MIKE ON KCRW: Who Is Jack Ma, and Why Is Hollywood Going GaGa Over Him?

On The Business' banter, Kim Masters and I discuss top entertainment news stories of the week:

- Hollywood hoping for facetime with Alibaba founder
- Formerly at Fox, Kevin Reilly lands at Turner
- Rich Ross named to run the Discovery Channel

Listen below:





From this Thursday's Hollywood Breakdown, Kim and I discussed Jack Ma's short visit to Los Angeles in the last week of October, and how it attracted a lot of attention in Hollywood, even if Ma hasn't fully laid out his plans in the film industry:

Ma is one of the wealthiest men in China and heads Alibaba, the Amazon of China, which raised $21.8 billion for its September IPO. That kind of money has executives eager to look at securing deals and partnerships with Alibaba Pictures, which may be opening an office in LA. Further down the line, there's speculation that Alibaba may be even looking to buy a U.S. studio. Ma met with leaders at Sony, Paramount and Lionsgate. He left midweek, earlier than some executives were anticipating, but not before catching a Laker's game with WME's Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell.

Listen by clicking below:

Discovery's Honey Boo Boo Painting: The Best Art In The History of Art?

As seen in the lobby of Discovery Communications' Los Angeles office, this Honey Boo Boo painting may be the most amazing work of art in all of recorded history.

The Discovery folks found this priceless piece online and quickly purchased it. Look close: Yep, that's not actually a painting, but a sort of wall sculpture/collage of everyone's favorite pageant tot. It's Honey Boo Boo, designed via random toy pieces, doll parts and more. It's like a tornado tore through a kid's room in the mid-1980s, and after two decades, Mother Nature slowly turned that disaster into this masterpiece.

The artist behind the piece is mosaic artist Jason Mecier, who took more than 25 pounds of trash and spent over 50 hours making it. Read all about him here. And watch him create the portrait:



Meanwhile, I'm afraid Honey Boo Boo and mom June weren't in town during my recent visit to the Discovery offices... but their cutouts were! Below, I ask June whether she and Alana would like to go out for 'sghetti, butter and go-go juice.