Category Archives: By munchman

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munchman: TNT Boots MONDAY MORNINGS

monday_mornings

Do you suppose that David E. Kelly knows how badly his work sucks now? I mean, this show, which Hollywood Reporter.Com reports is history, was so boring that I couldn’t even bring myself to write a review about how bad Ving Rhames was. (But then he’s always bad, no?)

A munchman prediction: Wifey Michelle Pfeiffer will be bailing soon. Mark my words.

I mean, let’s face it, the dood’s not exactly Mr. Studly, you know? And if he can’t write anymore, or do the satisfy-the-network thing, what’s he got that a hot lady could possibly want?

Especially a hot lady who used to be Catwoman.

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munchman: The 10 Most Overpaid CEOs in the World

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I’m talking media CEOs here, nine of them male, all of them smart enough to create a system whereby they get paid mountains of moolah for doing nothing our 11 year old little sister couldn’t do.

monopoly-man-chance-card425Yeah, I said “create.” They’re constantly redefining their jobs and what doing those jobs is worth, and their boards of directors, all of whom are looking forward to media CEO gigs of their own, go along with them unquestioningly.

As for what the jobs are really worth, well, what would you pay people who spend all day promoting themselves in their own media while at the same time making it more and more difficult for those who work for them to do their media type things? You know, by second-guessing and hamstringing the creative souls and taking so much money out of the companies that could have been used for better programming, or, as the CEOs themselves like to put it, “to improve the brand.”

Here’s the list, which TVWriter™  got from TVBizwire, which in turn got it from Deadline.Com:

1. Les Moonves, CBS, $62.2 million

2. Greg Maffai, Liberty Media, $57.2 million

3. David Zaslav, Discovery Communications, $49.9 million

4. Bob Iger, Disney, $40.2 million

5. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo, $36.6 million

6. Philippe Dauman, Viacom, $33.5 million

7. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp., $30.0 million

8. Brian Roberts, Comcast, $29.1 million

9. Michael Rapino, Live Nation, $28.5 million

10. Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner, $25.9 million

Have I said, “Fuck these @!@#s” yet? No? Well then: Fuck ‘em.cartoon overpaid

And, yeah, I’d feel a whole lot different if I thought anybody on this list really knew what s/he was doing and cared about doing right by viewers.

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munchman: CBS CEO Slaps His Dick Onto the Table Too

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A couple of days ago TVWriter™  posted a video interview with Aereo investor/brains behind the whole thing Barry Diller and mentioned that the battle between him and NewsCorp/Rupert Murdoch over whether Aereo is legal was a dick fight of the highest order.

Now the Great TV Satan himself, CBS’s Les Moonves has entered the fray. He’s siding with NewsCorp, of course, cuz there’s no $$$ in it for him or CBS in going Aereo’s way.

All in all, I really like his plan if Aereo stays in business. A lot. But I’m not going to tell anybody. How would it look if I took the side of the biggest dick of all?

(afagen)

CBS CEO Says Network Could Switch To Cable If It Loses Aereo Lawsuit
By  May 1, 2013

CBS and the other over-the-air broadcast networks are currently suing Aereo, the New York-based startup that transmits live TV over the Internet to subscribers who pay a monthly fee, but doesn’t pay anything to the broadcasters for doing so. Now, the head of CBS is saying the network might pull its signal off the air and go cable-only if it can’t stop Aereo.

“We’ve spoken to cable operators in New York,”said CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves about pulling his network from the airwaves. “We can do it in a few days.”

At issue is the legality of Aereo. The broadcasters claim the company is illegally retransmitting their signals without paying. Aereo, which has a an array of tiny antennae, each dedicated to a single customer, maintains that it does not have to pay because it is doing nothing more than taking in the over-the-air signal via antenna and then sending it straight to the customer. The company holds that this is no different than having an antenna on the roof of a building.

“It’s illegal,” counters Moonves. “They’re taking our signal and charging people for it.”

In January, CBS told the editors of CNET, which is owned by the company, that they could not review Aereo while the lawsuit was pending. CBS had previously told CNET it could not review or give an award to Dish Network’s Hopper DVR for similar reasons.

