The true story of a well-to-do white boy who wanted to play at what so many of us struggle against every day.
In January 1991, I began working in downtown Los Angeles, close to the Union Mission and near St. Vibiana. I walked through a kind of war zone, where the homeless (drunks and druggies and mentally deficit mostly, I thought at the time), the parking lot attendants, and even visiting businessmen thought women walking alone were fair game. I learned…
Archive for the ‘Celebrity Gossip’ Category
Movie Review: Rich Boy Angst Ends in Alaska – Into the Wild
Sunday, December 30th, 2007Movie Review: The Great Debaters
Sunday, December 30th, 2007Good movie, even if the formula is apparent.
With The Great Debaters Denzel Washington returns to the director's chair for the first time since Antwone Fisher in 2002. This is his second turn as a director. The film tells an inspiring story that helped plant the seeds for the civil rights movement. It is an important story that is enlightening and puts a positive spin on a dark spot in…
Movie Review: Scaphandre and le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Sunday, December 30th, 2007An inspirational, visually stimulating film about an extraordinary man.
In Scaphandre and le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), filmmaker Julian Schnabel uses an artisan's eye in adapting this true story of former French Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominque Bauby (Mathieu Amalric). It’s the rare inspirational and imaginative film about relinquishing the fight and striving for more. Using his deft eye…
DVD Review: The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Vol. 2 – The War Years
Sunday, December 30th, 2007This is a great set for Indy fans, but some won’t be happy with George Lucas’s edits.
George Lucas is rarely a man of small ideas. In 1992, Lucas decided to transfer the character of Indiana Jones, popularized in three mega-successful films, to the small screen. Conceived as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the series began as an hour-long drama but surprisingly poor ratings forced George Lucas to revamp his idea into a series of…
Movie Review: The Great Debaters
Sunday, December 30th, 2007The people who really need to see it might not care to be so educated by blackness — park your fears.
The fine cast of The Great Debaters, this well-told, sane and safe drama directed by Denzel Washington includes Nate Parker as Henry Lowe, Denzel Whitaker as James Farmer Jr., and Jurnee Smollett as Samatha Booke. The screenplay written by Robert Eisele chronicles just one of the achievements of Melvin B. Tolson, debate coach extraordinaire, during…
Movie Review: Blood, Gore, and More – Sweeney Todd
Sunday, December 30th, 2007The great surprise in Sweeney Todd is that Johnny Depp can sing.
The great surprise in Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not that Tim Burton can handle a darkly, gothic tale — we've seen that already in Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow. Nor is it that Stephen Sondheim's musical is sublimely witty — he has garnered enough awards to prove it. The great surprise is that Johnny Depp…
Jennifer Garner Receives State Honor at Home
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Jennifer Garner may be the toast of Broadway for her Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac, and she may be the national critics’ darling for her role as the wannabe mom in the new movie Juno, but to the folks at home, she’s no slouch, either.
In fact, on Sunday she was named West Virginian of the Year.
“For her dedication, work ethic and unique role as role model and ambassador for West Virginia,” the actress and mom receives the annual honor, heralds her hometown paper, Charleston’s Sunday Gazette-Mail – which also proudly notes that Garner is the cover girl on this month’s Glamour.
Though born in Houston and a resident (when not appearing on Broadway) of Los Angeles with husband Ben Affleck and their 2-year-old daughter Violet, Garner, 35, first moved to West Virginia at 4, in 1976, her mother, Pat Garner, tells the newspaper, adding: “She’s pretty passionate about her love of West Virginia. She just considers it home.”
According to younger sister Susannah Carpenter (one of three Garner siblings, and an accountant in Charleston), “Everyone in my family has a deep love of West Virginia.”
In Jennifer’s own words – she sent the paper an e-mail – the star says that when it comes to visiting home, “I like to do the things that are familiar. I like to see people I grew up with. I always go to Taylor Books. I love going home to my church – Christ Church United Methodist. I probably visit a Dairy Queen, and I love the farmer’s market.”
