In Hollywood, ‘Anything Goes’ Becomes ‘You’re Fired’
Posted: July 23, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: #MeToo, Activism, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hollywood, James Gunn, media, Mob, Twitter Leave a comment
Disney has severed ties with filmmaker James Gunn, who previously directed two ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies. Photo: Jordan Strauss/Associated Press
Joe Flint reports: Executives and creatives are losing their jobs as the entertainment industry becomes less tolerant of offensive remarks, abusive behavior
Hollywood’s longstanding say-anything, do-anything culture is rapidly turning into one where the wrong words can have career-killing consequences.
Top executives at Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures and Netflix Inc., as well as creative talent who worked on the “Lethal Weapon” television series and “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies have been fired in recent months after allegations of offensive remarks, verbal abuse and other inappropriate behavior that in the past was more likely to have been tolerated, industry veterans said.
“Saying something offensive back in the day wouldn’t necessarily get you fired,” said Tom Nunan, a former high-ranking television executive and executive producer of the Oscar-winning movie “Crash,” about race relations in Los Angeles. “Now the consequences are severe and immediate.”
The recent firings comes in the wake of the #MeToo movement that started in Hollywood with allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and has had repercussions throughout workplaces. Mr. Weinstein has denied accusations of nonconsensual sexual acts. Read the rest of this entry »
Rose Marie Dies; Actress Had Career Spanning Film, TV, Broadway, Radio & Nightclubs
Posted: December 29, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, Broadway, Dick Van Dyke Show, Hollywood, Rose Marie, Show Business, Television Leave a comment
Bruce Haring reports: Actress Rose Marie, whose trademark hair bow is in the Smithsonian and who had a long career spanning TV, Broadway, films, nightclubs and as a Hollywood Square, has died. She was 94 and passed away in Van Nuys, CA.
She was best known for her role as comedy writer Sally Rogers on TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show, trading barbs with the boys club in quick-witted fashion after joining the show in 1961. After five seasons, she moved on to The Doris Day Show.
She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in October of 2001, later releasing a best-selling memoir, Hold the Roses, in 2006.
Born Rose Marie Mazzetta on Aug. 15, 1923, the same day when Broadway musical Rose-Marie opened, she started her career at age 3 by winning an amateur talent show as Baby Rose Marie.
She later segued to radio, becoming a popular guest star and eventually getting her own program on NBC. She also was a recording artist for Mercury Records. The popularity led her to a film career, where she appeared in some of the earliest talkies, including the 1929 short Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder.
Marie appeared in several Paramount pictures, including International House and Big Broadcast of 1935.
OH YES SHE DID: Meryl Streep Targeted by Street Artists With ‘She Knew’ Posters
Posted: December 20, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Activism, Barbara Kruger, Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood, Meryl Streep, Posters, Sexual abuse, Street art Leave a comment
The posters appeared in several locations in Los Angeles.
In posters that appeared in several locations in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Meryl Streep was seemingly depicted as a Harvey Weinstein enabler by anonymous street artists.
Posters hung early in the morning, before the sun came up, feature an image of Streep next to Weinstein with a red strip across her face with the text “She knew,” an apparent reference to Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse of women over the course of decades.
The posters are a riff on the work of artist Barbara Kruger, whose signature text in red banners has been adapted and copied for decades.
America’s Neo-Victorian Future
Posted: December 19, 2017 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: #BelieveAllWomen, #MeToo, Feminism, Global Panic, Hollywood, Megan McArdle, Sex Panic, sexual harassment, Sexual Misconduct, Victorian, Washington D.C. Leave a comment
Megan McArdle writes: Last week I considered our culture’s vanishing burden of proof when a prominent man is accused of any sexual impropriety. Certainly I wouldn’t want the bad old days of sexual harassment to continue. But there must be some way to find justice for women who have been abused without rushing to punish men who may not have abused anyone.
You can think of crimes as a sort of pyramid: At the top, there are a relatively small number of actions that we can all clearly agree merit the severest sanction, if proven. And then, as you slide down the walls of the pyramid, a growing number of cases that are less and less bad. At the base of the pyramid is a gray area where reasonable people can disagree about whether the evidence is strong, or the behavior alleged merits any sanction.
What happens if we try to apply the sanctions that are clearly merited for the guys at the top to the guys in the middle? What happens if we try to move the line down until it encompasses more and more of the guys at the bottom? Read the rest of this entry »
‘People Are Wondering How Harvey Can Live with Himself … The Answer is … a Lot of Drugs’
Posted: November 3, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: drugs, Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood, Medication, sexual harassment, Show Business 1 Comment
” …people are wondering how Harvey can live with himself after all he’s done — the years of sexually predatory behavior. The answer is: with the help of a lot of drugs.”
Emily Smith writes: Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was spotted aboard a commercial flight in first class with a huge haul of prescription drugs.
