The 35-year-old businesswoman and hotel heiress told the Australian Network, Ten’s The Project that she voted for the billionaire businessman over Hillary Clinton. She explained why.
The clip coincides with the launch of a new website where D’Souza answers critics who claim his movie distorts facts. ‘Detractors and several film reviewers have been challenging many of its claims’. Example claim: ‘Democrats had backed slavery and the Ku Klux Klan decades ago’. This is in dispute, really?
5 percent of critics gave ‘Hillary’s America’ a positive review, compared to a favorable review from 82 percentof the audience.
“‘Evita’s foundation funneled money given to the poor into her own bank accounts,’ D’Souza says in the clip. ‘Certainly, the Clintons wouldn’t steal from the poorest of the poor?’”
Hollywood Reporter: Hours before Hillary Clinton is set to accept the Democratic nomination for president, Dinesh D’Souza has releasedscene from his documentary film Hillary’s America that compares the former secretary of state to Eva Peron, the Argentine politician famously accused of money laundering in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita.
The release of the scene coincides with D’Souza launching a website that he says debunks criticisms of Hillary’s America by offering evidence that what he says about her and her party in his movie is historically accurate.
His “evidence” page cites various historical sources and quotes notable figures, like Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon B. Johnson, to make the case that Democrats had backed slavery and the Ku Klux Klan decades ago.
Since D’Souza’s movie opened two weeks ago, detractors and several film reviewers have been challenging many of its claims. The Hollywood Reporter’s reviewer likened the movie to a “highly subjective history lesson” while the Los Angeles Times said it “doesn’t even qualify as effectively executed propaganda.” On Rotten Tomatoes, only 5 percent of critics gave Hillary’s America a positive review, compared to a favorable review from 82 percent of the audience.
Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times has called ‘Ten Years,’ comprising vignettes that reveal a dystopic vision of Hong Kong’s future in which political freedoms have been eroded by China’s control, a “virus of the mind.”
Patrick Brzeski reports: The most talked-about recent film phenomenon in Hong Kong centers on the territory’s tiniest local release. The dark, provocative indie drama Ten Yearswas produced on a microbudget of $75,000 and opened in December at a single cinema in Hong Kong’s Yau Ma Tei district. A surprise run of sellout screenings resulted in the movie beating the local per-screen average of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opened the following day.
Ten Years comprises five shorts — all set in the year 2025, and each directed by a different Hong Kong filmmaker — that explore ways in which life in the territory might change during the next decade. Collectively, the vignettes reveal a dystopic vision of Hong Kong’s future in which human rights and political freedoms in the semiautonomous territory have been eroded by the incursion of mainland China’s control.
The film struck an immediate chord among a Hong Kong populace worried about its future.
“Many in the audience told us they hadn’t gone to the cinema to watch a movie for a long time,” says Jevons Au Man-Kit, one of the film’s five directors. “But they came to support Ten Years. It was more than just a movie to them — it’s about their home.” Read the rest of this entry »
Those tuning in for the NBA Final saw a different kind of warrior on Tuesday night.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) made a brief, if effective appearance, as the new one-minute long teaser for Spectre aired. It was the first glimpse of new footage since the initial trailer debuted back in March. And from the look of things, life isn’t going so well for 007 in his 24th film.
The teaser lets other character describe Bond’s current state of mind: “You’re a kite dancing in a hurricane,” says one man, while Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) says, “You’ve got a secret, something you can’t tell anyone because you don’t trust anyone.”
“It’s a mild, breezy, accessible, feel-good drama which really pictures China as a harmonious, wonderful place where conflicts of various stripes – across age, class or geographical divides – could easily be reconciled.”
In a surprise choice, China’s film authority submitted “The Nightingale,” a Sino-French co-production directed by French director Philippe Muyl, as its entry in this year’s foreign-language category at the 2015 Academy Awards, state media reported this week.
“It really fits with the Chinese government’s current dominant political narrative of seeking to maintain stability in society at the same time when chaos sweeps across the body politic.”
— Clarence Tsui, The Hollywood Reporter
“The Nightingale,” which tells the story of a road trip taken by an old man and his spoiled granddaughter through the southern Chinese countryside, is an adaptation of Muyl’s uplifting 2002 odd-couple drama “The Butterfly,” which was well-received in China despite never being officially released here.
