Current TV ousts talk show host Keith Olbermann

NEW YORK (AP) -- Keith Olbermann was gone, a new host had replaced him, and history seemed to have repeated itself with his dismissal from Current TV after less than a year.
 
The left-leaning cable network announced just hours before airtime on Friday that "Countdown," the show Olbermann had anchored on Current since June, would be replaced with a new program hosted by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, beginning that night.
 
"Welcome to Current's new 8 p.m. (Eastern time) show, 'Viewpoint,'" said Spitzer, who had a short-lived talk show on CNN in that same time slot, where he briefly went up against Olbermann. He did not mention Olbermann on Friday's premiere of "Viewpoint."
 
The sometimes volatile Olbermann came to Current last year as the centerpiece of its new prime-time initiative after a stormy eight-year stint at MSNBC — his second at that network— followed by his abrupt departure in January 2011.
 
Shortly after, Current announced his hiring — reportedly with a five-year, $50-million contract — as the start of an effort to transform the network's prime-time slate into progressive talk. His official title was chief news officer, charged with providing editorial guidance for all of the network's political news, commentary and current events programming.
 
In a statement, Current TV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt said the network was "founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it."
 
They offered no details, but it is known that the temperamental Olbermann repeatedly clashed with his employers. During the primary season he declined to host certain hours of election coverage and has missed a number of regular broadcasts, as well as complaining about technical problems he said undermined his show.
 
Current considered some of those missed shows to be in "serial, material breach of his contract," terming them "unauthorized absences," according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person wasn't authorized to discuss details of Olbermann's dismissal.
 
"We are confident that our viewers will be able to count on Gov. Spitzer to deliver critical information on a daily basis," Gore and Hyatt said in their "open letter" to viewers.
 
In a statement posted online, Olbermann countered that "the claims against me implied in Current's statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently."
 
He said he had been attempting "for more than a year" to resolve his differences with Gore and Hyatt internally, "while I've not been publicizing my complaints." Instead of "investing in a quality news program," he said, his bosses "thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract."
 
He called his decision to join Current "a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one."
 
The rupture between Olbermann and his bosses echoed Olbermann's past employment history. At NBC there was ongoing friction between the brash host and his bosses, just as there had been at earlier jobs as far back as Olbermann's star-making, often tumultuous turn as a "SportsCenter" anchor at ESPN in the 1990s.
 
Just weeks before his exit from MSNBC, Olbermann was nearly fired but instead was suspended for two days without pay for violating an NBC News policy by donating to three political campaigns.
 
At the heart of his grievance with MSNBC, as he later explained it, was the media consolidation that he felt threatened his independence on the air.
 
In January 2011, Comcast Corp., the giant cable operator, acquired a controlling stake in Olbermann's already huge employer, NBCUniversal.
 
The night of Jan. 21, Olbermann told his viewers he was leaving. He said, a bit cryptically, that "there were many occasions, particularly in the last two and a half years, where all that surrounded the show — but never the show itself — was just too much for me."
 
After that, Current, the privately held network co-founded in 2005 by former Vice President Gore and Joel Hyatt, seemed the perfect fit: It is an independent media outlet.
 
"Nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news that is produced independent of corporate interference," Olbermann said at the announcement of his coming to Current.
 
Current was then beginning its effort to redefine itself after ditching its original concept as the go-to site for viewer-generated short videos.
 
Since "Countdown" premiered, Current has fleshed out its prime-time lineup of liberals with "The Young Turks," hosted by Cenk Uygur, and "The War Room" with former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
 
This week, it introduced a six-hour morning talk block, with live simulcasts of the radio programs "The Bill Press Show" and "The Stephanie Miller Show."

Forecast: 'Wrath,' 'Mirror' Try to Dethrone 'Hunger Games'

Two very different fantasy movies go head-to-head this weekend, though it looks inevitable that The Hunger Games will once again rule the box office. Wrath of the Titans reaches 3,545 theaters (no 3D count available, but it does have 293 IMAX locations) while Mirror Mirror opens at a robust 3,603 venues.

Wrath of the Titans is the sequel to 2010's Clash of the Titans remake, which opened to $61.2 million on its way to a $163.2 million total. That movie hit theaters when star Sam Worthington and the 3D illusion were riding high coming off of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. It also had a showstopper in its marketing (who doesn't remember hearing "Release the Kraken!" over and over again in Spring 2010?), and it was even able to cash in a bit on nostalgia for the original Clash.

Unfortunately, Clash of the Titans was a complete dud. The terrible 3D effects almost single-handedly turned moviegoer sentiment away from 3D, and the wooden acting and mediocre action translated in to an awful 5.8 rating on IMDb (where users are typically very lenient on fantasy fare). Also working against Wrath is the fact that Sam Worthington's stock has gone down substantially in the past two years: The Debt did fine with $31.2 million, but Man on a Ledge tanked in January with $18.6 million.

Reviews are pretty brutal so far for Wrath, though whether it's good or not doesn't really impact opening weekend—people decide whether or not to go to a sequel based on their feelings for the original, and in this case those feelings are not generally positive. There's always a chance to wash that sour taste away with some really great marketing, but by focusing on otherworldly monsters and mostly ignoring the story, Wrath essentially looks like more of the same (except substituting a fire monster for the Kraken). Regardless, Wrath of the Titans has a solid brand and high awareness, and should at least open to $30 million.

