Your extremely trendy, breezy tour guide to what's happening in showbusiness
Written: Apr 27 '01
Product Rating:
Quality of Gossip:
Pros: Breezy articles; excellent layout and design; good sense of humor; special issues.
Cons: A little TOO succinct; critics are way off base; where's the feature articles?
The Bottom Line: A good source for entertainment news AND a valid forum for critical discussion (even if the critics are nuts - they're excellent writers).
Chad9976's Full Review: Entertainment Weekly Magazine
I considered titling this review "The Sports Illustrated of entertainment," because the entertainment industry is a competitive, cutthroat industry where studios and corporations square off against each other like teams do in sports. And Entertainment Weekly is right there covering all the action, making predictions and doing what everyone loves to do - analyze and criticize!
I've been subscribing to EW for many years now and I've come to the conclusion that it's the best way to stay on top of this quickly-moving, ever-changing world of showbusiness. Some people might compare it to the show "Entertainment Tonight" but the difference is EW isn't all coverage of celebrities' personal lives and other such brown-nosing (although they do do a lot of that!), they're more concerned with "legitimate news stories."
It's laughable to say this publication is a source of hard-hitting, investigative journalism, but they do a good job in covering behind-the-scenes stories of movies in development and the going-ons at the set of a TV show and musicians' latest albums and concert tours.
A MAGAZINE THAT'S EASY ON THE EYES.... AND THE BRAIN
The thing about Entertainment Weekly is that it's marketed for the masses which is why all the news is succinct and breezy, not unlike "USA Today." Also, take a look at the layout and design - lots of pastel colors, lots of categorizing, an eye-appealing font, cute and funny photographs, lots of cartoons and caricatures. The people pulling the strings at this mag know most Americans read at an 8th grade level and people have rather short attention spans which is why everything has to be so humorous and breezy. Attention to detail? Sorry. If you want that, read the New York Times.
I give EW a big thumbs up for its ability to be so breezy and enjoyable and as thorough as possible in such limited space and time. I mean, a typical issue runs about 80 pages and you subtract advertisements and mathematically speaking it's amazing you get so much information and whatnot in such a small capacity.
On the other hand as someone who considers himself a pretty intelligent person I sometimes feel cheated when I'm able to read through an entire issue in 20 minutes! Entertainment Weekly is like a Jolly Rancher for your mind - you love it while you're enjoying it but when it's over you want A LOT more!
ENOUGH TEENYBOPPERS ON THE COVER ALREADY!!!!
Entertainment Weekly's so-called mission is to cover the "hottest" thing on the scene RIGHT NOW which means you're going to see a lot of people and things on the cover you don't particularly care for. Eminem (ugh), Julia Roberts, Gweneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck, N'Sync, etc. Did you know the Backstreet Boys have been featured on the cover THREE times in as many years? Where's the writers, directors, producers, novelists, special effects artists, Internet moguls?
A WARNING TO ENTERTAINERS: JUST BECAUSE ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY WRITES ABOUT ONE WEEK DOESN'T MEAN THEY'LL LIKE YOU THE NEXT WEEK!
Mad Magazine once did a spoof of EW: "Why we love everything that's popular" and that was a great zinger because it's true. Although, to make it totally accurate I'd change it to: "Why we love everything that's popular THIS WEEK.... next week is anyone's guess!"
I can recall MANY instances in which a celebrity or music act or movie was featured on the cover and had a fairly flattering story written about them and 10 pages later one of the critics ripped them to shreds. For a perfect example just look a few issues back: Tom Green is featured on the cover and inside there's a nice article about him personally that actually makes the guy look good. Then in the next issue his movie "Freddy Got Fingered" received an F! I wouldn't call the people at EW backstabbers, though. It's their "responsibility" to the public to cover the biggest news in entertainment and that's what they do. The critics are a different story though. Which brings me to......
E.W. CRITICS: THEY HAVE B@LL$ OF STEEL
You have to give Entertainment Weekly credit, despite all the butt-kissing they do in their articles their critics aren't afraid to speak their minds and tell you if something a studio spent a gazillion dollars on or something that's been hyped beyond belief really sucks.
When it comes to critical analysis and discussion the editors back off and let the critics and columnists write whatever the hell they want no matter how outrageous or controversial. For example, in one issue the movie "Fight Club" was graded as a C while "The Story of Us" received an A-!
Of course controversy creates buzz and buzz sells more magazines and that makes EW all the more popular and "powerful." There's people out there that think some of the reviews are so way out of whack sometimes for those reasons alone but I don't. I've been reading these critics for years and I've come to understand their reasoning and I've gotten a good sense of their personalities. There's just too much nuance and detail to the reviews, so any kind of drastic editorializing or doctoring for shock value would be obvious and the readers would notice. Entertainment Weekly doesn't play those kind of games.