As revealed exclusively on “Page Six TV” Thursday, Weinstein was photographed opening a sturdy silver case filled with an astonishing amount of prescription pill bottles and medications as he sat in first class on a plane at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in December last year before his sexual harassment scandal broke — in full view of other passengers and the flight crew.
The source, who gave the picture exclusively to Page Six, said, “Many people are wondering how Harvey can live with himself after all he’s done — the years of sexually predatory behavior. The answer is: with the help of a lot of drugs.”
The source said that when another passenger on the plane who recognized Weinstein asked about his impressive pharmaceutical stash, Weinstein explained, “Oh, I’ve got a cold.”
A different source familiar with Weinstein over the years told us, “He always had that briefcase of drugs. He carries his whole medicine cabinet with him — even stuff he isn’t taking at the time.” Read the rest of this entry »
38 Women Have Come Forward to Accuse Director James Toback of Sexual Harassment
Posted: October 23, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Director, Harrassment, Hollywood, James Toback, Movies, Sex, Sexual Misconduct Leave a comment
Director James Toback told women that he could put them in movies. But then, they say, he sexually harassed them.
Glenn Whipp reports: He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler. He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes.
His opening line had a few variations. One went: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?”
Probably not. So he’d start to drop names. He had an Oscar nomination for writing the Warren Beatty movie “Bugsy.” He directed Robert Downey Jr., in three movies. The actor, Toback claimed, was a close friend; he had “invented him.” If you didn’t believe him, he would pull out a business card or an article that had been written about him to prove he had some juice in Hollywood. That he could make you a star.
But first, he’d need to get to know you. Intimately. Trust him, he’d say. It’s all part of his process.
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 11: (L-R) Producer, writer and director Michael Moore and writer, director and actor James Toback attend Museum of the Moving Image Inaugural Envision Award Gala Dinner at Museum of the Moving Image on June 11, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
Then, in a hotel room, a movie trailer, a public park, meetings framed as interviews or auditions quickly turned sexual, according to 38 women who, in separate interviews told the Los Angeles Times of similar encounters they had with Toback.
During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He’d tell them, they said, that he couldn’t properly function unless he “jerked off” several times a day. And then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over.
The women’s accounts portray James Toback as a man who, for decades, sexually harassed women he hired, women looking for work and women he just saw on the street. The vast majority of these women — 31 of the 38 interviewed — spoke on the record. The Times also interviewed people that the women informed of the incidents when they occurred.
Actor Alec Baldwin, left, speaks with director James Toback during a photo call for the film Seduced and Abandoned at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Tuesday, May 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
As is often the case, none of them contacted the police at the time. When contacted by The Times, Toback denied the allegations, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it “was for five minutes and have no recollection.” He also repeatedly claimed that for the last 22 years, it had been “biologically impossible” for him to engage in the behavior described by the women in this story, saying he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication. Toback declined to offer further details.
The women interviewed during The Times’ investigation offered accounts that differed from Toback’s recollections.
“The way he presented it, it was like, ‘This is how things are done,’” actress Adrienne LaValley said of a 2008 hotel room encounter that ended with Toback trying to rub his crotch against her leg. When she recoiled, he stood up and ejaculated in his pants. “I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone.”
“In a weird sense, I thought, ‘This is a test of whether I’m a real artist and serious about acting,’” remembered Starr Rinaldi, who was an aspiring actress when Toback approached her in Central Park about 15 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Jesus Campos, Security Guard Who Confronted Las Vegas Gunman Stephen Paddock, Vanishes
Posted: October 17, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere | Tags: ABC News, Associated Press, California, CNN, Fire, Hollywood, Jesus Campos, LAS VEGAS, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times, Sonoma County, Stephen Paddock Leave a comment
Jesus Campos was set for appearances on Fox News, ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC when he seemingly disappeared.
The Times on Monday reported that Jesus Campos has apparently vanished from the public eye after encountering shooter Stephen Paddock earlier this month.
The president of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America union said that it had been four days since he had seen Campos.
“We have had no contact with him,” Dave Hickey said. “Clearly, somebody knows where he is.”
Hickey said he was with Campos last Thursday, helping coordinate a series of television interviews the guard was slated to give about the rampage.
Campos was scheduled to appear on Fox News’s “Hannity,” and he was also set for appearances on ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC.
Hickey said that Campos was staying in a suite in a Las Vegas hotel, only to apparently depart while he was attending a meeting.
