AllThingsD » George Clooney

Want to Chatter About Chatter About the Oscars?

Peter Kafka — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:06:19 +0000

Who’s going to clean up at the Oscars on Sunday? If you’re the kind of person who is frantic with anticipation…you’re probably not reading this.

But you may still end up watching the awards or find yourself in conversation with someone who cares about them. Or just making small talk, or whatever.

So here are a couple of data points you can bruit about, if you’d like. They come via Nielsen, which is trying to measure online “buzz” about the films and actors up for awards.

What is “buzz”? In this case, Nielsen is monitoring user-generated chatter about the Oscars over the last month. Whether it’s Twitter, blog comments, discussion boards, etc. Note that Nielsen is just reporting on volume here, not sentiment. So it’s possible that many of the people talking about “Avatar” hate it.

But they are talking about it, more than anything else (see chart below; click to enlarge).

Go ahead and draw your own conclusions. Mine: Not at all interesting that “Avatar” is generating chatter since it’s the most popular–or at least the highest-grossing–movie of all time. But barely anyone has seen “The Hurt Locker”–at least compared with, say, “The Blind Side.” So that’s interesting. Right?

And here’s Nielsen’s assessment of the Best Actor and Best Actress categories:

Again, many more people saw George Clooney saunter in and out of airports than saw Jeff Bridges getting drunk, so that means…I don’t know. Maybe they’re talking about Jeff Bridges because all the Oscar TV shows and articles are predicting a win for Jeff Bridges. That would make sense, right?

Meanwhile, an update on the three million New York-area TV watchers who may not be able to watch the Oscars on ABC if Disney (DIS) and Cablevision (CVC) can’t work out their spat: There is no update.

At the moment the two companies are still sending out press releases that are supposed to be incendiary. But they are, in fact, very dull.

Warren Buffett at Fortune Women's Conference: On the Economy and George Clooney

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:01:58 +0000

Folksy set was on the highest burner possible at Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women’s conference this morning, as legendary financial investor Warren Buffett took to the stage.

Buffett, who was interviewed by Fortune’s terrific Carol Loomis onstage in Carlsbad, Calif., held forth to the crowd–made up mostly of women–having instructed Loomis previously to “do anything with me…I like your crowd.”

And, of course, the crowd loved Buffett, who has become a Midwestern Yoda, dispensing snippets of sage advice and clever aphorisms to unabashed fans.

Oh, yes, he also has turned himself into one of the world’s richest men while doing it, presiding for decades over his Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) conglomerate.

In the interview, Loomis quizzed Buffett about a range of topics, mostly centering on the economy and the rescue of Wall Street by the federal government.

“I think they’ve done a terrific job, all things considered,” said Buffett about the performance of regulators.

While he said he did not agree with all of the more costly aspects of the various bailouts, he noted that the dire situation needed drastic action.

“We were right at the brink….This country was becoming not only economically dysfunctional, but inoperative,” said Buffett about the econalypse. “We came so close to a meltdown.”

Today, he is much more sanguine about the economic situation, while also noting it was not all sunshine and daisies.

“There are no green shots, but I don’t see anything getting worse either,” said Buffett.

Joking, he noted that the recovery could be quicker if the housing stock was made smaller by blowing up one million houses and allowing “14-year olds to start cohabiting.”

It was an adorkably funny comment, as was his answer to a question from an audience member about who should play him in a movie of his life: George Clooney, of course, but “Danny DeVito’s out.”

Mostly, what struck BoomTown was Buffett’s firm belief in the strength of the system that we have built in the U.S.

“This system works magnificently,” he said flatly.

Well, Buffett is magnificent for dang sure.

Here’s are video snippets of him at the conference–sorry it is a little tinny–talking about women’s underwear, the resilience of the U.S. and why it will be okay in the end:

[ See post to watch video ]

[Photo courtesy of Fortune magazine.]

Now Not Showing at iTunes and Netflix: Some of Your Favorite Movies

Peter Kafka — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:55:52 +0000

Want to watch nerd-favorite “The Fifth Element” via Netflix’s awesome streaming service? OK, but hurry up–the movie will disappear from the service on New Year’s Day. Want to rent the excellent George Clooney corporate thriller “Michael Clayton” via iTunes? Too late! The movie was there, but now it’s not.

Wait a minute: Hadn’t big media finally gotten religion and agreed to give us, the demanding consumers, everything we want, whenever we want it? Nope.

Hollywood in particular–which still has a big, if declining, business showing movies in theaters and then in other formats–is still interested in protecting its big analog revenue streams for as long as it can.

Translation: Netflix (NFLX) will show you just a slice of the of the 100,000+ movies it has in its regular catalog on its streaming service, because the studios aren’t eager to cut into their DVD sales and rental businesses. Which are way, way bigger than what they’re getting from digital outlets. And even movies that are available for free rental may disappear after a certain period, because the studios have other revenue “windows” to protect, as CNET explains.

The same thing goes for Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes: Even the mighty Steve Jobs can’t force the studios to give his customers unlimited access to their catalogs. This applies to multiple studios, by the way, and both new and old movies. “The Fifth Element” belongs to Time Warner’s (TWX) Warner Bros. studio, and came out way back in 1997, back when Netscape was a big deal. “Michael Clayton” is a Sony (SNE) movie that came out last year.

And by the way, that George Clooney movie really is good–like the excellent 1970s paranoia films brushed up a bit for modern times. And even more poignant after the past few months. I recommend seeing it even if you have to watch it on a screen other than your laptop. Which is exactly what Sony wants.