Join Me Sunday...

...as I lead a roundtable journalists discussion on the status of minorities in the movies at the annual Neonfest Film Festival's Sunday brunch. It's at 11 a.m. at Las Palmas Marichi Restaurant in Commercial Center at 953 E. Sahara, Suite A-27. The phone # there is 702-732-0010.

Here's the 411:

MINORITY REPORT
A Journalists Panel On The State Of Film Depiction For Gays, Blacks, Women and More

As the status of minorities changes in American culture, how is that reflected in the movies? This year's Oscar contenders offer some indications, with films about a slain gay civil rights leader and an Indian game show in the running for best picture and a spoof on black-face earning another star a supporting actor nomination, not to mention that the oft-scorned chick flick proved big box office business this year. What's changed? Did the historic Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama tussle last year alter public perceptions of women and blacks and is that being seen on screen? Has anything important shifted since the last time a major gay film, "Brokeback Mountain," was in the running for Best Picture? What about people with disabilities? Transgender people? Other races?

This will be a freewheeling panel in which the audience is encouraged to offer their views. Panelists include freelance journalist Steve Friess, independent filmmaker Marlene Adrian, Las Vegas Weekly film reviewer Josh Bell and Las Vegas Weekly staff writer T.R. Witcher.

If Misery Loves Company...

...then Las Vegas should be delighted that it's not the only 1.5-trick, over-speculated, environmentally ridiculous place on Earth where the real estate is in a freefall, overly ambitious building projects have been stalled or canceled and unemployment is exploding. From today's NY Times, with hat tip to Mike_ch who posted the link on Facebook:

Some things are clear: real estate prices, which rose dramatically during Dubai’s six-year boom, have dropped 30 percent or more over the past two or three months in some parts of the city. Last week, Moody’s Investor’s Service announced that it might downgrade its ratings on six of Dubai’s most prominent state-owned companies, citing a deterioration in the economic outlook. So many used luxury cars are for sale , they are sometimes sold for 40 percent less than the asking price two months ago, car dealers say. Dubai’s roads, usually thick with traffic at this time of year, are now mostly clear.

Read it here. And there is Vegas relevance, even if it's not spelled out in the article. The Dubai folks, you might recall, have been MGM Mirage's safety net/ATM. Ut-oh.

Mr. Mayor Backs Down...Sorta

Mayor Oscar Goodman had an animated (is there any other word for anything involving him?) press conference today that I may post as a podcast because it gives you some insight into why this mayor and city are different than any other. (He starts with a recap of his public activities in recent weeks which includes all his press interviews and discusses that the presser has to be shorter than usual because he has to go hang out with some Sports Illustrated models. It's entertaining listening, as city officials go.)

Anyhow, the mayor spoke early about his continued demand that President Obama clarify his Indiana statements which evidently have been taken by many to suggest that businesses ought not hold conventions here. Regardless of whether that's what the president said -- the transcript does not seem to reflect that -- it does seem to be how it's been taken.

Yet when I asked him whether a clarification and an apology were the same thing, he said no and then acknowledged that his call for an apology was a mistake. He sort of claimed he didn't have all the information when he said that and seemed to suggest he was trapped by KLAS's Edward Lawrence into the remark. That's all interesting because as of last night when the Mayor appeared on Fox News, he was still saying he wanted an apology. And that came after the Las Vegas Sun posted a piece yesterday that said he was backing down on the apology request. So it seems to depend who's asking and what time of day.

Still, he wants a clarification from the president that Las Vegas is a legitimate place to come to hold business meetings and conventions and he even conceded that perhaps using bailout money to hold junkets and have leisure trips isn't the right way to go.

One reporter asked what he'd do if Obama didn't respond to him. His giggly answer, "I'll cry."

Mr. Mayor is on Lou Dobbs's CNN show tonight, from what I hear. And he was referred to as Oscar Goldman by Rush Limbaugh yesterday. Don't know if there's a transcript of that out there somewhere -- not sure what El Rushbo was saying although I suspect he was probably crowing about dissension between Democrats -- but Goodman joked about it when I stumbled and almost called him that myself during the press conference.

LVW Col: How Danny Got His Groove Back

I admit it; I never thought I'd write this column. But it's nice when something turns out better than expected, right? Here's this week's Strip Sense piece.