The union president added that after his meeting with MGM representatives ended last Thursday afternoon, Campos was no longer present in a nearby room. Read the rest of this entry »
Introducing: The Woody Allen Center for Sexual Health & Rehabilitation
Posted: October 16, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: comedy, Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood, Mia Farrow, Parody, Rehab, Rehabilitation, Ronan Farrow, satire, scandal, Sex Counseling, Sexual abuse, Show Business Leave a comment
Weinstein Bonfire: Harvey Got Exposed Because He’s Not Profitable Anymore
Posted: October 16, 2017 Filed under: Cinema, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: "The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran from Getting Nukes?, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, Asia Argento, Gwyneth Paltrow, Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood, Hookers, Mira Sorvino, Prostitution, Rosanna Arquette, Rose McGowan, scandal, Sexual abuse, Sexual Misconduct 1 Comment
A collective jaw dropped this week as Asia Argento, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette and a host of other women joined Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan in speaking publicly about being harassed, mauled and even allegedly raped by Hollywood’s heavyweight gorilla, Harvey Weinstein.
Media outlets ironically wrung their hands and asked in big, bold block letters: How could this have gone on for so long? If everyone knew, why didn’t anyone say anything? And the inevitable: What can be done?
To answer these questions, let’s look beyond the Harvey-shaped elephant in the room. Behind the touted veneer of creative genius and imagination, the Hollywood studio system (an umbrella term that now encompasses movie studios, television networks, news organizations, tech companies and new media) was built on top of the cushions of the casting couch. And, as we’ve seen several times this year, that couch was never retired.
I witnessed a lot at Page Six — only a fraction of which ever hit the paper (for a multitude of reasons). But I will share one incident in May 2004 that has always summed up for me how this industry really feels about women.
[Read the full story here, at the New York Post]
I had gone to dinner with a friend who was in town for the upfronts (the big annual congregation where television network executives fly in from Los Angeles and present their upcoming slates of new shows). He worked at United Talent Agency and was psyched when I scored us an 8 p.m. reservation at the hottest place in town, Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market, unfortunately, next to a table of three drunk and loud television executives, one of whom I knew headed up a cable network.
“I need a hooker while I’m in town,” one man quasi-yelled.
“Dude — the top-shelf whores go for $1,000 an hour, $5,000 a night,” the cable exec bragged to his friends.
“That’s all? All night?”
“All night — whatever you want — and these are working actresses.”
“No way — who are we talking about?”
The executive, in between ordering more bottles of Patron silver, proceeded to bray out the names of women who were indeed working actresses as well as models — including one woman who was cast in a show on his network. He was her boss.
“How do you think she got the job?” the executive joked, as the others high-fived him.
That incident always ate at me — it was the crystallization of just how lousy it is out there for women trying to either get a job, do their job or advance in one of the most powerful industries in America. Read the rest of this entry »
Hollywood is Suffering its Worst-Attended Summer Movie Season in 25 Years
Posted: September 2, 2017 Filed under: Economics, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Hollywood, Movies Leave a comment
A sobering reality has gripped Hollywood as domestic film industry revenue fell an estimated 16% during the all-important summer season.
The number of tickets sold in the United States and Canada this summer is projected to fall to the lowest level in a quarter-century.
The results have put the squeeze on the nation’s top theater chains, whose stocks have taken a drubbing. AMC Theatres Chief Executive Adam Aron this month called his company’s most recent quarter “simply a bust.”
Such blunt language reflects some worrisome trends. Domestic box-office revenue is expected to total $3.78 billion for the first weekend of May through Labor Day — a key period that generates about 40% of domestic ticket sales — down nearly 16% from the same period last year, according to comScore. That’s an even worse decline than the 10% drop some studio executives predicted before the summer began.
And the number of actual tickets sold this summer paints a bleaker picture, with total admissions likely to clock in at about 425 million, the lowest level since 1992, according to industry estimates.
No one can fully explain why. Studio executives, movie theater operators and analysts cited the usual explanations for the summer slump. There are the obvious reasons: Too many bad movies, including sequels, reboots and aging franchises that no one wanted to see. Some point to rising ticket prices, which hit a record high in the second quarter, according to the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. Then there are long-term challenges, including competition from streaming services such as Netflix and the influence of the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. How about all of the above?
What is clear: This summer was marred with multiple high-profile films that flopped stateside, including “The Mummy,” “Baywatch,” “The Dark Tower” and “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.” Sequels in the “Alien,” “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchises also disappointed. (International ticket sales are helping to ease some of the pain.) Read the rest of this entry »
Carrie Fisher’s Autopsy Reveals Cocktail of Drugs, Including Cocaine, Opiates and Ecstasy
Posted: June 19, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: American Journal of Cardiology, Aneurysm, Ankylosing spondylitis, atherosclerotic heart disease, Barnsley Hospital, Carrie Fisher, Cocaine, CT scan, drugs, Hollywood, MDMA, opiates Leave a comment
Carrie Fisher had a drug cocktail in her system when she died in late December after going into cardiac arrest aboard an LAX-bound flight.
A Los Angeles County coroner’s report released on Monday revealed a mixture of drugs that were in actress Carrie Fisher’s system when she went into cardiac arrest on an L.A.-bound flight and later died.
Fisher’s toxicology review found evidence of cocaine, methadone, MDMA (better known as ecstasy), alcohol and opiates when she was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Hospital on Dec. 23, a toxicology report showed.
