I had lost track of Joe Frank, the groundbreaking storyteller who created dozens of riveting radio dramas for KCRW-FM (89.9) in the 1980s and '90s. That changed when I got an invitation from the station to see Frank perform at the Village, the  legendary West L.A. recording studio.

Although no one announced that the show would be a departure, it was. Never before had the mysterious performer so directly addressed his family life, particularly his relationship with a difficult mother, who died some years ago.

The crowd seemed to lap up the performance, which centered partly on how people disintegrate with age. But when I met him this week, Frank surprised me with his take on the show. He said he had been persuaded by a couple of friends to deal with the more personal material, but he ended up hating the piece.

“In live performance you always make mistakes. What you do is imperfect," he said. "Usually I wear shades and a hat. But that seemed entirely inappropriate given the kind of material I was doing, which was very honest, very open. Which I also hated. What I do is usually surreal.

“I like going further out, expanding the imaginations of people. There are lots of people who tell stories about themselves.”

Although he intends to keep his own story out of future performances, Frank had decided he would share more about himself in our interview, which I also detailed in my On the Media column. He talked at length about his own aging.

“Suddenly I find myself an old man with a cane,” said Frank, 72, who has struggled through a series of illnesses and recently recovered from pneumonia.  “And in my interior life I feel so much younger. There seems to be a real disconnect with this old, deteriorating, decrepit body ... which is carrying my brain and heart around in it.”

Franks said he hates when people defer to him, offering an arm or holding open a door, even if he knows they mean well. His hands shake as a result of medication he takes. The need to hold a glass aloft for a toast at a party, or to eat with people he doesn't know well, can cause a moment of panic.

But then Frank wonders if he simply needs to embrace the changes.

“Maybe I can transcend it by taking advantage of it, by making it into a persona,” he said. He muses about chucking the cane he bought for $8 at CVS. “I could have a cane with a wolf’s head and ruby eyes. I could wear a white suit or some bizarre getup, a hip-hop kind of hat and always a pair of sunglasses. And then instead of me being invisible maybe they would see this old man and I would, as you say, own it.”

In some of his old radio pieces that conveyed a good dose of anxiety and despair, Frank would edit in a teacher speaking about equanimity, a respite from the prevailing darkness. I wondered if he had ever tried meditation, a break from “the monkey mind.”

“I once had a friend come over to my house and urged me to meditate with him,” Frank said. “He kneeled down on the floor of my house and I kneeled down beside him and focused my mind on a word or something. And I was there for maybe 30 seconds when I felt so ridiculous and so stupid and thought it was so absurd that I got up.”

I couldn’t resist: “So you gave him a full 30 seconds?”

“I did,” Frank said, laughing. “I might have even given him a minute or a minute and a half. But certainly not more than that.”

I told Frank he sounded a little like Woody Allen’s character in “Annie Hall.” Alvy Singer memorably celebrated the fact that most people are only “miserable,” knowing they could be among the “horrible,” those who are crippled or dying.

But Frank told me he really does have a little more perspective than that. “I can’t say I am miserable because I have a body of work behind me. I have a considerable following,” he said, adding: “You can’t be unhappy. It’s not fair under these circumstances. So even though I may be depressed a fair amount of the time I am still grateful for what I’ve got.”

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Joe Frank made more than 200 radio dramas over a couple of decades at KCRW-FM. He recently has expanded to Facebook and done a limited number of live performances. Credit: joefrank.com

I guess it's no surprise that the New York Post is eagerly dumping on Keith Olbermann in the wake of his messy departure from MSNBC. But leave it to columnist Andrea Peyser (whom New York magazine once dubbed "the Madame DeFarge of the New York Post") to blame Olbermann's flame out on -- are you sitting down? -- Ben Affleck.

In a lengthy column that is almost entirely populated with anonymous sources, Peyser claims that the beginning of the end for Olbermann was in 2009, when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow booked Affleck to appear on her show. Peyser quotes a former MSNBC colleague as saying that Olbermann was so unhappy that "in protest, he refused to go on the air." She adds that Olbermann staged a three-day sickout after the episode, claiming that Olbermann's stated reason for missing airtime--he was mourning the death of his mother--was a lot of hooey. Who knows what really happened, but the alleged Affleck booking dispute gave the Post a convenient hook to run the headline "Why Olbermann's Gone Baby Gone," a reference to Affleck's critically praised 2007 film.  

The rest of the piece is loaded with anonymous sniping about Olbermann's supposed prima donna antics, including the time he supposedly had a meltdown when he discovered that his new office door had a built-in window. Peyser is so determined to bash Olbermann that she quotes anonymous ESPN sources about Olbermann's behavior there way, way back in the 1990s when he was a "Sports Center" anchor. I gather this is typical spiteful behavior from Peyser, who once famously described Christiane Amanpour as the "CNN war slut," which caused such an uproar that her boss of bosses, Rupert Murdoch, was forced to issue an apology.

Peyser has hardly cleaned up her act. No Olbermann misstep is too petty for her not to describe dismissively in the column. She even attempts to dig into Olbermann's personal life, getting huffy when a former girlfriend of his, whom Peyser describes as a "newsblonde," doesn't respond to an e-mail request for a comment. Peyser harrumphs: "One diva deserves another." As for Olbermann, he tweeted his own response to the piece, saying that it "rehashes old lie about shows I didn't do after my mother's death... Andrea Peyser is a swine."

I don't know about swine, but if you ever saw Olbermann and Peyser under the same roof, you'd have to say there was more than one diva in the room.

--Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Keith Olbermann on his final appearance on "Countdown" on Jan. 21, 2011.

Credit: Associated Press/MSNBC

Whenever a film gets snubbed at Oscar time, the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork with madcap theories about what dark, mysterious forces were responsible for its disappointing showing. Hence the arrival of this Oliver Stone-style opinion piece from the New York Post's Kyle Smith, who claims that Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman," despite being easily the most celebrated documentary of the year, failed to get a best documentary Oscar nomination because the film endorses a conservative cause -- allowing the proliferation of charter schools as a means of saving our battered public school system. 

As Smith put it: "Welcome to reverse McCarthyism. Not only are conservatives unwelcome (bordering on unemployable) in Hollywood, but even fully paid-up and lionized liberals like Guggenheim must be shunned for making a case that conservatives agree with." He added in a blog post that the film's snub was "an excellent example of what happens when the Party Line of liberalism comes head to head with the supposed reason for existence of the Democratic Party -- concern for the downtrodden, particularly black and brown people."

I happen to be a fan of Smith's writing, but in this case, he seems unaware of the fact that when it comes to the arcane realm of Oscar voting, politics is about 14th on the list of truly dark and mysterious forces at work. It is especially hard to make the case that liberals had it in for "Waiting for Superman," since the film critics of America --w ho are probably even more overwhelmingly liberal than the Academy -- were the first to champion the "Waiting For Superman," giving it almost unanimously rave reviews.

