Author Archive
Marcia Clark: Polanski Defense Based on Lie
Posted by Big Hollywood in New Media on September 30th, 2009
Polanski’s grounds for dismissal center around the former prosecutor inappropriately advising the judge about how to send Polanski back to prison. But the former prosecutor, David Wells, now tells Clark that “I lied” in the movie about advising the judge, and that “it never happened,” which could undermine the director’s case for dismissal.
“David Wells is the former prosecutor at the center of the Roman Polanski case—I knew him well back in the day. What he told the director of the 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired—that he advised the judge in the case how to elegantly send back Polanski to prison—gave Polanski’s lawyers a opening to try to dismiss the case last year, setting off a collision with the district attorney’s office. The result? Polanski now sits in a Swiss jail.
“I just spoke to Wells—and what he told me is going to make things worse for Polanski.
““I lied,” Wells told me yesterday, referring to his comments in the movie that he told the judge how he could renege on a plea bargain agreement and send Polanski back to jail after he had been released from a 42-day psychiatric evalation—the heart of Polanski’s claims of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. The director of the documentary told me it would never air in the States. I thought it made a better story if I said I’d told the judge what to do.”
“Recanting these statements is a bombshell. Especially, since it was Wells’ comments in the movie that directly led to the international legal showdown we’re now facing.”
You can read the full article here.
Overpaid Celebrities: The Real Health Care Experts
Posted by Big Hollywood in Politics, Video on September 30th, 2009
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Not every Hollywood Celebucrat is out rallying in support of a child-rapist. Some are using their money and influence to strip those of us who are not Celebucrats of our private health insurance. Last week, Will Ferrell and a troop of celebs released a MoveOn.org-funded pro-ObamaCare video for the website FunnyOrDie.com. Several at Big Hollywood took issue with the video…
Now, thanks to the digital democratization of filmmaking, some everyday folks are Speaking! Truth! To! Hollywood! Power!
Better still, this video’s actually clever.
‘New York Times’: Hollywood Wrong on Polanski
Posted by Big Hollywood in Politics on September 30th, 2009
Dear Hollywood,
Wake up call: Your position on the Polanski matter is even too decadent for the New York Times:
“Roman Polanski was arrested on Saturday at the Zurich airport on an American-issued warrant. But to hear the protests from the French, the Poles and other Europeans, you might have thought the filmmaker was seized by some totalitarian regime for speaking truth to power. …
“But hold on a moment. After being indicted in 1977, didn’t Mr. Polanski, now 76, confess to having sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with Quaaludes and Champagne? Didn’t he flee the United States when the plea bargaining seemed to fall apart, raising the prospect of prison time? Isn’t there a warrant for his arrest? …
“In Europe, the prevailing mood — at least among those with access to the news media — seemed to be that Mr. Polanski has already “atoned for the sins of his young years,” as Jacek Bromski, the chief of the Polish Filmmakers Association, put it.
“We disagree strongly, and we were glad to see other prominent Europeans beginning to point out that this case has nothing to do with Mr. Polanski’s work or his age. It is about an adult preying on a child. Mr. Polanski pleaded guilty to that crime and must account for it.”
Read the whole article here.
Naming Names: The ‘Free Roman Polanski’ Petition
Posted by Big Hollywood in Politics on September 29th, 2009
And please do take a moment to give to the Hollywood Fund For Moral Illiteracy…
Woody Allen
Wes Anderson
Darren Aronofsky
Jonatham Demme
Stephen Frears
David Lynch
Martin Scorsese
Full list: (it might have been quicker to name who didn’t sign the petition)