Anything the movie makes at the domestic box office is gravy, though, since it was clearly designed to play much better overseas. Clash of the Titans earned $330 million in 2010, and with debuts in all major markets (excluding Japan) Wrath should be poised for a huge foreign opening this weekend.

By opening on March 30, Mirror Mirror reaches theaters just over two months ahead of Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1). Even though there was a bit of a release date battle between the two movies, they do appear to take completely different approaches to the Snow White story—Mirror Mirror is a whimsical tale geared towards families with younger children, while Huntsman is more in the epic fantasy mold of Lord of the Rings.

In the online community, at least, Mirror Mirror has had a bad reputation since the cheesy first trailer included off-putting anachronisms like "Say hello to my little friend." Also, after receiving some initially positive marks the movie sat at a middling 53 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes as of Thursday evening. The performance of a family movie like this really has little to do with the opinion of bloggers and critics, though, and instead has everything to do with whether children and their parents think it is worth seeing. Distributor Relativity Media, who has released two modest hits in the past five months (Immortals and Act of Valor), seems to think the movie is connecting with these prospective audiences, and they are forecasting between $22 and $24 million this weekend.

In limited release, The Weinstein Company is opening controversial documentary Bully on five screens in New York and Los Angeles. Because the movie exceeds the maximum number of F-words, the Motion Picture Association of America slapped it with an "R" rating; The Weinstein Company did everything it could to maximize publicity from this before ultimately opting to release the movie without a rating. It will be interesting to see if this can turn in to one of the rare cases where controversy, whether manufactured or real, can translate in to box office grosses.

After earning over $1.8 million in very limited release, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is leaping in to 483 locations this weekend and should wind up with over $1 million for a Top 10 finish. Jeff, Who Lives at Home is also doubling its theater count to 513, and could also earn around $1 million.

Weekend Forecast (March 30-April 1)
1. The Hunger Games - $71.7 million (-53%)
2. Wrath of the Titans - $35.5 million
3. Mirror Mirror - $22.3 million
4. 21 Jump Street - $12.9 million (-37%)
5. The Lorax - $5.9 million (-55%)

Bar for Success
Based on the poor reactions to Clash of the Titans, along with the fact that it's going to make boatloads overseas, Wrath of the Titans should get a pass if it opens to over $40 million (much less than Clash's $61.2 million). Mirror Mirror is in fine shape if it opens to over $20 million.

The Christian Movie Establishment vs. Blue Like Jazz

by Steve Taylor

 The website BoxOfficeMojo.com is full of useless statistics that I check regularly. One of its most fascinating and terrifying features happens when you click on "Genres."

Fascinating, because who knew that "Mother" was a genre (Mamma Mia!)? Or that The Matrix falls under the sub-genre "Action - Wire-Fu"?

Terrifying, because somebody will eventually be categorizing Blue Like Jazz inside a genre box. And it won't be me.

But the one box I don't want to occupy (besides "talking animal") is "Christian Movie."

Why should this be? The movie was written and directed by Christians. And it’s based on a book with the subtitle "Non-religious thoughts on Christian spirituality."

But over the last five years or so, “Christian Movie” has calcified in the public consciousness into a genre where:

• Sentimentality trumps substance
• Good intentions trump artistry
• All conflict must be tidily resolved
• “Safe for the whole family” is a de facto requirement
• Or as writer David McFadzean summarized, Christian movies are like porn – poorly lit, poorly acted and you always know how they’re going to end.

I’m not saying this critique is always fair or justified. In the case of the best known movies in this genre – Facing The Giants, Fireproof, etc. by the Kendricks Brothers – I’ve given them props in the past for being good visual storytellers and actually getting movies made with the resources at hand. But they’ve also contributed to (and possibly cemented) the aforementioned stereotypes.

So maybe I should be flattered that, based on recent evidence, the Christian Movie Establishment they represent is out to get us.

Exhibit A: The Executive Pastor of Sherwood Baptist (where the Kendricks Brothers movies are produced) issued what amounts to a fatwa against Blue Like Jazz when he made it known that nobody who worked on our movie would be allowed to work with them in the future. (This strikes me as disingenuous at best coming from a church whose movies are distributed by Sony Home Entertainment, home of the The DaVinci Code. And tellingly, the edict was issued before the movie had ever even been screened.)

