> Worth a ticket. The director and writer of Saw, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, combine again to bring us–hey, where are you going?  No, seriously:  don’t run away.  Leaving aside that Saw is rather unfairly maligned (before it became the poster child for “torture porn” and a dumb sequel machine for Lionsgate, the original […]

ABC’s Fall Finale Sunday was a moderate success. ABC:  ONCE UPON A TIME could only hold even at 3.1 for its last episode of 2012.  REVENGE climbed 0.2 to 2.4, but that didn’t put it far above last week’s season low.  For what it matters, 666 PARK AVENUE was also up 0.2 to a still-tepid […]

Chart updated with persons 2+ audiences for the four games played Friday, March 27, 2015 (the second and final day of the Sweet 16 Round): Telecast 57: CBS 7 pm #2-Gonzaga 74 #11-UCLA 62 (Gonzaga up 35-28 at half) Telecast 58: CBS 9:53 pm #1-Duke 63 #5-Utah 57 (Duke up 27-22 at half) Telecast 59: TBS 7:37 pm […]

  The Screen Actors Guild award nominations are important in the Oscar precursor game, but not in their most showcase way:  the Best Ensemble winner (often taken to be SAG’s equivalent of “Best Picture,” since it awards a film’s entire cast) doesn’t have any remarkable correlation to the Oscar winner for Best Picture.  However, in […]

> Not Even For Free; No Pig’s Blood At This Shindig. The relationships we have with the stars we watch are no less real for being imaginary, and that’s particularly true for television stars, whom we often watch inhabit and grow within the same character over a period of years.  So fans of the great […]

  The only new opening on Black Friday was a limited release, but everything already in the market took the customary post-holiday leap.  COCO (Pixar/Disney) will easily win the 3-day weekend, after $19.1M on Friday according to preliminary numbers at Deadline.  Coco continues to be on pace with Tangled ($19.5M on Black Friday), and it […]

Ten days into the three-week holiday movie season, 2012 is now 9% behind the average 10-day total over the last several years ($264 million this year for the first ten days versus $290 million on average 2004-2011).  However, 2012 remains 16% behind the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday (2007 — $316 million the […]

This airing against no competition thing is fun! CBS:  On Thursday it was the Eye’s turn to be the only network with original regular programming, and as with NBC the night before, it provided some lovely numbers.  THE BIG BANG THEORY kicked things off with a massive 6 rating (up 0.6 from the show’s last […]