Jokes about religion often play with the boundaries of tolerance and taste, but they don’t always carry the consequences that Sabina Guzzanti now faces. The Italian actress could go to jail for upsetting the powers that be with a satirical zinger about the pope and two gay devils.
Jokes about religion often play with the boundaries of tolerance and taste, but they don’t always carry the consequences that Sabina Guzzanti now faces. The Italian actress could go to jail for upsetting the powers that be with a satirical zinger about the pope and two gay devils.
Barack Obama will get the star treatment from Hollywood denizens (or is it the other way around?) once more before the election, at a two-part fundraising extravaganza on Sept. 16.
He might have steered clear of last week’s Democratic National Convention, claiming that politicians were the proper stars of that show, but George Clooney didn’t miss his chance to charm some $900K out of American supporters of Barack Obama at a fundraiser in Switzerland on Tuesday.
He wasn’t always known for his coolheaded leadership skills during his 16-year NBA career, but now, after almost 10 years off the court, Charles Barkley is apparently gearing up to compete in the political arena, telling the New York Daily News that he aims to run for governor of Alabama in a few years.
Will.i.am’s viral hit will be performed live before Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech in Denver on Thursday. Other musical acts expected to perform include Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Sheryl Crow and Jennifer Hudson, who will sing the national anthem. Bruce Springsteen has been rumored and un-rumored to appear, so we’ll have to wait and see. Updated.
If you want to read a personal account of Michael Phelps’ training philosophy, you’ll have to wait until December, when the Olympic swimming champion’s “Built to Succeed” hits store shelves. As much as we value the written word around here, is it really necessary for every celebrity to pen a memoir? There are trees at stake, after all.
Is this the same Toby Keith who unleashed the cheese-slathered anthem, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” (complete with fluffy golden retriever puppies and rippling flags in the video version), on the general public in 2002? Mr. “We’ll-Put-A-Boot-Up-Your-Ass”?
The 91-year-old actor sent the cast of “Fox and Friends” into a juvenile tizzy this week when he revealed the key to his longevity: “I masturbate a lot.” Don’t snicker. The health benefits of autoeroticism have been well documented, yet modesty prevents many adults from discussing such matters.
Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne is not thrilled that his song “Running on Empty” was co-opted by the Ohio Republican Party and used as an anthem for a commercial that Browne believed made it seem as though he supported John McCain’s presidential campaign. Au contraire, Ohio GOP.
The power of Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement is clearly quantifiable when it comes to her “favorite things” (e.g. book sales), but how about her favorite people (e.g. Barack Obama)? Well, a scholarly duo from the University of Maryland came up with 1 million votes as the impressive, if somewhat strangely derived, number that represents the boost Oprah has given Obama since she gave him her official stamp of approval.
He was born into a Cossack family, which was just one of many indications that life wasn’t exactly going to be conflict-free for Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died Aug. 3. The Russian writer survived eight years in Stalin’s notorious gulags and became one of his country’s most controversial critical thinkers, a process that continued during the two decades he was forced to live in exile.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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