guy's first film. (Having said that, I can keep my thumbs). But why a Mafia movie? Doesn't he have stories about his life of crime that we can see that's not wrapped in a Sopranos wrapper?

One scene in "This Thing of Ours," that's off; Danny and his three buddies are in a back room of a Chinese restraint loudly telling stories about whacking guys and drinking Japanese rice wine.
1) Why so loud? I was waiting for the people at table 5 to come over and arrest them.
2) Wrong restraint!

If it's true that there's not organize crime and this guy did all this illegal stuff on his own, why not write about that? He could've redefined the Mafia movie by writing his own story.


Other movie genres that have to go:
1) Whacky but terrible bank robbers
2) Bounty hunters, bank robber, Jewel thieves, etc. out for one last heist.
3) Mean Streets rip offs.
4) Accidently killing a hooker and trying to hide the body instead of going to the police.

Just Saw

an ad for the 5 am news cast.

"Can't sleep? We have your sleeping tips this morning at 5 AM."
Yeah, if I stayed up at 5 AM, I' could sleep the next night too.

Lose 10 pounds. find out at 5 AM.

Back to school bargans, find out at 5 AM.

The best swimsuits. We have them at 5 AM.

How about, traffic, news and weather. If you are up that's what you need. If you don't need to be up, why bother? It's the age of the internet, I can find the info whenever...I can google, Bitch@#$%!

If I'm up at 5 AM, I'm most likely drunk.

Dailies, a big mistake. this morning at 5 AM.

From Variety:


'RINGS' TEAM NABS A 'KING'S' RANSOM
Trio to share writing duties, $20 mil for redo
Peter Jackson will earn a King Kong-sized salary when he directs the ape remake: In one of the largest deals ever made with a director, Universal will pay $20 million against 20% of the gross.

Big mistake. I mean really. Peter Jackson is great. Always has been. Well, hit and miss, but always a good miss. But why "king Kong?" Why try and do it better.

Remember "Independence ay?" That was a huge hit. Tons of money. After that the film makers could write their own ticket. Next project? Anything they wanted. Next project? "Godzilla." and this movie was supposed to be better than the crappy old ones.

Well, it sucked. Who's idea was it to make his head flat? The movie bombed. People were complaining heated it wasn't as fun as the old ones.

But who said the old ones were worth remaking anyway? They were bad movies.

Same with "King Kong." It's nervie to say you can do better than either of those crappy films.
------------
From Variety:


. FOX VISITS 'BOONDOCKS'
If greenlit, toon would bow in the 2004-05 midseason
Fox has combed "The Boondocks" to find its next major animated project. Network ordered a pilot presentation last week for a potential series based on the edgy comicstrip by Aaron McGruder.

This comic is great. Please don't fuzz it up by adding white people or something. Please let it be what it is. Remember, it's not "South Park." It's "Boondocks."

Things that have to go.

Years ago, the funny David Letterman did a bit where he talked about phases that have to stop being said. The one that stands out was "Go for it."

I have a new list and like the old list, I can only remember one thing on it.

Movies and TV shows have to stop saying. "I learned it from the Discovery Channel."

Whenever a character spits out some facts the other guy asks how he knows that he says something to the point of "I watch a lot of Discovery Channel."
That's just embarrassing. You didn't read that? You don't just remember that elementary fact from school?

It was funny ht e first time, but now I'm afraid that it's always going to be said all the time.

In Bad Boys II they went there. Oh they went there. Wil Smith said "The Learning Channel."

I can't watch those channels. I know people do. It just reminds me of those really boring film strips we watched in school.

I have et to say that I learned something from the Game Show Network.

"Johnny asked Susie to hold his BLANK."

Also, PLEASE STOP using this line in movies as a punch line. "For shizzle my nizzle." No one knows what that means, even Snoop Dogg. And it's to a point that it's obvious one person only wrote it or heard it from another movie using that same joke.

People don't say that fizzle thing anyway. It was old and dated the first time it came out of Dogg's mouth. It's just took a while to get to the white man's type writer and onto the scene.

I also don't like the term "off the chain." It just doesn't make sense. If something is not great, is it still on the chain? How is something on the chain in the first place? That must be hard. But I've heard people actually say it, so it can't be so bad... Which is good.