Exhibit B: Provident Films, a co-distributor on each of the Kendricks Brothers movies, is also distributing a movie called October Baby next weekend. I have friends who acted in this movie, and while I haven’t seen it, as a longtime pro-lifer I certainly support its message. So why would Provident’s Vice President go to the extraordinary measure of attempting to get the Blue Like Jazz trailer banned from running in front of their movie? (This email was passed along to me, and I’m copying it unedited below.)

i think exhibitors  are going to try to play the Blue Like Jazz trailer with october baby

this can not happen - the trailer actually has the words "I hate Jesus" in the voiceover along with a number of images that will be very offensive to catholics

it is in the best interest of theaters to not run the trailer because they are going to have a lot of angry patrons if they do

thanks for your help here

Apparently Provident Films have no qualms when it comes to lying about the content of our trailer (“I hate Jesus”???). And though I don’t presume to speak for the Catholic community (unlike this Provident Films exec, who is also not a Catholic), I can tell you that the day I was forwarded this email, a Catholic nun who writes movie reviews for a Catholic publication told me after a Chicago screening that Blue Like Jazz was the best movie she’d seen in years, and that she’d be writing a glowingly positive review for her fellow Catholics. This follows other recent screenings where Catholic individuals and groups in attendance have been equally enthusiastic.

So what is it about Blue Like Jazz that the Christian Movie Establishment finds so threatening?

I’ve now sat in on over one hundred screenings of Blue Like Jazz, and I’m convinced that the reason it’s resonating so strongly with audiences across the country is because, like the book it’s based on, it reminds us of our own experiences. Don’s original story certainly resonated with me – I was a youth pastor at a Baptist church in Denver at the time I was attending the University of Colorado in Boulder. I wanted to make Blue Like Jazz because I felt I’d already lived it. Are there certain stories that we’re not allowed to tell, even if they’re not “safe for the whole family”? Wouldn’t the Bible be a much shorter book if we edited out the parts that weren’t family-friendly?

I recently spoke with one of our Kickstarter backers, and he was telling me how exciting it was to watch the “Save Blue Like Jazz” Kickstarter campaign turn into something historic.

He told me, “It seemed like it was even bigger than just this movie. It was a movement of a new generation of Christians who want to see us making better art. It seems like the Christian Media industry has become all about replicating culture. But we want to be creating culture.”

As Christians working in the creative arts, our job, first and foremost, is to tell the truth. Jesus himself said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

One of the most consistent criticisms I got as a recording artist came from fellow Christians saying, “Why do you do these songs criticizing the church? Why would you go airing our dirty laundry for the public to see?” And, of course, that same criticism had been leveled at Blue Like Jazz.

This perspective has always amused me, as if the public thinks we’ve got our act together perfectly, as if they don’t already see the hypocrisy in our midst. They just think we’re too dumb to see it ourselves.

Which is why the image of a guy in a confession booth finally confessing the truth started my six-year-long quest to make Blue Like Jazz.

When we tell the truth – even the uncomfortable truth – the truth sets people free.

I’m glad movies like Fireproof exist, and I wish its makers continued success. But most of my movie-going friends are ready for a different representation of their faith beyond what the Christian Movie Establishment is currently serving.

If you’re one of them, I hope you’ll cast your vote on April 13^th.

'Fargo' TV series may become a reality

One of the Coen brothers' most famous movies may be heading to the small screen. "Fargo," the critically-acclaimed 1996 dark comedy, is apparently being worked into a series by FX, Variety reports.

The network is in discussions with MGM Television to adapt the Oscar-winning film, but details are scarce at this point. This is not the first time the idea of a series based on the movie has been discussed. In fact, Edie Falco starred in a pilot episode for proposed series back in 2003, according to the publication.

The movie is certainly a good pick for a television show. The original starred Frances McDormand (who went on to win an Academy Award) as a pregnant small-town sheriff investigating several strange murders. It also starred William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi and earned Joel and Ethan Coen an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

‘The Hunger Games’ Movie Inspires Good Early Reviews

The first reviews are starting to come in for the hugely anticipated film, "The Hunger Games," which opens this weekend. The plot stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, who must compete in a government-sponsored reality TV show that forces children to fight each other to the death: The last one standing is the winner.

The movie is based on the bestselling books by Suzanne Collins, and the film version is expected to be "Twilight" big, with an already established fan base of young readers. So what do critics have to say about the dystopic adventure?

Early reviews look good. Christy Lemire writes for the Associated Press that the script "adheres closely to Collins's novel," and although it trancates some sublots, Lemire still gives it high marks: "The makers of 'The Hunger Games' have managed the difficult feat of crafting a film that feels both epic and intimate at once."
Ryan Fleming from Digital Trends assures fans that while the movie isn't a "perfect film, it is a faithful one." And adds, "The story honors the book and makes very few sacrifices, and those made are perfectly understandable and legitimate and take nothing away from the narrative."

Drew McWeeney, writing for the blog HitFix calls "The Hunger Games" "thrilling, intelligent, deeply felt blockbuster filmmaking." And gushes over Jennifer Lawrence portrayal, writing: "Here's a pop culture phenomenon centered around a female character who I can fully endorse."

Over at the New York Daily News, reviewer Joe Neumaier awards the film five out of five stars, and calls the Gary Ross-directed movie based on the teen novel "light years ahead of 'Twilight'." He explains, "It's better and scarier than its source book, and aims an angry eye at our bloodthirsty, watch-anything-and-cheer culture."

Todd McCarthy for the Hollywood Reporter agrees that this could be the next teen phenom, writing, "This Lionsgate release is being positioned as the hottest property for the teen audience since 'Twilight,' and there's no reason to believe that box office results won't land roughly in that vaunted vicinity." He adds, "Jennifer Lawrence is stellar in this faithful, good-enough film version of the massive bestseller."

