HBO

Put down the merlot! Alexander Payne, director of wine-snob favorite Sideways, has signed on to direct HBO's dark comedy Hung. Apparently the main character is, um, well-endowed. "Think of him like Spider-Man," show creator Colette Burson told Daily Variety last month. "He's an average guy who gets in touch with his innate superpowers." Okay, wait maybe we should keep drinking to watch this one. Variety reports:  read more »

When Ashlee Simpson began her rise to fame (and later infamy) in 2004, the last thing the world needed was another pop star in her sister's mold—which was lucky for Ashlee, who does not have Jessica's vocal range (nor, need it be said, her Barbie looks). Packaged and primed, Ashlee was groomed to be the anti-Jessica, the Pat Benatar to Jessica's Olivia Newton John. With dark brown hair and that nose, she even managed to look the part. She was always more spunk than anything else, which was made abundantly clear when she was caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live.  read more »

All kinds of people are watching HBO’s seven-part miniseries John Adams, which airs its fifth installment, "Unite or Die," on Sunday night at 9 p.m. Some are HBO loyalists, who will try anything the network puts on the table at least once (even John From Cincinnati, the network’s most glorious failure). Others are people like my parents, who prefer the BBC and PBS and (at least in my dad’s case) war documentaries over edgier network fare. And still others are people more like myself: avid fans of the television, in general, who are bored out of their skulls wandering the post-writers'-strike wasteland of nighttime programming. Is everything on hiatus? Brothers and Sisters, we await your return!

Still, though many young people confess that they are watching the show, nobody seems to talk about it the way they talked about The Sopranos.  read more »

HBO has dropped its Lily Tomlin-fronted dramedy 12 Miles of Bad Road. They had produced six episodes of the show, which starred Ms. Tomlin as the matriarch of a Texas real estate family, according to Broadcasting & Cable. But this death can't be blamed on the writers' strike. HBO executives ultimately deemed it a poor match for the network's sensibilities, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The show's pilot was executive-produced by Designing Women's Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and her husband, Harry Thomason. The plot, pilot showrunners, and leading lady all seemed a little moldy for HBO, especially when the channel is struggling to fill a schedule left by shows like The Wire (and their new show John Adams seems like a snore too).  read more »

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Teen girls aren't the only ones getting into those sexy sexy vampires! Alan Ball, who created the morbidly hilarious Six Feet Under, is making his own show about them, based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire book series. Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard, a son of Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting, that evil guy in Pirates of the Carribean), has joined the cast of Mr. Ball's True Blood. The show centers on the love story between a vampire, Bill (Stephen Moyer), and Sookie (Anna Paquin, X-Men's Rogue), a waitress who can read people's minds. Mr. Skarsgard, a tall dark and handsome type of course, will play a vampire and Viking who has been alive for more than a thousand years.

On Monday, Feb. 25, Lorraine Bracco—who around here is still better known as the shrieky wife in GoodFellas than for her role as the shrink with a smoky voice on The Sopranos—threw a launch party for her new line of wines at the Hard Rock Café on Broadway and 43rd Street. No matter how you slice it, a TV actor launching an eponymous line of booze at a Times Square theme restaurant on a Monday night in February is a tad depressing. Fugeddaboutit! The event was well attended and star-studded—even Mayor Bloomberg showed up to support the 53-year-old actress and her vino.

“I have a lot of energy and didn’t want to just walk around in my apartment in circles,” Ms. Bracco told the Daily Transom of why she decided to put her name on a collection of wines, which range from Amarone Classico to Pinot Grigio.  read more »

HBO has picked up the rights to air a controversial Oscar-nominated documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, after the doc's content sent the Discovery Channel running. Taxi to the Dark Side, directed, written and produced by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), focuses on the murder of a taxi driver at the U.S.' Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The homicide is used as a backdrop to investigate American use of detention and condoning of torture in interrogations. Mr. Gibney told Variety that he wanted the documentary to hit the small screen before the end of the election year.  read more »

Whether you thought they were art of the highest form, or just a bunch of tall orange things with curtains hanging from them, chances are you were talking about The Gates three years ago when it came to Central Park as one of the biggest public art installations in history. Commemorating the three-year anniversary of The Gates opening on Feb. 12, 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will host a special screening of the forthcoming HBO documentary film that chronicles “the decades-long effort by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to bring their ambitious work of art The Gates, Central Park, New York City 1979-2005, to fruition,” tomorrow.  read more »

After 31 years, HBO is finally pulling the plug on "Inside the NFL."