So if liberal film critics were willing to put aside their supposed ideological blinders and praise the film, why wouldn't the Academy's documentary film branch do the same? If Smith had delved just a little into Oscar history, he would have realized what a creaky limb he'd crawled out on. As it turns out, the Academy has given the cold shoulder to all sorts of wildly popular documentaries in the past, including "Hoop Dreams," "The Thin Blue Line," "Grizzly Man," "Roger & Me" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," which was declared ineligible because of an obscure technicality. The fact that the Academy has snubbed films made by all sorts of liberal filmmakers, most notably the famously left-wing Michael Moore, makes it hard to cite politics as a key rationale for the omission.

This wouldn't be the first time the documentary branch has punished a documentary for being hugely popular or for benefiting from the kind of ostentatious Oscar campaign "Superman" had. There are enough examples of liberal documentaries losing out to less partisan efforts -- such as when Moore's 2007 film "Sicko" and that year's "No End in Sight" lost to "Taxi to the Dark Side" -- that it seems plausible that bias against conservatism seems hardly a major force at work here. Smith and I agree that "Superman" deserved an Oscar nod, but it's a huge stretch to blame the snub on a liberal plot. The only politics at work here were the usual kind -- office politics. 

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Davis Guggenheim accepts the award for best documentary feature at the Critic's Choice Movie Awards in Hollywood. Credit: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

Gimme a break, ABC. 

Just as Sunday's Lakers-Celtics showdown at Staples Center was getting to the nitty-gritty, ABC tossed the game into a split screen so we could get a court-side interview with a critical participant.

Or, wait, was that just Adam Sandler, one of the covey of court-side celebrities at Staples Center who help make the Lakers the team a lot of America loves to hate?

Not content with the typical wink-and-wave shot of Sandler, though, ABC sent its court-side reporter in for a couple of minutes of Q & A, right in the middle of the action. It threw the game into a side picture so we could hear all about Sandler's fab new movie with Jennifer Aniston, "Just Go With It."

I can't think of any better way for Columbia Pictures to alienate basketball fans than to make them sit through some inane repartee with Sandler. Especially as the game already had Lakers fans in a foul mood, with their team struggling with the hated Celtics. And would any of the Boston faithful really want a cutaway from their glory? Not a chance.  (The Lakers ended up losing 109-96.)

Since "Just Go With It" ads already filled up much of the break time during the game, you had to wonder what kind of deal the producers had cut to have Sandler miraculously appear for a promotional spot right in the middle of one of the biggest regular season games of the year.

Next time ABC, spare us the advertorial. Just give us the game. And if you must linger for a second on one of the sideline stars, give us Sandler co-star and movie rookie Brooklyn Decker, who was also at the game. That would be cheap and cheesy, sure. But at least it would be quick and much nicer to look at than Sandler.

In the end, we really tuned in to watch the game.

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn Decker star in "Just Go With It." Credit: Columbia Pictures

I've been deluged with mail taking issue with the story I wrote after Tuesday's Oscar nominations decrying the fact that, once again, the Oscars were an all-white affair, leaving African American and Latino actors and filmmakers in the lurch. Put simply, the fault lies not with the Oscars, but with the Hollywood studio elite who don't have any people of color in their ranks, which clearly has a bearing on why they rarely greenlight Oscar-friendly dramas with any substantial roles for blacks or Latinos.

As for the reaction from readers, let's just say that I suspect Christopher Hitchens must've gotten the same kind of mail after he mocked Mother Teresa. Although I've received some warm letters of support, by and large the response from readers has been blunt, dismissive, vituperative and, well, unfriendly. A fair example would be this note from D. Whitehead in Chicago, who said:

I would just like to know what was the reason behind you writing this Minority Report of Hollywood? Aren't there enough black civil rights leaders to handle this without you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong? What about the dominance in the sports by African Americans? You ever watch basketball, football and baseball? Who are you? Jesse Jackson Goldstein?

Actually, baseball has fewer African Americans that at any time since the 1970s. And I'm not sure why a heavy presence of blacks in one field would justify turning a blind eye to the absence of blacks in another. But I'm not going to pick a fight with D. Whitehead.  Some of the questions that readers raised, however, were more thoughtful and provocative. Here's a few -- rephrased and condensed -- that deserved an answer. And if you have any more thoughts on the subject, feel free to chime in:

Q: You didn't say African Americans were discriminated against in Hollywood, just that they didn't hold any high-profile jobs. Did you ever consider that blacks just don't gravitate toward working in show business?

The Big Picture earlier told you about the focus group Fox News has been relying on to assess President Obama's performance in Tuesday's State of the Union Address--a speech the panel mostly rated as abysmal.

That seemed surprising, given that Obama's approval rating has been rising in recent weeks and that he made no stunning new proposals in the speech, while pledging to work to find common ground with Republicans.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who led the panel of 29 people in Atlanta, responded via e-mail that the focus group's negative reaction was not as surprising as I might think it was. He said that people who use computer "dials" to instantly record their impressions of a speech or debate are responding to something specific and express different views than the public at large.

"I have found that when people dial a speech, they pay closer attention to everything said," Luntz wrote. "When I did this for Fox in 2008, Obama WON all three debates for the same reason. A casual observer will have a different reaction (like being impacted by applause and standing ovations) than someone listening closely."

"And that accounts for why Obama can have a 50% job approval, a 60% favorability, and an 80% likeability rating all at the same time," Luntz continued. "The questions measure different aspects of a person's image. People who are dialing the speech focus much more on the substance than the style."

[Updated at 9:40 a.m., Jan. 27 Luntz offered a final word on his focus group via e-mail Wednesday night: "And as the guy whose focus groups gave obama wins in three out of three debates live on fox news, you can't say I have an anti-obama track record."] 

Still, I wondered about the composition of the panel, since Luntz said almost nothing about that when he appeared on Sean Hannity's show Tuesday, except that 13 of the 29 voted for Obama in 2008. In our extended e-mail exchange, Luntz responded: "I didn't ask party affiliation or ideology."

That seemed odd, since I had seen a Luntz Twitter message from earlier in January in which he directed prospective focus group members (who would be paid $100 each) to a questionnaire. That survey explicitly asked two dozen questions related to the subjects' demographic, ideological and political views, including opinions on Obama.

When I asked Luntz about the questionnaire, he acknowledged: "Yes, I asked those questions when people initially applied to participate, along with education, income, occupation, ethnicity and lots of other questions.  I ask a lot.  I do everything I can to have these groups reflect the voting pool from wherever I am.  But I didn't ask party ID or ideology again that night."

Maybe something was lost in translation again because, a bit later, I got another e-mail in which the pollster informed me that he did know the party affiliation of those on his Tuesday panel, after all. There were 8 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 11 independents, he said.

Luntz had earlier told me that "four invited Obama participants still didn't show," which I took as an acknowledgment the panel was not as balanced as it might have been.

In any event, it would have been nice if Luntz had taken some time on the air to explain who was on this panel and what it was supposed to represent. Given that the group's views went out to a national television audience, a viewer would suspect it reflected a cross-section of the entire electorate. Or was it likely voters? Something else? The partisan mix suggested something closer, I'm guessing, to party makeup in the Republican-leaning state of Georgia.

