The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced that longtime television and film producer, James L. Brooks, will be honored with the Guild’s 2017 Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television. The award will be presented to Brooks at the 28th Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony on January 28, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.
Brooks has won 22 Emmys® and is a three-time Academy Award®-winner. He is the creative force behind such era-defining shows as The Simpsons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Taxi. His current project, Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld, will be in theaters this month.
Producers Guild Awards Chairs Donald De Line and Amy Pascal stated, “For decades, Jim Brooks has brought memorable characters, big laughs and above all, a profound sense of humanity into our homes. Jim is a producer whose work has influenced multiple generations of storytellers, so it’s an incredible privilege to be able to honor him with our Guild’s Norman Lear Achievement Award.”
Shonda Rhimes was the 2016 recipient of the PGA’s Norman Lear Award. Previous honorees include Mark Gordon, Chuck Lorre, J.J. Abrams, Dick Wolf, Jerry Bruckheimer, Lorne Michaels, David L. Wolper, Aaron Spelling, Carsey/Werner/Mandabach, Steven Bochco, David E. Kelley, Mark Burnett, and Norman Lear, himself.
Brooks began his television career as a writer who then later produced television hits such as Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Lou Grant, Room 222, The Tracy Ullman Show, and The Simpsons.
Brooks began working in film in 1979 when he wrote the screenplay for Starting Over which he co-produced with Alan J. Pakula. In 1983, Brooks wrote, produced, and directed Terms of Endearment for which he earned three Academy Awards. In 1987, he wrote, produced, and directed Broadcast News which won the New York Dramas Critics Award for best picture and best screenplay. In 1997, Brooks co-wrote, produced, and directed As Good As It Gets starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, and Greg Kinnear. The film garnered 7 Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, and won Oscars for both Nicholson and Hunt for their performances.
Currently, Brooks is an executive producer on The Simpsons which debuted on Fox in 1989 and is the longest running primetime animated television series airing in the U.S. The influential, groundbreaking show has garnered 32 Emmy Awards to date and is the first animated program to earn a Peabody Award. Other recent TV credits include The Critic, another primetime animated series starring Jon Lovitz; Phenom starring Judith Light, William Devane and Angela Goethals; and What About Joan, starring Joan Cusack.
Brook’s feature film credits also include Say Anything, War of the Roses, Big, Bottle Rocket, Jerry Maguire, Spanglish and The Simpsons Movie. He recently produced Edge of Seventeen written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig for STX Productions. It stars Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, and Kyra Sedgwick and will be released in November 2016.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More