Who was Saul Bass? He was “one of the great figures of twentieth century design and filmmaking,” write his biographers. “In the mid to late 1950s he expanded the boundaries of graphic design to include film title sequences – a genre that he transformed. He is best known for a series of title sequences, posters and trademarks, featuring impossibly compressed and highly evocative images of intense clarity and subtle ambiguities….” The biography is “Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design,” by the esteemed art historian Pat Kirkham and Bass’ daughter, Jennifer. Four years ago next week, I wrote th ..read more

Please click here for your printable Oscar ballot ..read more

As usual, if you want a ballot with our choices already filled out, we have that too. It’s been filled out by our editorial director and publisher, Chuck Ross. No guarantees, of course, but Chuck usually does pretty well with his choices… To get that ballot, please click on the link below: Oscar Ballot 2020-Filled Out ..read more

By Chuck Ross Editorial Director and Publisher, TVWeek As someone born and raised in the shadow of Hollywood, I’m thrilled to have a Varietyese headline of my own choosing. It’s time to move on. I turned 68 this month and I’m retiring. I’ll still write — I can now devote all my attentions to a book I’ve been researching for several years — but myself and my colleague and friend Dennis R. Liff, our executive editor — who has done most of the heavy lifting for this site for a long time now — are calling it quits for TVWeek. Primarily it’s been just the two of us who have been putting out TVWeek ..read more

By Chuck Ross First and foremost, thank you. Without our readers we wouldn’t have been able to have a great run of almost 40 years. The reason I’ve been able to be at the helm of this publication is primarily because of David Klein, Scott Donaton, Gloria Scoby and Rance Crain. Scott, who is now at Hulu, was the first person I spoke to about coming to Crain Communications. That was back in 1996. Scott had just been appointed to run, on the edit side, Advertising Age, along with David Klein. So I became Ad Age’s media editor. Four year later, in 2000, David Klein and Gloria Scoby asked me to tak ..read more

The president of production for Twentieth Century Studios has resigned, ending a run at the company that lasted two decades. Variety reports that the departure of Emma Watts “comes after mutterings that Watts was unhappy about not being given more to do at Twentieth after the company was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2019. In her resignation letter, Watts cited a need to ‘pursue new opportunities.’” The report adds that Watts is “the latest in a long line of Fox veterans and top executives to leave the company following the sale, joining the likes of studio chairman Stacey Snider (wit ..read more

A newly published survey ranking celebrities by the number of times they’ve been arrested finds that the No. 1 “arrestee,” by a huge margin, is Martin Sheen. The survey by the gambling website ToppCasinoBonus.com determined that Sheen, who had a long run as President Josiah Bartlet on “The West Wing,” has been arrested 66 times. The New York Post notes that Sheen’s record is attributed to protests and civil disobedience, including appearances at anti-war and anti-nuclear demonstrations. “Sheen vastly outranks the second-most-arrested celebrity: Libertines and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty ..read more

A reboot that has been in the works at the CW won’t be going forward, with Deadline reporting that the broadcast network pulled the plug on its planned one-hour follow-up series to the football comedy “The Game.” The project came from Mara Brock Akil, creator of the original 2006 half-hour comedy, and “American Soul” co-creator Devon Greggory. “Based on the pilot script by Akil and Greggory, I hear the CW brass made the decision not to move forward with the CBS TV Studios-produced project in its current form but were open to redeveloping it with Akil,” Nellie Andreeva reports in the Deadline p ..read more

CBS just gave a four-season renewal to a drama series that has been airing on the network for 48 years. TVLine reports that the network picked up the daytime drama “The Young and the Restless” through the 2023-24 television season. TVLine notes that “Y&R” has been the No. 1 soap for 33 years running. “The past season marked cast member Melody Thomas Scott’s 40th year with the show,” the report adds. “Her leading man, Eric Braeden, will mark the same milestone next month.” CBS’s other soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which recently celebrated its 33rd anniversary, also appears to h ..read more

The late basketball legend Kobe Bryant will be a part of this Sunday’s Super Bowl festivities in Miami, with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira announcing Thursday in a joint press conference that they will be paying tribute to Bryant during their halftime show. The singers’ 12-minute performance will also pay tribute to Latino culture and will carry a message of empowerment, the AP reports. “Shakira and Lopez have separately released a number of chart-topping hits that dominated both the pop and Latin charts in the last two decades,” the AP notes. “While rehearsing days ago, Lopez said her beau Alex ..read more