It’s that time of year again- the Hollywood award season- whereby producers, writers, directors, actors and other craftspeople come together to honor one another in great style for their contributions to the world of media as we know it today. According to Tom O’Neil, America’s leading awards expert and founder of GoldDerby.com, 4,000 award ceremonies are held each year to honor this industry alone. And he should know he’s been tracking show results and making predictions on the competitions since 2000 while penning three books on the subject and blogging for the LA Times’ TheEnvelope.com.

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Unfortunately, with so many ceremonies to watch and so many opinions to account for, often times the lines between the intentions of the awards are blurred. But last year, I was asked to cover the PRISM Awards, a jewel of an honor presented by the Entertainment Industry Council (EIC) for the accurate depiction of substance abuse and mental health issues within television and film productions. The storylines are mostly heavy and often controversial, but more importantly, they touch the reality of average people’s lives. Actors are not measured against one another based on genre, but rather as they compare to a real person afflicted with an illness such as alcoholism, drug addiction, bi-polar disorders, etc. One Tree Hill actress, Shantel VanStaten, had this to say about the PRISM, “I think its one of the highest honors you can get. It’s not ‘oh you did an amazing job’ —  it’s ‘you did the most realistic portrayal of something that we could find’.”

The EIC was founded in 1987 by Brian Dyak, and the first PRISM Award was presented ten years later as a direct result of the progress the EIC had made. “The PRISM Awards encourage creators to make the most of their rights to free creative expression, while at the same time showing the reality of these health issues,” Dyak said of his coveted award. “As a part of the industry, EIC never wants to inhibit the creative process; however, we take pride in being the first to applaud creators who use their power and influence over their audiences wisely and responsibly, informing them while at the same time entertaining them. This is what we refer to as “the art of making a difference,” and that is what EIC and the PRISM Awards are all about.”

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The last thing I was worrying about was that The Other Guys would be too preachy.  Sure, Will Ferrell has a long history of deep, thought-provoking critiques of society and culture, so that should have been my big concern.  Also subtitles.  And having the last shot of the film be the word “Fin” superimposed over the freeze-framed image of a crying child alone on a beach symbolizing death or something. 

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You know, sometimes you just want to go, have a drink or two, or three, or ten, and then sit in a movie theater and tune out the seemingly endless parades of nimrods, pinkos and sanctimonious deadbeats who make up so much of our society today.  You just want some guys to come on the screen and to do and say some funny stuff.  Maybe you want an explosion or two, perhaps a gratuitous shower scene – strike that, as shower scenes are never gratuitous.  Unless it’s a dude.  Or Kathy Bates.

The point is the last thing you want after a Dos XX prep and handing over $11.75 each for yourself and your life partner/designated driver is for a bunch of Hollywood half-wits to stop the fun to give you a PowerPoint briefing on their insights into modern politics – without even the PowerPoint.  And it appears that this is exactly what The Other Guys intends to do. (more…)

Part pit bull, part Columbo whacked out on a pot of espresso, they don’t make investigative journalists like Mark Ebner anymore. And that’s good news if you’re a dirt bag, scum bag, douche bag or any sort of Hollywood low-level, window peeping, carpet crawling, masturbation celebrity want-to-be.

Mr. Ebner is one of the few writers left today willing to get down in the gutter with his subjects just to hear their truth. In his new book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, Mr. Ebner takes you to the places they never show you on “Access Hollywood,” because if the general public could access the side of Hollywood Mr. Ebner uncovers, that tub of popcorn in your lap at the multiplex would serve only one purpose, that of a barf bucket.

I recently had the chance to ask Mr. Ebner about his new book and what his thoughts on the state of Hollywood are today. (more…)