clueless bryan singer didn’t know scientology was a prob in germany

one would think that when the powers that be in hollywood decide to make a movie in a particular country, whether it be the czech republic, poland, romania, thailand, or germany, that they might pause for a moment to find out a bit about the culture. unfortunately, everyone seems to believe he knows everything he needs to know about deutschland. which is quite surprising considering most of the locals don’t even know when germany became a country.

bryan singer, who is directing the tom cruise fiaso valkyrie for united artists, freely admitted to the new york times that he had no idea that scientology was an issue in germany when he cast tom cruise in the role of von stauffenberg. apparently he didn’t realize the importance of the figure in the context of history either.

will lack of voice dialing hurt the iPhone?

since voice dialing is essentially the only way you can legally use a mobile phone in your car, is the lack of a voice dialing function on the iPhone going to hurt it? according to the economist it will. that along with the fact that it takes about six steps to make one telephone call. the article blames these oversites on apple’s refusal to solicit input from wireless services companies such as AT&T, which has an exclusive lock on the phone in the u.s. over the next 2 years. additionally, the phone isn’t equipped to use 3G cellular networks, so surfing the web is cumbersome.

music industry fears apple dominance with iPhone

the music industry greets the introduction of the new iPhone in the u.s. (which is predicted to sell 10M sets there) with apprehension. last week, apple became the 3rd largest retailer in the u.s. and as more and more music stores bite the dust and as digital sales haven’t yet replaced revenue from cd sales in north america or europe, there’s a feeling that times will only grow worse for the industry over the next couple of years. at the moment, you can sell 60K albums in one week and enter the top 5 chart in the u.s. justin timberlake, arguably the largest pop artist in the u.s. has sold 3.3M copies of his new release, while the last nysync album sold 2M copies during its first week of sales back in 2000. this is no reflection on timberlake, his new album is infinitely better than any of the stuff nysnyc cranked out in the 90s, its more a reflection of the market. for mor details click here.

financial times on the block?

well, not yet. but it has been suggested that the owner’s should sell the financial times now to avoid an international war with rupert murdoch who is in the process of buying the u.s. based, the wall street journal. you may have to register to read the observer article.

wikipedia could be instrumental in chris benoit/wrestler mystery

well, its not a mystery. the man and his family were found dead. i’ve intentionally not followed this story as it just underscores the level of violence in the u.s. that is absolutely chilly. but apparently, someone at wikipedia or one of their wiki people noticed that the update to chris benoit’s website about the death of the benoits was updated before the police found the bodies.

cnn no more paid video myspace video

cnn has decided to no longer charge for video on their website. i never realized they did. no wonder my player never worked!

myspace launches a video bit to try to give youtube a run for its money.

u.s. teen may get 20 years for school fight

why is it that an animal rights activist in holland can get 15 years in prison for assasinating a politician, but an african-american u.s. teen who gets in a school fight over a racial incident is, according to the associate press, looking at 20 years behind bars?
unfortunately, yahoo has taken this original link down. you can read more about the case on the bbc websites.

vanity fair german version having problems?

is it true that vanity fair deutschland is having problems? spiegel online seems to think that the 50M euro experiement with a weekly version of the popular american brand isn’t working. a few weeks ago i saw an ad for the magazine in a sunday issue of the tabloid BILD.

the daily mail strikes back liz hurley’s wobbly ass

it seems, the daily mail is intent on showing celebs at their worst. last week, we got a bunch a photos of kate moss and her wobbly knobby knees. this week, there’s photos of madonna’s over exercised arms and liz hurley’s cellulite ass. perhaps now that paris is out of the slammer, the tabloid celebs have now fallen out of favor. have they’ve become the ones the public and some journos luv 2 hate?

spotlight hugger schwarzenegger uses tax payers money to visit europe

what’s he doing tooling around europe, visiting his home town graz (the powers that be in the city removed his name from their website as well as their football stadium), now he’s in the uk to hang out with tony blair on blair’s last day in office.

tom cruise destroys career with scientology

oops! old story. 2 years ago about this time he was caught jumping up and down on oprah winfrey’s coach. oprah, the american talk show host looked a bit stunned at the time. over the next few weeks tom cruise grabbed as many journalists as he possibly could in order to talk about his religion. i guess he thought, it worked for increasing the profile of mel gibson when he came out as a catholic. the only difference is, well tom, catholicism isn’t considered a cult. tom cruise should realize, nobody wants to squeeze his e-machine. and is anyone really interested in seeing his next film valkyrie (or however the hell you spell it)?

police say foxy brown robbed, foxy brown denies it

if that doesn’t sound confusing, i don’t know what does. new york police officers say rapper foxy brown was robbed of $500 cash, credit cards, and an designer bag. foxy claims it never happened.

email privacy and u.s. courts

it’s official. emails are private. even if your isp is yahoo. that is if the u.s. supreme court doesn’t overturn this rulling.

bryan ferry can’t write his own songs

i’ll freely admit to being a bryan ferry fan. but every since he covered ‘I’m just a jealous guy’ he’s caught cover-itis. i gave him a pass with the 20s album and that other ballad album he put out. but i draw the line at bob dylan. he must be pretty hard up for cash.