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Miley Cyrus: Pics with Friend ‘Nothing Bad’
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Photos of Miley Cyrus, shown frolicking on a hotel floor with a female friend and sharing a piece of candy, have been circulating the Internet this week, but the 15-year-old pop sensation insists that the candid shots and what took place are strictly innocent.
“They’re nothing bad!” Cyrus told Z100 New York on Friday, right before her sold-out Best of Both Worlds concert at Nassau Coliseum.
“At first, I was really upset. It really sucks,” said the Hannah Montana star, who at one point exclaimed, “Look at me getting all upset!”
Not that she simply plans to shrug off the controversy, or the fact that the photos were even leaked. “It’s not something I’m going to let slide,” she said. “I’m really upset about it, ’cause it was, like, not even a big deal.”
As for the blonde with her in the shots, Cyrus calls her “a friend of mine that’s a normal girl. … That’s one of my best friends. I have all these girls who I hang out with all the time.”
While Cyrus says she’s used to all the attention, both good and bad – “I have to deal with that anyways,” she said – her friend is not. “This girl doesn’t even have to deal with that, and it’s so hard,” said Cyrus. [Now] she has to go to school and deal with this crap.”
Concerning the photos themselves, Cyrus said, “It’s two girls at a sleepover, and if all of a sudden that’s bad, then what is the world coming to?”
Cyrus also says that she’s into the tour for the fun of it – and once the fun goes away, so will she.
“What I decided before I came out to L.A. and started working,” she told the radio station’s Niko, “was the minute I didn’t have fun was the minute I go home. I don’t want to go home, and I don’t want to not do what I do, because I love it, but this … it’s Satan attacking.”
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No Criminal Charge for Brandy over Fatal Car Crash
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
R&B singer Brandy will not be charged with a crime for a fatal car crash last year, authorities said Friday.
“The City Attorney’s Office has decided not to file misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charges against Brandy Norwood in the case stemming from a Dec. 30, 2006, traffic collision,” that office’s spokesman Frank Mateljan said in a statement.
“After conducting a thorough investigation, which included consulting with some of the top accident reconstruction experts in the country, City prosecutors concluded that there was insufficient evidence from which a jury could find Ms. Norwood guilty of such a charge beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
The case had been under review by prosecutors for nearly a year.
Brandy’s attorney Blair Berk also issued a statement on Friday. It said, in part: “We are extremely pleased that after a more thorough and extensive investigation by authorities … Brandy Norwood should not be charged with any crime whatsoever relating to the accident back in 2006.”
The statement added: “These past 12 months have posed an extraordinary hardship for Brandy and her family, who have been unfairly forced to live under a cloud of suspicion initially caused by the ill-advised and premature press release sent out by the California Highway Patrol accusing Brandy of wrongdoing before the police investigation was even finished.”
She concluded, “Brandy continues to be mindful that she was so fortunate to be uninjured in this accident and there was a life lost that should be remembered.”
On Dec. 30, 2006, Brandy rear-ended a 2005 Toyota Corolla while traveling on an L.A. freeway, setting off a chain-reaction crash that involved two other cars.
The driver of the Toyota, Awatef Aboudihaj, a 38-year-old mother of two, died the following day from injuries she had sustained.
Police said the singer, 28, was not distracted or under the influence at the time of the accident.
Investigators initially recommended a charge of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, which carries a penalty of up to a year in jail.
Brandy still faces four wrongful-death lawsuits filed on behalf of Aboudihaj’s parents, her widower, her two children and another victim of the crash, Mallory Ham.
A civil trial date is set for Jan. 28.
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Letterman and Ferguson to Return with Full Writing Staffs
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
Just in time for the New Year, some fresh laughs will soon be back on late night television.
The Writers Guild and David Letterman’s company, Worldwide Pants, which produces Late Night with David Letterman and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, reached an independent agreement Friday.
Those two shows will be allowed “to return to the air with their full writing staffs,” according to a statement from the Guild. “This is a comprehensive agreement that addresses the issues important to writers, particularly New Media,” which refers to the use of their work on the internet.
“I am grateful to the WGA for granting us this agreement,” Letterman said in a statement to Entertainment Tonight. “We’re happy to be going back to work, and particularly pleased to be doing it with our writers.”
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