Although the structure of the two films is similar, Mr. Muyl has described the “The Nightingale” as a thoroughly Chinese story. “We originally planned to make a Chinese version of ‘The Butterfly,’ but later we changed our mind and wanted to created something more originally Chinese,” he said in a video promotion for the film.
Wal-Mart driver Kevin Roper allegedly plowed into a limousine van carrying Morgan on June 7, and Morgan and others injured in the accident allege negligence on Wal-Mart’s part in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.
“Wal-Mart was careless and negligent in the ownership and operation of its motor vehicle, which caused Mr. Morgan to suffer severe personal injuries,” the complaint reads. “As a direct and proximate result of said collision, Mr. Morgan was caused to sustain severe painful bodily injuries, including but not limited to multiple fractures which required multiple surgeries, extensive medical treatment and will require significant physical rehabilitation.”
Plaintiffs include Krista Millea, the wife of late comedian James McNair, who died in the accident, as well as Morgan’s assistant, Jeffrey Millea, and comedianArdie Fuqua. The plaintiffs are suing for negligence, and in addition, Millea is suing for loss of consortium. Read the rest of this entry »
Accused of being a porn star plotting to give his fortune away
For The Hollywood Reporter, Tim Appelo writes: Jean Kasem, the wife of ailing DJ Casey Kasem, filed a declaration in court June 9 accusing Casey Kasem’s daughter Kerri Kasem of working in porn and scheming to give her father’s fortune (estimated at $80 million) to Scientology.
Kerri Kasem, left, and Jean KasemAP Photo/Ted S. Warren
“No, I am not giving my dad’s fortune to Scientology.”
— Kerri Kasem
“In addition to her conversion to Scientology, Kerri and Casey also had a falling-out over Kerri’s involvement in soft-core pornography,” declared Jean Kasem. “Kerri has, for a number of years, made a living doing nude or scantily clad modeling. While I will not now share the seedy and demeaning pictures that Kerri posed for to receive money, a simple Internet search under ‘Kerri Kasem nude’ will reveal pornographic photo after photo of Kerri, either nude or scantily clad, and many photos of Kerri engaging in sex acts.… Her true motive is to get back at her father and to be appointed to a position of influence over him where she can alter his estate plan and have his money go to her and her church of Scientology.”
“First off, no version of our national anthem is or will ever be better than the original…”
Hendrix debuted his version of the song, also known as the U.S. national anthem, in the summer of 1969 at the now-historical Woodstock music festival, where it was panned by some for its irreverence and heralded by others as an instant classic. Still others assumed it was an anti-Vietnam War statement, but Hendrix simply saw it as patriotic. “We’re all Americans. … It was like, ‘Go America!’ ” he said a few weeks after Woodstock.
“…My hope for America is that we’ll become a nation they’d be proud of again and I tried to capture that with my guitar.”
Hendrix and Mustaine are both considered grand masters of the electric guitar. Mustaine, who also spent a few years with Metallica, was named No. 1 in the book 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time by Joel McIver, and Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner was named the greatest guitar performance of all time by Guitar World magazine.
The presumably right-leaning film America follows D’Souza’s hit film 2016: Obama’s America, which is the second-highest-grossing political documentary in history after Michael Moore’s left-leaning Fahrenheit 9/11. Lionsgate is openingAmerica wide on July 2, nearly 10 years to the day after the same company openedFahrenheit 9/11. Read the rest of this entry »
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt attended a party thrown by Google and the Hollywood Reporter on the eve of the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
This Washington Post article is self-serving and shallow. But it’s written by a Politico hack, about Washington D.C. What else would we expect?
It’s not been a good few years for the Washington gossip industry.
Politico, my home for five years before I left recently to pursue documentary filmmaking, once had six journalists — myself included — writing for its “Click” gossip section. All of us left over the years, and the section was disbanded in December.
“Gossip columns may be dying off, but gossip reconceived as a zero-calorie giggle nugget is alive and well.”
If Politico, whose success has been driven by its aggressive coverage of every move in Washington, has decided that there’s no more water to be squeezed from that rock, then trust me, it must be dry.
“The gossip hasn’t gone away — it’s gone mainstream.”
Erik Hayden and Brandon Kirby report: The Los Feliz coffee scene has a new attention-getting entrant, though all bets are off on how long it sticks around.
Dumb Starbucks Coffee, which parodies the design of a coffee giant chain store, appeared out of seemingly nowhere over the weekend as a pop-up store in a nondescript Hillhurst Ave. location.