only terrible kitsch will come out of tom cruise project

or rather, that’s what the grandson of claus von stauffenberg recently told der spiegel when asked how he felt about the top gun actor playing his grandfather.

another clueless celebrity cameron diaz and her mao fashion accessory

camera diaz, while touring the inca ruins in peru decided to sling a first world trendy bag over her shoulder emblazoned with a saying from mao, a person whose ideologies were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of peruvians in the 80s and 90s.

kate moss’s knobby knees

this week, it seems like the daily mail has it in for kate moss. first there was the story about moss’s wobbly knees with a photo showing kate exiting a car. then there was the story in which every body part of ms. moss was disected with out photoshop. which was actually quite an interesting article. because having worked at record labels once upon a time, i saw the way images were photoshopped within an inch of their lives even to images of 17 year olds. and now that we all have hand held cameras, the public is able to separate truth from fantasy images of people like kate moss.

france bans blackberry

on tuesday (or was it thursday?) the sarkozy led french government banned the use of the blackberry by government officials out of fear the devices are being monitored by the CIA. or something like that. the financial times published a humorous article entitled ‘blackberry fools’ about politicians and their crackberries.

is white the new black?

an article published today in the vancouver weekly the georgia straight talks more indepthly about the angelina jolie/a mighty heart controversy.

where have all the rock stars gone?

a fascinating article in the chronicle of higher education. generally, primarily read by academics. the article makes a point of not comparing current musicians to ones from previous generations, but examining how pop music has lost its centrality.

angelina steals roles from black actresses

posh

it’s true. only a barrage of photographers (mostly from europe we’ll assume) showed up for the launch of posh spice’s clothing line at saks.

angelina stole halle’s film and tomkat

if you want to talk to angelina you need to sign a contract. old story. but more about her later.

according to a report in the new issue of Gala, tom cruise, (who was in berlin last week visiting the new scientology center and checking into shooting his new film valkyrie) wants the babelsberg studio to build a 300,000 euro climate regulating machine because he can’t step in front of the cameras if it’s more than 20 degrees (celcius, that is).

but we think cruise might be a little worried about his career. mission impossible was a flop. and even my accountant knows this. and cruise has 6 or 7 films in production and pre-production. which is usually a sign of fear in hollywood. just look at angelina jolie’s list. last year, she was accused of stealing roles from black actresses and women of color since she’s playing the role of an afro-cuban woman in a mighty heart. apparently halle berry was in talks to play the role until angelina decided she wanted it.

the history of cinema, being both bad and good, produced numerous bad bits in the 20th century. one of which was the racist tradition called ‘blackface’ in which white actors darkened their faces in order to look like people of african heritage. jolie has been accused of taking cinema back to the 20th century (and who wants to go back there?) with her portrayal of mariane pearl because her skin has been darkened, she wears brown contacts and her hair has been kinked out. apparently no one thinks it’s the same as deniro downing 40 or 50 donuts to be in a scorsese film. she and brad pitt (who produced the film) have been accused of both nepotism and cultural insensitivity. for people who consider themselves citizens of the world, this is nothing less than ironic.

the city of seattle’s progressive, well respected weekly newspaper recently ran an article about angelina jolie’s performance in a mighty heart putting the whole thing in the context of cinematic history.

perhaps the story of the murdered wall street journal reporter could’ve been told in a different way. it was the first kidnapping of a high-profile writer that completely played itself out on the internet. our prayers go out to bbc journalist alan johnston and his family. johnston has now been missing for over 100 days.

george clooney wants 2 quit his town, homeless man steals kid

george wants 2 stop development of the small italian village he lives in so he’s urging his fellow citizens to sign a petition to keep a parking lot or a bridge or whatever away from his 6 million pound villa. wait. can’t use the word citizen as he’s not a citizen of italy and can’t vote.

obviously this homeless guy needs a little extra help. i know the u.s. doesn’t have a social program. so next time you see him on the u-bahn or the underground or where ever, could you please give him a few coins for me, okay?

companies think iPhone unsafe

the iPhone launches in north america this week. and according to the wall street journal, most companies are saying, stick with the blackberry.

my blog has moved

and the name has changed (old name –>http://same-old-scene.blogspot.com). i’ve deserted google as i don’t want to sign-up for a gmail account. do i really need another email account? one more pass word to remember. and i don’t like that google scans everyone’s email accounts looking for ads to target directly at YOU.

so, this blog is not about the krays, although it’s one of my favorite films. its for people in the entertainment and media who are clueless, skeptical, or mystified by the rapid changes occuring in the industry due to technology. my cv includes work with artists like timbaland, u2, beck, 4hero, taraf de haidouk, la haine, wyclef. i’ve worked on projects with tech companies including apple, intel and nokia. my byline has appeared in wired, l.a. weekly, s.f. bay guardian and i blog about the film industry for jane magazine. i penned the first article on digital distribution, which appeared in wired in 1997.