fastidium

After an exhausting Labor Day weekend, I’m finally back to writing. Too much sun, too much beer … oh so fun.

Thanks to overhyped, blockbuster movies like Spiderman 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Pirates of the Caribbean III, Hollywood executives are gloating over breaking summer box office records. The problem is that with declining attendance figures at movie theaters, this simply means that high ticket prices and insane marketing budgets are helping these brainless movies gouge enormous amounts of money out of movie goers.

One of our most anticipated movies has gotten a great review from Kurt Loder at MTV: ‘The Nines’: Higher Math, By Kurt Loder. He begins, “This fascinating puzzle box of a movie is so clever it almost feels like a stunt — an attempt to keep so many balls in the air that you marvel at the filmmaker’s technical facility.”

Remember when Robert De Niro and Al Pacino finally did a movie together where they appeared opposite one another? It was back in 1995 with Heat. Variety is reporting that Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo, Dan Futterman, Trilby Glover and pro skateboarder Rob Dyrdek have joined Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for Righteous Kill. Please be good, please be good, please ….

NBC and Apple couldn’t reach an agreement over selling TV shows on iTunes, so, beginning on September 10, Amazon Unbox customers (PC only) can download for free - in advance of their network premieres - the pilot episodes of NBC’s new shows Bionic Woman, Chuck, Journeyman and Life. And, you can pick up a free DVD rental starting today (through October 21) at Blockbuster, titled the NBC New Fall Preview DVD. It includes three of the shows that won’t air until the week of September 24th (unfortunately, there’s only a two minute preview of Bionic Woman). Wow! Take that Apple!

I’ve stopped watching Flash Gordon. It just didn’t stick. Anyone else?

And here’s something interesting: The price of fame: pop stars are more likely to die young