Rocky Mountain News writes its obituary

The bad times for the newspaper industry reached a milestone Thursday when the Rocky Mountain News announced it would close and publish its final edition on Friday.
E.W. Scripps Co. said it was shutting down the 150-year-old Denver newspaper after failing to find a buyer for the money-losing publication. The action leaves the Denver Post as the city’s only major newspaper.
And it probably won’t be the last major metro newspaper to go under either. Hearst Corp.’s San Francisco Chronicle and Gannett Co.’s Tucson Citizen in Arizona also are on the chopping block if they can’t find buyers. Hearst also said it may shutter the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or turn it into a Web-only operation if it’s not sold by March, according to Bloomberg.
Still other newspaper companies have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, including Chicago’s Tribune Co.
Newspapers are suffering from a poor economy, fewer subscribers and declining advertising. Freely available news on the Internet has drawn away readers and advertisers in droves. Newspaper web sites are popular, but don’t generate enough revenue to support large newsroom operations.

Northwestern's Medill magazine program scores again; Brings back memories

The latest product of the magazine publishing program at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism is a prototype for a hip science magazine called Sci Q.
As a graduate of the program from 1993, I received a copy of the prototype issue. Like other class projects from the magazine program, it’s a stellar piece of work. A group of 15 master’s students produced the magazine and a business plan for the publication and Web site.
I attended the class presentation for the magazine in early December on the Evanston, Ill., campus and received the actual magazine earlier this month.
It’s a tough time for the magazine industry. Slumping ad sales have hurt magazines across the board. And people just aren’t reading as many magazines and newspapers – in their paper versions at least – anymore.
In the last two months alone, I’ve counted 20 magazines that have shut down, based on reports by Cision’s The Navigator. They've included Hearst’s Teen magazine, Ziff Davis’ Electronic Gaming Monthly and Meredith’s Country Home. Some were folded into sister publications and others are keeping their Web sites operating.
My hope is that the newest graduates of Medill’s magazine publishing program will find good journalism and media jobs. They’re certainly a talented bunch.
Their project, Sci Q magazine, was targeted to men ages 25-44 who are interested in cool, weird and wild science and technology stories. The prototype issue features articles on a mystery illness killing off bats in the northeastern U.S., how watching sports can be good for your brain, and the possibility of Earth getting clobbered by the asteroid Apophis in 2036.
Watching the student presentation and reading the magazine brought back memories of my own experience in the Medill program. I graduated from the master’s program in 1993.
Our class project was a comedy-focused entertainment news magazine called Inside Comedy. Our goal was to cover the world of comedy – from stand-up and sitcoms to movies and comic strips. We wanted to be “a reader’s guide to a good laugh and a backstage pass to revealing profiles, intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and entertaining commentary.”
We had a small, but talented class of 15 students working on the magazine.
The best-known graduate from our class is Clinton Kelly, co-host of TLC’s “What Not To Wear” and author of the book “Freakin’ Fabulous: How To Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better Than Everyone Else.” Not surprisingly, given his great sense of style, Kelly served as design director for Inside Comedy.
Other staffers included David Willey, now editor-in-chief at Runner’s World and president of the American Society of Magazine Editors; Arlene Weintraub, now a senior writer with BusinessWeek; and Jeff Favre, now a Los Angeles writer and comedian.
Looking back, I’m still amazed by the access we got with big-name talent. Being students at a prestigious university certainly helped open doors. But we also were pretty persistent.
Our cover story was on Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Our writer spent time with her on the L.A. set of “Seinfeld” and chatted with Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards for the article.
We also interviewed the up-and-coming stars of a little-watched, but influential sketch comedy show called “The Ben Stiller Show.” Those comic actors – Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Bob Odenkirk and Andy Dick – would later find fame elsewhere.
Other subjects of the Inside Comedy prototype were writer Dave Barry; stoner comedian Tommy Chong; “Dilbert” comic strip creator Scott Adams; and Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman, writers of the sitcom “Murphy Brown.”
Director and actor Garry Marshall visited our class and gave us some worldly advice. And I got to interview actor-writer-director Harold Ramis about his then-upcoming film “Groundhog Day” and his body of work.
Good times. Good times.

