I’m on the second day of my L.A. Film Festival break (partly inspired by not getting into a key screening tonight), and trying to catch up on other work, so posts today will be smallish. I will be doing a mini box office preview later today for tomorrow’s release of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” (Just because I don’t care about it doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal, right?)

However, this may strike some as a bit overly “meta,” but I think some attention should be paid to the announced acquisition of Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog by Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC). As mentioned by THR, the move appears to be about expanding the reach of the kind of muckraking showbiz journalism that’s made her such a fact of life, like her or not, for those in and around the picture business.

Finke promises that this is no sell out. Also, the addition of a New York-based reporter is, all in all, good news for those of us interested in show business being treated with at least the same seriousness and depth as sports.  They’re both big businesses and the fact that most entertainment coverage is either commentary (like what I do), trade journalism (which by its very nature is supportive of the industry and not particularly interested in investigation), or gossip is not sufficient. I’m still waiting for an entertainment equivalent to “Sports Center” to show up on my TV screen, but in the meantime this may be a very good start for expanding the base of real entertainment journalism in a niche way.