James Sims

August 2009

  • Ted Kennedy was the ‘Man of La Mancha’

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    James Sims

    This week marked a dark time for America as senator Edward M. Kennedy, one of its most championed political leaders, passed away. With the loss of Ted Kennedy the political legacy of Camelot might very well be dead — an American myth surrounding the storied Kennedy clan. Camelot was an ideal for all Americans to…

  • Alexis Bledel, Unemployed ‘Post Grad’ (HuffPo)

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    James Sims

    If you ask Alexis Bledel whether college was a worthwhile experience, you’d discover that without her time at school she might not have become an actress. Now 27, she started out with a focus on writing and directing. “I figured out that I was interested in acting while at NYU,” she told me while discussing…

  • Fighting For an Emmy with ‘Family Guy’

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    James Sims

    “Family Guy” has taken Emmy campaigning to a brand new level thanks to a string of viral videos showcases extreme brutality. First it was a knock at “The Office” and now the animated show is attacking fellow nominees “Entourage” and “Flight of the Conchords.” If you haven’t been keeping up on your YouTube chatter lately…

  • ‘Passing Strange’ Explodes On Screen

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    James Sims

    Passing Strange has seen various incarnations since its initial development at the Sundance Institute in 2004. From an out-of-town run in Berkeley to its Off-Broadway then Broadway premiere, the rock and soul stage musical has now made its way to the silver screen. For any New Yorker that caught Passing Strange on Broadway there should…

  • MTV Takes on West Side Story

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    James Sims

    Broadway’s latest revival of the classic musical West Side Story might be a clunker, but that isn’t stopping MTV from using it for inspiration. MTV has fallen off the pop culture relevance scale over the last decade or so, so it came as a shock to find video promos for the network’s upcoming Video Music…

  • Mad Men and Me

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    James Sims

    As the summer season comes to a close prime-time programming is beginning to ramp back up. Lifetime welcomes the refurbished Project Runway on Thursday while its old home, Bravo, kicks off another season of Top Chef on Wednesday. The big rollout will come next month as nearly all of the networks will launch their fall…

  • Directing ‘Journey to the Stars’ at AMNH

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    James Sims

    It’s not often that my work at New York’s American Museum of Natural History intersects with the entertainment industry, so it was very exciting to work on a project for the Museum’s newest space show, Journey to the Stars. I had the opportunity to sit down with the show’s director, Carter Emmart, and produce a…

  • Remembering John Hughes

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    James Sims

    Director John Hughes hadn’t been on my mind for quite some time. My insanely large DVD collection is stocked with his complete collection of films, and I never hesitate to tune in whenever a Brat Pack movie comes on HBO or Showtime, but I haven’t brought up his name for a while. Then I saw…

  • (500) Days of Summer Gets a Music Video

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    James Sims

    This summer has seen two quirky romantic films — both with somewhat depressing endings — bucking the trend of horrendous action blockbusters. Adam and (500) Days of Summer explore the idea that love doesn’t always conquer all. While Adam is the superior movie, (500) Days of Summer is the slicker production, and features one of…