Variety - Page 9

Heckling a Live Performance: Shia LaBeouf Is No Robert Downey Jr.  Obviously 28-year-old millionaire movie star Shia LeBeouf has some kind of psychological and/or dependency problem. He needs help and is, in his own obnoxious way, crying out for it. 

Many who wanted to stream the U.S. vs. Germany World Cup game on Thursday afternoon on WatchESPN’s video-streaming service could not do so at kickoff because of “unprecedented demand” at noon eastern.  ESPN said “viewership for the first half of the USA-Germany

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Council on American-Islamic Relations wants television reviewers to address what the group sees as inflammatory stereotypes in the new FX drama Tyrant. The series, set to debut June 24, concerns a politically connected Arab-American (Adam Rayner) drawn back into

On Thursday, June 19th, I rode every single bus in the “Big Blue Bus” system run by the City of Santa Monica, California. That’s 18 individual bus lines (a nineteenth, which serves Santa Monica College, has closed for the summer). I

On Thursday, June 19th, I rode every single bus in the “Big Blue Bus” system run by the City of Santa Monica, California. That’s 18 individual bus lines (a nineteenth, which serves Santa Monica College, has closed for the summer). I

The entertainment industry is beginning to realize the commercial clout of family-friendly fare. This year, PG-rated dramas like Heaven Is for Real and God’s Not Dead shocked industry observers with their impressive ticket sales. Animated films continue to sell well,

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,

Chelsea Handler is getting in bed with streaming giant Netflix. Will the two regret the coupling? Handler, the rowdy comic who hosted Chelsea Lately on E! for several years, will be the star of several projects for Netflix. In 2015,

The version of Into the Woods that hits theaters Christmas Day may not resemble the story as many remember it. Disney, the studio behind the musical adaptation, is giving the material a nip and tuck to make it more appropriate

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

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

The director of the new indie comedy Obvious Child, playing in select theaters now and opening wider this weekend, insists her movie isn’t a full-throated abortion defense. A lot of journalists have used the shorthand ‘abortion comedy,’ but that makes it

AUSTIN, Texas–Following the contentious debates at the Texas State Republican Convention earlier this month over the content of the official Republican Party of Texas Platform, key leaders in the state’s Young Republican and College Republican organizations have spent the past

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)

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

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

President Obama announced plans to create the world’s largest ocean sanctuary on Tuesday, expanding 87,000 square miles of protected ocean into 782,000 square miles of protected ocean–a nearly ninefold increase. According to Fox News, Obama is proposing an expansion of

Mexican drug cartels, such as the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, are supplementing their incomes by selling stolen gasoline. At $0.40 a liter, gasoline is cheaper for residents of Tamaulipas than a can of Coca-Cola if they buy from the

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?

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.

‘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

Breitbart News contributor Kevin Williams (Fear of a Black Republican) recently spoke with EchoLight CEO and former presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum about his shift to movie making, his new western The Redemption of Henry Myers and why the entertainment industry

Nikki Finke, founder of Deadline Hollywood (who was later booted from her own site), is back at a new address, NikkiFinke.com, after what she describes as “7 soul-crushing months” of sitting out her non-compete agreement with Deadline. “I’m old. I’m

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has given a £1 million donation to the ‘Better Together’ campaign to keep the United Kingdom together, her website reports. It was announced this morning that the Labour Party supporter and donor would be campaigning

About.me has raised $11 million from investors and plans to revitalize the personal identity networking website, according to TechCrunch.  Co-founder Tony Conrad says the money will add features, make it more user friendly and will invigorate the site with the

Hollywood is finally bringing faith-based product to the masses. As a result, Christian movie goers are beginning to reconsider their ambivalence toward Tinsel Town, according to a new study. Work still remains to bridge the gap between the two, but

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

On June 8, two U.S. stealth bombers arrived in England to join “three B-52 Stratofortress aircraft already deployed” as part of “Washington’s effort to reassure allies in the region amid Russia’s recent bluster.” “All five of the aircraft are capable

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%