It has been noted that all political careers end in failure. So too must all show biz careers end in bombs. A shame AMC can't just quit while they're ahead, but then, that wouldn't be show biz.

Movie deals for funny men, a TV deal for a funny woman, AMC branches out, SAG and AFTRA become friends again, and The Simpsons make the mail.

Variety reminds us today that a major! labor! crisis! remains in effect at the Screen Actors Guild, which after three months has still made exactly no progress in settling its contract quibbles with the networks and major studios. Still, if those producers aren't worried, then you shouldn't be either — especially…

· Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno exploits took him from Israel to Arkansas; his Sherlock Holmes adventures to come may or may not include the missus.
· AFTRA ratified its new contract, but SAG didn't let that spoil its appetite for destruction.
· Harvey Weinstein is now officially going door-to-door to finance his…

It's not quadrupled DVD residuals, regular cocaine rations and guaranteed work for all. However, the major studios' new concession to SAG — $10 million worth of new pay raises — is exactly what we thought might happen after SAG bludgeoned nearly 38% of AFTRA voters into opposing its primetime contract. The deal was…

The nuclear labor plume at left is presented a little closer to actual size this morning, the start of the first full day without the specter of strike hell exhaling waves of rancid breath over Hollywood. Not that AFTRA's ratification of its prime-time contract Monday evening vanquishes the SAG threat altogether;…

It's time to break out your SAG vs AFTRA Celebrity Turf War Map™ for an update, albeit a bit of a confusing one: Robert De Niro is the latest star to come out in opposition of a SAG strike, asserting during a press conference Saturday at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival that Hollywood has suffered enough bloodshed…

Like clusters of onlookers awaiting the Vatican smoke signals that announce a new pope, all of Hollywood stirred abuzz today learning that George Clooney would finally weigh in with a letter addressing the conflict between SAG and AFTRA. And weigh in he... didn't, instead choosing a neutral stand essentially saying…

Everywhere we've been around the LA Film Festival this week, the chatter du jour is either oversexed studio minions or how folks plan to spend their off-days during the increasingly inevitable-looking SAG strike. The latter conflict came into even sharper relief today in Variety, which published a SAG-AFTRA Bullshit…

Try as we might, there really is no fresh angle to report in the ongoing contract drama between SAG leadership and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — the saber-rattling fuckers hate each other, and no strike-avoiding resolution is in sight before the current deal's June 30 expiration date.…

Happy news emerged this morning from the deep, dank reaches of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters, where it was announced the major studios have come to last-minute terms with AFTRA on a new three-year contract. Conveniently or not, the report comes a few hours before AFTRA's former…

After a week-long lull in apocalyptic mutterings from all sides of SAG and AFTRA negotiations with the major studios, a couple of new stumbling blocks have appeared en route to a deal. For starters, AFTRA national president Roberta Reardon today sent out a sobering e-mail to her members, both acknowledging her…

There's only so much ledge-prancing, saber-rattling, gun-pointing madness a person can get away with spinning in the press, and at a glance, anyway, it appears SAG national executive director Doug Allen may be faking the labor funk a little too aggressively. Now that his union's extended (and re-extended)…

While most of the civilized world enjoyed an early-spring weekend about town, SAG president and press warlord Alan Rosenberg practiced his saber-rattling in anticipation of upcoming labor negotiations with the studios. Despite reaching out to AFTRA to rejoin them in talks starting tomorrow, such token detente…

In what could charitably called a polite preemptive blast against SAG and AFTRA, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers yesterday issued an open letter affirming its rightful position in the driver's seat of upcoming negotiations with the recently split actors unions. "Driver's seat" is probably…

Mere days after the meltdown of their negotiating partnership in upcoming labor talks with film and TV producers, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and AFTRA boss Ron Morgan appeared at a press conference Tuesday to proclaim their unity in the face of looming crisis — at least when it comes to walking 25 miles from…

There's nothing inherently sexy about the ongoing labor disputes between producers and writers, producers and directors, producers and actors and whatever other banal kerfuffles you care to conjure. But the SAG/AFTRA square-off pitting actors against producers and themselves is quite a tentpole-ready disaster in the…

· HBO shakes things up in their original series development department, moving longtime president Carolyn Strauss into a new, not-quite-fired-but-let's- see-what-some-new-blood- can-do-about- never-letting- John From Cincinnati -happen-again position. [Variety]
· Hollywood StrikeWatch 2: The Bickering. SAG and…