"Exactly which 30 Rock actress is expected to be in the VIP section when Barack Obama swears on the Bible on Jan. 20, 2009? Well...
Not Tina Fey, sorry. At least, she isn't confirmed yet. But Jane Krakowski sure is, along with Anne Hathaway, Maggie Gyllenhaal, her man Peter Sarsgaard, Spike Lee, Kerry Washington, Josh Lucas and a whole bunch of others.
The stars are being rounded up by the Creative Coalition, an organization created to bring Hollywood together with political and social causes. And just in case you were wondering, these particular stars aren't just bandwagon fans who clamored for tickets once Obama won.
"Anne, Josh, Susan [Sarandon] and Spike were all with us at the Democratic National Convention as well," a publicity rep for the Creative Coalition told me. "Maggie and Peter are a recent addition to the group who joined us at our pre-Hofstra debates event on Long Island".
"Michelle Williams' father has finally given up Down Under.
After a two-and-a-half-year legal battle, Larry Williams, the estranged father of the Brokeback Mountain star, has finally consented to be extradited to the U.S., where he is set to face long-pending federal tax-evasion charges.
The elder Williams, a stock trader, has long been sought by Uncle Sam for allegedly failing to pay roughly $1.5 million in taxes between 1999 and 2001 on income from book royalties and international speaking tours.
"I will fight this and win," Williams, 65, told Australia's Daily Telegraph before being taken into custody. "I will be back, I have a lot of friends here in Australia."
He was arrested by Australian police back in 2006 and, while free on bail, has been fighting extradition ever since.
The elder Williams has become well known in Australia not just as father to Michelle and grandfather to Heath Ledger's child but as a prolific finance lecturer. He also turned into something of a sound-bite machine in the battle over Ledger's will".
"Unlike the hoopla over Focus Features' previous gay-themed awards magnet, "Brokeback Mountain," which was drawing calls of agenda-pushing from right-wingers months before it opened in 2005, there's been hardly a peep in editorial pages or on talk radio.
Admittedly, the election is a major distraction. But Focus also is doing something deliberate: It's eschewing publicity for the Sean Penn vehicle, keeping it out of the high-profile fall film festivals and heavily restricting media screenings.
"The best way to help this film win over a mainstream audience is to avoid partisanship, and the best way to avoid partisanship is to let people find out about the film from the film itself," said one person involved with the film. Focus plans on selling "Milk" in part as a story of hope and change (Harvey Milk, a member of San Francisco's Board of Superviors until his assassination in 1978, won equal-rights battles against great odds), just as it sold "Brokeback" as a love story.
The ploy was logical with "Brokeback." It's less so here.
Like "Brokeback," "Milk" features a gay romance. But unlike "Brokeback," "Milk" is made by gay filmmakers, features the polarizing Penn and puts itself squarely in a political context. Milk's fight against California's anti-gay-rights Proposition 6 -- a drama the movie deals with in great detail -- spookily parallels the current California fight over Proposition 8, a measure that would ban gay marriage". Source: movies.yahoo.com
"As supporters of California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative picketed last night's San Francisco premiere of Milk, producers of the film fired back at allegations that Focus Features is hiding their spiritual follow-up to Brokeback Mountain because it's too gay to promote during an election season. In a letter to The Hollywood Reporter, Focus chief James Schamus slams the report, citing the film's "most explosively received and appreciated trailer in the history of our company" along with a litany of gay tie-ins.
[...] But when it comes to courting the audience that propelled its last gay-themed film to unprecedented financial and critical heights? Yes, Focus is more than willing to take their money". Source: gawker.com
Jake in his younger years in "October Sky" and "Moonlight Mile", completely doe-eyed and soft features boyish looking. Talk about lovable teenage crush!
Here let me introduce you my new movie crush: Emile Hirsch, a young brilliant actor, maybe not as famous as Jake but with a very interesting, versatile career, whose first roles were also naïve and smooth, as in the romantic comedy "The girl next door", in which he made a giddy transition from demure student to wild ex-pornstar's boyfriend: I had a huge crush with Emile after watching him as Matthew Kidman in "The girl next door" (2004) and his memorable limousine sex scene with Elisha Cuthbert: Before, Emile and Jena Malone starred as a young couple in the coming of age indie drama flick "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" (2002).
Other powerful teenage roles by Emile were Sedgewick Bell in "The Empreror's Club" (2002), Duncan Mudge in "The Mudge Boy" (2003) and Tim Travis in "Imaginary Heroes" (2004).
Emile also started with a trend performing characters based on real life guys with "Lords of Dogtown" (2005) playing Jay Adams, skateboarding in The Z-Boys. Emile Hirsch and Heath Ledger as Jay and Skip in "Lords of Dogtown". And then the more adult roles as a drug dealer gangster wannabe Johnny Truelove (inspired by Jesse James Hollywood) in "Alpha Dog" (2006), directed by Nick Cassavetes: Emile's most important role to date was under Sean Penn's inspired directorial wings in "Into the wild" (2007), offering us an overall incredible performance as the tortured Chris McCandless who runs away from an alienating society travelling to Alaska. I can't recommend "Into the wild" enough. I watched it recently and is heartbreaking, written beautifully as a road-movie poem. It has become one of my favourite all-time films.Emile played Speed Racer in the family movie "Speed Racer" (2008) by Larry and Andy Wachowski. I also have watched it and it's visually stunning and very funny -Emile's love interest is Christina Ricci as Trixie-. Emile has recently finished his role as Cleve Jones in "Milk" (2008) directed by Gus Van Sant, based on real life Harvey Milk who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in America, and who would be assassinated later. Here is an interview clip from the Focus Features World Premiere of "Milk" at the Castro Theatre at 429 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA on October 28th, including Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, James Franco, Diego Luna, Dustin Lance Black, Alison Pill, James Schamus, Gus Van Sant and Gavin Newsom. "Milk" will be released on November 26th.
Emile's last role is an unhinged Vietnam vet in "Taking Woodstock" (2009), about the generation-defining concert in the summer of 1969, currently in post-production, directed by Ang Lee.
"Exactly which 30 Rock actress is expected to be in the VIP section when Barack Obama swears on the Bible on Jan. 20, 2009? Well...