Gigli

Gigli sucks. No one is arguing that. Wall Street Journal called it the worst movie of the century. The movie took two years to release. that means they thought it sucked and hoped time would make it better. Well almost.

Apparently Byron Allen, the guy with the fake TV show, said, "Original with a surprise ending." Yeah, it still sucked. How bad off are you if you are quoting Byron Allen in your ads?

The movie would just be another Ben Afflack mistake that comes and goes from the studio, if the f@#$ing PR people didn't go nuts with the Ben/Lopez romance for the past year.

you had to hear about this s@#$ for months. Everything they did seemed news worthy.

They even took an interview that Pat O'Brien did for Access Hollywood and expanded it to an hour of Dateline. Now AC, is an entertainment news show, the interview makes sense. But Dateline is supposed to be news stories. So to have an hour of Ben/Lopez, it must be news worthy.

They showed them cooking rice and beans. How is that news? A Puerto Rican cooking rice and beans, news? It's news if she doesn't.

Also check out the lastest from Media Yenta

Jumping on the Gay (bandwagon)

Since Queer Eye for the Straight Guy became such a hit, the buzz is that over-the-top gay men are in! Thank God, I have an angora sweater I've been dying to debut. Hello, sailors!

Other shows are following suit. Casting calls will go out for "Queer Eye Types." Replaced will be the "Matha Stewart Types" and the "Steven Coocha-CooCha-Gara Types."
Sorry STEVEN COJOCARU, even you are too low key now. He's been very busy. Maybe now the People Magazine maven and Access Hollywood whore can take a break and relax his streched out face. The good news is that he does have a call back for Chacka in the Land of the Lost movie.
me-ouch!


I saw Queer Eye the other night. It a great show. I think that part of the show's success is that the show is really good. I mean the men are funny and all, but the editing and the casting are the real stars. They try and find a story with some drama built in and they are sure to get out information. Once again Hollywood has taken the most obvious part of something good and whittles it down to that. "Our entire show can suck, as long as we have 5 queens we're fine."

The new thing is that gay men know how to do things and they can be put to use like a mule to help the straight white man. We always bring it back tot he straight white man.
Isn't that right Queen Latifah? Who took her Oscar nominated bad self over to Steve Martin's crib to teach him how to live life.
Isn't that right box office champ Wil Smith who brought his world famous self over to the golf course to teach Matt Damon how to golf and live life despite having the world's largest teeth?

Gay and Black culture is not treated like culture on TV or in movies. It's treated as an oddity that can help us.



NBC took the hit episode off Bravo, cut it in half to 30 minutes and aired it with some success at 9:30 after Will and Grace.* I think they have the right idea, but go in the other direction. They should plan large 1 hour specials and have them ready for sweeps.

Last night, while drinking with a few choice friends at one of the few outdoor bars in a town where the weather is always great, I spoke out about the Queer Eye to a female friend. I asked her if she was offended that it's a show about 5 men telling another man what women want. Not 5 women.

She informed me that it was 5 gay men. I told her I knew that, but it's still men telling men that women want. She informed me that I didn't understand women and after that statement, I really didn't understand women.

She also went on to tell me that her show is looking to add 5 men to tell men what women want too. I suggested she add women, but she laughed me off.
"No, it's all about five gay men."

If you want to know what women want, go to the source, not the guy at the White Party.

Bravo has another gay teamed reality show hit. It's about a guy who has 15 guys to choose from to date. BUT! The rub is that some of the gay guys aren't gay! So if he picks the guy who's straight, the main guy has to turn him by the end of the episode. That's where the challenge is!

I thought Bravo was a channel for quality shows and movies, not risky reality shows that even NBC is too scared to air. How is this show a good companion to "Inside the Actor's Studio?" Unless of course Kevin Spacy is the guest. (Just kidding. Please don't sue. I'm not saying that's true.)


*(Will and Grace in case you don't know is a successful sitcom about a woman married to a dreamy doctor and her best friend, a gay man who hasn't had even a kiss since the show stared. We can have gay characters as long as they don't have meaningful, sexual relationships.)