According to Multichannel News, the NFL plans to continue the premier pigskin highlights and analysis show next season on another network.

"There have been discussions with three or four other unnamed outlets, though no deal has been made," reports Reuters. "The show will kick off again in the fall, regardless."

The Black List: Volume One, a collaboration between former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell and director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, has been sold to HBO Documentary Films, and will have its world premiere at Sundance on January 22. The documentary is "composed of dramatic portraits of some of today's most fascinating and influential African-American icons," including Sean Combs, Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, Chris Rock and Al Sharpton, to name just a few. The full release is after the jump.  read more »

A few weeks’ work on a kiddy flick in exchange for the down payment on a house with a stream seemed logical enough to 43-year-old comedian David Cross, but to a certain Internet-empowered subset of his fans, this was nothing short of a betrayal.  read more »

Wendell Pierce, who plays the lovable drunk detective William "Bunk" Moreland on HBO's The Wire, told Reuters that getting props from drug dealers who watch the show was "the highest compliment." According to actual police detectives who listen in on real phone taps for drug cases, "the chatter went dead during the show's hour-long broadcast."  read more »

Today, a federal jury in New Jersey threw out a case brought against Sopranos creator David Chase by a certain Robert Baer. After the verdict was read, following less than two hours of deliberations, the defense attorneys hugged one another.

As we reported yesterday, Mr. Baer, a budding screenwriter and onetime prosecutor, claimed that he was not adequately compensated for helping Mr. Chase in 1995, when he was developing the pilot episode. Mr. Baer apparently arranged for the writer-producer to meet with several mafia experts during a tour of New Jersey, Mr. Chase’s native state. Both the Sopranos creator and Mr. Baer testified that the latter man turned down Mr. Chase’s offers to pay him thrice. He did, however, claim that Mr. Chase said he would “take care of him” if they show was a success.  read more »

Life imitated art in a New Jersey courtroom earlier today when David Chase, the mind behind The Sopranos, testified in the state's federal court to defend his creative ownership of the HBO series.

Twelve years ago, it seems, he collaborated with a man named Robert Baer, a budding screenwriter and former prosecutor who set up meetings between Mr. Chase and mafia experts during a tour of the Garden State. Mr. Baer, in part, claims that he was not adequately paid for his services—assistance that may have led to the show’s foundational plot. Asserting ownership of the pilot’s core themes, Mr. Chase, a New Jersey native, told the judge that he has been fascinated with the mob ever since watching The Untouchables. (Whether he was referring to the 1959 TV series or the 1987 Brian De Palma feature film was not made clear.) As if quoting Tony Soprano, Mr. Baer said he declined payment from Mr. Chase several times in 1995, if only because the series’ creator assured him that he would “take care of him” in due time. Likewise, the screenwriter has called the hired helper “self-delusional” in legal papers. [AP]

Tina Brown, having run magazines and briefly written a newspaper column, has a new venture. According to the Post's Liz Smith, Ms. Brown, the former editor of both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, has signed a deal to bring projects and story ideas to HBO.

Post-Sopranos, the cable network may need all the help it can get generating buzz and new ideas. And few are better at that than Ms. Brown.

This isn't Ms. Brown's first foray into television, of course. From 2004 to 2005, she hosted a weekly interview show on CNBC, which drew high-profile guests but struggled in the ratings.

Tonight at 8 pm, HBO will premier Hard as Nails, the first feature-length documentary of former Today Show producer David Holbrooke.