Disney projects $200 million "John Carter" loss

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co shares fell 1 percent in after hour trading on Monday after the company said it expects mega-budget science-fiction movie "John Carter" will lose about $200 million in the current quarter.

The company issued the forecast in a statement that projected the studio division would report an overall operating loss of $80 million to $120 million in the fiscal second quarter that ends March 31.

Disney shares dropped about 1 percent to $43 in after-hours trading from an earlier close of $43.44 on the New York Stock Exchange.

So far, the film about a former military captain who is transported to Mars, has generated $184 million in ticket sales worldwide. That is far shy from the audience needed to earn back the movie's estimated $250 million production budget, plus tens of millions more that Disney spent on advertising.

Even before the movie opened, Wall Street analysts had projected "John Carter" would lose tens of millions of dollars as industry tracking showed little interest in the film.

"John Carter" opened on March 9 and took in about $30 million over its first three days at U.S. and Canadian theaters, finishing the weekend in second place behind family film "The Lorax."

Clooney arrested in protest at Sudanese Embassy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Actor George Clooney and his father have been arrested at a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.

The protesters accuse Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains in the county's border region with South Sudan.

Clooney, his father, Nick and others, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia and NAACP President Ben Jealous, were arrested after being warned three times not to cross a police line outside the embassy. They were handcuffed and placed into a U.S. Secret Service van.

Clooney said earlier that he hopes to draw more attention to the issue and that if action is not taken in the next three to four months "we're going to have a real humanitarian disaster."

'John Carter' Debacle: Inside the Fallout for Disney

From The Hollywood Reporter.

 

Now that John Carter has landed with a resounding thud, Hollywood is trying to decipher whether Disney will conclude that it needs to change the guard or at least tweak its strategy when it comes to homegrown live-action films.

 

Since chairman Rich Ross, 50, arrived in October 2009 and set out to remake the film studio, competitors and others have been watching to see whether the former cable television executive could find his legs in the movie business. Some in the industry -- pointing to marketing missteps and a sputtering pipeline -- had turned thumbs down even before Carter failed, bringing an expected write-down of more than $150 million. Others believe that Ross, perceived as a favorite of Disney chief executive Robert Iger, will escape blame and be judged instead on next year's slate.

From the start, Ross' plan of attack was clear: He would get live-action movies from key suppliers -- Marvel, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and DreamWorks (which pays Disney a fee to distribute its films). Pixar and Disney's animation unit were to provide a reliable stream of cartoon hits. The studio's limited live-action slate would be based on branded, marketable concepts that would flow through the Disney machine -- from consumer products to theme parks. Ross did not rely on experience, letting go staffers including distribution chief Mark Zoradi and marketing chief Jim Gallagher and bringing in producer Sean Bailey as his production head and outsider MT Carney to run marketing. (Carney left the studio in January.)
Ross' makeover has yet to produce strong results.

Although Ross' predecessor, Dick Cook, put Carter into production at a budget just under $200 million, the head of a rival studio says Ross bears responsibility for the ultimate, significantly higher cost as well as the weak opening ($30.2 million domestically plus $69.1 million worldwide) because he oversaw the production and marketing. Disney's only other in-house live-action movie for the year is The Odd Life of Timothy Green, a small film with Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton that's set for release in August. "They've greenlighted one movie [for 2012]," says this competitor. "How is that possible?"

At the same time, this executive notes, movies from Disney's other live-action suppliers have fallen short for the year. Ross' fight to dial back the budget on Bruckheimer's Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp, pushed the release to May 2013. (The budget was trimmed from $250 million to $215 million.) And DreamWorks, facing money woes, has only two movies: Steven Spielberg's Lincoln and a small drama, Welcome to People.

By far the brightest spot in live-action this year is Avengers, Disney's first release from Marvel, opening May 4. That film should do big box office, and Disney hopes the Marvel investment will begin to show results. (Disney paid more than $4 billion to acquire Marvel and an additional $115 million to Paramount for rights to Avengers and Iron Man 3, set for release in 2013.) But competitors say one Marvel movie is not enough to offset the lack of product in the pipeline. "What should have happened is Rich should have stepped up and filled in the gaps," one says. Disney declined comment.

Certainly a company of Disney's heft can absorb the Carter loss; the film's failure has not made the smallest dent in its stock price. "A big write-down in a single movie … should not impact next year's earnings," says analyst Alan Gould of Evercore. (At Disney's annual meeting March 13, CFO Jay Rasulo said it was too early to analyze the financials of the film.)

But even if Carter inflicts no lasting damage, several executives say Disney cannot afford to let live-action production languish. For one thing, says a competitor, the film studio does not have enough movies flowing through its pipeline to justify its overhead (4,000 employees, including Pixar and animation). Another top exec says the shortfall creates longer-term problems. "The movie business is a brand-building business," he says. "They need fresh intellectual property to help drive the machine, and that comes primarily from the movie business."