Luntz's initial survey of prospective panelists also asked them overall to rate Obama and give him a letter grade. Again, it would have been nice to know how those we saw on national TV had responded to those questions. But TV apparently doesn't have time for such details.

As the Big Pic previously noted, Luntz asked the focus group how they felt about President Obama saying the recession was over. That seemed particularly leading and unfair, because Obama never declared an end to the recession. Instead, he said, in the State of the Union, that the "worst" of the recession had ended. He stressed that more jobs are badly needed.

Luntz said he asked the question that way because the panel "dialed downward" at the moment Obama spoke about the worst being over. "It's what they heard," Luntz said. "I realize Obama said the worst of the recession is over, but they heard the recession is over." The pollster said he would show the panel's reaction on the air in a future Fox program.

After about half a dozen e-mails, Luntz seemed to have had his fill of my second-guessing. He told me he was struggling to get home in a snow storm.

"Geez, give me a break," he protested. "You try running one of these sessions live with all the technical, audio and video challenges.  How about giving me credit for telling viewers who these people voted for in 2008, or keeping them respectful to each other when they're ready to attack. This stuff is tough."

--James Rainey
Twitter: latimesrainey

Image: Republican pollster Frank Luntz used his Twitter account earlier this month to find participants for a focus group on the State of the Union speech. Most members of the Luntz panel, aired on Fox News' Sean Hannity program, slammed President Obama.

Opinions of President Obama's State of the Union address will naturally vary. But we now should be able to reach a national consensus on one putrid post-address tradition: instant polling and focus groups.

At the end of the 62-minute address Tuesday night, Fox News aired what can only be called public opinion "show-data" -- faux science not worth the micro video-bytes it was embedded on. CNN committed a lesser, but still unnecessary offense: introducing a "flash" poll overweighted with Democrats.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that more rigorous national surveys have found something much more equivocal: After a long swoon, the president's approval rating has begun to recover in recent weeks. A composite of surveys at Pollster.com shows 49.8% of Americans approving of Obama's performance and 45.1% disapproving.

You wouldn't have gotten a hint that the nation is that closely divided from cable TV's noise makers.

Over at CNN, senior correspondent Joe Johns appeared not long after the House chamber emptied to tell us that, per expectations, television viewers of presidential addresses tend to be from the president's own party. Of the 475 questioned by CNN in its instant survey, "the vast majority" were Democrats.

Among that self-selecting group, Johns told us, 52% had a "very positive" impression of Obama's speech and 32% a "somewhat positive" impression. Just 15% reacted negatively. Further, 61% of those it surveyed "thought positively about the President's policies" before the speech, a figure that jumped up to 77% after watching the address.

It seemed barely illuminating that a group heavily tilted toward Obama stalwarts liked him even more after they heard him speak for an hour. At least CNN gave us enough information to know their poll came from anything other than a representative sample of Americans.

The group presented by Frank Luntz, not surprisingly, had even bigger problems. I say not surprisingly because the pollster has long been closely tied to the Republican Party and rigorous partisanship. Luntz is a master of wordplay who, among other things, helped Republicans devise their attacks on the healthcare reform legislation. Don't talk about a public option, he said. Call it a "government takeover."

As the nonpartisan Politifact.com reported, Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo to reform foes: "Takeovers are like coups. They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

That gives you an idea where the Fox favorite comes from. Given his inherent credibility gap, Luntz might have begun his segment with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night by explaining a little bit about the 29 people he assembled in Atlanta. 

Where did they come from? What was their party affiliation? How did they feel about Obama before the State of the Union? He did none of that.

Instead, the segment began with Hannity launching into his complaints about Obama, calling his speech  "flat," uninspiring and disingenuous -- because Obama talked about cutting spending after the federal government ran up a huge debt fighting the recession.

Being a man of precision and science, Luntz moved to make sure that statement didn't taint his impartial panel. "I don't want you to feel under pressure because of what Sean Hannity just said," he told the group.

Thus put at ease, the panel was asked for one word to sum up Obama's performance. In a nation we know to be about evenly divided in its feelings about the president, these are the first seven answers Luntz got: "optimism, platitudes," followed by "empty ... redundant ... political ... not connected with America ... hyperbole ... Obama conflicting..."

Hmm. Must be a real pocket of Obama opposition in heavily Democratic Atlanta. And that pocket just happened to find its way into the front row seats on the set where Luntz staged this little tea party.

It went on in that vein: The bulk of panelists suggesting the lack of bipartisanship was clearly, unquestionably the fault of Obama, not the Republicans. One man even rated the president's promises as about as  trustworthy as "romantic talk from Tiger Woods." (It had to be a coincidence that this fellow's two paragons of mendacity were two prominent African Americans.)

In case the anti-Obama feeding frenzy might stall, Luntz chummed the waters a little. He did it by misconstruing what the president said about the economy. While Obama stated that the "worst" of the recession had passed, Luntz asked the panel to respond to Obama's notion that "the recession is over."

Lo and behold, the vast majority of the panelists disagreed with something the president never said.

Toward the end of the segment, Luntz let viewers know that 13 of the 29 people he brought together had voted for Obama in 2008. As I recall, Obama won the last presidential election. But why start with a more closely balanced panel when you can present one that's so much more, more ... outspoken?

(Luntz told me via e-mail that the other 16 on his panel had voted for John McCain. Apparently explaining the imbalance, he added that "four invited Obama participants still didn't show." He did not immediately answer about the panelists' party affiliation or pre-speech sentiments about Obama.)

It was a bit anticlimactic when only seven of the onetime Obama supporters raised their hands when Luntz asked who was still "pretty well" behind the president.

Luntz had done his work by doing Hannity's work -- offering his faux science as proof that Obama is in  political straits. "If I were Barack Obama watching this tonight," Luntz said, "I would be a little bit nervous."

The sequels could be coming up for days on Fox. It began Wednesday morning on "Fox & Friends," where Luntz used the same panel and similar tactics to prove that Obama wasn't even the real focus for most Americans on Tuesday night.

Instead, Luntz assured us that the man who really made the winning impression was Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who gave the official Republican response. "Barack Obama was the focus," Luntz said, "but Paul Ryan seems to be the star."

-- James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Fox News host Sean Hannity hosted Republican pollster Frank Luntz on Tuesday night. Luntz used a focus group to suggest that President Obama is in political straits. Mainstream polling suggests a more divided view of the president. Credit: KABC-AM radio

OK, I confess. I thought I was made of sterner stuff, but I'm starting to officially miss "Countdown With Keith Olbermann." Rachel Maddow is just fine. Lawrence O'Donnell has potential. And Chris Matthews, well, has he ever gone 20 seconds without interrupting a guest?

Since Olbermann signed off Friday night, I've been having withdrawal pangs, missing his hilarious "Oddball" segments, longing for his eloquent rants, pining for his wryly comic Friday readings of James Thurber. Even if I didn't always agree with his politics, I thought Olbermann was an amazingly compelling on-air presence. Often unpredictable, almost always crackling with a kind of neurotic electricity, he was the closest thing on TV to a real-life Aaron Sorkin character, with a love of language, a barbed sense of humor and a passionate, occasionally self-destructive commitment to causes and personal ideals that sometimes only he seemed to understand.