The test results “suggests there was an exposure to heroin, but that the dose and time of exposure cannot be pinpointed.” Therefore we cannot establish the significance of heroin regarding the cause of death in this case.”
The tests revealed that the cocaine would have been consumed within the previous 72 hours, according to the autopsy.
Four days later on Dec. 27, Fisher went into cardiac arrest. After 90 minutes of attempting to revive her, officials declared the “Star Wars” actress dead just before 9 a.m.
Her cause of death was listed as sleep apnea with other factors.
In addition to the listed cause of death, the coroner’s statement cited “other conditions: atherosclerotic heart disease, drug use.”
It also said: “How Injury Occurred: Multiple drug intake, significance not ascertained.”
At family’s request, medical examiners did not dissect the corpse. Instead, they conducted CT scans of the body. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Best Political Speech by an Entertainment Celebrity: Who Will Win?
Posted: February 25, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Award for Best Actress, Academy Award for Best Picture, Academy Awards, Austin Bragg, Circular reasoning, Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, Hollywood, Meryl Streep, New York City, Parody, satire, video, Viola Davis Leave a comment
Forget the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and the Emmys: the stars are all out for the Hollywood Awards. But who will take home the prize for Best Political Speech by an Entertainment Celebrity?
Written and produced by Austin Bragg. Performed by Andrew Heaton and Austin Bragg
Lauren Bacall, 1949
Posted: February 10, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Cinema, Entertainment, Photography | Tags: Film, Glamour, Hollywood, Lauren Bacall, Movies Leave a comment[VIDEO] Celebrities Speak Out Against Donald Trump
Posted: January 30, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Celebrities, Donald Trump, Hollywood, news, Sad Trombone, satire, video Leave a comment
[PHOTOS] Mary Tyler Moore, Dancer
Posted: January 25, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, Dancer, Dancing, Dick Van Dyke Show, Hollywood, Mary Tyler Moore, Show Business, Television Leave a comment
[VIDEO] REWIND: Mary Tyler Moore on Her Favorite ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ Moments
Posted: January 25, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, Hollywood, Mary Tyler Moore, media, Television, The Dick Van Dyke Show, video Leave a comment
See her full interview here.
Mary Tyler Moore: 1936 – 2017
Posted: January 25, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Carrie Fisher, Dick Van Dyke Show, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, Grant Tinker, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Mary Tyler Moore, MTM Enterprises, Princess Leia, Television, The Brady Bunch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show 1 Comment
Television great Mary Tyler Moore, the beloved star of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died Wednesday in Connecticut. She was 80. The Associated Press confirmed her death.
The vivacious brunette performer transformed the image of women on television first as Van Dyke’s sexy, vulnerable wife Laura Petrie and then as single career girl Mary Richards in her own series. Her work in the two series brought Moore five Emmy Awards, in 1965, 1966, 1973, 1974 and 1976. She won another Emmy for 1993 TV special “Stolen Babies.”
Moore was also a powerhouse producer via her MTM production company with then-husband Grant Tinker, producing her own series as well as “The Bob Newhart Show” and spinoff series “Rhoda” and “Lou Grant,” among others.
Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty
She combined wholesomeness and sex appeal with cracker-jack comedic timing. In many ways Moore was a throwback to Hollywood golden era leading ladies like Myrna Loy and Jean Arthur, but with a decidedly updated twist.
Her role as Laura Petrie, the suburban wife of comedy writer Rob Petrie, also represented a step forward for the portrayal of women on television. Though they maintained separate beds, the Petries otherwise shared an active, romantic marital life. And unlike Desi Arnaz on “I Love Lucy,” Van Dyke’s character was not threatened by his wife’s talents or her intelligence.
The series made Moore a star, and she worked on films under contract at Universal. With the exception of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” in which she played third fiddle to Julie Andrews and the scene-stealing Carol Channing, the studio’s attempts to fashion her in the Doris Day mold was unsuccessful. Moore also tried her hand at the Broadway stage, co-starring with Richard Chamberlain in David Merrick’s musical version of Truman Capote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Gutfeld: The Benefits of a Celebrity-Free Inauguration
Posted: January 16, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Celebrities, celebrity, Donald Trump, Fox News, Greg Gutfeld, Hollywood, media, news, Presidential Inauguration 2017, Show Business, Television Leave a comment
[VIDEO] ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ Returning to Theaters This Month
Posted: January 15, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Academy Awards, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Hollywood, Princess Leia, Singin' in the Rain, The Unsinkable Molly Brown (film), Todd Fisher 1 Comment
Just weeks after Debbie Reynolds’ death at age 84, the legendary entertainer’s most famous movie is dancing back onto the silver screen for a limited engagement. Singin’ in the Rain will screen Sunday, Jan. 15, and Wednesday, Jan. 18, in theaters nationwide as the first film in this year’s TCM Big Screen Classics series.