Another says Disney's top executives -- including Iger -- are paying a price for their inexperience in movies and for focusing too heavily on brands and products. "If the first thing discussed in a meeting is merchandise and sequels, you're probably going to lose money because you're not talking about the movie," he says. As to how Disney will react to its issues in live action, industry observers are split. Some believe Iger might be forced to make a management change in the wake of Carter, after some interval. ("You don't do it so close to the event," says one. "It's too obvious.") Some sources also say that the influential John Lasseter, head of Pixar and chief of Disney animation, has expressed concern to Iger about the lack of experience at the studio. (A rep says Lasseter "remains supportive of the team at Disney.")

Most doubt that Iger will make changes, despite studio operating profit being down 20 percent in fiscal 2011, to $656 million. They believe he likes Ross and dislikes the movie business and will continue to limit the studio's role in generating live-action films. If so, they say that decision is baffling. "You have the Disney machine," says a competitor. "They could, a few times a year, turn out $15 million, $20 million movies that they could pop out on a weekend."

Others believe Ross will be judged on results from 2013, when he will have a fuller pipeline including two significant bets: Lone Ranger and Oz: The Great and Powerful, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz directed by Sam Raimi. (Maleficent, with Angelina Jolie, is shooting this summer but is not dated.) And other Disney suppliers will contribute potential hits: Pixar will add the prequel Monsters University, and DreamWorks will bring the Spielberg-directed sci-fi movie Robopocalypse. Marvel will contribute Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.

But once again, the two home-grown Disney films -- Lone Ranger and Oz -- are expensive $200 million-plus bets. And the head of a rival studio says that puts Disney in the position of taking on big risk with too few smaller movies to hedge the bet. "A good analogy is Moneyball," he says. "You can't just have home-run hitters. You've got to have a few movies where you just try to get on base."

Jane Fonda Urges FCC to Jettison Rush Limbaugh

The activist-actress, along with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, compare the radio host to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Jane Fonda and her feminist colleagues Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan have weighed in on the Rush Limbaugh controversy. Their conclusion: The FCC should ban him from the public airwaves.

“Ironically, the misogyny Rush Limbaugh spewed for three days over Sandra Fluke was not much worse than his regular broadcast of sexist, racist and homophobic hate speech,” write the co-founders of the Women’s Media Center.

The authors cite four examples: In 2010, Limbaugh called female cabinet members “sex-retaries"; that same year, he called the National Organization for Women “a bunch of whores to liberalism”; in 2000, he said the NAACP “should have riot rehearsals”; and in the 1970s, while a music DJ operating under the name Jeff Christie, he told an African-American caller, “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

The three, writing at CNN.com, also liken Limbaugh to a Nazi war criminal.

“He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets,” they wrote. “Like the sophisticated propagandist Joseph Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames -- and the bigger the lie, the more effective -- inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as subhumans.”

The three call it a “fitting time” for Limbaugh’s corporate partners, Clear Channel Communications and Premiere Radio Networks, to drop him. If they don’t, Fonda, Steinem and Morgan encourage readers to complain to the FCC.

“He is indeed constitutionally entitled to his opinions, but he is not constitutionally entitled to the people’s airwaves,” they write. “It’s time for the public to take back our broadcast resources. Limbaugh has had decades to fix his show. Now it’s up to us.”

Naturally, the reaction from the right has been swift, especially since the trio went back to the '70s for an example of Limbaugh’s “hate speech.”

“Here is what Jane Fonda was broadcasting into North Vietnam during her visit in 1972, while American troops were fighting and dying in Vietnam," writes Dan Riehl at Breitbart.com, linking to Fonda’s famous war-protest broadcasts and photos.

“Using Fonda in an effort to stifle free speech is a tactic that drips with Hollywood irony,” writes James Hirsen for Newsmax.com, where he also notes Fonda's visit to North Vietnam.

“Interestingly, while expressing disdain over the use of the term ‘femi-nazi,’ Fonda and her cohorts have illustrated why Rush’s coined phrase for radical feminists has a ring of truth to it, since they are choosing to follow in the footsteps of totalitarian dictators who seek to silence those with whom they disagree,” Hirsen writes.

Weekend Report: 'The Lorax' Defeats Disappointing 'John Carter'

After months upon months of box office speculation, John Carter finally opened and as expected was a huge disappointment. The mega-budget sci-fi epic wasn't even able to unseat The Lorax, which held first place for the second-straight weekend. The other openers, Silent House and A Thousand Words, also performed poorly on a weekend where the Top 12 earned an estimated $123.35 million (up just five percent from last year).

The Lorax fell 44 percent to an estimated $39.1 million. The movie held about as well as Horton Hears a Who! (45 percent), and a bit worse than Despicable Me (42 percent). On Sunday, The Lorax is expected to pass The Vow to become 2012's highest-grossing movie at $122 million.

John Carter opened to an estimated $30.6 million from 3,749 locations. That's lower than practically any similar movie, beginning with those that came out around the same time of year. It was obviously way off from 300 ($70.9 million) and Watchmen ($55.2 million)—what's more concerning, though, is that it was even a tad below 10,000 B.C. ($35.9 million) and Battle: Los Angeles ($35.6 million), both of which were modest movies in comparison.