SPECIAL ISSUES ROCK!
Probably the best perk to being a regular subscriber is that you won't miss any of their special editions or imprint publications. About three or four times a year they put out special issues such as "Top 50 Funniest Comedians" or "100 Greatest Moments in Rock History," or "The History of Gross-Out Movies" or "The Top 100 Best DVDs Available," etc. Up until a few years ago it seemed like every issue had some list of the best something or other of all time but those features have been scaled back since early 2000.
Aside from those best-of and other "list" special issues something EW always does every year is their Oscar predictions, post-Oscar coverage, The "It" List, fall TV preview, guide to summer movies and the year in review. I love all these issues because you can tell the staff puts a lot more energy and concentration into these issues than the others. The magazine itself is always a lot thicker for these issues so as a subscriber you feel a little rewarded that you're only paying about 99¢ for that issue unlike the people at the newsstand who had to shell out $2.99 or $3.50 or however much is it for the bigger issues.
The "It" List is one of my favorite issues of the year because it's the one time of year the lesser-known people in showbusiness get their chance to shine. The up-and-coming actors, musicians, writers and other creative people as well as people behind the scenes such as the guys that just developed the latest special effects technique for George Lucas.
And once in a great while they also publish imprint issues that carry the Entertainment Weekly logo but aren't actually issues of the magazine - they're special publications about one topic. An all-Seinfeld tribute issue is a treasured collection of mine as well as the "How To Break Into Showbusiness." The titles are pretty self-explanatory and as a subscriber you get them for free!
EVERY DEPARTMENT AND REGULAR FEATURE REVIEWED
I've covered the magazine as a whole and how their cover stories and feature articles work, now let's get into the specific features you'll find in every issue:
LETTERS
This is the first thing I read when a new issue comes in the mail, mostly because it's right there at the front and the letters are just as breezy and succinct and humorous as the entire magazine. However, what I find odd is that 99% of the letters published are by readers moaning and b!tching about EW's handling of one issue or another. Here's a perfect example, remember that part about the critics being totally nuts sometimes. Here's what a reader wrote in response to the aforementioned example: "I think there's been a printing error. In my last issue Fight Club got a C and The Story of Us got an A-. Can you please send me a corrected version?"
GRADE: B
NEWS & NOTES
A two-page column of actual "news" and trends of something in Hollywood. Puff Daddy's trial, Tom and Nicole's divorce, what's happening with the actor and writers' strike and an attempt to cover the latest trend when no real trend exists. For something to be a trend it's got to be more than just a coincidence and lasting longer than a week!
GRADE: B-
JIM MULLEN'S HOT SHEET
Ugh.
This is a rip-off of a Letterman Top 10 List only with REALLY bad, uninspired, unfunny totally lame one-liners.
Example: Weakest Link - A British game show in which participants are insulted, the dismissed. In America that's called "Voting in Florida."
Ugh.
GRADE: D
FLASHES/MONITOR/THE SCOUT
Basically the same as News & Notes but here it's only blurbs and briefs and the text is a lot breezier and funnier. More places for EW to show pictures of celebrities and the so-called latest fades but it's not done under the guise of "news" so I don't mind it at all. It's really one step up from a supermarket tabloid but because I like EW so much I'll give it much kudos.
GRADE: B+
MOVIES
This is probably the best part of Entertainment Weekly and in the last few years seems to have become the mag's strongest selling point. Forget the cover story, go check out what Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum are reviewing!
I said before the critics at EW can be really nutty, well it's these two critics alone that bare the brunt of that blame. I like Gleiberman because he's pretty mainstream and easy-going. He tends not to rave about many films and keeps his bashing of bad films to a minimum. His writing style is so overly trendy and critical it's quite difficult to describe. Lots of metaphors and pop culture references mixed together so that reviews often read more like Walt Whitman poetry or something.
The Yin to Gleiberman's Yang is Lisa Schwarzbaum, an uber-feminist Jewish American Princess who tends to love or hate everything. I RARELY agree with her and I find her writing style often annoying because she makes almost everything into a political issue. And when she dislikes something, man, she REALLY hates it! Take her review of "Pay It Forward" a movie I thought was pretty manipulative and mediocre but not terrible. She called it a "relentless tearjerker" and gave away the ending! Even though she used a disclaimer warning of a spoiler I still think it was a pretty underhanded move to give away the ending and give the film a D+ just because of that. But she's got a lot to say and she wants you to know what she thinks and why she's right, she'll even go as far as responding to letters published in the letters column just to get the last word in!
What I like a lot about the movies section is that they feature capsule reviews of other films in current release, both indies and mainstream films plus a list of the week's top box office draws PLUS a little ditty called "Critical Mass" in which 10 different critics' ratings of about 10 different movies are listed and an average grade is assigned. It's a good way to tell what movies are probably good and bad if so many critics gave it basically the same review (such as everyone giving "Freddy Got Fingered" an F).