How Danny Got His Groove Back
By STEVE FRIESS

This column was supposed to be an examination of the three major impressionist acts opening here within a fortnight of one another. I expected to praise Wannabe Danny Gans Gordie Brown for his vigor and Replacement Danny Gans Terry Fator for his efforts to remain fresh and relevant, and that arc would lead me back to my long-standing complaint about the Real Danny Gans, which is that he had lost his vigor and his material had gone offensively stale.

And so, for my research, I ran out to catch Brown’s opening night at the Golden Nugget last Thursday, I got Fator, moving into Gans’ former space at the Mirage this month, on the phone for an interview on Friday, and then on Friday night I spent $95 a seat to sit in the balcony for Gans’ reemergence at Wynn Las Vegas.

Except something very odd happened at Wynn. Danny Gans, the brunt of my jokes and my ire for several years now, made me laugh. A lot. He also made a nearly two-hour show zip by without my ever checking my watch, which is a considerable accomplishment. And, much more importantly to me, he made the friend I brought along with me—a woman who has been crying on and off for two weeks because her 18-year-old just shipped off to Air Force boot camp—smile so much that she briefly forgot her grief and worry for a little while even after we walked out.

Not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, I left the showroom thoroughly disoriented.

Read the rest HERE

Nicely done, Mr. Mayor

Keep in mind only 41 percent of those who voted said in a companion survey they thought Obama was doing well with the economy. So these aren't folks in the tank for Obama. Not scientific, but with numbers like that, you have to wonder whose remarks got broader attention.

1000th Post!

Wow. That's a lot for exactly 23 months, 1.4 posts a day to be exact. I started this blog as an adjunct to the podcast with an exclusive pictorial on the site of the soon-to-be imploded Stardust on March 11, 2007. And it's gone well beyond the podcast for two implosions, my wedding, a name change, several show openings and closings, countless bylines, dozens columns, some entertaining feuds and reconciliations, plenty of breaking news, an awful lot of silly decisions by the Review-Journal's dot-com folks and much more.

No big whoop here except that I do have a new poll up, finally. Looking back on the Stardust stuff made me misty-eyed for bygone days. So let us know which resort or casino you miss most!

Ginning Up Controversy

Mayor Oscar Goodman is pipin' mad at President Obama and the local media is all over it. Here's KLAS's Eddie Lawrence, for example, and Ben Spillman of the Review-Journal.

Except that the premise of both those stories and Goodman's outrage are false.

Obama was responding to a question about corporate responsibility in an appearance in Indiana. Among the recent reports to catch notice was Wells Fargo's plan, later canceled after a public shaming, to go on a lavish junket to the Wynn after taking a huge government bailout. This was a so-called "appreciation" event, an effort to reward high-achieving employees. That seemed extravagant to some when the banks are taking huge publicly funded bailouts, so it fit the narrative of automaker CEOs flying private jets to their Congressional begging session and the like.

Here's what Obama said: "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime."

Yet all of these stories make it sound like Obama offered a full-throated assault on the entire Vegas convention industry. He said nothing about holding meetings or conventions in Las Vegas. He spoke about this in the context of extravagances, of leisure activities. The Wells Fargo event wasn't a meeting or a conference. They weren't planning to do any business. They were going to vacate and indulge, presumably for a job well done even though it's hard for many to see who could deserve it considering these companies' dire straits.

I'm not opining about who's right or wrong here. Dave Schwartz of UNLV makes an interesting case in favor of such trips and John L. Smith in the Review-Journal yesterday was satirically brutal about the same.

But the mayor is complaining about something that never happened, and the local press is filling out the details by allowing the mayor to take the president out of context. True, Goldman Sachs, also a bailout baby, moved a business meeting at the Mandalay Bay to a Marriott in San Francisco out of fear of looking bad. But that's not something the president himself said and so far, it's one example and still within the banking sphere.

Funny thing is, in the process the mayor may actually be endangering the convention business himself. By ginning this up, by turning it into something Drudge-worthy, he's introducing to many meeting planners and companies a thought that hadn't crossed or become firm in their minds: "Will it look bad if we hold this thing in Vegas this year?"

Before the mayor's outrage, I suspect most folks knew that Obama was talking about junkets and excess. Now, I wonder if the stigma has been amplified 100 times over.