Even though he's gone from MSNBC, thanks to Twitter we can still get a condensed version of what's on Olbermann's mind. He was in rare form during Rep. Michele Bachmann's "tea party" truly "oddball" response to the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night, offering zinger after zinger about the fact that Bachmann inexplicably seemed to be staring off camera during her entire speech. In other words, even though Olbermann wasn't on TV, he was focused on the TV-ness of it all, as if he were dreaming up a "Larry Sanders Show" sketch as he was watching.

Here's a few of his best bits:

"MICHELE! Hey! Yoo-hoo! CONGRESSWOMAN! We're the ones in the MIDDLE."

"Did the Tea Party not spring either for a Camera Red Light or a combined camera-teleprompter? It costs $3 extry."

"Seriously, somebody at the Tea Party needs to run on the stage, grab her, and POINT TO WHERE THE CAMERA IS."

"I haven't seen anything like that since Alan Keyes' old TV show where he would look left and right, even though there was no audience."

"Tonight's Final Score: Obama 22 Ryan 1 Bachmann -11,746."

Think Olbermann should have scored the speech differently? See it for yourself below.

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Keith Olbermann speaking to the Television Critics Association press tour at the Beverly Hilton in 2008.

Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

If you were reading a lot of media coverage of Tuesday's Oscar nominations, you'd think it was a glorious day for "True Grit" and its chances to win the best picture award. After all, the film landed 10 nominations, second only to the 12 for "The King's Speech," prompting Variety to say that "True Grit" "emerged as a strong contender" for best picture. But if you talk to Oscar insiders, you'd know that Variety's upbeat assessment is, well, a lot of hooey.

If there is one key indicator that provides the most accurate prediction of a film's best picture chances, it is not how many nominations the film received, but whether it earned an all-important nomination for best editing. In fact, not since "Ordinary People" way, way back in 1980 has a film won best picture without also being nominated for the best editing award. And sadly for directors Joel and Ethan Coen, "True Grit" did not score a best editing nomination, which pretty much puts a big damper on its best picture chances.

Of course, that means there are a host of other films that are already out of the best picture race too. If you believe in the predictive power of the best editing category, "Inception" is also dead in the water, since it didn't score an editing nomination or even a directing nod for Christopher Nolan. That leaves "The King's Speech," which did land an editing nomination, along with four possible rivals: "The Social Network," "The Fighter," "127 Hours" and "The Black Swan."

While some of those films, especially "The Fighter," are popular with a broad swath of the academy, I'm guessing right now that the Oscar horse race remains the same two-film derby it looked like two months ago, a showdown between "The King's Speech" and "The Social Network," which got eight nominations Tuesday and has racked up a host of critics' awards. They are both richly deserving of all their honors, but only one will emerge a winner. Will it be the vibrant, old-fashioned storytelling of "The King's Speech," which appeals to the older members of the academy, or the sharp-tongued cultural observations of "The Social Network," which has captured the imagination of a younger generation?

If I had to place a bet, I'd bet on the old trumping the new, since that's exactly what happened at the Oscars last year, when the gripping war-movie narrative of "The Hurt Locker" won out over the edgier, video-game style innovation of "Avatar." By that logic, the prize goes to "The King's Speech." But since when were the Oscars ever logical? I guess I'm saying that for now, this race is a lot like the Super Bowl match-up between the Packers and the Steelers. It's way too close to call.

--Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Jeff Bridges in a scene from the Oscar-nominated film "True Grit." Credit: Lorey Sebastian / Paramount Pictures

The case of Jay Cutler, the injured and viciously maligned quarterback of the Chicago Bears, renews the furor over injuries in pro football. It should cause sports journalists to rethink how they talk about players who decide they can no longer play.

The NFL, its players and its fans say they just hate the way their game maims and cripples the men who play it. They would do anything to prevent pro football from disabling  their Sunday heroes. Anything, that is, except forgiving a player who dares to admit he's too hurt to stay on the field.

Witness the vicious, immediate and relentless flogging that Cutler took over the weekend when a knee injury sent him out of the NFC championship game.

NFL veteran Derrick Brooks tweeted: “There is no medicine for a guy with no guts and no heart.” Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones Drew accused Cutler of quitting and added, also via Twitter: "He can finish the game on a hurt knee. I played the whole season on one."

The former players who are regular NFL commentators might have a little more perspective, having seen the dark side of retirements marred by rubber knees and missing memories. Instead, the veterans piled on, preceded by disingenuous disclaimers about how they would never judge the severity of Cutler's injury.

Mike Golic of ESPN radio's "Mike and Mike in the Morning": "I would be screaming and scratching to get back on the field.” Former Bears' coach Mike Ditka, on the same program, said he “would have to be completely knocked out to come out of that football game."

But, oops, then came the news that Cutler had torn his medial collateral ligament or MCL. Considerably more than a boo boo. That's also an injury that no one, outside the injured player or a doctor, can assess with any certainty.

But "apologies" for the instant condemnation of Cutler were muted at best. Jones Drew tried to claim he had "never attacked him, called him soft or a sore loser. I never questioned his toughness. I think people took my joke out of context."

Sure. A lack of context--the refuge of many a scoundrel trying to duck responsibility for exactly what they said.

The irony is that sports journalists, led by ESPN, have done considerable reporting on the dangers of football injuries, particularly concussions. We now clearly understand that football veterans lose their memory, suffer seizures, and worse, from too many shots to the head.

At least a word of sanity on the issue came from former quarterback Ron Jaworski, another commentator who appeared on the "Mike and Mike" show, who said he had injured the same knee ligament as Cutler. "I sprained my MCL once," Jaworski told Golic and his sidekick. "I was the holder for a field goal and almost fainted from the sharp pain that went through my knee."

Where Cutler really failed was not hollering and preening about how much he wanted to play. Another ESPNer and former QB, Trent Dilfer, questioned Cutler's "mentality in this football game." What this meant, Dilfer explained, was: "The fact he didn’t show the fight to re-enter the game. The fact he didn’t show the demonstrative behavior that most players put in this situation would show if told they couldn’t go in the game.”

It wouldn't have hurt if someone in the booth, on the sidelines, or on Twitter had reminded everyone  about the long line of heroes who dragged themselves back into the game, only to hurt their teams with poor play and hurt themselves, worsening already serious injuries.

It turns out doctors and sports ethicists have a lot to say about how all this tough talk brings us to a place where 50-year-old men, their short NFL careers over, can barely walk or remember what they had for breakfast.

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler on the sidelines during the fourth quarter of the 2011 NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field. Credit: Jeff Hanisch / US PRESSWIRE

It's a wonder that the security guards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn’t stop Mo’nique and make her show ID when she arrived to help announce the Oscar nominations early Tuesday at the organization’s Beverly Hills headquarters. After all, she was the only person of color involved with the extravaganza, since the 83rd annual Oscar nominations have the dubious distinction of being an all-white affair.

Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year.