The movies department also contains a small section of mostly gossip about future projects and "deals" in the works. If we wanted to read Ain't It Cool News we'd go to Harry Knowles' web page! Why not dump this thing?
GRADE: A-
VIDEO
Mostly capsule reviews by the lesser-known critics at the mag. Aside from the featured movie on video the reviews are extremely short and succinct - often one or two sentences. Yet they somehow manage to get their critical point across and be trendy as hell. How they do that is a mystery to me. Expect grades in here to be even more controversial than Gleiberman and Schwarzbaum's!
GRADE: B
TV
I love TV, I watch a lot of it but it's actually quite rare when the television section covers something I'm interested in seeing or that I watch on a regular basis. What they usually do is take a handful of shows and compare them to each other, such as ER vs. Gideon's Crossing and City of Angels, etc. It's common knowledge that EW absolutely LOVES "Friends" (is it just a coincidence that they're both AOL/Time-Warner products?) so expect to see that show mentioned every once in a while. Long-running shows undergoing major changes are featured, such as the new "Live with Regis & Kelly" and prime-time game shows are dissected. UGH! For some reason they feel the need to cover the stupid "Survivor" shows in depth and even give you their odds and predictions. Who cares?
The gem to this section is their TV Guide style listing of the upcoming week's prime-time listing of the major networks and the major shows. If you ever read the shows' descriptions they're often HILARIOUS!!!! It's a hidden gem they throw in EVERY issue and I can't get enough of it. It's mostly one-liners but they're sooooooooo much better than anything Jim Mullen has ever written!
Examples:
The Crow: If you dig thin Goth guys walking down dark alleys in the rain then this is the movie for you.
Jesse: Diego and Jesse break up but get back together. How this differs from every other episode of the show we don't know.
Diagnosis Murder: Dr. Sloan gets involved in sticky international relations when.... wait, this show is still on?
What's also great is they have capsule reviews of specials and even individually highlighted episodes of regular programs! This is a good way to find out about interesting shows on at obscure times on obscure networks that you never would have thought of otherwise. You can cancel your subscription to TV Guide and just read this part of Entertainment Weekly to see what's on television.
GRADE: A-
BOOKS
Aside from Stephen King and Michael Crichton do you REALLY keep up on the book industry? I don't, but the fact EW takes the time to cover these entertainment mediums is respectable and impressive. They also occasionally write capsule reviews of comic books and graphic novels! It's about time someone did!
GRADE: B
STAGE
This department used to only show up once every few months but lately it's been an every-other-week thing and appears to be on its way to becoming a standard feature of the magazine. What do I think of it? Very little (see what I wrote about the books section). Unless you live in New York or London do you even get to see plays and musicals NOT produced by the high school drama club? The theatre has always been and always will be bourgeois, it's not for the common EW reader. This is an unnecessary department.
GRADE: C+
MUSIC
Unfortunately this is EW's proportionally weakest area of coverage when it should be a helluva lot stronger. When you think of music journalism you think of Rolling Stone, Spin and those other music-only magazines. That's what musicians think too and thus it's rare to see any kind of EW-exclusive story on some band, musician or album.
As for their reviews, it's difficult to say because 99.9% of the stuff they review is stuff I don't care about. They seem to cover an extraordinary amount of hip-hop and bubblegum pop music (don't get me started on that again!). Once in a while they do some sort of prog-rock coverage but why do they hate Dave Matthews Band and Rush? Their idea of catering to us prog and classic rock lovers is to praise everything done by Clapton and U2. As for modern rock and "alternative" they only cover the most well-known musicians like Beck, Third Eye Blind, Rage Against The Machine, etc. Unlike Rolling Stone, you'll probably never read anything of much significance about a band you've never heard of.
When it comes to music, EW does a really good job of half-assed, mediocre coverage.
GRADE: C+
INTERNET
Did you know this section used to be called "Multimedia"? Yeah, they used to review video games, accessories, gadgets and whatnot. Now all it is is news and reviews of web pages and trends. Still, their Internet department always does a fantastic job in keeping you up-to-date on the coolest, hippest web pages out there that you probably wouldn't have found on your own. They find a niche and REALLY dig deep into it, like web pages dedicated to the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" (heh heh - something I wrote about 2001 was mentioned in that particular issue!).
A little short but always informative. I read EVERYTHING in this department.
GRADE: B+
ENCORE
A retrospective feature you might see on "Dateline NBC" or in People magazine or something. A sort of "where are they now?" feature about some entertainment-related news from yesteryear. I'm for education, and I'm especially for younger generations learning about their elders and appreciating the roots so I like this column.
GRADE: B
Recommended:
Yes
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