Among past Mouse House franchise attempts, John Carter isn't looking so good either. Back in 2003, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl debuted to $46.6 million, or the equivalent of over $60 million. Tron Legacy opened to $44 million in December, which is a month with notoriously low openings (the movie ultimately closed with four times as much, a fate that's unlikely for John Carter). One very minor bright spot is that the opening was slightly above that of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ($30.1 million), but with 3D and IMAX surcharges John Carter even lagged behind that dud in initial attendance.

Disney's marketing department has been beat up on pretty good for the lackluster John Carter campaign, and to their credit the movie doesn't really lend itself to an easy sell. Still, making the movie is the responsibility of production, and selling the movie is the responsibility of marketing, and in that regard they clearly failed.

The movie is called John Carter, but aside from the fact that he can jump far and looks good without a shirt on, what else did commercials really convey about the title character? Also, what was John Carter doing in this desert landscape occupied by tall green men, aside from fighting giant furry white creatures? If the characters don't seem interesting, and the stakes are low (or poorly explained), it doesn't really matter how much money the movie cost or how many advertisements are run—audiences are just not going to show up.

For whatever reason, the marketing mainly ignored the movie's central romance, and as a result it paid dearly with women, who represented just 37 percent of the opening weekend audience. Crowds also skewed slightly older (59 percent over the age of 25), and they awarded the movie a solid "B+" CinemaScore. 3D presentations accounted for 64 percent of the gross, and included within that figure was a very high 16 percent from IMAX 3D showings.

Game Change: TV Review

It's nearly impossible to make a political film based on real-life events without immediately polarizing one side. We are a fiercely partisan country that has never let facts get in the way of perception. We see what we want to see, and if someone, some book, some film or some cable news channel tries to distort the image we want to see, there will be blowback and outrage.

Which brings us to HBO's Game Change, a film focusing on 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate and the fallout that ensues.
Despite virtuoso (and likely Emmy-winning) performances from Julianne Moore as Palin, Woody Harrelson as McCain's strategist Steve Schmidt and Ed Harris as McCain, there will be charges of left-leaning Hollywood bias in the portrayals.

"I haven't seen HBO's latest effort at manipulating history," Tim Crawford, a top aide to Palin, told The Washington Post on Feb. 17. "However, based upon the description and reports from people who have viewed the film Game Change, HBO has distorted, twisted and invented facts to create a false narrative and attract viewers. They call it a docu-drama; there is little 'docu' in it. HBO must add a disclaimer that this movie is fiction."

And so it begins.

Based on the best-seller of the same name by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Game Change was directed by Jay Roach and written by Danny Strong, the duo behind another HBO political film, 2008's Recount.

The film isn't trying to break ground with revelations, so what it comes down to is whether Game Change is a good movie, as opposed to a balanced documentary. For the most part, it is.

While Moore manages to nail the Palin character without being a mere caricature (a la Tina Fey, whose Saturday Night Live bits appear in the film), it's Harrelson as Schmidt and Sarah Paulson as senior adviser Nicolle Wallace who provide the film's behind-the-scenes drive. If the conceit is that McCain needed a game-changer to battle the charismatic Barack Obama, then picking Palin had a "high-risk, high-reward" element, made more so by the fact that she had to be vetted in five days, instead of the normal weeks-long process. Mistakes were made in the vetting, and as Schmidt, who lobbied McCain to pick Palin, and Wallace, who was in charge of prepping her for the press assault to come, both realize how out of her depth Palin is, the drama ratchets skyward.

In the process, interesting strands to the storytelling evolve. First, Palin becomes a sympathetic figure as she's pulled away from her family and tossed into a situation she isn't equipped to handle. National ridicule and the explosion of stories about her family begin to take their toll, and Moore effectively mines that vulnerable territory. While she's doing that, Game Change boldly raises the question about whether Palin is mentally unbalanced. The right will no doubt see that as twisting the knife. It's not until later, when Palin "goes rogue" and is more engulfed by fame (and increasing power), that you begin to hold her lack of intellectual gravitas against her. And again, Moore's transformation into the more confident -- and dangerous -- Palin is spot-on.

It would be hard to call the portrayal sympathetic, however. The movie is told mostly through the eyes of Schmidt, whose gamble backfired, and his disdain for Palin grows exponentially as the story progresses.
McCain comes off best here, a maverick whose greatest flaw is how ambition blinds his natural political acumen. Even when he realizes Palin is a liability, the depiction is more sage and fatherly than embittered. The worst that could be said of McCain in the movie is that he, too, is complicit in the rash decision, and he allows himself to be steered too easily in pursuit of the White House.

Schmidt's role is the most interesting -- and ultimately damning for Palin, given that his interview on 60 Minutes at the end of the film lays the blame at her feet. Paulson's Wallace portrayal also is a blunt hammer to the Palin camp, as her nuanced patience with Palin runs out when she sees her transform from neophyte to loose cannon. That undoubtedly will be perceived as lefty spin, no matter how exceptional Paulson's performance, particularly because of the blatant comparison to Hillary Clinton's accomplishments.
And that's the ultimate problem with Game Change. It's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at politics -- as long as you're a Democrat (or a Republican willing to admit that Palin was a blunder -- but even then, the other elements will likely put you off). And yet, credit Game Change for at least trying to dramatize that moment in time. It is, for the left especially, an indictment of anti-intellectualism and our inherently flawed system for choosing our leaders.