Moonves’ comment comes only weeks after News Corp.’s COO made a similar statement, saying that the company would have to consider making FOX a cable-only network if the broadcasters fail in their bid to stop Aereo.

“This is not an ideal path we look to pursue, but we can’t sit idly by and let an entity steal our signal,” the COO said at the time. “If we can’t do a fair deal, we could take the whole network to a subscription model.”

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munchman: A Real Dick Fight! Here! Now!

DillerAereoCapture

Well, what else do you call it when two world famous asswipes dick duke it out?

In this case, the dicks are Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch, each of whom could easily claim to be the World’s Asswipe Champ.

These days, Diller is the Big Boss at Aereo, a nifty little device that allows its users to save and watch just about any over-the-air broadcast for free, i.e, without paying cable/satellite fees. And Murdoch, of course, is CEO of NewsCorp, which makes its money by charging various fees.

Which means that Murdoch is yelling that Aereo is all about unlawful use of intellectual property and that its sales should be banned, while Diller says things like, “I think what they [that would be NewsCorp] are doing is making a lot of noise in the hopes they will get relief from Congress” and, more to the point:

The big picture is to change the centricity of what has been closed systems to an open Internet system. The platform allows you to get free over the air broadcasts. If you don’t like cable, paying $150 a month or so for services, if you don’t happen to not live without ESPN, if those are true for you as a consumer, being able to watch all free broadcast, all the events, all of the local television for $8 a month is an alternative.

Hey, Barry sounds real sensible here, right? And caring? There’s only one problem. He’s forgetting that there’s such a thing as the interwebs, where we can already get everything Aereo has to offer – for free.

See what I mean by dicks?

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munchman: David Foster Wallace is a ‘Tune

infinitereadNo, really.

The late, lamented big guy, master of the 8000 word long sentence and 225 page digression, has been a literary idol since people first heard rumors of the existence of his Oh God this is too long don’t make me read it controversial paean to self-absorption,  much praised and even more discussed novel Infinite Jest. But all that time we thought he was human.

And now it turns out that he was also an animated hero, like He-Man, say, but without the action figures. It further turns out that he had a lot of interesting thoughts to express…and that when he spoke he somehow managed to express them much more concisely and clearly than when he wrote.

Case in point:

YouTube Preview Image

munchman

munchman

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munchman Watches COMMUNITY & ORPHAN BLACK

…And I’m pleasantly surprised by both of them.

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COMMUNITY

You guys know how I always expect the worst. Look forward to it, actually, cuz it’s so much fun piling on. But last time around COMMUNITY made me smile. And my girlfriend, who’s a major Dan Harmon fan, even laughed.

For the first time this season, the show didn’t seem forced. The craziness grew out of the moment instead of seeming randomly injected in. Maybe there’s hope for this series, after all. I’m even looking forward to the next ep for positive reasons.

Sooo disappointing for a snark like me!

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ORPHAN BLACK

This show has me hooked. I’ve read everything the web has to offer about what’s supposed to be going on in it, but only now, 3 episodes in, am I seeing any of it on the screen.

Other people might be put off by this, but to me it’s exciting cuz rather than a sign that the series is moving too slowly, it’s strikes me as just the opposite.  Thre’s so much story and emotion and conflict packed into each ep that they move like drones aimed at your neighbor…meaning there hasn’t been time yet to explain any of the arcs.

Which I think is very, very cool. It’s much more fun for me to lean forward and let myself be captured by this paradoxical view of UK street life. And what a paradox! It’s ugly, it’s an awful way to live, it’s beautiful, it’s a great way to live…

In other words, it’s complex. Just like real life.

Oh, and the star, Tatania Maslany, is terrific. At this point she’s been, what, about 6 different women who are really the same woman except they aren’t…and she’s absolutely credible as them all.

Complexity! It’s a wonderful thing. That’s why I’m crazy about the complex girl watching me type this–

OMG. Wait! Am I really singing the praises of these two shows not because of anything going on with them but because I’m getting pretty damn close to being in love?

If that’s the case, then in the words of The Fly, “Help me!”

But help me what?

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