The doc focuses on the hardcore ministry of a hyper-charismatic 29-year-old un-ordained Catholic minister named Justin Fatica, who travels the country, using somewhat unorthodox methods to attract legions of angsty teenagers to the word of God. At one point in the doc, Mr. Fatica blindfolds teenage participants, who then carry around heavy wooden crosses while others haze them, a la the Romans berating Christ.

Such tactics have earned Mr. Fatica both a large following among young, atypical parishioners, as well as critics within the Catholic Church.  read more »

When the Sex and the City movie is released in the spring, fans will be able to get closer to the fashion-forward foursome than ever before. As it happens, producers behind the HBO phenomenon have decided to sell the license for new SATC underwear to Miami-based intimates label Cosabella. The forthcoming lingerie line, which will go one sale nationwide in April, will be designed and placed in separate groups—one for each of the film's four leading ladies. Future buyers of the wares can probably expect to find plenty of pink lace for Carrie, conservative black braziers for Charlotte and sensible flesh-colored numbers for Miranda. For the ever-sultry Samantha? Options will probably range from the edible to the easy-to-remove.

Sex and the City addicts will want to grab an ice pack out of the freezer, because the ultimate cheap tease can now get into your home. Yup, that’s right. After taking the city hostage for months—clogging Midtown arteries and shuttering SoHo eateries—the SATC feature film is finally in post-production. And that means the hype is just getting started, beginning with what’s sure to be a barrage of playful ads on television, enticing spreads in fashion glossies and, at least in this town, the odd 50-foot-tall Sarah Jessica Parker on the side of a building.

The trailer offers few surprises. It starts with the first line of the classic, upbeat jingle Fever. And while we may never know how much S.J.P. loves us, HBO and New Line Cinema definitely do. After all, they really needn’t pour a bunch of money into fancy promotions. If they build it, we will come! A decent Web site, some late-night talk show appearances and movie listings would probably suffice. Still, they give us a rapturous, twirling Carrie Bradshaw in a wedding gown, a breathy voiceover (“They say nothing lasts forever; dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.”), a wide-angle shot of the ladies tromping down Fifth, shopping bags securely in-hand. Then, of course, they really stick it to us—the kicker: a lingering, fairytale smooch between Ms. Bradshaw and Mr. Big. Spring can’t come soon enough.

Semi-related shameless self-promotion: The Observer's Sex and the City archives

PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk has no time for ‘old fogys’ who use fur. ‘The young designers are great!’  read more »

Hoping for the next Sideways, HBO films and Daily Show producer Ben Karlin have optioned "The Jefferson Bottles," a Patrick Radden Keefe article printed in the Sept. 3 issue of The New Yorker.

Variety reports:

Piece follows a billionaire's quest to see if he was duped after buying French wine dated 1787 and purportedly owned by Thomas Jefferson.

The article will be developed as a feature film to be released by Picturehouse through its joint venture deal with HBO. It also uncorks the overall producing deal HBO recently made with Karlin, the Emmy winning producer of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and co-creator and exec producer of "The Colbert Report."

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Viggo Mortensen is fighting naked! Guys, ‘Get used to it,’ says HBO Producer Cynthia Mort. Yipes! ‘It’s time,’ says Darren Star.  read more »

Where will HBO hold its annual U.S. Comedy Arts Festival?

The pay-cabler announced in May that it wouldn't keep the industry-targeted fest in Aspen, Colo., where it had been held for the past 13 years -- this followed a 2007 incarnation in early March that was marred by bad weather and flight cancellations, as well as the decision by fest headquarters, the St. Regis Hotel, to go condo.  read more »

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When Justin brings sexy back to HBO, viewers will see his moves, but what they won't see is the lust, which seemed to permeate the very air inside MSG.  read more »

Sopranos Auteur David Chase Left a Majestic Wrap-Up, But His Onion-Ring Existentialism Causes a Panic—Where’s Dr. Melfi? It’s a Media Anxiety Attack!  read more »

Forget counting sheep! Filmmaker Alan Berliner can't seem to catch any shut eye in documentary Wide Awake.  read more »