Airdate 9 p.m. March 10 (HBO)
Cast Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris
Director Jay Roach

'Terra Nova' canceled by Fox

The ambitious time travel-based drama series "Terra Nova" has been canceled by Fox. Despite a great deal of hype and widely-watched first few episodes, the show never caught on the way creators expected. As a result, its first season will likely be its last, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The dinosaur-heavy series, which debuted this fall, came from executive producer Steven Spielberg. Although it attracted an average of 7.5 million viewers during its 11-episode run, viewership faltered greatly toward the end and with several hour-long dramas slated for the coming months, it did not fit the bill.

The cancelation brings Fox's costly experiment to a close. The show had been in production for years and the much-anticipated two-hour premiere cost as much as $20 million to make. Despite its cancelation, studio officials are not disappointed.

"['Terra Nova'] was an exciting bet to take and it's proven that it was worthwhile," Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly told the publication.

Tribeca expands world view in film fest lineup

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Films about the treatment of women in India and a gay man in Israel will open the competitions at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival among a range of foreign stories and dozens of movies starring James Franco, Abbie Cornish, Kate Bosworth and others.

Ninety feature films, many from around the world, will screen at Tribeca, one of the largest film festivals in the United States that showcases independent cinema and was co-founded by actor Robert De Niro. It runs from April 18 to April 29.

"Yossi," a fiction film about a closeted gay man living in Tel Aviv, will open the narrative competition, while "The World Before Her," which connects women in India from the Miss India Beauty pageant to a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls, will debut the documentary lineup, festival organizers said.

Among its lineup of 12 fictional films in competition, half are international productions including the world premiere of "The Girl," an American/Mexican production starring Cornish as a single mother who helps smuggle immigrants over the border.

Other world stories include Argentinian director Daniel Burman's "All In" ("La Suerte En Tus Manos"), a romantic comedy about a professional poker player and "Una Noche," set in Cuba, which depicts one day in the life of two teenagers contemplating fleeing to Miami.

The experimental, "Francophrenia (or Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is)" offers audiences an indie look at Oscar nominee James Franco's turn on the TV soap, "General Hospital" and a portrait of one celebrity's paranoia. It screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year and is co-directed by Franco and Ian Olds.

"First Winter" is a fictional tale about a group of Brooklyn hipsters coping with a blackout in a remote farmhouse. It screens alongside other U.S. indie films such as "While You Were Here," starring Kate Bosworth as a wife looking to reinvigorate her marriage.

Among U.S. documentaries, "The List," tells the true story of how a former American reconstruction contractor in Iraq, Kirk Johnson, founded a project upon returning the United States to help abandoned Iraqis who have risked their lives working for the military trying to flee the country.

"Downeast" shows America's job struggles through one Italian immigrant's push to open a lobster plant, "Off Label" shows wayward uses for pharmaceuticals outside their prescribed function, and "Sexy Baby" examines social media," sexting," and sex culture in America.

Outside the United States, "High Tech, Low Life," takes a look at a pair of rogue bloggers aiming to stem Internet censorship in China, while the Algerian "El Gusto," which premiered to acclaim in Abu Dhabi in October, promises a catchy look at music's healing power centered around a once popular musical form known as chaabi.

"Town of Runners" follows two teenage track hopefuls from a rural Ethiopian town of Bekoji that has produced several Olympic champions, and "Turn Off The Lights" reveals the moral complexities of three men rediscovering their lives in a community in Romania after years in prison.

The New York City festival features films from 32 different countries and for the first time has designated opening films for narrative and documentary competition sections.

Weekend Report: Little 'Lorax' Is Box Office Giant

Combining a strong brand and an impressive marketing effort, The Lorax crushed even the wildest expectations with one of the best opening weekends ever for an animated movie. Project X also had a respectable debut on a weekend where the Top 12 grossed an estimated $153.5 million, which is up 27 percent from the same frame last year.

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax opened to $70.7 million, which is by far the best opening of the year. It's also the sixth-highest debut ever for an animated movie and second-best for a non-sequel behind The Simpsons Movie ($74.04 million). Among March openings, it ranks third all-time behind Alice in Wonderland ($116.1 million) and 300 ($70.9 million). It also topped Illumination Entertainment's Despicable Me ($56.4 million), and scored the best opening ever for a Dr. Seuss movie ahead of How the Grinch Stole Christmas ($55.1 million) (the Grinch did sell more tickets, though).

It's not really hyperbole to say that Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment knocked this one out of the park. For the production itself, they opted to keep the look and feel of a Dr. Seuss work while mixing in some slightly off-kilter humor, and then they hired recognizable, distinct vocal talent like Danny DeVito, Taylor Swift and Betty White to bring the characters to life. Aside from highlighting these features throughout the marketing campaign, there was an aggressive cross-promotional effort with a number of organizations including IHOP and Mazda (which obviously runs contrary to The Lorax's environmentalist, anti-corporate message, but I digress). The title character even made an appearance as a "guest judge" on NBC's The Voice, which reinforces the advantages of having a TV network at your disposal.

