Clocking in with 45 brands, the new #1 movie at the box office, the seasonal romcom New Year's Eve, is bloated with as much product placement and brand name-dropping as it is marquee names. That count is high, yet still 15 brands fewer than the film's precursor, Valentine's Day.

A lot of the product placed in New Year's Eve is subject to a particular paradox: To have disclosed it would have been dishonest to reality.

Taking place around New York City's iconic Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop, the film includes numerous shots of the landmark square and its cluttered signage, as well as plenty o' stock footage of the actual event. In fact, the movie functions as a sort of tourism video produced by the city's tourism board. (Testifying to just how sanctioned it is as a tourism film, Mayor Mike Bloomberg even makes a cameo.)Continue reading...

March 25th marks the centenary of an event that galvanized workers' rights and the fledgling fashion industry in America, in addition to serving as a catalyst for workplace safety, employees rights and women's rights in the workplace, among other labor issues. 

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York's Greenwich Village claimed the lives of 146 garment workers — all young women, most of them immigrants in their teens — in a tragedy that HBO is remembering in a documentary tonight.Continue reading...