There are so few significant African American characters in any of the 10 films nominated for best picture that comedian Aziz Ansari did a bit about it at the Producer’s Guild Awards on Saturday night, wondering why there couldn’t have been at least one black kid checking his Facebook account in “The Social Network,” adding that things were so white that in “127 Hours,” when James Franco’s hiker character cuts off his arm, it doesn't even turn black.

It's hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year’s most lauded films. “The Social Network” offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; “The Fighter” is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; “The King’s Speech” depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; “Toy Story 3,” like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while “True Grit” takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.

And if you’re wondering about lead actor nominee Javier Bardem, he’s from Spain.

The fault lies not with the academy, which has in recent years happily given out the occasional statuette to a black actor or actress lucky enough to get a big part in a serious film. Mo’Nique was on hand Tuesday morning because she won for supporting actress last year for her role in “Precious,” a film made by Lee Daniels, an African American filmmaker. Forest Whitaker won a lead actor Oscar in 2007 for “The Last King of Scotland,” and Halle Berry won a lead actress Oscar in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball” on the same night Denzel Washington won lead actor for “Training Day.”

You can argue that some minorities have been snubbed, starting with Spike Lee, who’s never been nominated for a directing award, not even for landmark films like “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X.” But the Oscars reflect what’s happening in the marketplace. And the cold truth is that black talent rarely receives Oscar opportunities because it works in one of the most minority-free industries in America.

Two African American coaches have faced off in the Super Bowl. Black coaches have won NBA championships. A black man has served on the Supreme Court, been a senator, an astronaut, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, won a Pulitzer Prize and — oh, yes — is currently serving as president of the United States. But if you look at the people who make the decisions about what movies are made in Hollywood, you’d have to look far and wide to find any prominent AfricanAmerican or Latino executives.

There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith’s longtime business partner and production company chief.

Smith has plenty of juice in town, with every studio salivating at the chance to make his next project. But he’s an anomaly and largely more interested in making commercial movies than Oscar-oriented fare (although he has twice been nominated for an acting Oscar).

Of last year’s top-grossing films, only one in the top 40 was directed by anyone of color, “The Book of Eli,” which starred Washington and was directed by the Hughes Brothers. Tyler Perry had two films in the Top 100 box-office grossers domestically, but like most films with African American casts, they made virtually no money overseas, which is where Hollywood increasingly looks for its profits.

What does this have to do with the Oscars? The films that end up being Academy Award nominees are usually labors of love and rarely feature the kind of easily accessible action heroes or broadly comic characters that suit a studio’s bottom-line sensibility. If you don’t have a person of color in the room where the decision-making happens, fervently arguing why a film should be brought into the world, it’s awfully hard for a project revolving around African American characters to emerge with a greenlight or any substantial financial backing.

Black and Latino actors can get parts as soldiers in an action film or comic sidekicks in a comedy, but when it comes to the kind of dramatic roles that attract Oscar attention, they need a lucky break, like the one Mo’Nique got from having a black filmmaker making the casting choices. Or the one Jennifer Hudson got, with her role in “Dreamgirls” established on the stage. Or the one Morgan Freeman got, landing a Oscar nomination last year as Nelson Mandela in “Invictus,” because he has a long track record of working with Clint Eastwood, and well, who else could play Mandela?

Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.

--Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Mo'Nique at the 83rd Academy Awards nominations announcement in Beverly Hills,

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

As Thomas Friedman famously put it in his 2005 bestseller, the world is flat. With the arrival of outsourcing, open-source software and Google-style search engine technology, great ideas, brainpower and money fly around the planet faster than ever, making historical and geographical divisions increasingly irrelevant in the global marketplace.

Except when it comes to Hollywood, where the world is hardly flat at all. In other arenas, quality is king, which is why we don't see millions of Americans driving Yugos rather than Toyotas or millions of Japanese listening to music on Microsoft's Zune instead of Apple's iPod. But in the movie business, the world has a strange tilt on its axis. Each year there are a surprising number of movies that are thoroughly rejected by American consumers that go on to enormous success around the rest of the globe.

"Gulliver's Travels" is a bomb in the U.S., struggling to reach the $40-million mark. But overseas, the 20th Century Fox film is a hit, on its way to grossing $170 million, four times what it's done in the states. Sony has similarly high hopes for "The Tourist," which has made a little more than $65 million here. The studio projects that the film will eventually make another $160 million around the world. The same goes for last summer's "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," which was written off as a costly flop after it made only $90 million in the U.S. But the film has gone on to make an amazing $244 million in the international marketplace.

What's going on here? How is it possible that an American-made product can be rejected by its home-grown consumers, yet embraced by moviegoers elsewhere? Everyone has a theory about what's going on, but it turns out that most of the films that adult moviegoers and critics in the U.S. view as depressing examples of the decline of American filmmaking--big 3-D action-adventure spectacles and clunky movie-star thrillers--are the very films that do best in the overseas market.

It turns out that Hollywood is taking advantage of its most compelling competitive advantage in world cinema. The epic scope of its Big Event movies can't be achieved in other countries, which is why some of the most striking overseas box-office successes have been achieved by 3-D movies or special-effects driven animated films. When it comes to the riches available in the ever-expanding global market, there is no better example than the box-office trajectory of the "Ice Age" series. The franchise has largely remained constant in the U.S.--with each of the three films making between $176 and $197 million--while the films have exploded around the globe, with the first film making $207 million overseas, the second one $457 million and the third one a whopping $690 million. 

The potential for overseas box-office bullion is also driving the explosion in 3-D releases. 3-D movies have two distinct advantages overseas--they can't be duplicated by local productions and, even better, they have a built-in safeguard against piracy, since the 3-D ingredient can be seen only in a theater. The real payoff came for horror films like the "Resident Evil" series. When the franchise's third installment was released, it did $50 million in the U.S., $96 million overseas. But the fourth film, "Resident Evil: Afterlife," released in 3-D, exploded when it was released last fall, making $60 million in the U.S. but an astounding $236 million overseas. 

As Jeff Blake, Sony's chairman of worldwide marketing and distribution, explains: "We're increasingly having to compete with local product in each marketplace, so to get people's attention away from the local product, you need something special. 3-D is the element that really makes the film stick."

In fact, it's because of the booming market overseas that studios have largely abandoned making dramas, since that's exactly the kind of genre that has the most difficult time competing with locally produced product. It's why even after two leading actors and an acclaimed filmmaker signed on to make "The Fighter," Paramount didn't give the film the green light until it had outside financing--there's no bonanza for such a uniquely American story overseas.

This phenomenon isn't limited to the movie business. According to Andrew Kronfeld, the executive vice president of international marketing at Universal Music, some pop stars find little success outside of the U.S. while others are huge all around the globe. Before his death, Michael Jackson was virtually a pariah in the U.S., yet he continued to sell enormous amounts of records overseas. Pink sells far more records overseas than in the U.S. On the other hand, Jay-Z is far bigger star in the U.S. than elsewhere.