Fatih Akin, Stephane Allagnon, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Wes Anderson, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Alexandre Arcady, Fanny Ardant, Asia Argento, Darren Aronofsky, Olivier Assayas, Alexander Astruc, Gabriel Auer, Luc Barnier , Christophe Barratier, Xavier Beauvois , Liria Begeja , Gilles Behat, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Marco Bellochio, Monica Bellucci, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci , Patrick Bouchitey, Paul Boujenah, Jacques Bral, Patrick Braoudé, André Buytaers, Christian Carion, Henning Carlsen, Jean-michel Carre, Mathieu Celary, Patrice Chéreau, Elie Chouraqui, Souleymane Cissé, Alain Corneau, Jérôme Cornuau, Miguel Courtois, Dominique Crevecoeur, Alfonso Cuaron, Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jonathan Demme, Alexandre Desplat, Rosalinde et Michel Deville, Georges Dybman, Jacques Fansten, Joël Farges, Gianluca Farinelli (Cinémathèque de de Bologne), Etienne Faure, Michel Ferry, Scott Foundas, Stephen Frears, Thierry Frémaux, Sam Gabarski, René Gainville, Tony Gatlif, Costa Gavras, Jean-Marc Ghanassia, Terry Gilliam, Christian Gion, Marc Guidoni, Buck Henry, David Heyman, Laurent Heynemann, Robert Hossein, Jean-Loup Hubert, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gilles Jacob, Just Jaeckin, Alain Jessua, Pierre Jolivet, Kent Jones (World Cinema Foundation), Roger Kahane, Nelly Kaplan, Wong Kar Waï, Ladislas Kijno, Harmony Korinne, Jan Kounen, Diane Kurys, Emir Kusturica, John Landis, Claude Lanzmann, André Larquié, Vinciane Lecocq, Patrice Leconte, Claude Lelouch, Gérard Lenne, David Lynch, Michael Mann, François Margolin, Jean-PierreMarois, Tonie Marshall, Mario Martone, Nicolas Mauvernay, Radu Mihaileanu, Claude Miller, Mario Monicelli, Jeanne Moreau, Sandra Nicolier, Michel Ocelot, Alexander Payne, Richard Pena (Directeur Festival de NY), Michele Placido, Philippe Radault, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Raphael Rebibo, Yasmina Reza, Jacques Richard, Laurence Roulet, Walter Salles, Jean-Paul Salomé, Marc Sandberg, Jerry Schatzberg, Julian Schnabel, Barbet Schroeder, Ettore Scola, Martin Scorsese, Charlotte Silvera, Abderrahmane Sissako, Paolo Sorrentino, Guillaume Stirn, Tilda Swinton, Jean-Charles Tacchella, Radovan Tadic, Danis Tanovic, Bertrand Tavernier, Cécile Telerman, Alain Terzian, Pascal Thomas, Giuseppe Tornatore, Serge Toubiana, Nadine Trintignant, Tom Tykwer, Alexandre Tylski, Betrand Van Effenterre, Wim Wenders.
EDIT: new names
Isabelle Adjani
Antoine Aronin
Paul Auster
Morgane Beauverger
Candice Belaisch-Goldchmit
Yamina Benguigui
Pascal Bruckner
Jessika Cohen
Philippe Corbé
Jean-Paul Dayan
Katarina De Meulder
Arielle Dombasle
Nathalie Faucheux
Corinne Figuet
Pierre Forciniti
Louis Garrel
Albert Gauvin
Johanna Gozlan
Davide Homitsu Riboli
Taylor Hackford
Isabelle Huppert
Neil Jordan
Thierry Kamami
Milan Kundera
Gaelle Lancien
Claude Lanzmann
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Sam Mendes
Camille Meyer
Patrick Mimouni
Yann Moix
Mike Nichols
Sandra Nicolier
Marie Nieves Perez Neël
Salman Rushdie
Carine Sarna
Ysabelle Saura Del Pan
William Shawcross
Olivier Soares Barbosa
Steven Soderbergh
Nil Symchowicz
Danièle Thompson
Eugenia Varela Navarro
Diane von Furstenberg
Scott Foundas
Margaret Walker
Elsa Zylberstein
Whoopi Defends Polanski: ‘It wasn’t rape-rape.’
Posted by Big Hollywood in Politics on September 28th, 2009
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“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying,’ so that’s why he left.”
Whoopi Defends Polanski: ‘It wasn’t rape-rape.’
Posted by Big Hollywood in Politics on September 28th, 2009
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“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying,’ so that’s why he left.”
Wash Times: White House, NEA Stonewall About Scandal
Posted by Big Hollywood in Obama, Politics on September 27th, 2009
A full investigation by both Congress and the NEA inspector general is the only way to bring this story to a close.
Today’s Washington Times:
The facts are simple and public. During the transition, President Obama’s top arts adviser made it clear that his ambition was for the arts to become an integral part of the West Wing. After the inauguration, meetings of artists and political activists at the White House explicitly discussed how to keep the arts community in campaign mode to back Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda. An NEA grants official, Mario Garcia Durham, was at one such meeting for which the attendee list is public.
President Obama with Yosi Sergant
As those meetings occurred, Yosi Sergant, a key cog in the Obama campaign’s outreach to artists, was transferred from a position at the White House to a position as the communications director of the NEA. When the grant spigots opened at the NEA, more than $2 million went directly into the coffers of arts organizations (and their members) attending these meetings and publicly backing elements of the administration agenda.
