Daniel Pink, THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY BUNKO, FREE AGENT NATION author: Mr. Media Audio Interview
Daniel Pink has made a career of being first on business themes over the last seven years, ever since publication of Free Agent Nation in May 2001. His theory then? That more of us will be working for ourselves in the future.
Well, it’s now the future, so I’ll ask him whether that came true.
He also wrote A Whole New Mind, about the the move from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age.
But Dan’s newest book may be his greatest leap yet: a manga-style graphic novel titled The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. For my not-so-Japanese-media-savvy friends, what the Japanese call manga, Americans call comic books.
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Lionsgate has moved up the nationwide release of its comic adaptation "The Spirit" -- written and directed by Frank Miller -- to Dec. 25.
The film, based on the comic book series created by the late Will Eisner, was originally slated to open Jan. 16, 2009.
Also slated to open on Dec. 25 are Disney's "Bedtime Stories" and Fox 2000 Pictures' "Marley & Me."
Of the move, Lionsgate president of theatrical films Tom Ortenberg said: "Comic-Con fans (in New York in March) resoundingly confirmed what we felt in our bones about 'The Spirit': this is a great film and an irresistible piece of entertainment. ... For all of us, it was an easy decision."
"The Spirit" stars Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Stana Katic, Dan Lauria, Jaime King, Paz Vega and Louis Lombardi. Odd Lot Entertainment and Lionsgate are production partners.
International release dates have not yet been announced. Sony Pictures Releasing International is handling distribution in many European territories and Latin America. Odd Lot International is distributing to the rest of the world, except for the U.K. and Australia, where the film is being released by Lionsgate.
Bob Balaban, RECOUNT, BERNARD AND DORIS, actor, director: Mr. Media Audio Interview REWIND(Mr. Media is on vacation this week, so we're rewinding to some of the podcast's earlier, most popular interviews to catch up new listeners!)
No matter what role he’s in, Bob Balaban always makes an impression, from Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind to playing the President of NBC on “Seinfeld.” And the same is now true of his work as a director, in Bernard and Doris, starring Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes, now showing on HBO. He's also in another new HBO film, Recount.
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Milo Ventimiglia, HEROES actor: Mr. Media Audio Interview REWIND(Mr. Media is on vacation this week, so we're rewinding to some of the podcast's earlier, most popular interviews to catch up new listeners!)
Milo Ventimiglia is not your average save-the-world superhero, although he does play one, Peter Petrelli, on NBC’s hit series “Heroes.”
Stephan Pastis, PEARLS BEFORE SWINE, cartoonist: Mr. Media Audio Interview REWIND(Mr. Media is on vacation this week, so we're rewinding to some of the podcast's earlier, most popular interviews to catch up new listeners!)
Stephan Pastis is a big fan of Ricky Gervais, creator of "The Office" and "Extras," and Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld" and creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He also loves him some Cheryl Hines. As a matter of fact, I think the only reason I landed him on the show today is because I interviewed the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" co-star, and that gets him one degree closer to her.
Pastis’ “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip has twice been named Best Newspaper Comic Strip of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society, in 2004 and again in 2007, and it is that funny and that weird.
Well, Zeeba neighbors, prepare yourself for Stephan Pastis.
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David Simon, THE WIRE, HBO show creator: Mr. Media Audio Interview Rewind(Mr. Media is on vacation this week, so we're rewinding to some of the podcast's earlier, most popular interviews to catch up new listeners!)
Today, it’s January 26, 2007, and I am sitting across from David Simon, creator of the critically-acclaimed and Peabody Award-winning HBO series, The Wire. We are speaking at The Inn at the Bay in St. Petersburg, Florida, where Simon spent the last week working with students at Eckerd College. The fiftieth episode and fourth-season finale of The Wire aired just a few weeks ago, and the fifth season goes into production in March, so Simon is hopefully enjoying a vacation of sorts.
I am an admitted late-comer to The Wire, having seen my first episode just last September in a New Jersey hotel room. I was struck by the show’s tension and extraordinarily tight script and character development, which has often been overshadowed by better-known HBO shows, such as The Sopranos and Deadwood. If you like those shows and you haven’t already caught The Wire, you should consider it assigned viewing. Fortunately, the first season of The Wire is now airing on the BET channel, so us late-comers can start catching up.
If you haven’t seen The Wire, you may still be familiar with David Simon’s work. A former Baltimore Sun crime reporter, he is the writer that the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce no doubt loves to hate, having co-authored (with Edward Burns) the Baltimore-based book, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner City Neighborhood, and the subsequent HBO series, The Corner, and providing the inspiration and a number of scripts for the Baltimore-based NBC show, Homicide: Life on the Street. Another of his Baltimore-based true crime books, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, was the basis for Homicide.
Paula Garces, HAROLD and KUMAR: ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY, actress. Mr. Media Audio Interview Paula Garces’ lovely features may be familiar to you if you saw such movies as Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Clockstoppers, or Man of the House with Tommy Lee Jones. She also flirted with Meadow’s boyfriend on “The Sopranos” and has guest-starred on “CSI: Miami.” She was also promoted to series regular for the upcoming fifth and final season of “The Shield.”
Today I’ve invited Paula on the show to talk about her current project in which she voices the lead character in Red Princess Blues: Animated. We’ll also be joined momentarily by the film’s producer, Alex Ferrari of Numb Robot Studios.