Reynolds landed her breakout role in the 1952 musical, playing a budding actress caught up in Hollywood’s transition from the silent era to the talkies. Though she had no dancing experience at the time, then-18-year-old Reynolds held her own with the likes of Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in numbers like “Good Morning” and “You Were Meant for Me.”
In her 1988 biography, Debbie, she wrote that “Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life.” Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Worship: Clap-Out Recalls Stalin’s Grim Loyalists
Posted: January 15, 2017 Filed under: Censorship, History, Politics, Russia, Think Tank | Tags: Applause, Barack Obama, Bejidé Davis, Cancer, Chimp, Communism, Cuba, Dick Cheney, Donald Trump, Hollywood, Joseph Stalin, Kevin D. Williamson, Marilyn Geewax, National Review, NPR, Republican Party (United States), Ronald Reagan, Totalitrianism, Tribal, Tribalism, Tribe, Venezuela Leave a comment
Kevin D. Williamson writes: Applause was a serious business in the Soviet Union, as it is in Cuba, as it is in Venezuela, as it is in all unfree societies and at our own State of the Union address, which is modeled on the ex cathedra speeches of unfree societies. The less free you are, the more you are obliged to applaud. Joseph Stalin’s pronouncements were greeted with perfervid applause, which would continue, rapturously — no one dared stop — until Stalin himself would order its cessation.
“The desire to rule is complexly mixed up with the desire to be ruled, just as the most masterful among us bow the lowest and grovel the most enthusiastically when presented with a strongman-savior.”
But what to do when Stalin was not there? The mere mention of his name, even in his absence, would trigger fanatical applause, and nobody wanted to be the first to stop. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn related one famous story:
The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on
stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter.
[Read the full story here, at National Review]
[Kevin D. Williamson’s book “The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome” is available at Amazon]
Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.
That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them.
That same night the factory director was arrested.
Stalin is long gone, and the Soviet Union, too, having been deposited, as Ronald Reagan predicted, onto the “ash heap of history.” But the craven instinct on display in the scene Solzhenitsyn described remains.
The desire to rule is complexly mixed up with the desire to be ruled, just as the most masterful among us bow the lowest and grovel the most enthusiastically when presented with a strongman-savior. There is something atavistic in us that is older than the human part — the inner chimp — that makes those who listen to its voice keenly aware of their places in the social hierarchy. Even a predator instinctively recognizes a predator higher up the food chain.
“The language there is interesting: She did not write that Price ‘did not applaud,’ ‘refrained from applauding’, or even ‘failed to applaud,” but that he refused to applaud, a formulation that converts passivity into a positive act, one from which we are to derive something of significance about his fitness for the role of secretary of health and human services.”
Which is not to say that National Public Radio’s Marilyn Geewax is a Stalinist, but rather that they were what she is, representatives of the same species.
[Read the full story here, at National Review]
Geewax, who is a senior business editor for NPR, is very interested in applause. This week, she expressed some concern that Representative Tom Price has been nominated to serve as the next secretary of health and human services. Read the rest of this entry »
What Donald Trump Should Have Tweeted
Posted: January 9, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Diplomacy, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Acting, Golden Globes, Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Award, Hollywood, media, Meryl Streep, Presidential Leave a comment
It would have A. driven his opponents, haters, and enemies crazy. What did he mean? Is that all? What will Meryl Streep say now? Better still, it would have neutralized the controversy, tempered the division, honored her contribution to entertainment, confirmed that both of them are winners, while demonstrating non-newsworthy, off-the-rack, standard-issue presidential courtesy.
Win-win.
STATE OF CULTURE: 36,500,000 Watched NFL Wild Card Game On FOX Last Night. 16,800,000 Watched The ‘GOLDEN GLOBES’… pic.twitter.com/ouNDqT7ee9
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) January 9, 2017
[VIDEO] Trump Meets With Alibaba Chairman at Trump Tower
Posted: January 9, 2017 Filed under: Economics, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Alibaba, Beijing, Beijing Film Academy, Donald Trump, Hollywood, Trump Tower Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Touré Calls Hollywood Stars ‘Average Americans’
Posted: January 9, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Actor, Actress, Golden Globes, Hollywood, media, MSNBC, news, Show Business, video Leave a comment
Camille Paglia: How to Age Disgracefully in Hollywood
Posted: January 8, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: A Foreign Affair, Alisa Ganieva, Anthony Marra, Antonino Faà di Bruno, Berlin, Billboard Music Award, Billy Wilder, Bing Crosby, Camille Paglia, Casino Royale (1967 film), City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's, Gloria Estefan, Hollywood, Mariah Carey Leave a comment
The social critic and academic blames 1960s disruptions of gender roles (and not the entertainment industry) for Madonna’s and J. Lo’s difficulty letting go of their youth as she chastises them to “stop cannibalizing the young.”
