A tipster tells us that more layoffs are coming down at Viacom today: "They are cleaning house at VH1/MTV Linked Group right now. Like more than half the people involved with the website and the video just got laid off. HR is making appointments to call every freelancer this afternoon." Skeery. If you have more info, email us.
UPDATE: Another tipster adds: "Freelancers are being called in because when they hit their 9 mon point they have to leave. They can come back 3 mon later and be considered a new hire. They're trying to get rid of the perma-lancer thing that went down Dec. 07 but still not hire anyone as staff."

Some freelancers were given a 3 mon extension on their contract but they can only be given it once before HR gives them the axe.


An analyst thinks the New York Times Co. could raise $1.2 billion by selling the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, its new headquarters building, and its stake in the Red Sox. On one hand it would mean taking a huge loss on those assets, but on the other hand $1.2 billion is not that bad, considering that it's more than the market cap of the NYT Co.

Keith Kelly confirms our rumor from yesterday about Newsweek closing its London bureau. He also says that Newsweek staffers are pissed they had to read about their magazine's big redesign in a New York Times story. Which is understandable. Is that how the Historical Jesus would act?


Five large NY/ NJ newspapers including the New York Daily News and the Newark Star-Ledger are all going to share content with each other, probably so that some of them can lay off some reporters.

Playboy had an atrocious fourth quarter, losing $145 million, and now says that it's "open" to discussion of selling its flagship magazine. They should really have to change the company name if they do that.

Now that the summer season is (almost) here, along with the usual collection of sequels, comedies, converted TV shows and special-effects derbies, we can expect a deluge of happy endings—you don't build franchises on bleak conclusions. The very notion of a franchise film, however, almost guarantees that its ending be less than fully satisfying. If it were, why would we want to come back for more? ...

Will any of these upbeat finales, like the much-anticipated return of Indiana Jones, fill us with real joy—the way that rousing rock-and-roll finale of the original "Shrek" left us with a big childlike grin on our faces? Constructing these tentpole extravaganzas, the studios often think that throwing millions of dollars of special effects in our faces is a reasonable substitute for a dramatically coherent ending, as if the sheer noise and spectacle will convince us we're having a thumping good time.

Naturally, Ansen can't even wank himself to a decent climax; first come the spoilers, from About Schmidt to Witness For The Prosecution to Carrie to Before Sunset and more — none especially guarded mass-culture secrets, but all yielding some pop for anyone who hasn't seen them. Then come the loose ends: Two of last year's most celebrated films, No Country For Old Men (Best Picture!) and There Will Be Blood (Best Picture runner-up!), were debated, dissected and embraced precisely because of the ambiguity of their endings. Neither receive any mention here.

Ansen also omits Star Wars, which kicked off the most profitable franchise in cinema history with a perfectly self-contained two-hour film — then followed it with a grim sequel featuring a cliffhanger still waiting to be outdone. Our own theory is that Ansen planned his own two-part series, which will conclude in next week's issue with a grand finale announcing... Oh, why spoil it? We've been waiting forever to see how Ansen will explain his last 30 years.

• Endless Summer [Newsweek]

Amid firings, buyouts and retirements at dailies and weeklies around the country, Ansen is the first critic from a national publication to land in the execution chamber. But to hear him tell it, the afterlife could be a good thing:

"It was a good deal," he said. "They didn't want me to leave, which put me in a nice bargaining position. They may have been shocked at how many people took the offer." ...

Ansen looks forward to writing books, teaching, and "not going out to screenings every night," he said. "I want to watch DVDs of movies I might actually like and read a book or two. Face it, a lot of movies are not that interesting to write about these days."

We sympathize with Ansen over his grueling life of film criticism, and indeed, his unwavering spirit of inquisitiveness and imagination will be sorely missed once he winds things down at the end of the year. We don't know how he lasted as long as he did, especially through the lackluster cinematic crop that was 2007; God knows we would have given up on this racket a long time ago.

• Ansen to Leave Newsweek After 30 Years [Thompson on Hollywood]