All of the coffee, brewed by two baristas, is free (tips appreciated). They also have pastries (apparently purchased from Vons) that are also free for the taking for now. Alongside a non-functioning cash register, CD’s like “Dumb Nora Jones Duets” [sic] and “Dumb Jazz Standards” are stocked.
And there is a reasonably long line — dozens of people — waiting for a novelty brew on Sunday.
In the response, provided to The Hollywood Reporter, Farrow denounced Allen’s op-ed — in which he suggested Farrow’s mother, Mia Farrow, had coached her to accuse Allen of sexually assaulting her as a child.
“I have never wavered in describing what he did to me. I will carry the memories of surviving these experiences for the rest of my life,” Farrow said.
She went on to challenge other points in Allen’s op-ed, calling it ‘the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has leveled at me for the past 20 years.”
I was going to write about the contradiction between words and deeds, between message, and reality.
The message: “The State of the Union speech is a non-event, featuring an irrelevant president, on subjects that nobody cares about. America is tuning out.”
The reality: “We can’t stop talking about Obama’s State of the Union speech.”
The message, endlessly repeated by conservative talking heads, writers, and bloggers (count me among them) for the last three days, emphasizing boredom, fatigue, irrelevance, tuning out.
But if it’s so irrelevant, and everyone’s tuning out, why invest billions of pixels writing about it, and waste valuable broadcast time, evaluating it, discussing it, talking about it? It means that people are paying attention. Doesn’t it?
Then I saw this.
Falling just shy of the 2013 outing, Nielsen returns put President Obama’s Tuesday address as the least watched since 2000.
Apparently, they were right. America is tuning out.
It could be the only people paying attention were insiders, media people, speechwriters, White House staff members, friends and family of members of Congress, political operatives, cameramen, broadcasters, and editors who had no choice, but primarily, disgruntled conservatives; the people warning us that no one is paying attention.
The gross average audience of 13 networks airing President Barack Obama’s speech puts viewership at 33,299,172. That’s down from the 33.5 million that tuned in for the 2013 speech for its lowest showing since 2000. (President Bill Clinton’s final address in office averaged 31,478,000.)
Paul Bond writes: The filmmakers behind Dinesh D’Souza‘s upcoming doc have vowed to press on while their star defends himself after his indictment on federal charges that he violated campaign finance laws in 2012. On Sunday, they released a trailer for the movie, America, that is set for release on July 4.
“I want to take this progressive, leftist critique head on”
America is the follow-up to the surprise hit 2016: Obama’s America, which earned $33 million in 2012 and became the second most popular political documentary in history, behind Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which earned $119 million in 2004.
(Photo by Ben Hider/Getty Images)
In America, D’Souza — who wrote and produced the film — makes the claim that 1960s radical leftism is more or less indistinguishable from current mainstream liberalism, a doctrine that he says preaches the United States is the product of “stealing and plunder” from Native Americans, Mexicans and African-American slaves.
“I want to take this progressive, leftist critique head on,” D’Souza says in the trailer. The movie will include re-creations of some of the major events in American history.
Less than two weeks after his anti-gay remarks prompted an “indefinite hiatus” for the reality patriarch, and a strong fan backlash, the network says he will remain on the series.
Phil Robertson, the patriarch of A&E’sDuck Dynasty clan who was suspended from his hit reality series on Dec. 18 following some incendiary comments about gay people, won’t be put on hiatus after all.
The network and the Robertson family announced Friday that Phil will still be part of the series — and since he didn’t miss any filming, his temporary suspension will have no effect on the upcoming fifth season.
As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals.
That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs, and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the mis-interpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A+E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article, and reiterate that they are not views we hold.
Fox News executive vice president of corporate communications Brian Lewis was fired and thrown out of the building two weeks ago after an internal investigation found that he had breached his contract with regard to “issues relating to financial irregularities,” according to the network. Lewis was widely perceived to be the top aide to Fox News president Roger Ailes, and was reportedly working on his separation agreement as of Tuesday.
A company spokesperson stated, “After an extensive internal investigation of Brian Lewis’ conduct by Fox News, it was determined that he should be terminated for cause, specifically for issues relating to financial irregularities, as well as for multiple, material and significant breaches of his employment contract. He was terminated for cause on July 25.”
Lewis joined the company at its inception 17 years ago, and rose to his current position for Fox News, Fox Business Network, Fox Television Stations and 20th Television.