Camille Paglia writes: In December, at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in New York City, Madonna was given the trophy for Woman of the Year. In a rambling, tearful acceptance speech that ran more than 16 minutes, she claimed to be a victim of “blatant misogyny, sexism, constant bullying and relentless abuse.”
It was a startling appropriation of stereotypical feminist rhetoric by a superstar whose major achievement in cultural history was to overthrow the puritanical old guard of second-wave feminism and to liberate the long-silenced pro-sex, pro-beauty wing of feminism, which (thanks to her) swept to victory in the 1990s.
Madonna’s opening line at the awards gala was edited out of the shortened official video: “I stand before you as a doormat — oh, I mean a female entertainer.” Merciful Minerva! Can there be any woman on Earth less like a doormat than Madonna Louise Ciccone? Madonna sped on with shaky assertions (“There are no rules if you’re a boy”) and bafflingly portrayed the huge commercial success of her 1992 book, Sex, as a chapter of the Spanish Inquisition, in which she was persecuted as “a whore and a witch.”
[Read the full story here, at Hollywood Reporter]
I was singled out by name as having accused her of “objectifying” herself sexually (prudish feminist jargon that I always have rejected), when in fact I was Madonna’s first major defender, celebrating her revival of pagan eroticism and prophesying in a highly controversial 1990 New York Times op-ed that she was “the future of feminism.”
Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, in which her character “has gone bonkers and thinks she’s the sexy Salome of her youth.” Getty Images
Crawford exhibits “crazed willpower and misery in her facial muscles,” says Paglia. Getty Images
But I want to focus here on the charge of ageism that Madonna, now 58, leveled against the entertainment industry and that received heavy, sympathetic coverage in the mainstream media. Her grievances about the treatment of women performers climaxed with this: “And finally, do not age, because to age is a sin. You will be criticized, you will be vilified and you will definitely not be played on the radio.”
[Read the full story here, at Hollywood Reporter]
First of all, lack of radio airplay may indeed hamper new or indie groups, but in this digital age, when songs go viral in a flash, rich and famous performers of Madonna’s level fail to get airplay not because of their age, but because their current music no longer is attracting a broad audience. When was the last time Madonna released hit songs of the brilliant quality of her golden era of the 1980s and ’90s? Lavish, lucrative touring rather than sustained creative work in the studio has been her priority for decades. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Watch The Voting Community Demand Hollywood Try Harder On Their Lame Activist Videos
Posted: January 6, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Actors, Actresses, Bret Baier, Celebrities, Chris Wallace, Dana Perino, Donald Trump, Emily Hall, Empowerment, Entertainment Industry, Feminism, Hollywood, Katie Pavlich, Liberals, S. E. Cupp, The Federalist, Town Hall, Voting Leave a comment
We, as the voting public, have demands as well, and we put them in video form, so our friends in the Entertainment Community can understand.
Many thanks to Guy Benson, S.E. Cupp, Mollie Hemingway, Katie Pavlich, and Leigh Wolf…(read more)
Source: thefederalist.com
[VIDEO] Billy Eichner: Do Gay People Care About John Oliver?
Posted: January 4, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: ABC World News Tonight, Billy Eichner, Billy on the Street, Donald Trump, HBO, Hollywood, John Oliver, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, TruTV Leave a comment
John Oliver may well care about gay people, but it turns out gay people don’t care a huge amount about John Oliver.
The British comedian and host of “Last Week Tonight” joined up with Billy Eichner for a segment of “Billy on the Street” to find out what gay people think of him. Eichner scours the streets of New York for gay people to sample, while Oliver stands awkwardly by his side. At first the pair’s struggle seems to be to find someone who’s even heard of him.
“Who’s John Oliver?” one man asks…(read more)
Source: Variety
‘Gilda’, Charles Vidor, 1946
Posted: December 3, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: 100 Photographs That Changed the World, Charles Vidor, Cinema, Cinematography, Hollywood, Movies Leave a comment
The Quotable Al Pacino
Posted: December 1, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor | Tags: Al Pacino, Hair, Hollywood, Parody, quotes, satire, Show Business, Style, The Godfather, Vanity, Washington Post Leave a comment
[VIDEO] A Conversation With Teng Junjie
Posted: November 21, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Asia, China, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Ageism, Cinema, Film, Hollywood, LGBT, Mass media, Social change, Teng Junjie, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Leave a comment
Dean Wilson of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism speaks with Teng Junjie, distinguished television and film director, about global media trends.
Information Warfare: Communist Takeover of U.S. Entertainment Industry
Posted: November 15, 2016 Filed under: Asia, Censorship, China, Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Law & Justice, Think Tank | Tags: Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Communist Red Army, Edward Snowden, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hollywood, James Comey, National Security Agency, Oliver Stone, People's Liberation Army, United States Department of Justice, Wang Jianlin 2 Comments
Among the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ duties is to determine the national security impact that the foreign takeover of an American industry could have on the U.S. Congress has expressed concern and has asked its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, to probe the national security issues associated with the Chinese acquisitions of American entertainment companies.
