… And Now TechCrunch’s Paul Carr Calls for Moviefone EIC Patricia Chui’s Head on a Platter? Seriously?

What started out as a relatively small battle between TechCrunch and Moviefone has escalated, as TechCrunch’s Paul Carr fired a warning shot over the bow of Moviefone this morning with this piece, which kinda-sorta retracts the previous headline Alexia Tsotsis put up about yesterday about AOL telling her to tone down the snark — and instead posits that Moviefone’s Editor-in-Chief Patricia Chui should resign in shame immediately, or be fired by AOL. Um, WTF?

Okay, folks. Here’s where I’m going to take a turn you maybe weren’t expecting in commentating on this interesting little car wreck and tell Paul Carr that he is completely full of shit here.
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Weekend Video Break: Feeding the Hungry

I love this video about CNN Hero Narayanan Krishnan, who gave up his job as a chef to feed the homeless every day. Inspiring. Thanks to John Wildman for sharing via Facebook.

And … the AOL Axe Comes Down (Again), While Arianna Scoffs at Her Unpaid Writers

… to the tune of 900 employees laid off in the wake of the HuffPo buyout. I hate to play Nikki Finke and be all “Toldja!” but really, did anyone not see this coming?

I love how AOL CEO Tim Armstrong tries to play this down. He “lamented” the cuts and says AOL is “much more healthy” than it was a year ago. Aw, gee, you’re a prince, Tim. I’m sure those laid off employees feel so much better knowing you lament canning them. But I bet you don’t feel bad enough to take a bit of a pay cut off your multi-million dollar compensation package yourself to ensure the continued health of AOL, do you? Of course you don’t.

The 900 layoffs suck, but that’s not the full story here. Let’s go back to this CNN piece from October of last year and unravel this ball of yarn a bit, shall we?
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Inside Out

If you liked Exit Through the Gift Shop as much as I did, you might think this is pretty cool. French street artist JR was awarded this year’s TED* prize, for which he was awarded $100,000 with which to make his “One Wish to Change the World” happen.

The Guardian has this interesting piece up about the latest project by the artist, Inside Out, which he announced last Wednesday at TED2011, but he needs more than just himself and his team of helpers to pull this one off: He needs me and you and everyone we know to get involved in what may just end up being one of the biggest collaborative efforts by a world-wide community to enact an art project in all corners of the globe. Here he is explaining his project at the TED conference:

JR is known for doing some really cool socio-political art using photographs. One of his most famous projects, Face2Face, involved putting billboard-sized portraits of Israelis and Palestinians who do the same jobs and putting them up side by side on both sides of Israel’s separation barrier in 2007. For the Inside Out project, he wants people to send him their own photos. Basically the idea is: You upload a photo and tell him what you want to do with it; he sends you back a huge poster-sized print that you can post where you want.

Pretty cool.

It kind of reminds me of Life in a Day, the YouTube project that asked people to send in a video of what they were doing on one day, June 10, 2010, and then send the video in. Director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott poured through the entries, cutting the whole massive project down into a 90-minute or so film.

Interesting speech from JR at the TED conference (above), interesting idea. Question is, what picture would you take? And where would you paste it?

*What’s TED? (from The Guardian website

*TED official Website

On the Stupidity of Mike Huckabee and Michael Medved Taking Harvard-Educated, 29-Year-Old, Pregnant Natalie Portman to Task for Setting Such a Bad Example

**Editor’s Note: A lot of smart people have gone to Yale, but Natalie Portman was not one of them. She went to Harvard. Correction duly made, with thanks to the reader who spotted my egregious error, apologies to Ms. Portman for insinuating she chose Yale, and Harvard people everywhere offended by the mix-up. Mea culpa.

So former presidential candidate/former governor of Arkansas (and, let’s not forget kids, likely presidential candidate in 2012) Mike Huckabee has an issue with Natalie Portman being unwed and pregnant. So sayeth The Hollywood Reporter, who picked it up from MediaMatters.org.

If you read the Media Matters piece, you’ll note that this all actually came from an interview with Huckabee on the February 27th edition of The Michael Medved Show, which makes it even less surprising. The controversial quote happened in response to Medved complaining about Natalie Portman’s speech, in which she thanked her choreographer fiance, Benjamin Millepied, for their soon-to-be baby. Medved took issue with this: “He didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.”

Huckabee responded at length, but the bit that’s seemed to set people off the most is this:

“Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out-of-wedlock children.”

But apparently Ms. Portman, who is 29 years old, has a high-paying job and a degree from YaleHarvard, and can surely afford to raise a child with or without being married to any man, is setting a bad example for young girls who will see her all preggers and think, “Hey, if a rich movie star like Natalie Portman can afford a baby, I can too!” Or not.

