Since the Giuliani administration kicked out the porn stores, the phrase "Disneyfication of Times Square" has been used over and over again by those that kind of liked the seediness, by critics of those people, by references to those people, by sociologists, etc. It's been a popular topic.
The weird thing Read More
The lure of green screens and worldwide box office success has finally gone to Johnny Depp's head. Disney announced yesterday that one of the world's most brooding actors will star in a trio of films for the company: In a fourth (fourth!) Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Mr. Depp shall reprise his role as Read More
Remember way back in April when everyone went flying into a tizzy over those Vanity Fair photos of little ol’ Miley Cyrus hugging a bed sheet to her naked, 15-year-old chest? Consider this a minor addendum to that controversy. Disney—the same globo-corp that complained Annie Leibovitz had manipulated their star into those provocative Read More
Monday: NotoriousSome say Rear Window. Others, Vertigo. We say Notorious when asked to name our favorite Hitchcock film. Ingrid Bergman plays a boozy, sad beauty who must redeem herself—and her family name—by turning spy for government agent Cary Grant. The action takes place in 40s Rio de Janiero, where Bergman must marry a suspicious German Read More
The brothers agreed to temporarily retain some Read More
Meet George Jetson; Jane, his wife. Their deluxe apartment in the sky, you must admit, boasts quite the view. Rockets whiz past condos the shape of flying saucers. Stars flutter and flicker, and below the clouds are frozen like rivers. Tonight’s another of George and Jane’s keycard parties. Pretty swingin’. Cosmonauts show off their ray Read More
Rockefeller Center has long been a haven for staid bank branches, airline ticket offices and other dreary retail tenants, a faded monument that New Yorkers surrendered years ago to camera-toting out-of-towners. But if Jerry Speyer has his way, the natives may soon be taking a second look. The president of Tishman Speyer Properties has managed Read More
On the desk in Shelley Ross’s soon-to-be former office—room 911, not incidentally, at ABC headquarters on 66th Street—is a photograph in a black leather Gucci frame of Ms. Ross, Charles Manson and future Fox News Channel chairman and C.E.O. Roger Ailes. Ms. Ross was 28 at the time the picture was taken, in June 1981, Read More
On the desk in Shelley Ross’s soon-to-be former office—room 911, not incidentally, at ABC headquarters on 66th Street—is a photograph in a black leather Gucci frame of Ms. Ross, Charles Manson and future Fox News Channel chairman and C.E.O. Roger Ailes.
Ms. Ross was 28 at the time the picture was taken, in June 1981, Read More
I thought it would be a good idea to take a child with me to see Mary Poppins. Fair’s fair. I’m getting a bit old for Mary Poppins. And so are you. I used to take children to the theater. But now all the ones I know are practically my age, including my own daughter. Read More
Walt Disney was a wretched businessman. This seems like a comically counterintuitive statement, with the Disney machine standing foursquare throughout the world as an impregnable marketing monolith, but this commercial hegemony is a comparatively recent phenomenon. It was only in the last 10 years or so of his life, with the opening of Disneyland, that Read More
Walt Disney was a wretched businessman.
This seems like a comically counterintuitive statement, with the Disney machine standing foursquare throughout the world as an impregnable marketing monolith, but this commercial hegemony is a comparatively recent phenomenon. It was only in the last 10 years or so of his life, with the opening of Disneyland, that Read MoreTrue
What do you do for a second act when your first novel spent more than a year on the best-seller list, won you a National Book Award and was made into a big-budget Hollywood movie starring Nicole Kidman? It’s hard to feel sorry for Charles Frazier (there are more than four million copies of Cold Read More
We first saw them one February, scampering around the kitchen, venturing shyly into the living room, squeaking in the emerald-green Victorian couch. Big eyes. Big ears. They were like greeting-card mice, as adorable as Steiff toys. Nevertheless, they were mice, and they had to go. I got a big hatbox, cut a hole, added some Read More
