Archive for November, 2015

Milwaukee Media Notes: Packers Win Ratings, Matthews Wins Music Award

Posted by Duane Dudek

The Green Bay Packers rebounded Sunday afternoon in their game against the Minnesota Vikings, and so did the ratings.

It sounded like all of Packer nation was in the Vikings temporary home on the University of Minnesota campus, during the game, but enough watched at home to drive the overnight ratings to a 46.9 for WITI-TV (Channel 6).

The Ditka curse is broken!

That figure is up almost five points over last Sunday’s loss at home against the Detroit Lions, perhaps due to the intense rivalry between the two teams and their fans, or because the Vikings were deemed more of a threat than the Lions.

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“Spotlight” On How Paper Got Clerical Abuse Story

Posted by Duane Dudek
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The compelling “Spotlight” is a process movie, from cover-up to expose.

It is less about child molestation by members of the clergy over decades, than about how the story was investigated by reporters at the Boston Globe.

In showing them doing their job – for which the paper won a Pulitzer Prize – it shows how every civic and spiritual institution in the city was tainted by the crimes.

Remarkably, by my count, only three priests are even seen, one of them Cardinal Bernard Law who helped arrange transfers of pedophile priests and silenced victims with non disclosure clauses attached to out of court settlements.

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WRIT-FM Begins Continuous Christmas Music

Posted by Duane Dudek
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With Amy Grant singing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” oldies station WRIT-FM became the first, and will probably remain the only, Milwaukee radio station to play continuous Christmas music.

The station’s format change coincided with the lighting of the Christmas tree in downtown Milwaukee.

Until recently it shared the holiday music format with other stations, some of which switched as early as Nov. 1.

But WMYX-FM did not switch to the format last year, preferring to mix Christmas music in with the regular format.

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Holiday Movie Season and Oscar Race Starts ….Now

Posted by Duane Dudek

The multiplex will be crowded with films this holiday season.

But will they also be crowded with patrons?

At least seven films will open in Milwaukee on Christmas Day including female-centric Oscar wannabe’s  “Carol,” a lesbian melodrama; the transgender drama “The Danish Girl”; and David O. Russell’s “Joy.”

The Quentin Tarantino Western “The Hateful Eight” and the football injury biopic “Concussion” are also on tap Dec. 25.

There is even a movie about an Oscar winner: “Trumbo,” with Bryan Cranston as the blacklisted screenwriter. The Oscar race gets serious starting Friday with the clerical abuse drama “Spotlight” a certain best picture nominee.

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Why I Won’t See “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2″

Posted by Duane Dudek
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“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II” is “dull and lifeless .. aesthetically dumb …monotonous …shaky …dimly lit …and has little in the way of drama.”

“…It is so self-serious that it loses any sense of humor or adventure ” and “most of its internal logic.”

There, I saved you 2 hours and 17 minutes. And the price of admission.

That’s not my opinion. That’s from Nick Shrager’s review on

And regardless of the hype, that seems to be the consensus about this fourth (!) and last film based on a three book series by Suzanne Collins in which a bow and arrow armed Jennifer Lawrence battles a corrupt dystopian regime.

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Late Night Hosts Pay Tribute To Paris

Posted by Duane Dudek

When current events cannot be ignored, comedy is often the best way to deal with them.

Because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

New York-based “Saturday Night Live” and late night host David Letterman famously addressed the attacks on the World Trade Center in ways that helped the healing and expressed what people felt.

And while the attacks in Paris last week happened a continent away there was no ignoring them. And late night talk show hosts felt obligated to address them in remarks Monday night and over the weekend.

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Milwaukee Media Notes: Packer Ratings Dip With Each Loss

Posted by Duane Dudek

A number of people have jumped off the Green Bay Packers bandwagon and onto the ledge if local television ratings for the team are any indication. Either that or they couldn’t bear to look.

In either case, the Packers loss to the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field, earned a 41.2 rating final rating of 42.2 on WITI-TV (Channel 6). If wins create excitement and generate viewers, a string of losses can find viewers with something else to do, even yard work, especially in unseasonably warm weather.

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Milwaukee Media Notes: Paris, Politics, Packers

Posted by Duane Dudek

The Packer loss merits barely an asterisk in a consequential and tragic weekend during which Various   bathed themselves in the red, white and blue colors of the French flag.

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-The East Town Association will be erecting the scale model that is usually reserved for the city’s Bastille Day celebration in solidarity with the people of Paris. The tower is being put up near City Hall, and a vigil will be held there at 5:15 p.m. Monday.

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‘Love The Coopers’ Requires Santa-Like Suspension of Belief

Posted by Duane Dudek
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The holiday has many moving parts.

And so does “Love The Coopers,” a hodgepodge of Christmas movie cliches dusted with a few whimsical and wistful moments. It follows members of one family on Christmas Eve as they prepare for an evening together that will end in a hospital.

They are a practical wife and adventurous husband (Diane Keaton, John Goodman); their kids,  jobless single dad Ed Helms and party girl Olivia Wilde; Keaton’s shoplifting sister (Marissa Tomei); and their lonely dad Alan Arkin.

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Generation of Germans Lived In ‘Labyrinth Of Lies’

Posted by Duane Dudek
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Like “Room,” the historical drama “Labyrinth of Lies,” is about living in the bubble.

That would be a Germany in denial about the past. Kids were told that their father was just a soldier in World War II but not that he  belonged to the Nazi party or about the death camps where he might have served.

A decade later these “soldiers” assimilated back in to civilian life. Some lived next door, some held positions of power, all rubbed shoulders with those who survived.

“Labyrinth” is a German language film by Giulio Ricciarelli, a TV actor making his feature directorial debut.  It’s a fact based story about an idealistic young prosecutor who discovers a banal school teacher is implicated in murders at Auschwitz.

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