Mike Myers dines on Golden Raspberries

In all the excitement over the Oscars, I neglected to congratulate conceited comic actor Mike Myers on his multiple awards for “The Love Guru”: worst picture, worst actor and worst screenplay.
The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation bestowed those awards on Myers last Saturday, on the eve of the Oscars.
I don’t always agree with the nominees and winners of the Razzies, but this year they’re spot on.

He should have won in 2003 for desecrating Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat.” But alas, he lost to “Gigli.”

Penélope Cruz: From worst to first

Movie critics reject the idea of giving acting Oscars based on career achievement instead of just the one performance an actor is nominated for in any given year.
As a movie fan, I don’t have a problem with the idea per se. There should be a balancing act. Both should be considered.
When Academy voters choose a relative unknown on the basis of one movie, their picks sometimes come back to haunt them. If only they could get back that best actor Oscar awarded to Roberto Benigni in 1998 or the best supporting actor Oscar given to Cuba Gooding Jr. in 1996.
Oscar voters sometimes find out later that an actor they thought at first was cute is pretty annoying or another actor they thought was talented was simply playing himself.
That brings me to Penélope Cruz, who won the best supporting actress Oscar at last night’s awards ceremony for her work in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
She’s great in her native Spanish language in the films of Pedro Almodóvar or movies like “Open Your Eyes.”
But for some reason she can be horrible in English language movies. Maybe she’s bad at picking Hollywood scripts.
She was nominated for worst actress by the Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, in 2001 for three films: “Blow,” “Captain Corelli's Mandolin” and “Vanilla Sky.” She lost to Mariah Carey for “Glitter.”
When it comes to the Academy Award for best supporting actress another factor comes into play: looks.

The award these days often goes to attractive young starlets. (Rachel Weisz, Renée Zellweger, Jennifer Connelly, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, etc.) Cruz certainly fits that bill.

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Is This Year’s ‘The Last Emperor’

“Slumdog Millionaire” won the Oscar for best picture tonight, following in the footsteps of 1987 winner “The Last Emperor.”
Both films hold the distinction of winning the top prize at the Academy Awards without having any of their actors nominated. Voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apparently couldn’t tell if the acting was any good because they hadn’t seen the actors before. For all they knew, the Indians in “Slumdog Millionaire” were playing themselves.
It’s easier to pick English actress Kate Winslet doing a German accent for "The Reader." That’s ACTING!, as Jon Lovitz’s Master Thespian character on SNL would shout.
As usual the comedic actors stole the show at the 81st Academy Awards.
Ben Stiller riffed on actor Joaquin Phoenix’s recent bizarre appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” Stiller wore a shaggy, unkempt beard and sunglasses and acted dazed and confused while co-presenting an award with Natalie Portman.
Steve Martin and Tina Fey were quite funny presenting the screenwriting awards.
And James Franco and Seth Rogen reprised their stoner roles from the movie “Pineapple Express” in a bit co-written by Judd Apatow. The segment was meant to spotlight comedy movies from 2008, but showed the guys sitting on a couch, laughing uproariously to serious films like “The Reader” and “Doubt.” Very funny.
Director Baz Luhrmann really needs to make another musical. After bombing with the epic drama “Australia” last year, he created a nifty musical and dance montage for the Oscars featuring Hugh Jackman and Beyonce Knowles. Luhrmann directed the modern musical masterpiece “Moulin Rouge!” (2001).
Speaking of musical numbers, the performances of two Bollywood songs from “Slumdog Millionaire” on the Oscar telecast were spectacular.