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Robert Schimmel, CANCER ON $5 A DAY, author, standup comedian: Mr. Media Audio Interview
I tried my hand at stand-up comedy twice in college, once as a freshman at the University of Miami and again a year later at the University of Florida. And no, I wasn’t so bad at Miami that I was asked to leave. They were a lot more subtle than that.
Anyway, I gave up that dream early. It’s a tough, humiliating life, not for me.
Now, Robert Schimmel, on the other hand, is one of the best stand-up comedians of his generation. He, like Richard Belzer before him, is the guy other comedians watch and measure themselves against. He is naturally funny and naturally crude, rude, and not recommended for listeners under the age of 18.
That’s my way of saying if you’re too young to drink or if you’re easily offended, tune out now. The button-down mind of Bob Newhart this definitely is not.
These days, Schimmel is still out doing his job making people laugh, but there is a twist. In 2000, when his career was reaching new heights, he was diagnosed with Stage III non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, cancer. Not good. But he underwent aggressive therapy and routed the disease, even discovering a new source of material for his act in process. And he’s written a book, Cancer on $5 a Day: Chemo Not Included, How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life.
Jeff Kreisler, MY WALL STREET JOURNAL, INDECISION 2008, comedian, writer: Mr. Media Audio Interview Joining me today is one of the executive editors of My Wall Street Journal - which he will insist is a parody, but seems true enough to me.
Jeff Kreisler’s name may not be familiar to you, but if you’re a fan of comedy, you’ve certainly seen or heard his work. He writes for Comedy Central’s Indecision 2008, has a syndicated business humor column and video, "Funny Money," via Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com, is author of the forthcoming book, Get Rich Cheating, and has joined the staff and cast of a new show from the creator of "The Daily Show."
You can get a taste of what we’re talking about at www.WSJParody.com.
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"Remember, it's always better to have a cursory knowledge of a lot of things than to actually know a lot about any one thing. This is called a liberal arts education."
- Steve Carell, who plays Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, in this summer's big comedy remake Get Smart, offering to Wired magazine's Nancy Miller 10 ways to attain Carell-level smarts..
WILL EISNER & PS MAGAZINE Expert Roundtable Discussion: Mr. Media Interview In the pantheon of comic book masters, Will Eisner’s name is at or near the top of pretty much everyone’s list. He was there at the birth of the genre in the late 1930s – he famously turned down a submission from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster of a comic book about a character named Superman. Will suggested they go back to art school in Cleveland and get a little better at his craft.
Eisner himself is best known as the creator of an enduring but little known character called "The Spirit." This is a big year for The Spirit, with a major motion picture written and directed by Frank Miller currently in post-production and scheduled for release in January 2009.
Eisner is also known as the grandfather of the graphic novel for producing one of the genre’s earliest and most enduring works, 1978’s A Contract With God.
I spent three years with Eisner, interviewing him and researching his life for the biography, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, which was published by M Press/Dark Horse in 2005.
There is a period of time in Eisner’s life, however, that is less known than all the others. From 1951 through 1972, he produced PS Magazine for the United States Army. It was a digest-sized comic book, essentially, that taught preventive maintenance to American soldiers from Korea through Vietnam.
A week ago, the Virginia Commonwealth University library announced it had scanned more than 140 issues of PS and made the magazine available to the general public, online, for the first time.
Because so much interest is being concentrated on Eisner’s work this year – and because it is a personal interest of my own, I’ve invited a trio of experts on PS Magazine to join me for a conversation about “The Unknown Eisner”:
• Cindy Jackson is Archival Assistant for Comic Arts & Digital Collections in the Special Collections & Archives Department of the James Branch Cabell (rhymes with rabble) Library at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
• Paul Fitzgerald is a retired journalist who spent 10 years at PS Magazine where he worked alongside Will Eisner and formed a life-long friendship. Paul’s first book, Will Eisner and PS Magazine, will be published in May 2008.
• Stuart Henderson joined the PS staff in August of 1993, and he has been production manager of the magazine since March of 2002. He is also the Army magazine’s unofficial historian.
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Bill Adair, POLITIFACT.com, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES editor: Mr. Media Audio InterviewIf you wanted to pick a good presidential campaign upon which to launch a political web site devoted to truth, justice, and the American Way – and those are my words, not theirs – this would be the one.
You’ve got a man running as the candidate of one party who was in Vietnamese prisoner of war camps for five years, plus the first woman and African-American man to ever challenge for a major party’s nomination – and one of them will win it, one of these days.
And before we reached this point, there were so many candidates on both sides that we needed scorecards to keep track.
If you haven’t visited it before, take a minute and surf over to www.PolitiFact.com while you listen to this podcast.
The site is an online extension of the St. Petersburg Times daily newspaper and Congressional Quarterly and it is just what an election of this magnitude and complexity needs: a lie detector!
Literally!
Joining me today is the editor of Politifact.com – and Washington bureau chief for the St. Petersburg Times – Bill Adair. (And in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that my wife is a long-time editor at the Times.)
Eva Mendes as "Sand Saref" in New The Spirit Movie Poster! (CanMag.com)The folks at CanMag.com just put upthis image she signed exclusively at New York Comic-Con from Frank Miller's Will Eisner's The Spirit movie. Not bad!
Exclusive interviews by Mr. Media, a.k.a., Bob Andelman, with celebrities and newsmakers in TV, radio, movies, music, magazines, newspapers, graphic novels, and comics! Read them online or download to your iPod or other portable MP3 player!
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