James Sims is an entertainment industry reporter and opinionated critic, currently based out of New York City. Having written for The Hollywood Reporter and worked for "The Insider," he now heads up showbiz coverage for BroadwayWorld.com. Despite his being raised on the set of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (his father worked behind-the-scenes), he refuses to consider himself a Trekker. Rather, he looks upon Tinseltown with a critical eye, and even refuses to give J.J. Abrams a free pass. With a high-priced Columbia Journalism School degree under his belt, he's taken to the lucrative world of blogging. Get all the dirt on his site, Sofa Snark.

Blog Entries by James Sims

Ragtime Battles Celebrity Factor on Broadway, Closes Proudly

Posted December 29, 2009 | 04:28 PM (EST)


Looking at the current Broadway season, both at shows that have already closed and upcoming productions, the most prevalent trend is star power. And by star, I don't mean theatrical heavyweights like Ethel Merman, George M. Cohan or Bert...

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Bush Follies Brought Tudors to Broadway

Posted December 28, 2009 | 12:40 PM (EST)


With a new season of Showtime's The Tudors coming up and Barack Obama now bogged down by controversial plans for Afghanistan, it seems appropriate to reflect on a recent trend that graced the Broadway stage over the past couple years. George W. Bush's reign got...

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Hollywood Directors Go Viral

Posted December 17, 2009 | 05:06 PM (EST)


The Golden Globe nominations were announced this week, placing a handful of Hollywood directors on a pedestal for all others to admire. Martin Scorsese will be bestowed with the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award while James Cameron has returned from his post-

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Off-Broadway's Wonderettes Closing Its Gym Doors

Posted November 9, 2009 | 10:56 AM (EST)


Move over Rydell High, there is a new group of singing teenage starlets on stage hailing from Springfield High, and they are making audiences flip as they relive their 1958 Senior Prom to some doo-wop classics.

Off-Broadway's The Marvelous Wonderettes has been playing to enthusiastic crowds at The Westside...

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Review: Carrie Fisher Drinks Her Way to Broadway

1 Comments | Posted October 7, 2009 | 03:06 PM (EST)


Drugs, booze, divorces and affairs might sound like a run of the mill Jerry Springer episode, but even the rich and famous succumb to such pitfalls in Tinseltown, and when you're the child of a movie star mother and famed crooner father, every vice runs the risk of making headlines....

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American Masters Toasts Dalton Trumbo

7 Comments | Posted September 2, 2009 | 05:14 PM (EST)


There's a scene in the 1960 film Spartacus that captures the mindset of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo -- a man that had just suffered years of persecution after being listed as one of the Hollywood Ten. Defeated by the Romans, Spartacus and his rebel army's lives are threatened unless they give...

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Ted Kennedy Was the Man of La Mancha

Posted August 29, 2009 | 02:40 PM (EST)


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...

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Interview: Alexis Bledel, Unemployed Post Grad

Posted August 21, 2009 | 01:06 PM (EST)


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,"...

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Max Mayer's Adam Falls For NYC

Posted July 29, 2009 | 02:15 PM (EST)


To live in a world in which anything could be bluntly said is almost unthinkable. Imagine if Hollywood's creative community simply told producers that they refused to work on a runaway production. Perhaps the number of local film shoots wouldn't be so dismal. Unfortunately, social norms and self-preservation tell...

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Broadway's Hair Spreads Love Nationally

Posted July 15, 2009 | 01:54 PM (EST)


It started last summer. A thick blanket of humidity covered New York City. The war in Iraq carried on. President Bush was nearing the end of his eight-year reign. America was ready for its next chapter. With all of the elements aligned, a raucous musical sprouted up in the middle...

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Reality TV Kills California's Budget

2 Comments | Posted July 10, 2009 | 05:28 PM (EST)


Reality television guru, Mark Burnett, recently talked with The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd about his upcoming series Shark Tank, set to premiere this Fall on ABC. Throughout the chat, Burnett touted his TV offerings as "high-quality" programming, going so far as to say his new show "belongs up there...

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