Tag: Entertainment

Today in Completely Tasteless and Offensive Crap

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Oh, my f%$#ing God, It’s Real!

Performing a Holocaust themed skating routine, complete with striped uniforms and yellow stars:

The wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, sparked outrage on social media by performing a Holocaust-themed ice skating routine that quickly went viral.

Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic figure skating champion, performed with actor Andrey Burkovsky, each wearing concentration camp uniforms and yellow Stars of David.

The two skated to the song “Beautiful That Way,” by Israeli singer Achinoam “Noa” Nini. The song was featured in a 1997 Italian-language Oscar-winning Holocaust film, which Navka said was the inspiration for the performance. She also said in an Instagram post that she wanted the performance to teach children about the Holocaust.

I have no words.

Worst ……… The Daily Show ……… Ever

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I saw The Daily Show last night, and I was profoundly unimpressed.

I’ve generally been supportive of Trevor Noah in his (rather thankless) job replacing Jon Stewart, but their (for lack of a better term) Halloween special missed the mark.

It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, it ain’t.

I found it boring, pedantic, and profoundly unfunny. 

Half way through, I gave up, and watched Alton Brown doing Good Eats on the Cooking Channel.

Truly awful:

Their Customer Service Will Make Comcast Look Like Tesla

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AT&T is looking to by Time Warner cable:

AT&T Inc. is close to an agreement to acquire Time Warner Inc. for about $86 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said, a deal that would create a media behemoth that offers TV, wireless, and the content that goes with it.

 The bid values Time Warner at about $110 a share — 23 percent more than where the stock closed Friday — and is structured as an even split between cash and equity, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. If accepted, it would cement the biggest acquisition of the year, surpassing Bayer AG’s $66 billion takeover of U.S. seed giant Monsanto Co., announced in May.

Buying Time Warner would give AT&T premium entertainment programming including HBO and the Cartoon Network, which it could offer its millions of pay-TV, mobile phone and Internet subscribers. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has been trying to transform the Dallas-based phone company into a media and entertainment giant, and now has one of Hollywood’s top film and TV producers in his cross-hairs.

What do you get when you juxtapose the customer service cultures of the artist formerly known as Ma Bell with what was formerly the 2nd worst cable company in America?

I think that it would be fair to call this merged company the Donald Trump of communications.

Remember, It’s All About Artist

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Harry Shearer has launched a $125 million fraud and contract-breach lawsuit against Vivendi and StudioCanal over the 1984 rockumentary classic This Is Spinal Tap. The complaint, filed Monday in California federal court, is packed with enough nuggets to instantly make this a must-watch “Hollywood accounting” case. Through the lawsuit, Shearer also reveals he is attempting to claw back rights to the film and its continually popular soundtrack.

Shearer, perhaps best known for the 23 characters he voices on The Simpsons, co-created the semi-fake band Spinal Tap in the 1970s with Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. The film, directed by Rob Reiner and featuring Shearer as bassist Derek Smalls, was produced and released by Embassy Pictures. After a series of transactions, rights to Spinal Tap landed in the hands of Vivendi, the French conglomerate that once had the ambitious goal of becoming one of the largest studios in the industry.

Despite the film’s legacy and Spinal Tap’s enduring success as an actual band able to sell out arenas, Shearer’s company Century of Progress Productions alleges that the four lead creatives have received just $81 in merchandising income and $98 in musical sales income in the past three decades from the franchise.

According to the complaint, the original 1982 production agreement called for Shearer, McKean, Guest and Reiner to get 40 percent of net receipts. In Hollywood, though, calculating contingent profit participation often triggers disputes that go up to 11. This one certainly did.

………

“Particularly given that Vivendi has offset fraudulent accounting for revenues from music copyrights against equally dubious revenue streams for film and merchandising rights also controlled by Vivendi subsidiaries, Shearer is concurrently filing notices of copyright termination for publishing and recording rights in Spinal Tap songs he co-wrote and co-recorded, as well as in the film itself,” states the complaint.

$179 after more than 30 years?

Clearly people downloading from the internet are responsible for this.