Some music genres, like frothy pop and dance music, translate globally just as well as special-effects studded action films. "The pop-leaning hip-hop artists with Top 40 radio acceptance do really well internationally, while hip-hop artists with a mix tape street vibe have a harder time getting acceptance," Kronfeld says. "In general, pop love songs and dance beat songs translate a lot better than singer-songwriters or hip-hop artists with a real street vibe. Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas work everywhere, but artists like John Mayer and Dave Matthews just don't sell that well overseas."     

Making movies or music that can sell everywhere is good news for media conglomerates that are eager to grow, since overseas markets are expanding much faster around the world than in the U.S., where movie attendance is flat and record sales are in steep decline. But it's less of a boon for artists who value putting a strong sense of place into their stories. As former Universal Pictures co-chairman David Linde put it: "Movies that are strongly culturally rooted just don't travel as well, and a reason why few American comedies are big hits overseas. What's funny in France isn't necessarily what's funny in the U.S., and vice  versa, because comedy is so often rooted within your own culture and its personality."

Of course, for the past 100 years, America's movies have been deeply rooted in our fabled land of cultural opportunity. So the global applause for cultural exports that weren't even successful in America could well be a troubling sign of the beginning of the end of our cultural hegemony. No one makes more popular movies than the ones made in America, but it can't be great artistic news when it turns out that the movies that have the biggest global reach are the ones that are the least distinctively American.  

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: A poster of Jack Black's "Gulliver's Travels" on display before the opening of the Cannes Film Festival last May in Cannes. Credit: Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP/Getty Images

As I wrote last week, it seemed hard to believe that Kevin Smith could actually auction off his new film, "Red State," in front of an audience of moviegoers in Sundance on Sunday night. And we were right: It was a quasi-hoax. (You can read the details in this post from my colleague John Horn:  "Kevin Smith takes 'Red State' into his own hands") But after a vulgar introduction filled with obscene jokes and a tirade directed at the shady insider game of indie theatrical distribution, Smith auctioned off the movie for $20 to ... himself, saying he would self-distribute the film.

I've been bombarded with e-mails from indie distributors, not to mention appalled observers, who thought the whole spectacle was a bitter joke, mostly on the potential buyers, since at Sundance time is money, meaning that the acquisition execs wasted a lot of money watching a film that really wasn't up for sale when they could've been off somewhere else, watching something with actual sales potential. It sounds like the movie itself played well, but Smith played very badly. It's one thing to come off as a boorish boob, waving a Wayne Gretzky hockey stick on stage. But it's another thing to crassly exploit indie-film buyers and the media to shill your movie.

It left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Hollywood is a tough, brutally competitive town under the best of circumstances. But when you act like a bigger blockhead than Ricky Gervais, you've got troubles. Smith is going to be needing a lot of favors to succeed at distributing his own film, but right now, no one's in the mood to cut him any slack. Ask Harvey Weinstein -- it's tough to make a living when virtually everyone in the business is rooting for you to fail.  

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Kevin Smith adresses the audience after the premiere of his new film, "Red State," Jan. 23, 2011, at the Sundance Film Festival. Credit: Danny Moloshok / Associated Press

The Big Pic does not think much of Comcast’s promises to beef up local news and public affairs broadcasting once it takes over NBC, a deal approved this week by the FCC and Justice Department.

In my Saturday column, I discuss the pathetic performance of KNBC in Los Angeles in fulfilling the public service role all broadcasters are supposed to embrace as a duty when they take to the public airwaves.

With its federal approval this week, the cable behemoth Comcast promises to do at least as good a job as NBC (shudder) and to add a total of 1,000 hours of news and public service broadcasting across the 10 stations its owns nationally.

That’s an average of only 16 minutes per day, but even that would be a marked improvement if NBC added real, hard news minutes to its lineup. Past performance suggests the news giant will duck and dive and come up with some sorry infotainment excuses to meet its expanded news commitment.

Another proposal offers at least somewhat more hope for improving the quality of NBC's local coverage. Comcast pledged in December that at least five of its 10 affiliates—in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, San Jose, Dallas, Washington and West Hartford, Conn.—would form partnerships with nonprofit news organizations.

Which affiliates would form partnerships, and the exact terms, have not yet been spelled out. But it's expected that they will be modeled on the relationship between KNSD and Voice of San Diego. The NBC affiliate and the San Diego nonprofit have been working together for five years.

Voice of San Diego Chief Executive Scott Lewis explained that the news outlet, with about a dozen staff members, is now the “primary driver” behind three features on KNSD: "San Diego Explained," "San Diego Fact Check" and "Behind the Scenes," on local arts.

In the Fact Check, now a regular Friday feature on KNSD, Lewis and other Voice of San Diego staffers go on air to rule whether statements by the area's public officials are true or false. As I’ve written previously, VoiceofSanDiego.org is a feisty and promising news operation that's nailed a few big investigative pieces, including take-downs of scandal-ridden redevelopment projects.

Any news station worth its shrinking Nielsen ratings would benefit from the aid of new blood like a Voice of San Diego can provide. In exchange, the nonprofit's work with a TV outlet gets it publicity for the work it's doing, an expanded reach for its stories and some cash.

Under an agreement in the last year, KNSD pays Voice Of San Diego $3,300 a month for its contributions. That amount may not be a game changer, but it's enough for the nonprofit to pay a good part of the cost of one reporting position.

And, hopefully, the outlet will be able to obtain larger payments from the NBC affiliate in the future. Nonprofits like Voice Of San Diego have been one of the bright spots in the shrinking universe of serious mainstream journalism. Their biggest challenge has been scale—not enough revenue from big donors, corporate sponsors and reader-members to sustain newsrooms anywhere near as big as most newspapers, even greatly diminished ones.

Comcast’s commitment to the nonprofit news organizations is an admirable start. But couldn’t the cable behemoth do a little bit better? Its initial promise—bolstering five nonprofits for at least three years--seems paltry.

If the budgets are similar to those in San Diego (and that one took years to get to the commitment of roughly $40,000 a year), the Comcast payment for five partnerships would be just $200,000 a year. That's about equal to the salary for one news anchor in a decent-sized market.

How about a commitment by Comcast to support nonprofit news in all 10 markets that it will get when it acquires NBC? And why not up the ante to give, say, $200,000 to each of those 10 stations? That $2 million would show a real commitment to serious local news coverage and still amount to a tiny rounding error on the enormous investment the company is making in NBC Universal.

Comast would thereby not only show goodwill, but feather its own nest--bolstering the start of up-and-coming news organizations that will help it put better content on the air. In Corporate Medialand, I believe they call that a "win-win."

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. The media giant has committed to increasing local news and public affairs programming when it takes over NBC television outlets. The Big Picture thinks the Comcast boss should do more. Credit: AP / George Widman 

You can take the barker away from the carnival, but I guess you can't ever suck the carny instincts out of Kevin Smith's brain. For years, the burly filmmaker who catapulted to indie fame with "Clerks" has played the press like a drum, stirring up all sorts of controversies (and making clever use of podcasts and Twitter feeds) to promote his movies and his brand.