Blockbuster’s set-top box a loser

The Motley Fool recently rated Blockbuster the worst stock for 2009. Based on Blockbuster's first attempt at a set-top box for delivering movies from the Internet to the TV, I’d say they may be on to something.
Fool writer Rich Smith predicted Jan. 28 that Blockbuster “is going to zero” this year. He said Blockbuster is drowning in debt and is being beaten by rival Netflix at every turn.
Blockbuster certainly hasn’t kept up with Netflix in the market for digital delivery of movies to consumers.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to try out Blockbuster’s first set-top box, which is made by 2Wire. I already own the Netflix Player by Roku, so it was easy to do a side-by-side comparison.
Blockbuster trotted out the 2Wire MediaPoint digital media player in late November, six months after Netflix debuted its first set-top box, the Roku digital video player.
They both stream movies from the Internet to the TV, but have very different business models. Both devices cost $99. But content on the Blockbuster box is pay-per-view, while content from Netflix comes at no extra charge when subscribing to its DVDs-by-mail service.
Blockbuster charges $3.99 for most online movies, but some are available for $1.99. For a limited time, the Blockbuster 2Wire box is free when subscribers rent 25 movies in advance for $99.
Sounds like a good deal, if the service has a lot of new releases and the box works without a hitch. In my experience, the Blockbuster box failed on both counts.
Installation was as easy as the Netflix box. I linked both to my wireless router.
My issues with the Blockbuster OnDemand service began with the opening screen. Looking for the hot new releases, I clicked the remote over to “Featured” films. The first movies I saw were ones I’d never heard of: “Blindsight,” “Cyborg Soldier,” “Ghouls,” “I Do,” and “Miss Conception”
I searched through other categories, including “New Releases,” “Top Rentals” and “Just Added,” and found very few new releases. I was shocked. I thought this was going to be like an online video store, packed with new releases.
Eventually, I stumbled on new releases by looking in the “All Rentals” category. It listed 1,644 titles, of which 61 were labeled “new.”
They included “Get Smart,” “Ghost Town,” “Hancock,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” “Iron Man,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Pineapple Express” and “Snow Angels.”
Navigating through the Blockbuster OnDemand service is a chore. The menus are ugly and feature tiny box-shot images of the movies.
The Netflix box only presents you with movies you’ve preselected from your computer. It makes for a much cleaner interface.
I clicked through a couple hundred movies on the Blockbuster box and eventually got the “blue screen of death.” The device locked up and gave me an on-screen message of “Your Blockbuster OnDemand service is starting.” After a time, the system rebooted on its own. But it was very frustrating.
Later I chose my first movie to watch – “The House Bunny” starring Anna Faris. Everything was going fine until 40-some minutes into the movie when the picture locked up and the soundtrack continued. I tried skipping ahead and backing up, but I either got a still frame with sound or video and no sound. Eventually I gave up for the night.
The next day, I tried to start fresh. I experienced the same problem at the same point in the movie.
After a first-time experience like that, most consumers would do what I did – pack up the box and return it.
By contrast, my experience with the Netflix Roku box has been flawless.
After the Blockbuster box failed to show “The House Bunny” on a second try, I gave up and switched to the Netflix box. There I selected the Oscar-nominated documentary “Man On Wire.” Great movie. No technical problems either.

Oscar for worst dressed goes to … me

As part of its publicity campaign for this year’s Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been holding a “Meet the Oscars” exhibit in Chicago.
The exhibit lets movie fans hold an actual Oscar statuette and get their photo taken. The Oscars are made in Chicago at R.S. Owens & Co.
The one-of-a-kind exhibit features six of the Oscars to be presented at the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony. Also on display is the Oscar won by Clark Gable for his performance in “It Happened One Night” (1934). Gable’s estate sold the Oscar at auction in 1996 for $607,500 to director Steven Spielberg. He returned it to the Motion Picture Academy later that year.
The “Meet the Oscars” exhibit runs Feb. 13-22 at The Shops At North Bridge on Michigan Avenue at Grand Avenue.

I stopped by with the kids on Monday. Wearing an old pair of jeans and a University of Illinois sweatshirt, I proudly accepted my Oscar for worst-dressed visitor. My thanks to the Academy.
The Oscars will be presented on Sunday evening and televised on ABC.