The Front Page: August 27, 20008
Watch out what you say on the Internet. And especially watch out what you Twitter. (Can we now use "Twitter" as a verb?) Apparently AMC managed to outrage "fan-penned feeds" using character names and alleged "voices of 'Mad Men' characters." Fans of the show could sign up for updates from virtual Don Draper or Peggy Olson, for example, but when the Twits (Twitterers?) behind the voices appeared to be promoting products other than the show, AMC decided it was time to have a sit-down chat with its Virtual Twits. Twitter, however, yanked the accounts, and melee ensued, as it often does, on the Web, as James Hibberd reports.
Elsewhere, Wednesday's issue features an "Anatomy of a Hit" -- not on a TV show as is the usual fare, but on "The Dark Knight," a film I really, really should try to see before it leaves theaters. Alex Ben Block today examines just why this film has become such a juggernaut -- everyone thought it would do well, but not this well. "No one could have anticipated this kind of success," says Warner Bros.' Alan Horn. "It surprised us. And, once in a while, it is kind of fun to be surprised on the upside." An $871.5 million box office cume worldwide is a surprise I'd like to wake up to, also.
And finally, in the continuing saga of the Democratic National Convention, Elizabeth Guider reports from Denver, highlighting Day 2's Hollywood angles -- including a speech by Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong, who spoke to about 1,500 delgates at the Women's Caucus. "This is the culmination of an incredible journey: Less than a century ago, we didn't have the vote. Now we can vote for one another," she said. Meanwhile, actress Anne Hathaway made me wonder why all of us actually do get to vote -- she was at a jazz brunch "to honor old-guard civil rights activists," representing the Creative Coalition. Her statement? After hanging out with the old guard and politicos, she noted, "I'm getting smarter by the minute."
Time can't move fast enough.