“Audition” details the life story, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, of a pioneering journalist-entertainer who reported the news while making it in ways both admirable and troubling.
Once strongly in favor of Hillary Clinton, actress and chanteuse Barbra Streisand says her switch to supporting Barack Obama was instantaneous when Clinton pulled out of the presidential race, and that other Clinton supporters should back the Illinois senator instead of throwing their vote to Republican John McCain in protest.
Right, so it was clear that things were going to change a bit at The Wall Street Journal when it became a part of the Murdochian Empire, but this is a little much: In this somewhat startling essay, Andrew Klavan sees a “W” where others see Batman’s bat symbol in “The Dark Knight” and believes the film is a “paean of praise” to President Bush.
In “Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies,” Barbara Slavin, a leading Middle East reporter for USA Today, offers a refreshingly nuanced and revelatory taxonomy of power within theocratic Iran that sheds light on its leaders and their ambitions.
Shock jock Michael Savage clearly has an overblown sense of the extent of his “expertise” on a wide range of topics, but he overstepped his bounds by attempting armchair psychology about a sensitive subject last week—autism—and drew fire from angry parents and supporters.
Are workers to blame for the fix that General Motors (along with many other corporations) is in? A new book by Roger Lowenstein argues that they are. He couldn’t be more wrong.
Disney’s popular animated films have been criticized for creating 2-D characters from various non-Western (or non-white Western) cultures, so the Mouse House made an attempt to clear its name by creating a “black princess” character who ... works as a chambermaid for a bratty white Southern debutante in 1920s New Orleans. And that’s not the half of it.
It would have made for quite a political smackdown, but former Minnesota governor and one-time WWF wrestler Jesse Ventura has nixed rumors that he will take on Al Franken and Norm Coleman as a senatorial candidate. Of course, if God intervenes, “The Body” might change his mind.
Are Keith Gessen and his posse really the voice of the Zeitgeist, the intellectual heirs to Norman Mailer and George Plimpton? Or just the highbrow version of Judd Apatow?
Well, that didn’t take long: Just a week after former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages were rescued from their FARC captors by Colombian forces, plans are in the works to make a movie version of the story, with Simon Brand on board to direct the drama.
The recent spate of war movies about Iraq and Afghanistan has proved to be a hard sell with American audiences—even more so with the U.S. military. Now, the Pentagon is combating a certain lack of nuance, as military officials see it, in flicks like “Redacted” and “In the Valley of Elah” by offering script consultation services to Hollywood types looking to make movies about the current conflicts in the Middle East.
Sacha Baron Cohen is already notorious for his alter ego Borat, and now, fortunately for his career (and unfortunately for those who get caught in his comedic cross hairs), he has another invented personality—Austrian fashionista Bruno—who just pulled one over on former Mossad agent Yossi Alpher.
Do the socially progressive ideals that jump-started 20th-century reform movements have lessons relevant to the concerns of 21st-century America? A new book makes a strong case that they do.
According to his Web site, he’s “America’s Truth Detector; the Doctor of Democracy; the Most Dangerous Man in America; the All-Knowing, All-Sensing, All-Everything Maha Rushie; defender of motherhood, protector of fatherhood and an all-around good guy.” Whatever he may be, Rush Limbaugh is also going to be even richer than ever with his new contract to keep talking for the next eight years.
During the protracted writers’ strike that gobbled up a good part of fall and winter material for small and big screens alike, some entertainment scribes didn’t let their time in limbo go to waste, such as the group behind Strike.tv, an online network coming soon to a laptop near you.
Unitarian Universalist minister Jeffrey Symynkywicz is quite the Bruce Springsteen enthusiast, apparently. The Boston fan has studied Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics as though they were Scripture, and the end result is Symynkywicz’s new book—wait for it—“The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen.”
When someone points a gun in a movie, that’s usually the audience’s cue that adrenaline-cranking good times are about to be had. Not so in this lineup of films, compiled by Participant Media’s TakePart.com with the aim of countering the overplayed guns=fun equation.
When two big TV pundits with larger-than-life egos play out their personal grudge match on their shows, and their respective parent networks join in the fray, guess who loses? In the case of Keith Olbermann v. Bill O’Reilly, just about everybody loses, according to this piece from Variety.
Are we now ruled by an international “superclass” that hollows out traditional notions of national sovereignty, and whose loyalties are only to the bottom line and its own members?
The death of comedy great George Carlin on Sunday spurred fans and fellow comics to pay tribute to the prolific and profane performer, who took aim at cultural taboos with cheeky glee and paved the way for younger generations to continue to play with stand-up, and social, conventions.
Brian Williams filled in for the late Tim Russert on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” but it was announced that his own predecessor as anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” Tom Brokaw, will be the moderator of “Meet the Press” through Election Day.
Here’s a story, both chilling and inspiring: how prisoners at an Oklahoma prison in the aftermath of the Depression led a struggle to limit the practice of compulsory sterilization.
NBC News will keep its Sunday lineup intact by giving Brian Williams a temporary stint as host of “Meet the Press,” replacing the late Tim Russert for the time being. Because Russert and Williams teamed up for the Jan. 15 Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, many viewers might be primed to make the transition along with Williams.
It would appear that the pope is not a Dan Brown fan. The Vatican has refused to allow star Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard to film scenes from author Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” prequel, “Angels and Demons,” on its holy territory.
The uneasy love affair between celebrity and politics continued late last week with a change of camps by former Hillary Clinton booster Barbra Streisand, who has officially made a lateral move to endorse Barack Obama. Babs’ fans are still waiting to hear if la Streisand will pipe up for the Illinois senator this summer as part of her pro-Obama plans.
Where Does the Caving End?
