Variety - Page 9

Hollywood Playbook: Wednesday's Top 5 Stories

Aereo Streaming Struck Down 6-3 In Supreme Court Aereo is officially and irrevocably toast. As I wrote earlier this week, once I learned that Aereo was using tiny little symbolic antennas at its main facilities to back up the claim

Hollywood Playbook: Wednesday's Top 5 Stories

New Texas Jobs May Outnumber Qualified Workers

HOUSTON, Texas–The unemployment rate in Texas recently fell to a new five-year low, according to new statistics from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. As business booms in the Lone Star State, many companies are in need of trained workers–most notably employers in

New Texas Jobs May Outnumber Qualified Workers

'Batman' at 25

John Nolte mentioned that Tim Burton’s epochal “Batman” film is now 25 years old, which immediately made every aching joint in my aging body flare up, and more of my remaining hair turn white.  Twenty-five years ago?  Really? The nifty

'Glassholes' Can Now Purchase Designer Frames

Limited edition Diane von Furstenberg Google Glass has finally gone on sale on fashion websites Net-A-Porter.com and MrPorter.com, enabling anticipatory and interested consumers to wear their smart technology in style.  Google Glass goers can now purchase the spectacles in male or

'Glassholes' Can Now Purchase Designer Frames

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 Stories

Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’ Turns 25 Fifty years after 1939, an unprecedented year of cinematic masterpieces, 1989 gave us an extraordinary year in popcorn cinema — just good old-fashioned entertaining movies. I spent that summer at the drive-in. Every Friday night

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 Stories

Texas Gas and Oil City May Ban Fracking

HOUSTON, Texas–Denton, a Texas city north of Dallas, is known as a gas city. Gas fields there have reportedly produced a billion dollars in mineral wealth and allowed the city to prosper. But now, the Denton City Council is considering

Texas Gas and Oil City May Ban Fracking

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 Stories

Hypocrites at Deadline Threaten All of Hollywood Over Nikki Finke A self-serving Sunday morning interview between Deadline’s Mike Fleming and Deadline’s Peter Bart at Deadline about how awful Nikki Finke is, is quite the lesson in pompous, passive-aggressive character assassination.

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 Stories

Hollywood Playbook: Friday's Top 5 Stories

The United States Navy Loves Michael Bay’s ‘Last Ship’ Judging from this Los Angeles Times article, director Michael Bay’s longstanding and positive relationship with the American military is paying off in a large way for his new TNT series “The

Hollywood Playbook: Friday's Top 5 Stories

Hollywood Playbook: Thursday's Top 5 Stories

New Amazon 3D SmartPhone a Disruptor? Not at $200 Amazon is way-way-way late to the SmartPhone business, which means that CEO Jeff Bezos had one job yesterday, and that was to dazzle.  As is the case with anything from Amazon,

Hollywood Playbook: Thursday's Top 5 Stories

World Cup Shatters Internet-Video Streaming Records

Group play hasn’t even ended, but the World Cup has already shattered online-video streaming records.  According to Variety, the World Cup has “already broken the record for peak amount of online-video streaming bandwidth as delivered by Akamai Technologies, and also

World Cup Shatters Internet-Video Streaming Records

Ratings, Programming Woes Affect CNN's Upfront AdBuys

No longer able to compete as a news outlet, left-wing CNN has shifted its focus to documentaries like “The Sixties” and reality entertainment programming like “Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown.” Overall ratings have continued to tumble at the network, though, and

Ratings, Programming Woes Affect CNN's Upfront AdBuys

World Cup Highlights Asia's Illegal Betting Boom

HONG KONG (AP) — As teams battle for football glory at the World Cup in Brazil, the biggest winners from the tournament may be illegal bookmakers in Asia. Since kickoff, Chinese officer worker Chen has already wagered 2,000-3,000 yuan ($320-$480)

World Cup Highlights Asia's Illegal Betting Boom

Sales Agent 'Chopped Up Man And Cooked Head'

The Berlin Regional court has heard the bizarre case of a 45-year-old sales agent who cut up a 37-year-old man and cooked his head. Prosecutors demanded that the man be sentenced to 6 years and 9 months for manslaughter, but

Sales Agent 'Chopped Up Man And Cooked Head'

Faith-Based Film Summit Shows Spiritual Content in High Demand

Recently, Hollywood’s elite gathered for Variety’s “Purpose Family Entertainment + Faith-based Summit” at the Four Seasons Los Angeles Hotel at Beverly Hills. In association with Rogers & Cowan–joined by Disney Publishing Worldwide, Faith Driven Entertainment, Persecuted, Pure Flix, and Walden Media and

Faith-Based Film Summit Shows Spiritual Content in High Demand

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 Stories

Netflix Streams TV Shows and Bad Movies In Ultra HD 4k Netflix just added the full  “Breaking Bad” series, “Smurfs 2,” and “Ghostbusters2” to their Ultra HD 4K streaming service.  Doesn’t this seem like overkill as far as picture quality?

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 Stories

The joys of training your imported replacement

The immigration debate is mostly driven by the crisis of massive illegal immigration, which has been deliberately conflated with legal immigration by activists, to the extent that we’re not even supposed to refer to them as “illegal aliens” any more.

The joys of training your imported replacement

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 Stories

‘Movie Stars Have Become an Endangered Species’ Writing for Variety, Peter Bart declares the movie star an endangered species about 10 years after the rest of us figured that out: Summer blockbusters make studios happy, but they make stars nervous. That’s

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 Stories

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 News Items

Sigourney Weaver Resurrected for ‘Avatar’ Sequels … Will Play Different Character I don’t remember much about “Avatar” — I mean other than the numbing of the ass about halfway through. But I do remember the characters played by Sigourney Weaver

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 News Items

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 News Items

Variety: Taxpayers Will Subsidize Hollywood Forever According to Variety, 40 states out of 50 now offer some kind of incentive to attract Hollywood film and television productions. Permanency — of what is known as “corporate welfare” when Hollywood’s Top 1%

Hollywood Playbook: Monday's Top 5 News Items

Victims of Taliban Atrocities Horrified By Bergdahl Prisoner Swap

Afghan victims of Taliban atrocities are giving Obama’s decision to release 5 Taliban commanders in exchange for American deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, an unambiguous thumbs down.  The five are accused of terrorizing “large swathes of Afghanistan and carrying out atrocities which

Op-Ed: A Confused Higher Education Official in Texas

Raymund Paredes, Commissioner of Higher Education at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) threw down the gauntlet in a May 30, 2014 San Antonio Express News opinion piece “Common Core Controversy in Texas Distracting, Unneccessary” in which he declared

Op-Ed: A Confused Higher Education Official in Texas