Huckabee opposes sex education and abortion, so apparently in spite of his issue with supporting the children of single mothers — a problem that will no doubt increase by a multiple of at least 10 due to the unsavory influence of Natalie Portman — he would like there to be MORE children born to mothers who are ill-equipped to be parents. Brilliant, just brilliant.

Here’s Huckabee from the Republican presidential debate in South Carolina:

“I’m pro-life because I believe life begins at conception, and I believe that we should do everything possible to protect that life because it is the centerpiece of what makes us unique as an American people. We value the life of one as if it’s the life of all …”

Well, that’s good to know, Mr. Huckabee. I hope you have a plan in place to personally financially support those lives that we should so protect. Seeing as how we value the life of one as if it’s the life of all, and all.

What’s that? You’re a Republican who doesn’t support those socialist ideas about it taking a village to raise a child? But how can we value the life of one as if it’s the life of all, and then NOT think it’s important for the ALL to have things like food to eat, a safe place to live, universal access to health care? Better not think about that one too hard.

So how do you feel about sex education, Mr. Huckabee? From ProLifeBlogs.com:

“Abstinence education provides a valuable counterweight to peer pressure and the message young people get from the popular culture encouraging casual relationships and separating sex from love, commitment and marriage. I do not believe in teaching about sex or contraception in public schools. That is the responsibility of parents.”

Then it would logically follow that it’s the responsibility of those parents to financially support the babies born out of wedlock to their sexually active teens if they fail to teach their kids about sex and birth control, right? Because what if, in spite of being taught that Abstinence is Good, instead the kids look at pregnant, 29-year-old Natalie Portman and decide to get knocked up anyhow? We value ALL life, remember? Those unaborted babies aren’t going to raise themselves, someone’s gotta do it. Gosh almighty, what a conundrum.

Young women get pregnant without benefit of marriage for a lot of reasons, Mr. Huckabee — most often because they are having sex with men (sometimes young, sometimes not) who are also not married to them at the time. They get pregnant because they are uniformed about how pregnancy happens and how not to get pregnant, when they don’t have access to good sex education — which Huckabee opposes. Sometimes they get pregnant because they have been raised by crappy, unloving parents and mistakenly believe that if they have a baby, someone will love them. Sometimes they get pregnant by immaculate conception, but that doesn’t happen too often.

So to sum up where Huckabee stands:

1. Sex outside of marriage is bad. Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

2. Abstinence is good. Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

3. Abortion is bad. So don’t get pregnant if you don’t want a baby. Also, everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

4. Sex education is bad. And remember, kids, everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

5. Waiting to have a baby until you’re 29 years old, have a degree from Yale, and a successful career, is also bad. Because everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

6. Don’t do what Natalie Portman does, kids. Follow Mike Huckabee’s advice instead: Everyone without a wedding ring should be abstaining from sex.

Got it? Good. Because Mike Huckabee values all life so much that he wants to tell you what you can and cannot do with your own uterus, young women. He values all life, but he doesn’t support having access to universal health care once you’re born to ensure you stay healthy and alive. He values all life, but he doesn’t value yours when you have to get a back alley abortion because he gets elected president in 2012 and manages to get Roe v. Wade overturned. He values all life, but not if your mother is a successful career woman who can afford to support you, but doesn’t happen to want to get married just because she got pregnant.

Now I don’t think that any girl will get pregnant because she saw Natalie Portman give her Oscar acceptance speech while unmarried and pregnant. But time and statistical data could prove me wrong on that count. It’s possible that 10 or 20 years from now in an alternative universe that we will have scientific data to support Mr. Medved and Mr. Huckabee’s assertion that Natalie Portman has set a bad example by thanking the father of her kid in her Oscar speech.

Until then, they both continue to be idiots.

P.S. If you are having sex, married or not, and you don’t want to have a baby, USE BIRTH CONTROL. Abstinence only works if you aren’t having sex. And having sex safely and in a way that fits your PERSONAL belief system, is a Good Thing.

P.P.S. If you do get pregnant and do not wish to be, you still have the legal right to get an abortion. Even if you live in Kansas.

Building the Indie “Brand” — If We Build It, Will the Audience Come?

I was just mulling over the importance of indie filmmakers and regional film fests in the afterglow of the Oxford Film Festival and the slew of upcoming regional fests, when lo! A trend (well, if you can call two articles a “trend”) arose this month on pieces about the whys and wherefores of Hollywood making shitty movies. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about why this is so.
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Documenting Social Justice and the Racial Divide

Right now I am particularly interested in the role of regional film fests in addressing greater social issues through both films and ancillary programming. I believe strongly in the role of regional fests to educate and inform as well as to entertain.
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Wish List for the Future of Indie Film

Out of the blue, I woke up this morning thinking about Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc . Maybe I was pondering on this whole AOL/HuffPo thing, and even more about The AOL Way and how it tries to reduce into Powerpoint slides geared toward traffic and keywords how writers should write, and how editors should assign stories.
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Why Are So Many Films for (Insert Group of Your Choice) Bad?

