Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



(image via orbitcast)

"Sirius XM (SIRI) is racing to get its financial house in order before a meeting with restive shareholders scheduled for Dec. 18. As chief executive officer of a company whose shares have plunged more than 85%, to 14¢, in the past three months, Mel Karmazin needs to refinance debt and demonstrate he's reining in expenses while convincing shareholders to back a reverse stock-split measure aimed at keeping the company from being delisted from the Nasdaq stock market in the coming months." (BusienssWeek)

"Howard (Stern) said that male models despise themselves because they don't make a lot of money like (women models). He said it's rare for a male model to break through like a female model. Howard said that the guys usually pose as businessmen and they don't look anything like successful businessmen." (HowardStern.com/Rundown)

"'Mali does not have the means to control its borders without the cooperation of the United States,' Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister, said in an interview. Mali, a landlocked former French colony that is nearly twice the size of Texas with roughly half the population, has a relatively stable, though still fragile, democracy. But it borders Algeria, whose well-equipped military has chased Qaeda militants into northern Mali, where they have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, making them even more difficult to track." (NyTimes)

"Some of America’s wealthiest socialites were facing ruin last night after the arrest of a Wall Street big hitter accused of the largest investor swindle perpetrated by one man. Shock and panic spread through the country clubs of Palm Beach and Long Island after Bernard Madoff, a trading powerbroker for more than four decades, allegedly confessed to a fraud that will cost his wealthy investors at least $50 billion – perhaps the largest swindle in Wall Street history. Mr Madoff, 70, a former Nasdaq stock chairman, was apparently turned in by his two sons and arrested on Thursday morning at his Manhattan apartment by the FBI." (TimesOnline)

"Fox's The Day The Earth Stood Still opened to $12M Friday for what should be a $33M weekend. Every studio's nightmare is for its tentpole to open amid clutter. But every studio's wet dream is if its new pic has the weekend to itself after Will Smith's Seven Pounds vacated. Now, make that a mid-December date, and make the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, and 20th Century Fox has a veritable guarantee of getting past $30M if it's not a stinker. For weeks now, this reimagining (no one ever calls it a remake anymore) of the 1951 black-and-white sci-fi classic has been tracking well. Encouraging, since Fox was running only 35% of its TV ad money at the time. Even so, The Day The Earth Stood Still had 'very strong' wanna-see with older males followed by younger males, even registering a solid 'first choice.' On the other hand, there was virtually no female appeal." (DeadlineHollywoodDaily)

"'Take a good look me!' exclaimed Taraji P. Henson at Andrew Saffir's Cinema Society screening of the award season favorite The Curious Case of Benjamin Button .. Uncontrollable tears flowed down every aisle of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, and so many people wanted see the epic that a separate screening space was set up for the likes of Kanye West, Spike Jonze, and Paul Dano." (Fashionweekdaily)



"Neither rain nor a cratering economy could keep art lovers away from the Bowman/Bloom Gallery (95 E. 7th St., (203) 952-9025) in the East Village last night. Inside the gallery, seasonal warmth was provided by the ebullient crowd and the art work assembled by intrepid gallerist Lisa Bowman. For a moment, it felt like the good old days of the East Village art scene, whereas actually it was more a harbinger of things to come as we shrink back to more intimate settings and community comes to play a bigger role in our lives. Titled The Beast in Me, the group show featured a galaxy of artists including Richard Hell, Walter Robinson, Brigitte Engler, Sally Webster, David Sandlin and Kembra Pfahler." (Papermag)

"A&E Television Networks and ReelzChannel have become the latest in a slew of media companies to hand out pinkslips this month. AETN, which includes A&E Network, History and Biography Channel, has laid off 20 staffers, including full-time employees in the digital-media division and a number of freelancers. AETN's total work force includes about 650 employees across its cable networks.ReelzChannel, meanwhile, has laid off 40-plus employees, mostly because network execs have decided to reformat the weekday movie-news show 'Dailies' into roughly three-minute segments, tentatively titled 'ReelzChannel Movie News,' that will air at least once an hour seven days a week, starting in January. ReelzChannel programs 20 hours a day." (TheHollywoodReporter)

"Wednesday night, the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston) and Debi Greenberg, the owner of Boston's prestigious store Louis Boston, hosted an event celebrating young American designers and ICA's 2nd anniversary. The designers imported in for the evening were Chris Benz, Brian Reyes, Jason Wu, Lyn Devon, Magda Berliner, Sari Gueron, Bryan Bradley of Tuleh, Maria Cornejo of Zero + Maria Cornejo, and Ashley Olsen for The Row .. The designers all brought muses and boyfriends. Lyn Devon had an almost-naked Lake Bell, dressed in a sexy loose singlet dress. Jason Wu came with a larger troupe, surrounded with a pile of boys and his muse, ICA's Ellie Cornish, draped in a stunning fluffy fuchsia gown. I had no date and no muse. Not being a good planner, I called Steven Tyler at the last minute (as he lives in Boston) to be my date, but he was sitting on Amtrak on his way to New York for the next days. But only men that can't wear their own dresses (or at least not in public!) really need to have a muse--and Ashley Olsen must have had the same thought, as she showed up solo as well in a beautiful velvet goddess dress and Bedouin rings." (designer Elise Øverland/Fashionweekdaily)

"It's the only offense that Jen could take. She can't compete against Angie's glamorous earth mother routine, which has so effectively hypnotized Brad. After all he's talked more than once about wanting to have nine kids — 'we're looking for a soccer team,' he has said. That left Jen with unabashed sexuality as the only way to go. 'Her old look was victim. She looked like a sad puppy dog. Now she's powerful — she's realized that she's a sexy goddess,' says Match.com relationship expert Whitney Casey ..It's also Jen's reputation game changer. She has needed to irrevocably change the public perception about her, as a spurned wife." (Bonnie Fuller)