A one-time commander in China’s Communist Red Army has launched information warfare with an aggressive plan to invest billions in all six major Hollywood studios, a show business trade publication reports, describing the foreign deal as an unprecedented push into the U.S. entertainment sector. The former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regimental commander, Wang Jianlin, is China’s richest man and he’s aggressively pursuing a big chunk of one of the world’s most influential industries.
“The former People’s Liberation Army regimental commander, Wang Jianlin, is China’s richest man and he’s aggressively pursuing a big chunk of one of the world’s most influential industries.”
A few years ago, Wang doled out $2.6 billion to buy the nation’s largest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, and now he’s taking it a huge step further with the studio deals that will have a huge impact on production. Chinese money has been shaping the movie industry for years, mainstream news reports have revealed, and one major newspaper reported earlier this year that China is expected to become the world’s biggest box office by the end of 2017.
“This may cause Americans to wonder what the U.S. government is doing to counter the information warfare. Specifically, a division of the U.S. Treasury, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, is responsible for reviewing transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by foreigners.”
“This has changed how Hollywood behaves in big ways—like the flood of money coming in to co-finance blockbusters, or sequels that get the green light simply because they performed well in China,” the article states.
[Read the full text here, at Judicial Watch]
An industry expert cited in the article says that very few foreign companies have ever successfully cracked the Hollywood code in a big way, but Chinese buyers are getting closer to that goal.
“Wang doled out $2.6 billion to buy the nation’s largest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, and now he’s taking it a huge step further with the studio deals that will have a huge impact on production.”
This may cause Americans to wonder what the U.S. government is doing to counter the information warfare. Specifically, a division of the U.S. Treasury, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is responsible for reviewing transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by foreigners.
“This has changed how Hollywood behaves in big ways—like the flood of money coming in to co-finance blockbusters, or sequels that get the green light simply because they performed well in China.”
Judicial Watch is investigating what this agency is doing to scrutinize the Chinese Communist takeover and is drafting public records requests for the CFIUS and other pertinent agencies.
[Read the full text here, at Judicial Watch]
After all, among the CFIUS’s duties is to determine the national security impact that the foreign takeover of an American industry could have on the U.S. Congress has expressed concern and has asked its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to probe the national security issues associated with the Chinese acquisitions of American entertainment companies.
“Judicial Watch is investigating what this agency is doing to scrutinize the Chinese Communist takeover and is drafting public records requests for the CFIUS and other pertinent agencies.”
These disturbing revelations come on the heels of an equally alarming Hollywood story Judicial Watch reported illustrating the Obama administration’s hands off policy when it comes to illegal activities in the powerful entertainment industry. It involves a big-screen movie about traitor Edward Snowden, who has been criminally charged by the U.S. government under the Espionage Act. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Post #ComedyCentralRoast Disaster, Let’s REWIND, Old-School: Don Rickles 1969
Posted: September 6, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, Ann Coulter, comedy, Comedy Central, Comedy Central Roast, Dean Martin, Don Rickles, Hollywood, Insult Comic, Jimmy Carr, news, Pundit, roast, Rob Lowe, Stand up, video Leave a comment
[PHOTO] Eastwood, Nicholson, Walken, Murray
Posted: July 22, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Cinema, Clint Eastwood, Film, Hollywood, Jack Nicholson, Movies, Photography Leave a comment
‘Friends of Abe’ Goes Dark: Secretive Group of Hollywood Conservatives Suddenly Dissolves
Posted: April 22, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Charitable organization, Clint Eastwood, Conservative, Friends of Abe, Gary Sinise, Hollywood, Internal Revenue Service, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Los Angeles, Patricia Heaton 1 Comment
The Friends of Abe has acted as a clandestine club for Hollywood conservatives for more than a decade, hosting secret events where they could vent rightwing views and hear speeches from visiting Tea Party luminaries.
But on Thursday the organisation – which counts Jon Voight, Jerry Bruckheimer and Kelsey Grammer among its 1,500 members – made an abrupt announcement: it was dissolving.
“Effective immediately, we are going to begin to wind down the 501 c3 organization, bring the Sustaining Membership dues to an end, and do away with the costly infrastructure and the abespal.com website,” the executive director, Jeremy Boreing, told members in an email, a copy of which the Guardian has seen.
“Today, because we have been successful in creating a community that extends far beyond our events, people just don’t feel as much of a need to show up for every speaker or bar night, and fewer people pay the dues that help us maintain that large infrastructure.”
The announcement caught members by surprise and fueled speculation that infighting over Donald Trump’s candidacy, among other factors, had drained commitment. Others said the group had been losing steam for years.
Instead of electrifying the organisation, California’s 7 June primary, a final and potentially decisive showdown between Trump and his GOP rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich, appeared to frazzle it.
