The one thing I realized as Oscar night droned on and on for nearly four hours: If I ever had to choose someone to be stranded with for hours on end (say, like those poor Jet Blue passengers a few weeks ago), it would have to be Ellen DeGeneres.Keeping her cool, and her genuine aura of chipper goodwill, throughout three costume changes (in suits from red velvet to all-white to royal blue) and what seemed once again like an overindulgent excess of movie montages (we definitely could have done without Michael Mann’s fuzzy survey of cinematic American history), Ellen was welcome nearly every time she popped up. Offering a spec script to Martin Scorsese, directing Steven Spielberg on how to take her photo with Clint Eastwood, asking the megastars in the front row to lift their legs as she vacuumed the Kodak past midnight (ET), while informing us that Helen Mirren had just asked for a rum and coke (sounded pretty good to me at the time), Ellen did her darndest to deflate the bloat a...
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Question: It seems that many critics are not happy with the Academy for failing to recognize Brokeback Mountain as the right film at the right time. What are some other famous snubs that the Academy is still embarrassed about? Thanks.
Answer: I personally think the Academy is shameless, and I've never ever heard — nor do I think I ever will — an official spokesperson concede that its membership made a big fat mistake giving the best-picture Oscar to one film rather than another. But I think there's a pretty overwhelming consensus among everyone else who cares that calling Ordinary People — a genuinely good movie, I hasten to add — the best motion picture of 1980 when it was up against Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, which is widely con
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A shiver just went down my spine. No, I didn't listen to my birthday message from Mariska Hargitay again. OK, yes I did — but that's not where the shiver came from. I just finished reading a first draft of the script for Heroes, NBC's fall pilot about everyday folks blessed with superpowers, and, well, to answer the question I posed in the title, yes, I believe a new Lost-like phenomenon is about to be born. And here's why:
THE CAST ROCKS: In addition to one of my FFPOTP Greg Grunberg, the ensemble boasts Gilmore guy Milo Ventimiglia and teenage wunderkind Hayden Panettiere. The show's behind-the-scenes pedigree is equally as impressive. Dave Semel, whose credits include directing the American Dreams p
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