Exit polling indicated that parents and children 12 years of age and under represented 68 percent of the audience. The movie received a strong "A" CinemaScore, and since it's really the only major family entertainment for at least three weeks it should be in line for a lot more money.

3D presentations accounted for roughly 52 percent of ticket sales, and IMAX contributed an estimated $5.4 million (8 percent).

Project X came in second this weekend with an estimated $20.78 million from 3,055 locations. That is off from Superbad ($33.05 million) and Chronicle ($22 million), and even a bit lower than Todd Phillips' Old School in estimated ticket sales. Still, party movies have an awful track record as of late (see Take Me Home Tonight and College, for example), so this is a pretty solid start for Project X. Also of note—this is the third-straight found footage movie to debut over $20 million, following The Devil Inside and Chronicle. As expected, the audience skewed male (58 percent) and younger (67 percent under the age of 25), and they awarded the movie a "B" CinemaScore.

Last weekend's champ Act of Valor dipped 44 percent to $13.7 million for a total of $45.2 million. Safe House held steady in fourth place, falling a light 34 percent to $7.2 million. The movie has so far made an impressive $108.2 million.

Tyler Perry's Good Deeds plummeted 55 percent to an estimated $7 million. As hard is this may be to believe, that's actually the second-best hold ever for a Perry flick, though the movie's $25.7 million 10-day total is second-worst for Perry. Last weekend's other openers Wanderlust and Gone fared a bit better, though with much lower overall grosses. Wanderlust fell 42 percent to $3.8 million for a total of $12.4 million, while Gone eased 36 percent to $3.05 million for a 10-day total of $9 million.

At 1,756 locations (up from 966 last weekend), Best Picture winner The Artist improved 34 percent to an estimated $3.9 million. That's the movie's best weekend yet, and through 101 days in theaters the black-and-white silent movie has earned $37.1 million.

Forecast: Box Office Be Warned - 'The Lorax' Set For Huge Debut

Midnight Update (3/2): Project X got off to a solid start last night with $1.15 million from midnight shows at 1,003 locations. That gross pretty much guarantees that Project X won't be a flop; however, ads for the past week have almost all mentioned the midnight screenings, which surely helped boost these grosses a bit. No midnight grosses are currently available for The Lorax, though it's unlikely they were very significant given the movie's family audience.

Forecast (3/1): On the heels of the highest-grossing February in history, the box office party looks like it will keep raging on the first weekend of March. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, which is the second fully animated movie from Illumination Entertainment, opens at 3,728 locations, including 269 IMAX venues (a 3D theater count is not currently available). Meanwhile, found footage comedy Project X reaches 3,055 locations.

All signs indicate that The Lorax is set for a huge first place debut this weekend. The adaptation of Dr. Seuss' environmentalist children's book has almost the entire Despicable Me team on board, from the distributor (Universal) and animation house (Illumination) down through the main producer (Chris Meledandri), the director (Chris Renaud) and the writers (Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul). That movie opened to $56.4 million in July 2010 on its way to a $251.5 million total. Despicable Me did come out during a year when animation was extraordinarily popular, and due partly to market saturation and partly to a subpar lineup the format took a bit of a hit in 2011.

Working in The Lorax's favor is the fact that the last major computer animated movie was The Adventures of Tintin, which opened over two months ago and wasn't all that popular ($77 million to date). Also, Universal has mounted an impressive marketing effort that nicely blends the bright colors and whimsical characters associated with Dr. Seuss' work with some slightly irreverent humor, most of which comes from the diminutive title character voiced by Danny DeVito.

The last Dr. Seuss adaptation, Horton Hears a Who!, was also produced by Meledandri while he was at Blue Sky Animation. That movie opened to $45 million in March 2008 and ultimately earned over $154 million. With four years of inflation plus 3D and IMAX ticket prices, there's no reason why The Lorax can't at least match this opening. Rango debuted to $38.1 million on the same weekend last year, and Universal's tracking indicates that The Lorax will likely wind up above that mark.

Following The Devil Inside (January) and Chronicle (February), Project X is the latest found footage movie to open on the first weekend of the month. With advertisements that specifically mention that it's from the producer of The Hangover ($277.3 million), and that it's "Superbad on crack" ($121.5 million), it's not hard to see what kind of money Warner Bros. is chasing with Project X. Even with a robust campaign, though, the movie is unlikely to match Superbad's $33.05 million debut—party movies generally don't do too well, with Take Me Home Tonight ($6.9 million) serving as a recent example.

Still, Chronicle proved that even without supernatural horror, found footage flicks can still score a strong opening ($22 million in this case). With strong word-of-mouth floating around the Twitter-sphere, Project X does seem well-positioned as the sort of cool event movie that college-aged moviegoers turn out for in droves (the "R" rating will prevent most high-schoolers from seeing it).

After winning five Academy Awards on Sunday, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, The Artist is expanding from 966 to 1,756 locations. Through Wednesday, the movie has earned $32.9 million, and it has a very good chance of winding up around $50 million by the end of its run