Mass Media: Current Entertainment Events 9/27/2009

It is another Sunday evening (is it fall yet?) and time for another current events blog post. Please remember to post at least at two paragraph response to one of the articles on this post. Some of you are not earning full credit due to the fact that you are only writing 1 paragraph (and barely a paragraph at that!).

I would also like to remind you to check your work for spelling and grammar issues. Starting this week, you will also be graded on these aspects. There will be a quiz Monday but to make it fair, I will let each of you use a 3 x 5 notecard or piece of paper with 20 words on it. If you have more than 20 words, you will not be able to use it.

Ken Burn's new documentary premieres tonight on PBS. Here is an article about it.

New season of the simpsons tonight! See who guest wrote it here.

New season of SNL drops the bomb.

Roman Polanski was arrested for a crime he committed 30 years ago. Read about it here.

Don't forget to read the road!! Entire book due on Tuesday.

Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Here is a link to the assignment from today. If you liked Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!, you can download a number of episodes for free from the "Podcasts" section of iTunes.

Here is a streaming link to the episode that we listened to today.

Please remember to turn the assignment in no later than the start of class (for full credit) on google docs.

If you have any questions, you can post them here.

Mass Media: Current Events 9/20/2009

Once again, I will remind you to read all of the articles that I post. I may or may not have another quiz for you!

Here is an article from the post gazette about the upcoming fall tv schedule.

This is another article from the post gazette (I am trying to keep it local!) about zombies charing money for autographs (it will make sense when you read it!). [ If you remind me in class, I will tell you the story about when I met Greg Brady at a convention and how he was "charging for autographs". ]

Here is a short article (to make up for the longer zombie article) about the Emmys and changes they made to make it better. If you get a chance, remember to watch it! 8pm on CBS.

3-D television in the home? Read about it here.

Mass Media: The Road & Current Events 9/13/09

In addition to completing your "entertainment current events quiz", please remember that you have the first 100 pages of Cormac McCarthy's The Road to complete.

Please read all of the following articles and post a two paragraph response to one of them on the comments section of this blog post. Please remember that you are not summarizing the article, but responding to it in an intellectual fashion. Even though you are only responding to one article, I expect that you will have read all of them for class on Monday.

This is a graded assignment, so please check your writing for errors.

Guiding Light is ending a pretty impressive run (15,700 episodes!).

Show delayed for Maura Tuerney illness. Ellen and other daytime shows sued, new sytem for measuring viewership?

Big week for Jay Leno-- will the gamble pay off for NBC?

Kurt Cobain avatar on Guitar Hero irks band members & Courtney Love.

Mass Media: Newspapers 9/9/09

As an introduction to our unit on newspapers, I have asked each of you to spend some time with a newspaper finding an article that interests you. As millennial, you are more adept at searching online and having a great deal of information available to you with a click of your mouse.

For homework, I would like each of you to post a comment on this blog telling me in one paragraph how finding an article in the newspaper is different from browsing on the Internet.

Mass Media: Current Events 9/7/09

Here are some happenings in the entertainment world. There will be a quiz on tuesday.

The Beatles made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Read why.

Top grossing films at the box office? Here you go!

The return of "At the Movies"- read about it here.

Here are some new shows that might be worth watching.

Read about Diane Sawyer's new job!

Mass Media

Just a reminder about the homework for tonight--

Please create a google account and share with me a link to an entertainment article. I want to make sure that all of you have a google account and are able to share documents with me. I hope that all of our documents will be turned in via google docs.

If you have any problems with this, please let me know!

Mr. Cullen

TV Writing

Sorry that this post is being put up so late...it was a long night...

That being said, here are some links to some Siskel and Ebert reviews from youtube:

Titanic

Braveheart

Dances with Wolves

Field of Dreams

Forrest Gump

Saving Private Ryan

Gladiator

There are a few to think about....