BOP Daily News
May 15, 2006
The spirit of BOP News lives on in
This is So Last Week,
our pop culture week-in-review,
presented in a pleasing quiz form.
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With the news dominated by regular-as-clockwork indictments of public officials ("Your car is waiting, Governor ... "), nuclear talks in Iran, and "poker parties" at the Watergate, entertainment news is suffering. Greatly. However, we among the Box Office Prophets have our fans, and our fans have their sources. Based on credible information received, we can assure you that the following stories are occupying the pop culture hive-mind right now. We won't reveal our sources, but that call information from celebrities in Hollywood and New York ended up in that National Security Database right alongside the rest of us schmoes. We're just sayin' ... .
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Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) announced that Clint Eastwood will lend his voice to its Dirty Harry videogame currently in development. Following on the heels of similarly themed movie-based videogames (particularly The Godfather and Scarface), the plotline for the game will be set between the first two Dirty Harry movies. The release of the game is planned to coincide with next year's Dirty Harry boxed set. All five movies -- Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool -- will be released in a set of high-definition DVDs that reportedly include a ton of extra material and commentary from the WB vaults. Jeff Baker, a senior veep at WBIE, described the joint release as "[A] major step in revitalizing the Dirty Harry franchise and introducing it to a whole new audience," promising that the accompanying marketing effort will be "one of the most comprehensive in the entertainment business." Clint Eastwood (voicing Harry Callahan) also will be joined by actors Gene Hackman (Police Supervisor Al Bressler) and Laurence Fishburne (Rev. Carlton Clay).
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The handful of you who haven't yet watched the latest American Idol episode on your TiVOs or who have not read a newspaper, magazine or Web site in the past five days should turn away now. Or just skip to the next story. We're warning you! You are not going to like this story one bit. Okay ... here we go ... .
The aftershocks following Wednesday night's dismissal of Chris Daughtry from American Idol continue to rip across the world of pop culture. In a stunning display of bad taste not seen since Bjork's dress at the 2001 Oscars, American Idol viewers voted off the best contestant the series has ever seen (not that we're biased or anything). Many of Daughtry's fans are already alleging fraud or manipulation in the voting process. According to family friend Tracey Adams, "hundreds" of upset fans have vowed they'll never watch the show again. But all is not lost for Mr. Daughtry. The rock band Fuel has offered Daughtry a job as their lead singer, apparently impressed with his cover of their song "Hemorrhage." However, Daughtry had not publicly responded to the offer by press time, and he seemed to be contemplating a solo career yesterday, citing his songwriting credentials to reporters and saying that launching his own career would be a dream come true. Whatever he decides to do, we wish him the best of luck while our televisions remain dim on American Idol nights for the rest of the season.
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The Motion Picture Assocation of America (MPAA) has enlisted a couple new friends in the fight against movie piracy. Two of man's best friends in fact. Apparently, Sid Ganis's speech at the Academy Awards a couple months ago failed to stop movie piracy in its tracks, so the MPAA has now bought and trained two black Labradors (Lucky and Flo) to sniff out optical discs at customs checkpoints. Soon, you too could have a dog sniffing around your luggage on your next trip to Europe. The movie industry is working in cooperation with FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, in the United Kingdom. The dogs have been trained to detect chemicals used in the manufacture of CDs and DVDs, but the dogs cannot differentiate between lawfully purchased discs and pirated copies. If the dogs detect anything, professional investigators are called in to search for contraband. The effort is intended as a cost-saving measure for the movie industry which FACT says lost $519 million to pirates in the U.K. alone. No word yet on whether the MPAA intends to train dogs on how to stop other activities that have destroyed movie industry profits in recent years, such as greenlighting The Island.
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"Medically speaking, there's no accounting for taste."
Previous edition's quote: The West Wing
Box Office Prophets offers quality, reliable news about the entertainment industry. BOP is also entertaining. To that end, please be advised that some content in this column is intended to be humorous and should not be considered factual.
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