Al Gore has had no shortage of accolades since his rebirth as front man for the environment, but, true to form, Italy’s La Scala opera house is determined to take “An Inconvenient Truth” over the top. An opera of the award-winning book and movie is set to premiere in 2011, and because it’s hard to make a character out of carbon emissions, it’s very possible the production will center on a certain former vice president.
If you thought reality TV was only for wannabe warblers, petulant teens and bug-eating fetishists, guess again. The Department of Homeland Security, “as well as several other government agencies,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, is working with ABC on a new “unscripted” show called “Border Security USA,” brought to you, creepily enough, by the executive producer of “Big Brother.”
Chinese moviegoers aren’t going to rush to see any more Sharon Stone flicks (if they ever did), and, as execs at Christian Dior realized, they won’t be in a hurry to buy products she promotes after she speculated at Cannes last week about the possibility that the devastating earthquake in China on May 12 represented a form of karmic retribution for the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans.
Studio honcho Harvey Weinstein is a force to be reckoned with—it was no coincidence that Disney subsidiary Miramax became a major player in the film industry under his watch—and recently he reportedly attempted to use his powers of persuasion to convince House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to follow his plan for a Democratic primary revote in Florida and Michigan ... or else.
Entertainment Weekly has released first-look photos of actor Josh Brolin in character for his lead role in Oliver Stone’s new movie, “W.” Portraying the current president is no small challenge, but director Stone, who has been accused of courting controversy in his previous big-screen presidential portrayals, has promised to treat his subject fairly.
Hollywood stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman are now personae non gratae in Rome, according to the Italian capital’s new mayor, Gianni Alemanno, a former fascist who thinks American stars shouldn’t be hyped at Rome’s annual film festival at the expense of Italian actors and directors.
Tom Hanks has a preferred candidate, but what makes his endorsement interesting is not the person he chooses, but how he frames that choice. This video, which appeared on the actor’s MySpace page, seems as much a comment on the celebrity endorsement as it is an endorsement by a celebrity.
A Florida court sentenced Wesley Snipes to 36 months in prison for tax evasion on Thursday, despite the actor’s plea for mercy and written character testimonials by fellow stars Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson.
For presidential candidates, celebrity endorsements can be a mixed bag—especially when the star in question is a polarizing figure, as is the latest famous figure to give the nod to Barack Obama: audacious auteur Michael Moore.
Dr. Seuss has some new competition. Dr. Michael Salzhauer is a Florida plastic surgeon who has swapped his scalpel for a typewriter. His debut work, “My Beautiful Mommy,” attempts to educate the children of plastic surgery patients about tummy tucks, breast enhancements and nose jobs.
A Catholic Church-affiliated museum in Vienna was shaken up this week by a controversy that erupted over the display of an unconventional rendering of Jesus and his disciples sharing the Last Supper—and then some—in an exhibit called “Religion, Flesh and Power.”
Filming one of his last scenes as Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay politician, who was assassinated by City Hall colleague Dan White in 1978, Sean Penn got all Method on the crowd of extras assembled to reenact the scene of an important speech Milk made on Gay Freedom Day 30 years ago.
Pixieish provocateur Björk sparked the ire of Chinese officials by voicing her support for an independent Tibet at the close of her concert in Shanghai last Sunday. According to China’s Culture Ministry, the Icelandic chanteuse broke “Chinese law and hurt Chinese people’s feelings” by chanting “Tibet, Tibet” at the end of her protest song “Declare Independence.”
We got snookered. Motoko Rich of The New York Times reports in her article posted March 4 that the just-published “memoir” by Margaret B. Jones, called “Love and Consequences,” about Jones’ “life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods,” is a fabrication.
For those inclined to ask “who cares?” every time a celebrity-and-politics news item makes the rounds, consider it asked already. For everyone else, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by actress Angelina Jolie on Thursday about the problem of Iraqi refugees fleeing to Syria, Jordan and “a vast and very dangerous no-man’s land” within their own borders. Now, Jolie says, is the time for Americans to “do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.”
There’s an adage that cautions against making jokes about such categorically unfunny topics as the Holocaust ... but how about making musicals? This just in: The BBC brings word from Spain of the staging of a new musical, “Anne Frank: A Song to Life,” which at times features “Kitty,” a perhaps unwisely (and too literally) conceived character.
After weeks of striking, the Writers Guild of America has struck a deal with Hollywood honchos, ending the protracted impasse between scribes and studios and allowing the stalled wheels of the entertainment industry to creak back into motion on Wednesday.
The private collection of famous artworks at Zurich’s E.G. Buehrle Collection suddenly became smaller over the weekend, and not at the proprietors’ behest. On Sunday, three disguised and armed robbers stole over $160 million worth of artwork by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and other masters from the Swiss museum.
He’s not the head honcho at the Mouse House (aka Walt Disney Co.) anymore, but Michael Eisner claims firsthand and reliable knowledge that the writers’ strike is over. He says a deal was struck between the WGA and studio execs late last week and will take effect within days.
Teen-targeting retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has long pushed the erotic envelope when it comes to its saucy ads, usually depicting proto-Adonises stripped to the waist and gamboling together, with a scantily clad female or two thrown in for good measure. The company’s latest campaign, though, was clearly too much for the (fashion) police of Virginia Beach, Va.
This weekend, Sen. Barack Obama is unleashing a secret weapon in the final push to win Tuesday’s California primary: Oprah Winfrey. Team Obama partly attributes his successes in Iowa and South Carolina to her influence, which he’s hoping will help convince California women to choose him over Hillary Clinton.
Director Oliver Stone has already demonstrated his penchant for making movies about controversial figures and critical moments in world history, so it should come as no surprise that Stone is turning his lens on George W. Bush for his next film, simply and succinctly called “Bush.”
It’s surprising this didn’t happen earlier: Multimedia mogul Oprah Winfrey is launching a television network, simply and logically called the Oprah Winfrey Network, in conjunction with Discovery Communications. Oprahphiles can look forward to a 2009 launching for OWN, which Winfrey calls “a natural extension of my show.”
With top-tier talent unwilling to cross picket lines for the sake of a gala awards ceremony, the folks who put together the Golden Globes (the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, NBC and Dick Clark Productions) scrambled to work around the whole no-actors-showing-up issue but had to settle for a newscast announcing the winners.
If Comedy Central headliners Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert indeed return to television Jan. 7—the eve of the New Hampshire primary, as fate (or whatever capricious force controls networks’ holiday scheduling practices) would have it—they’ll probably have to stage their comebacks without their trusty and witty writing teams.
We ‘Support’ the Troops by Burdening Them More