Does that prove laws have been broken? Of course not. The worst appearances can be completely innocent. However, the administration’s assertions that Mr. Sergant acted alone (”unilaterally and without … approval or authorization” in Mr. Landesman’s words) and that the administration’s efforts were “completely unrelated” to grant-making are at odds with the facts. The public deserves more than bland reassurances.
A full investigation by both Congress and the NEA inspector general is the only way to bring this story to a close. Answers to these questions would be only a start:
- What was an NEA grants official doing at a White House political meeting? What other grants officials have been meeting with White House political officials?
- So far we know about a handful of conference calls last month and White House meetings last spring. Is this the full extent of the coordination between the White House political staff and the NEA?
- Has the grant-making process been compromised by politics? How were the brand-new stimulus grants insulated from politics? Were any of the safeguards circumvented?
- On the same day that Americans for the Arts, a lobbying organization that also runs a partisan Democratic political action committee, endorsed the key elements of the Obama health care plan, the president of the group met with Mr. Landesman, the new NEA chief. What happened at that meeting?
- Why was activist Yosi Sergant transferred from the White House to the NEA? Who made the decision?
Read the full piece here.
VIDEO: Limbaugh and Leno Enjoy Spirited Political Talk
Posted by Big Hollywood in News, Politics on September 25th, 2009
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*Below the fold: Watch Rush run over Al Gore … twice!*
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Rush Limbaugh: Always on message, articulate, charming, convincing…
Jay Leno: Always a gentleman.
Great ten minutes.
Now close your eyes and imagine what a smarmy, self-satisfied, adolescent punk Letterman would’ve been. Oh, wait…
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ANOTHER SHOCK VIDEO: Third-Graders Sing Praises to Obama
Posted by Big Hollywood in Featured Story, Politics on September 25th, 2009
“On November 4th 2008, we held a mock presidential election in my third grade classroom. Students spoke their minds about the candidates, and I facilitated making sure all sides were heard. Secret ballots were cast, and Barack Obama won getting 18 out of 20 votes. John McCain and Cynthia McKinney split the remainder. Later that night of course history was made.” — misterbee
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The video, lyrics and an explanation of how the video came to be were posted on YouTube, September 7th, 2009, by user misterbee2009:
The Obama Song (”Proud American”)
By Mr. B and the students of Room 8
February 2009
Obama is the President!
First African America in history
44th president of the United States
The ground has shifted
The world has changed!
CHORUS:
Oooo Im a proud American
Oooo yes yes yes yes YES WE CAN!
Im going to study really hard just like Barack
Learning never ever stops
Gonna set my goals HIGH and graduate
You might be looking at the President of 2048!
We are a nation of a thousand colors, look at me
Our strength is our diversity
Walking hand in hand we sing
Each a day a little closer to the dream of Dr. King
(Exerpt from MLK’s “I Have a Dream, 1963)
Together we walk
Me and you
So so much work
Left to do.
Chords:
G C G D
G C G D
D C G
D C – G
“On November 4th 2008, we held a mock presidential election in my third grade classroom. Students spoke their minds about the candidates, and I facilitated making sure all sides were heard. Secret ballots were cast, and Barack Obama won getting 18 out of 20 votes. John McCain and Cynthia McKinney split the remainder. Later that night of course history was made.
“The students arrived the next day absolutely glowing. We talked about the historical significance of Obama’s victory, and they then imagined what it would be like to run for office themselves. Each student made a poster portraying him or herself as candidate and the issues they would address in the year 2048.
“Obama’s victory opened their minds to the possibility that they too could one day be commander in chief—or anything for that matter. What they needed to do was STAY IN SCHOOL and work very very hard. At no time were the children told by me they should look up to Obama. The fact that most did already reflects what they learned at home and amongst their peers, not by any indoctrination in the classroom.
“We began to write the song after watching the Inauguration. Our school day is packed bell to bell with academics, but were usually able to spend the last five minutes of singing songs as short ELD (English Language Development) activities. Day by day we used this tiny window of time to brainstorm lyrics. As the song took shape, the children became more and more proud of their accomplishment. It soon morphed into a tribute to MLK and others honored for their work towards social justice.
“By February the song was done. We got requests to come and perform from adjacent classrooms that heard it coming from our room at the end of the day. Their egos boomed. I decided to make it something they’d never forget by producing the video. Nobody forced the children to participate–in fact a few sat it out. When it was finished, they were hoping the President himself would see it and wanted to be able to show it to friends and relatives. We got the consent of parents as well as the administration and put it online.
“That’s the story. We hope you like the song.”
The direct link is here.