Mad Men, whose fourth season concluded with Don happily affianced to a wrong-for-him-in-all-the-right-ways secretary on October 17, 2010, is set to return on March 25, all disputes between creator Matthew Weiner and network AMC settled for now. And AMC's promoting the show with a nod to just how long it's been away: the Read More
The writer Gloria Steinem, who went undercover as a scantily-clad Bunny in order to report on conditions at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Clubs, is encouraging viewers to avoid NBC's new series The Playboy Club. The show, which seems to crib from Mad Men's retro-cool style while depicting the trials and tribulations undergone by a Read More
This morning, AMC's head of original programming, Joel Stillerman, apologized to journalists, after a fashion, for The Killing, a show about a murder investigation whose first season featured no conclusive solution to the mystery. "For everybody who was frustrated, we hear you. We would have taken a different approach to managing the expectations about Read More
AMC's Madison Avenue drama Mad Men received 19 Emmy nominations this morning, including one for Outstanding Drama Series; it would be the show's fourth consecutive win in that category. The show's stars Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss were nominated as best Actor and Actress in a Drama, respectively. No performer from that series has ever Read More
Mad Men is still mired in renewal talks between network AMC and production company Lionsgate (show creator Matthew Weiner, pictured at right, has indicated it may never return), and fans are getting restless. So, too, actors! As delays run on indefinitely, it's unclear to what degree the stars of the show should be seeking Read More
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasies
Mad Men is currently mired in contractual disputes between its network, AMC, and its production company, Lionsgate -- only Matthew Weiner knows what'll happen next! Some fans are rewatching their show DVDs, some are plotting blood feuds against the critic Daniel Mendelsohn, who called the show a faux-highbrow soap opera, and some are Read More
Fast Company published a sprawling feature today on the seismic disruptions underway on Madison Avenue, where traditional firms and players are finding themselves overthrown by digital upstarts. As writer Danielle Sacks puts it:
Most of the men and women here -- average age: 38 -- have worked at agencies for more than a decade. Such Read More
Beautiful women bombarded The Observer this past week at the premiere for Jack Goes Boating (Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut) and a screening of Desert Flower (which tells the story of Somalian model Waris Dirie), despite less-than-optimal weather at both screenings. Makeup guru Bobbi Brown came to Desert Flower prepared with tips for dressing in Read More
At Charlotte Ronson's show yesterday, we ran into Alison Brie, who was enthusiastic about Ms. Ronson's grunge-revival designs. "The music and everything kind of sent you to that era as you're watching those clothes go by," Ms. Brie said (the music: plucked straight from '95 college radio by Ms. Ronson's sister Samantha; the designs: nose Read More
Andrew Cuomo might be staying out of the attorney general's race, but John Slattery is not.
The Mad Men star is backing Kathleen Rice, who is apparently an old college friend.
"Discerning New Yorkers look to Mad Men for good TV, and now they can look to it for good government" DA Rice said.
At first glance, Elad Lassry's work can look like advertising. His bold, ambiguously retro genre photographs, showcased in the "New Photography 2010" show opening this month at the Museum of Modern Art, feature animals, actors or still lifes of mundane or commercial objects: cosmetics, eggs, pencil-holders, would-be matinee idols. Using the language of commercial photography, Read More
"I love this dirty town!"
So said gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker in the 1957 classic movie Sweet Smell of Success. Dirt in every sense of the word (earth, gossip, smut) has always been a byproduct of, and a stimulant to, everything that makes New York New York: the jostling immigrants, the rising towers, the rambling parks, Read More
When surveyed about the future of former flight attendant Steven Slater, talent and branding agency officials told Reuters that he should capitalize on his recent fame with a talk show circuit. Then the ad men chimed in and suggested that he be a spokesman for things.
Beer endorsements were a natural suggestion, and Read More
Ad Age reports that, despite being the commerce-happy show of the moment, ad revenues for Mad Men are surprisingly low. This is certainly not for lack of trying, but it seems the show's viewership model may be to blame.
The show apparently only took in $1.98 million in advertising in 2009, compared to Read More
On Sunday night, a large crowd gathered in the city's densest zone of advertising to participate in a mass advertisement for a show about advertising. In a case of meta-product placement Don Draper could only dream about, Times Square was turned into one big ad for Mad Men.
"Mad Men is a sort of Read More