But times have been hard for Smith lately, with his recent films taking it on the chin at the box office. So you kind of knew that when he headed off to Sundance this year to sell his new horror film, "Red State," he'd pull a gimmick out of his hat. Sure enough, that's what's happened. According to this post from Variety, Smith will conduct a live auction of the film after its first public showing Sunday night at the Eccles Center. Buyers will have to bid for the picture in front of a live audience -- which, just to make things even more chaotic, will include protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church, whose leader is apparently portrayed as a crazed and murderous religious zealot in the film. 

Smith merrily describes the film as "an 'angel worship' movie, where the killers aren't worshippers but God worshippers to some degree. It's about America's dark [expletive] heart." I'm sure a wonderful media circus will unfold, since it's almost impossible to make a cold-eyed assessment of a bloody horror film screened before an audience guaranteed to be crazed Smith zealots. Variety's story, which reads like a Smith press release, also notes that Smith's producers and sales agents already have allowed distributors to make sight-unseen pre-screening pitches to help his team gauge potential interest in the film.

I'm not saying Smith is deluded, but in one of his podcasts, he speculated that if the film played as well a "Godfather" or "Godfather 2," he was hoping for a $6-million to $8-million sale. Yeah, right. Call me a cynic, but I'm betting that in the end, we won't see anything resembling an actual finalized deal happening in public in front of a noisy gaggle of Smith fans. It will happen, if it happens at all, like all film deals happen, in a boring private haggling session in someone's condo, far from the madding crowd.

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Kevin Smith at the premiere of his 2010 film "Cop Out" in New York. Credit: Peter Kramer / Associated Press

 
OK, maybe I spoke too soon. Piers Morgan did get someone to give him a scoop: George Clooney, who'll be on "Piers Morgan Tonight" on Friday, tells the CNN host he contracted malaria in Sudan. I guess this is an example of the true difference between Morgan and Larry King--Morgan broke the news in a tweet, whereas King would've sent out a press release.

Morgan followed up with another tweet, joking about the star's health: "Clooney malaria update: now have 24,563 offers to nurse him. But his rep says medication's worked and he's OK. Sorry, ladies."

--Patrick Goldstein

Photo: George Clooney in Sudan. Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Piers Morgan is doing what he's supposed to do--score ratings for CNN, which has seen itself sinking into near-oblivion in the cable news ratings universe. But I've been watching Morgan this week largely to see what kind of interviewing smarts he's developed after surviving years as a high-profile media icon in the British tabloid racket. After all, he was editing England's largest-selling newspaper, the News of the World, before he was 30, although he's suffered a number of dings to his reputation since then, most notably losing his job as editor of the Mirror in 2004 after publishing crudely faked photos of British soldiers torturing imprisoned Iraqis. 

He's had better luck as a TV personality, doing fluff like "America's Got Talent." But how is he faring on "Piers Morgan Tonight," doing hourlong interviews with the likes of Howard Stern, Oprah and Condoleezza Rice? One thing we've seen right away is that American media personages are savvy enough to know how to fend off almost any interviewer's advances, no matter how crafty. When Morgan tried to nudge Oprah into forbidden territory, hoping to lure her to talk about the tabloid reports of a lesbian relationship with one of her close friends, she firmly shut the door, telling him there was no way she was "going there."

When Morgan tried to get Rice to say that she would consider serving in some capacity in the Obama administration, which would've stirred some Web buzz, she fended him off, saying "I don't do hypotheticals, Piers." Nor did Morgan get anywhere trying to cajole Stern into admitting that, at 57, he couldn't possibly have such sleekly black hair. I guess if no one can get Paul McCartney to admit that his hair is colored, no one can get Stern to do it. He actually told Morgan, "I swear on a stack of Bibles that I don't color my hair," which was pretty funny in itself, since it's hard to imagine Stern being within 100 miles of a stack of Bibles.

Still, I'd have to give Morgan pretty high marks as an interviewer, especially in an era where doing a proper interview is something of a lost art. Most late-night hosts are awful, since they're largely using their guests as fodder for the host's own quips. Jon Stewart, who is a brilliant satirist, is a lousy interviewer, always interrupting his guests and offering up long-winded, hard-to-follow questions. Even Charlie Rose, who gets the best guests on TV, is a disappointment, lobbing softballs to people you're dying to see him fry on the grill. I was hoping that Christiane Amanpour would bring some fresh air to the Sunday morning bloviator circuit, but she has shown little aptitude for wresting any straight answers out of wily politicians and administration figures. The best interviewer remains Fox News' Chris Wallace, who is well-prepared, to the point and not afraid to politely call out a politico who's attempted to dodge a legitimate question.

Morgan's chat with Stern was tons of fun, but hardly a breakthrough, since most of Stern's best riffs were on subjects he's addressed a thousand times before, like his unhappy relationship with his father, his fondness for watching pornography and his loathing for Jay Leno, whom he dismissed as "not being fit to scrub David Letterman's feet." I figured that Morgan's sit-down with Rice Wednesday night would be a true test of his mettle. But it would be hard to say that he laid a glove on her, with the interview meandering from a host of lightweight queries about her cooking, her love of football and her workout regime and other personal areas ("Have you ever been intoxicated?") to a series of brow-furrowing questions about the Iraq war that did little but show how adept Rice is at dodging media bullets.

If the interview revealed anything, it was how polished Rice has become at avoiding saying anything remotely controversial. When Morgan asked her about Sarah Palin, Rice called her "an important and consequential figure in American politics," even though it seemed clear from her chilly delivery that she admired Palin about as much as does Hugo Chavez.

All in all, I'd say that while Morgan is a huge improvement over Larry King, he's got a ways to go to find his own cozy niche in the talk-show circus. If he wants to make news on his show, he's going to have to be more of a provocateur, finding ways to steer these polished media personages away from their predictable talking points. Morgan did have one bright shining moment at the end of his talk with Stern. When Howard tried to turn the tables, asking Morgan, "How big is your penis?," Morgan was quick to retort: "Bigger than yours." We know that when it comes to Howard Stern, that's not saying much, but it was a promising sign that perhaps Morgan possesses the kind of sassy style that could eventually turn his show into must-see TV.

--Patrick Goldstein  

Photo: Piers Morgan, left, interviewing Condoleezza Rice on CNN's "Piers Morgan Show." Credit: Lorenzo Bevilaqua / Associated Press/CNN

Group-buying websites have been all the rage on the Web in recent months, as I noted in a recent "On the Media" column.

The latest buzz surrounded Living Social's half-off sale--a $20 Amazon.com gift card for $10--that had been purchased by more than 1 million people as of Wednesday evening. And that was with 12 hours still remaining for more people to sign up.

That amounts to Amazon preparing to shell out at least $20 million in merchandise, while customers pay just $10 million. Sounds like a bad deal for the online super-mart, even worse when you consider that Living Social typically takes 30%.

But Amazon has a substantial investment, $175 million, in LivingSocial. So there's some mutual back-scratching, and audience-building, going on here.

The biggest lesson I've learned writing about social-purchasing websites in the last couple of days is that their followers can be fanatical. Some sign up for deal after deal, even if they might not have time to use all the discounts.

The second biggest lesson is that fans don't completely understand what their rights are, at least in one regard.