Alonso Duralde, writing for Salon, ran a piece the other day asking why so many films for Latinos are bad. The heart of his piece: Spanish-speaking countries have given cinema bankable, artsy, serious actors like Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Gael Garcia Bernal, Salma Hayek … so, Duralde ponders, ” …why is Hollywood returning the favor by making such dreadful movies for Latino audiences?”

It’s an interesting enough question, but try reversing Duralde’s premise: Is Hollywood is making terrific movies for everyone but Latinos? Maybe in some parallel universe, but certainly not in this one. Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, Gays, Women, hell, even kiddie flicks and teen schlock — the problem is not that Hollywood makes shitty movies for Latinos, it’s that Hollywood, with very few exceptions, makes shitty movies for everyone. Unfortunately, people keep paying to see them, and as long as that’s the case, Hollywood will keep on churning them out.
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Huff Po Sale: Arianna $300 Million, Writers 0

David has his own detailed take on the HuffPo sale to AOL, and it’s a good write-up with some interesting comments which you should read if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

For me, here’s what the HuffPo sale really means:

Ariana Huffington managed to take a model of paying people little (in some cases) to nothing (in most cases) for the privilege of having work “published” on HuffPo. “Citizen journalists” my ass. Using a spin on the “unpaid intern” huckster sell, she convinced many, many smart people to give her their hard work for free, so that she could build up a site over a few years and then sell it for $300 million.
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Blue Valentine Gets the Rating It Always Should Have Had

Sweet.

Blue Valentine, which stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in a story that interweaves the beginning and end of a romance (and features some oral sex that some people apparently found controversial) has finally received a revised rating of “R” from the MPAA.

I was just bitching last night after the Blue Valentine press screening with some fellow film journos about how ridiculous it was that the film had been slapped with the dreaded “NC-17” for sex scenes that are far less graphic than those in The Kids Are All Right and certainly no more graphic than a similar girl-on-girl scene in Black Swan.

So congrats to Blue Valentine for the new rating. More on the film itself soonish.

UPDATE: I was concerned that maybe the film had been cut to get the “R” rating, but it was just confirmed to me by a publicist that the version I saw last night is the final cut, and that only the rating was changed. Most excellent.

The Journo vs Blogger Battle Infects Even Kiddie TV

Weird.

So I’m sitting here getting some editing done while I wait for my kids’ dad to pick them up for their Thanksgiving time with him, and the boys are watching some Yu-Gi-Oh TV show. I wasn’t really paying attention to the show until I heard two of the characters arguing, and one of them says to the other in a snooty tone that she is a “real” journalist because she writes for a print paper, while her rival is “only” a blogger.

Huh.

Seems like the “real journalist” vs blogger battle has filtered down even to kiddie TV, but what most interested me about this is how out of date it sounded to have these characters talking about blogs and page views and print vs online, and the poor downtrodden blogger character all angsty over how she’s “just” a blogger and how if she can just cover this big Yu-Gi-Oh tournament instead of covering street battles, maybe she can get a story on the FRONT PAGE of the print paper and then she’ll know she’s really made it.

Thing is, this is the newest incarnation of the Yu-Gi-Oh series, not one of the older ones showing on repeat. And it seems to me the writers, with this print vs online side story, are behind the times when it comes to both how people get their news, and the perceived value and validity of print vs online outlets. The gap is narrowing, and while there are a handful of print outlets that still carry a certain degree of prestige, for the most part, many of my colleagues who write for newspapers are now also (or even primarily) writing or blogging for the online editions.

Times change. 25 years ago, when I was a journalism major, I never could have imagined the way things are now. I wonder what it will look like 25 years hence, when I’m 67 and really yelling at the kids to get off my damn lawn.

Who Would Make Fun of a Little Kid in a Halloween Costume?

Apparently some people would.

I just read this post from this mom whose five-year-old son loves Scooby-Doo and wanted to dress like Daphne for Halloween. And he looks adorable and rocks the hell out of that orange wig, am I right? Go check it out and read her story, I’ll wait for you ….
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Wait, Now They’re Letting “Fatties” Make Out on TV? Surely You Jest …

Boy, mag/website Marie Claire really stepped in a big pile of cow patties with this blog post by Maura Kelly titled “Should Fatties Get a Room (Even on TV)? the other day. The piece was about television show Mike & Molly, which depicts an obese couple who meet at Overeaters Anonymous, and was apparently prompted by Kelly’s editor asking her, “Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?”
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The Color Purple

So today is “wear purple in support of LGBT teens” day, courtesy of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). All across the mighty land of Facebook, people have changed their profile pics to purple in support of the day. I’m not seeing a lot of purple around the homeschool center today, except on little kids whose parents probably dressed them not knowing that today is “purple day” anyhow. I don’t own anything purple, oddly enough, or I suppose I would have worn purple just because.
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