Archives: January 2011

For the moment, the most famous showbiz connection involving the small town of Eagle, Idaho is a resident by the name of George Kennedy. The actor, who turns 86 next month, won an Academy Award for Cool Hand Luke and was a willing, onscreen foil for the late Leslie Nielsen.

Hoping to soon follow in those footsteps is 13-year-old local Connor Williams (pictured), originally from Folsom, California. Williams is showcasing himself with full confidence via the URL ImGoingtoHollywood.com, where his biography informs that he directed his first short film at age ten and collected his inaugural festival prize soon thereafter.

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From the always fair Craigslist:

Looking to Hire Entertainment Journalists For Paid Writing Gig (Los Angeles)

Wall Street Journal contributor Michael Judge is the latest journalist to make the pilgrimage to Carmel, California to chat with former mayor Clint Eastwood. He does a nice job of painting the picture of what it’s like to sit down with the 80-year-old Hollywood icon on the actor’s home turf.

In the comments section, several readers debate Eastwood’s declaration that his upcoming biopic of J. Edgar Hoover starring Leonardo DiCaprio will not really address allegations that the FBI chief was a closeted homosexual and cross-dresser. While some comments reflect disappointment and surprise that this would be the case with a screenplay written by Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk), others like Sally Wilson applaud the non-salacious focus:

Many years ago my spouse pleaded with Richard Pryor concerning a planned biographical film on the legendary Charlie Parker. To make his point he sent Pryor a tape of varied musicians of the thirties and forties to show… that the curse of drugs and racism though existent in Parker’s life was not the essence of his genius and his demons. Pryor did not produce the story.

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John Barry, the man who probably did more to make James Bond a household name than Sean Connery, died in New York yesterday at the age of 77. Barry was the musician behind the scores of a dozen Bond films, including “Goldfinger.” He picked up five Oscars over the course of his more than 40-year career, for films like “Out of Africa” (1985) and “Dances with Wolves” (1990). His compositions were often way better than the movies they were in. The piece above is from the otherwise forgettable 1979 film “Black Hole.” The LA Times‘ Randall Roberts compiled a Youtube list of some of Barry’s other great works.

As HuffPost‘s Ryan Grim notes, Al Jazeera and its sterling coverage of the uprising in Egypt and across the Middle East, is blocked out by most cable providers in the United States. Even though our hockey-playing cousins to the north have access to Al Jazeera‘s English language network. But don’t you worry! American networks are on the ball! Get your international eduhmacation right here, on Fox News. First lesson, geography.

Holy shit! If we don’t bomb Egypt soon the Iranians are going to get control of the Suez Canal. All 2,000 miles of it.

H/T The eXiled

Essence magazine will be in Los Angeles come Oscar-time to throw its fourth annual “Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon.” This year the event will celebrate the work of Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, Loretta Devine and Viola Davis.

Press release after the jump:

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Having recently paid in the neighborhood of $50 million for the rights to the image of Marilyn Monroe, Toronto businessman Jamie Salter has big posthumous plans for the one-time star of Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

He tells Canadian Press reporter Victoria Ahearn that he has no doubt Monroe will, within the next couple of years, magically re-materialize on screen to star in a Hollywood movie:

Salter said his company is talking with Creative Artists Agency to represent them as they try to incorporate Monroe’s likeness into digital media. He wouldn’t divulge names but confirmed that he’s “had conversations with some pretty big movie people in the last couple of months and there’s definitely an interest.”

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Call us crazy, but what does it say about our culture that in the midst of a general American decline, on the eve of austerity measures poised to virtually eliminate the social safety net, and in the middle of a democratic movement in the Middle East that in a matter of months could potentially take away access to all the cheap, ill-gotten oil our society is built on, do we choose to elevate films about a power-hungry billionaire, a pitiable British monarch and ballet, while lavishing praise and attention upon an actress–Natalie Portman–for showing up to her celebration decked out in $2 million worth of jewels?

We’ll let you ponder that as you take a peak at the SAG Award winners from last night. After the jump:

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Our new/old Governor Jerry Brown is to give his first State of the State address (for this term). It’s tonight at 5pm.

You can watch it online here.

60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft interviewed Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.

This is the first in depth interview Assange has done and it’s a dichotomy of media. New school interviewed by old school. The new tech journalist pushing the activist envelope on a show that employs the oldest weekly commentator in the history of the universe, Andy Rooney.