Lionel Chetwynd, a producer and screenwriter and co-founder of the FOA, recently spoke of the primary campaign causing a “civil war in slow motion”, which fractured friendships and shredded solidarity.
Boreing, a director and producer, put a positive gloss on the announcement, saying the initial hunger for fellowship had prompted the group to build an expensive website, rent offices and hire staff, including lawyers and accountants.
“It’s time to change how we do it. As our group has grown in size and success, many of the structures that helped us grow have become less useful … It means an end to the standing organization, but not an end to the mission or the fellowship.”
Boreing vowed to maintain the mailing list and stage events, but without the infrastructure, staff or budget requirements.
“We will still get together for drinks and speakers, but we may reassess how we approach those events logistically. In short, FOA will return to its roots. It will be a passion project, like it was in the beginning … We’ll still be a private organization that protects the names of our members at all costs.”
Boreing did not immediately respond to interview requests.
Members expressed surprise and dismay at the weakening, and perhaps loss, of a refuge from what they see as Hollywood’s bullying liberal ethos.
It was the one place where many of its members – actors, producers, writers and technicians – felt safe from liberal sneers and potential retribution. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy 79th Birthday to Jack Nicholson
Posted: April 22, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Filmmaking, Hollywood, Jack Nicholson, Movies 1 Comment
[VIDEO] George Clooney Thinks the Amount of Money George Clooney Puts Into Politics is ‘Obscene’
Posted: April 18, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Fundraiser, George Clooney, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood Leave a comment
Actor/Director George Clooney held a couple of high priced fundraisers for Hillary Clinton while simultaneously lamenting the amount of money in politics today.
[VIDEO] The Hidden Trick in Almost Every Classic Hitchcock Scene
Posted: April 10, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Cinema, Dominant-party system, Filmmaking, Frenzy, Hollywood, James Stewart, Marnie (film), Movies, North by Northwest, Psycho (film), Rear Window, The Birds (film), Tom Helmore, Vertigo (film) Leave a comment
Bryan Menages writes: Hitchcock is the unquestioned master of suspense. But what is it about his scenes that makes them so gripping, and why do they stand up to repeated viewings, even when you know the twist?
To answer this, the Nerdwriter turned to blocking—how you position stuff and people in relation to each other—specifically, the blocking in an early interaction from Vertigo. In the lengthy scene, a retired detective (Jimmy Stewart) meets a shipping tycoon (Tom Helmore) in his office, where he’s about to be lied to quite a bit.
During the meeting, Hitchcock uses the chairs to suggest power, with the dominant party at any given time being physically higher than the seated party. Similarly, the back half of the room is slightly raised and blocked by partial walls, almost like a stage…(read more)
Source: sploid.gizmodo.com
[VIDEO] Bill Clinton: ‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Are Defending Murders And Drug Dealers
Posted: April 7, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, White House | Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Black Lives Matter, BLM, Chelsea Clinton, Democratic Party (United States), Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Manhattan, media, MSNBC, news, The Weekly Standard, United States, video 1 CommentOn Thursday, while Bill Clinton was giving a speech to a crowd of Hillary Clinton supporters, he was repeatedly interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters. He responded to them, saying, “you are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth.”
Bill Clinton Defends His Record to Black Lives Matter
I don’t think this is an especially tough rebuttal to Black Lives Matter as Black Lives Matter. He’s not really criticizing them, their naked racial supremacism, or their tactics of disrupting citizens’ lives — their commutes to work, their lunches — and bullying.
He’s mostly just pimping his record. Though he does ultimately turn to telling them, “You are ultimately defending the people” who got 13 year olds hooked on crack and murdered.
Still, to even rebut them and dispute their outlandish claims is a major event. Everyone treats these radicals as if they have Absolute Moral Authority and that the only possible response to their constant, violence-tinged disruptions is to say, “Yes of course you’re right — you are black, and I am white. Therefore everything you say is good and wise, and yes, you can shout in my face for ten minutes while I try to have a moment’s peace eating this sandwich away from my office.”
So I suppose to challenge their Absolute Moral Authority is a something of a deep wound…(read more)
Source: Ace of Spades HQ
Source: The Weekly Standard – Breitbart.com – Ace of Spades HQ
[POSTER] French Grande for MIRAGE, Edward Dmytryk, USA, 1965
Posted: March 30, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: "Mirage", 1960s, design, France, George Kennedy, graphics, Gregory Peck, Hollywood, Illustration, Movie Poster, typography, Walter Matthau Leave a comment
French grande for MIRAGE (Edward Dmytryk, USA, 1965)
Designer: Guy Gérard Noël (1912-1994)
Poster source: Posteritati
[PHOTO] Doris Day with Easter Bunny
Posted: March 24, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Doris Day, Easter, Easter Bunny, Hollywood, Movies, Photography, Rabbit, vintage Leave a comment
pundit from another planet 