I talked to several Groupon users who said they had bought so many of the site's discount coupons that they had failed to spend some by the designated "expiration" dates. They believed that they had lost their investment.

But as I suggested in the "On the Media" column, that's not necessarily true. A new federal law requires the certificates be redeemable for up to five years, while many of the discounts are only said to be good for a matter of months.

Groupon spokeswoman Julie Mossler e-mailed me that it's unclear which state regulations should be applied to Groupon's activities. "Gift card law is more stringent, so that's what we follow and ask our merchants to abide by as well," she said.

Mossler also suggested that the Chicago-based company follows Illinois law, "the strictest in the country" in an attempt to give the greatest protection to consumers. She said that meant the company suggested its business partners honor its deals for five years "to be safe."

The problem with that is that California law dictates that the coupons (if gift card rules are applied) are  redeemable for a bit longer. Something closer to...forever. Gift cards in the state can include no expiration date, according to Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Consumer Affairs.

Heimerich said the coupons printed out by Groupon users (and customers of other group-selling sites) should be honored for their full value even after the printed expiration.

Another fact that merchants and customers might not know about the online discount deals: California regulations require that certificates with a value less than $10 should be refunded in cash, if that is what the consumer demands.

Many buyers have doubtless been to shops and restaurants that want to return the "change" from the unused portion of a Groupon or other gift card only in the form of a voucher. But rules on the Department of Consumer Affairs website specify that customers who want amounts under $10 back in cash should get it. (Actually the regulations also allow the merchant to give the change via check, though I'm not sure why they would want to do that.)

So for all those zealous buyers who think they blew it and waited too long to cash in: you didn't! And for Groupon, which has shown good faith in other disputes: Why not just ditch the expiration dates altogether?

--James Rainey

--Twitter: latimesrainey

I've known Sean Smith for years, not as a close friend, but in the way you get to know someone by hanging out with them at movie screenings and awards season buffets, making sardonic quips about our shared experiences interviewing pampered movie stars and egomaniacal filmmakers. But Smith always seemed to have more on his mind than box-office returns and casting coups, so I can't say I was surprised to hear late last week that he was leaving his gig as L.A. bureau chief for Entertainment Weekly to join the Peace Corps. He'd applied for the job 18 months ago, and it was clear that Smith, who is far more thoughtful and idealistic than your average showbiz reporter, was ready for a change. 

What I didn't know is something that Smith reveals in a refreshingly honest article that he's just posted at the Daily Beast: Angelina Jolie gets the credit -- or the blame, as he wryly puts it -- for him ditching his 13-year career as an entertainment journalist. He says he has given away almost everything that he owns and is leaving for rural South Africa, where he will begin a 27-month commitment as an HIV/AIDS outreach volunteer. It was on a trip to interview Jolie in Mumbai in 2006 that Smith realized that something was amiss. As he writes:

I was good at my job and paid well, and yet I couldn't shake the sense that I was spending most of my energy on something that ultimately wasn't real. Writing about Hollywood is like being a reporter at Disneyland. At first, you can't believe that you get to spend every day in The Happiest Place on Earth. Everyone wants to ask you about your work. You're surrounded by princesses, and the sky sparkles with pixie dust. But as the years go on, you learn about the oily machinery that manufactures all that enchantment. You see what Cinderella's really like when that glass slipper comes off. And then one day you notice that the magic is gone, and all you're left with is a small, small world.

Many of us view Jolie as a caricature of the do-gooder Hollywood star who dabbles in humanitarian efforts as a way to cleanse herself of some of that very pixie dust. But Smith saw something different in Mumbai, a city where nearly half of its 18 million people live in horrific poverty. Jolie, who was there in her capacity as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, told him that "we all go through stages in our life where we feel lost, and I think it all comes down to having a sense of purpose. ... When I became a mom and started working with the U.N., I was happy. I could die and feel that I'd done the right things with my life." 

The message resonated with Smith, who realized that if he were willing to make a few sacrifices, "I could find my sense of purpose and engage myself in work that would feel meaningful to me and be helpful to others." So he's off to work in the Peace Corps. Jolie apparently gave him one other important tip. He says he's "currently trying to calculate how much Kiehl's moisturizer could fit in my 80-pound luggage allotment."  

I hope Smith will occasionally take time to share with us some of his experiences in South Africa, trying to make a difference in the world. And Sean, if you ever change your mind and want to come back, I can pretty much guarantee that all that silly enchantment will still be here -- the stars will still be showing up late for their interviews, the studios will still be telling whoppers about their movie budgets and the Golden Globes will still be providing all of us with great comedy material. The names may change, but those wonderful bedrock Hollywood values of ego and entitlement will remain the same. Aloha, shalom and happy trails to you.

-- Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Angelina Jolie arriving at the 68th annual Golden Globes awards in Beverly Hills. Credit: Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images

KCET's New Year's break from the PBS system and its move to become an independent station seemed quite final and irreversible.

But in an interview published in a trade publication, the hard-charging head of KCET's board held out the possibility that KCET might one day return to PBS.

Huh? Given the hard feelings at the public network that seems a bit like NBC offering to make nice with Conan O'Brien. But perhaps nothing is eternal in love ...and television.

Speaking to Broadcasting & Cable, KCET Chairman Gordon Bava was asked if the station might return to the public TV network's "fold." His response: "That is certainly a possibility. We have not terminated our relationship with PBS, we have suspended it indefinitely. We aren’t sure PBS is willing to accept that distinction, but that is our express intention. So that when the dust settles and we see maybe in a couple of years what the future of PBS holds and its role will be, we certainly would be open to returning on a reasonable and sustainable basis."

KCET stunned many people in the small and insular public broadcasting world when it said last year (to The Times, incidentally) that it would break with the dominant public TV network. Bava and station Chief Executive Al Jerome said KCET simply couldn't afford to pay the roughly $7 million in annual "dues" levied by PBS.

Bava also says in the Broadcasting & Cable interview that he thinks many other public stations will be in danger of closing down if the federal government cuts funding--as congressional Republicans have proposed.

The stations have already been losing support rapidly, Bava said, adding: "In this era of budget cuts and eliminating government services and a reluctance to increase taxes, the viability of the system is in question."

Bava told the trade publication that public TV may, like the auto industry, have to be retooled in order to justify its taxpayer subsidy. He suggested a "new grand bargain" between public TV, Congress and the American people.

With KCET out of PBS, the vast bulk of PBS programming now comes to Southern California via Orange County-based KOCE. KOCE Chief Executive Mel Rogers previously expressed puzzlement about KCET's flight from PBS. On Tuesday, Rogers told my colleague Scott Collins that he found Bava's remark about a possible return to PBS "curious and surprising.”

PBS execs could not be reached. But given Bava's previous tough talk about PBS and its fees, he must have stunned a lot of people by holding the door open to a renewed relationship with KCET. I doubt many of the people in charge at PBS would welcome a second marriage.

--James Rainey

Twitter: latimesrainey

Photo: KCET Chief Executive Al Jerome, who helped engineer the public television station's flight from the PBS network. Now the chairman of the KCET board, Gordon Bava, has held open the door that KCET might someday return to PBS. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times