Editor’s Note

This is…not CNN

In All About Steve, Bradley Cooper plays a CNN cameraman who…wait a sec. That’s not CNN. It’s CCN. Please forgive the error, I’m not the only one who’s made it. In fact, numerous descriptions of the film that are floating around the web describe Cooper’s character as a CNN cameraman. And, truth is, had this movie been made 15 years ago he very well may have been.

Things changed in 1997 when Contact, Jodie Foster’s searching-for-alien-life movie came out. CNN went wild, letting more than a dozen of its on-air personalities appear in the film and allowing its logo to be sprinkled liberally throughout. The filmmakers thought using known journalists and a real network added realism to their movie. CNN thought taking part in the film would be good publicity — at first. But in hindsight the news network’s president admitted it was a mistake, that their participation hurt CNN’s credibility and blurred too many lines.

CNN clones are not unusual in movies and on TV shows — like GNN, the news station covering an attempt on the American President’s life in Vantage Point; or ZNN (remember, Americans say “zee” not “zed”), the network of choice in the JAG universe. The reality is that even though it says GNN or ZNN on screen, CNN is so ubiquitous that half the time our brain makes the edit and we see or hear CNN.

So now we have Steve, a CCN cameraman jetting off at a moment’s notice to cover world events, all the while being chased by a lovelorn crossword-puzzle writer (Sandra Bullock) who’s convinced they’re meant to be together. And chances are, many who see the film will walk out talking about Steve, that cute cameraman for CNN.

Check out “Bradley Cooper’s Long Hot Summer” to discover why this actor who few of us had heard of a year ago is now dominating the news.

In “What a Liar” we speak with Ricky Gervais about his new comedy The Invention of Lying, which tells of a man who lives in a world without lies…until he tells the first fib. It’s a brilliant concept, as Gervais — who co-wrote the script — will be the first to tell you.

Speaking of brilliant, Michael Sheen made a brilliant little movie called The Damned United which was released in his native Britain months ago and earned — as far as we can see — glowing reviews from every critic who saw it. So why has the movie taken so long to come out here? It’s about soccer. And what do most North Americans know about soccer? Read “Making the Pitch for a Soccer Movie” to find out why you should care about this film even if you can’t tell Maradona from Madonna.

And for "Not Another High School Musical" we talk to two stars of the Fame remake, Kherington Payne and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle. It’s been 19 years since the original film turned a generation of teens onto the concept of performing arts schools, and in this world of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance it was only a matter of time until this old gem was brushed off and reimagined.

Marni Weisz, editor