Calling your personal online radio station the best of everything seems designed to provoke controversy. But in this case it's just one "mature consumer" taking a stand against big media and youth oriented marketing. Be sure to read the about page. [more inside]
posted by Grod on Jun 19, 2008 - 24 comments

The Black and White Minstrel Show was a (very cheesy) British variety series that ran Saturday nights on the BBC for twenty years. Hard to believe that it was still on the air as late as 1978. A live show, "Memories of the Minstrels ," toured the UK to packed houses in 2004 and 2005. The show was performed white-faced and featured the stars, medley's and costumes from the original TV series. Previously. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Jun 4, 2008 - 43 comments

Plans are afoot for a US version of Spaced the seminal British zeitgeisty eve-of-the-Millennium sitcom that packed in huge numbers of film homages while turning the traditional man-and-woman-in-flatshare sitcom scenario on its head. The makers went on to make Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. [more inside]
posted by electriccynic on Oct 31, 2007 - 81 comments

Harlem Variety Revue. Pre-rock & roll TV show featuring swing from Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway, and Sarah Vaughan. Rhythm & blues from Amos Milburn, Ruth Brown, Joe Turner, Martha Davis and Larry Darnell. Jazz & calypso from Nat Cole. Ballad by Dinah Washington. Doo wop from The Clovers. Harmony from the Larks and the Delta Rhythm Boys (complete with exciting choreography). Comedy provided by Nipsey Russell & Mantan Moreland, tapdancing by Coles & Atkins and Bill Bailey (check out that 1955 Moonwalk at the end!) Hosted by Willie Bryant.
posted by andihazelwood on Jun 16, 2007 - 12 comments

Joan Rhodes, strong woman. Born ca. 1920 in England, as Josie Terena, ‘Joan Rhodes became famous in the 1950s and 60s as a strong woman,’ sometimes billed as The Mighty Mannequin. ‘She performed in cabaret, variety and vaudeville, stunning audiences with her amazing feats of strength. She could bend heavy steel bars that no man in the audience could even dent, she could break six-inch nails with her hands, and she could tear the 1000 page London phone book not merely in half, but into quarters.’
posted by misteraitch on May 29, 2007 - 9 comments

The Room: The Movie. Triple-threat (actor/writer/director) Tommy Wiseau made his cinematic debut in 2003 with the The Room (see trailer and various scenes), "a blend between a softcore porn flick and a Tennessee Williams stageplay." Wiseau ("who's not just one of the most unusual looking and sounding-with an unidentifiable Eastern European accent-leading men ever to grace the screen, but a narcissist nonpareil whose movie makes Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" seem the apotheosis of cinematic self-restraint...may be something of a first: A movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back-before even 30 minutes have passed." - Variety), allegedly raised $6 million outside Hollywood to cover production and marketing costs of the self-described "black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies" (see various rough dress rehersals). Audience members, including comedian David Cross, have been "marveling at the bizarre editing, bad bluescreen, uncomfortably explicit sex scenes and, of course, the enigma of Wiseau himself" as the film played monthly for years in Los Angeles. Available on DVD, diehard "roomies" swear by the theatrical experience, shout out their own commentary, hurl spoons at the screen and singalong to the soundtrack. Some call it "The Rocky Horror of the New Millenium" and stage "Room" parties. If you look at the marketing campaign or survived a screening you might see The Room as "a seminar on how NOT to make a movie." [Inspired by Boing Boing]
posted by boost ventilator on Jun 1, 2006 - 28 comments

This (windows media) movie taken from a French variety show is pretty cool/kooky/amazing. It's a guy wearing a suit covered in small horns, all honking different keys, and he can play the classics by jumping around and hiting the right notes.
posted by mathowie on Feb 5, 2004 - 22 comments

Boycott France? An American Jewish Congress trade ad placed in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter compares anti-Semitic violence to that experienced during WWII. Some groups are also calling for a boycott of the Cannes Film Festival. Woody Allen doesn't agree. Can the actions of an idiotic  minority really justify a boycott?
posted by laukf on May 15, 2002 - 45 comments

Variety reports (subscription temporarily not required due to the attacks) on changes in upcoming television programming due to perceived (and probably real) audience sensitivity. While we've seen some of this before (like concern over the plane exploding in the premiere of "24"), I see at least one change I'd feared: "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," (episode 4F22, originally aired four years ago today as the season premiere) where Homer's car is booted at One World Trade Plaza and Homer climbs both towers looking for a bathroom, has been pulled from syndication and, unless Twentieth Television changes its mind, will not be aired again.

Also, Showtime has indefinitely postponed its airing of the well-received indie film "The Believer," about a "self-hating Jew who becomes an anti-semitic skinhead." Overly-senstive reactions or justified changes for a mourning nation?
posted by mdeatherage on Sep 24, 2001 - 29 comments

Variety praises 'suspense-filled, seesaw race'.
posted by Mocata on Nov 8, 2000 - 2 comments