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CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez said he met privately with actor Sean Penn on Wednesday, and that the Oscar-winning celebrity may film a movie in Venezuela. Penn may shoot a film based on a novel by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, which is set largely in the jungle along Venezuela's southern Orinoco river, Chavez said. He appeared to be referring to Carpentier's 1953 novel, "The Lost Steps," about an American anthropologist and composer's journey into the jungle region. Penn's publicist could not immediately be reached for comment. Chavez added that he discussed politics with Penn, who said he would soon...

HAVANA (AP) - Michael Douglas staged an impromptu walking tour of the Cuban capital's historic district Tuesday, posing for photos with construction workers and surprised residents. His visit came two days after fellow Oscar-winner Sean Penn arrived in Cuba, reportedly seeking an interview with 82-year-old Fidel Castro, who has been little seen since announcing he was suffering from an unspecified illness in July 2006. He stepped down as Cuba's president in February of the following year and was replaced by his brother Raul. Penn traveled to the Isle of Youth, off mainland Cuba on Monday to meet with local artists....

Sean Penn is exercising his journalistic skill, reporting from inside Cuba. The Oscar winner has embarked on a short trip to the island on assignment for Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post. Rumours have circulated that he might interview Fidel Castro. But his rep told E! News that there were no plans to meet up with the ailing former leader. If he were to, it would not be the first such encounter. In 2005, his family held a lengthy meeting with Castro whilst holidaying in Cuba. ... Past overseas assignments for the actor turned journalist include stints in Iraq, Iran...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar winning actor Sean Penn and his wife Robin's rocky marriage is headed for divorce for the third time, and this time it's Robin who has filed the court papers. The "Message in a Bottle" actress, 43, filed for divorce last week in northern California where they reside citing irreconcilable differences, People magazine said on Tuesday. The papers obtained by the celebrity magazine said Robin Wright Penn and her husband had agreed to share custody of their 16 year-old son Hopper Jack and divide their property. In an interview in the September edition of More magazine,...

Lionized by Hollywood and California state legislators, the real Milk was a demagogue and pal of Jim Jones. This Friday would have been slain San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk’s 79th birthday, and California state senator Mark Leno has introduced legislation to mark the date with a state holiday. The bill doesn’t call for a furlough from work, but instead instructs the governor to proclaim a “Harvey Milk Day” and designates “that date as having special significance in the public schools and educational institutions” and encourages them to “conduct suitable commemorative exercises.” The legislation passed muster with the state senate in...

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn has agreed to take on the starring role in a film about a retired musician who sets out to find his father's Nazi executioner, according to media reports. Penn is to play an ageing wealthy rocker who grows bored of his retirement and goes on a quest to find his father's killer, an ex-Nazi war criminal taking refuge in the U.S. The screenplay of "This Must Be the Place" was co-written by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello, and marks Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's English-language feature debut. Penn will take on the new role once he has completed...

We reported yesterday that Sean Penn filed for separation from Princess Buttercup herself, Robin Wright Penn. Now The Daily Mail is reporting that Penn has asked the California court to waive spousal support. The couple has two children - Hopper (who is 15 years old, and thus a minor) and Dylan (who is 18 years old, and whose custody will probably not be an issue). I would assume Sean then has no problems paying child support - but no spousal support! Sean isn’t going to make sure that Princess Buttercup is financially secure!

According to papers filed last week in Marin County Superior Court, Penn cites "irreconcilable differences." The couple was married 13 years and has two minor children. Penn wants each party to pay for their own lawyers. And, he checked the box saying he wants the judge to terminate the court's power to award spousal support.

Someone needs to sue Santa Monica High School for education malpractice on behalf of the ill-educated Sean Penn. I mean, the man is nearly illiterate and he certainly has no grasp on history, philosophy, or statecraft. But his wacko left-wing inanities aside, it is his illiteracy that seems the most lamentable. Oh, it isn't Rosie O'Donnell illiterate, hers is a special class of insensibility all by itself, but Penn's brand is proof of the lowest quality of education. I mean the man can barely put two words together sensibly much less exhibit a grasp of grammar and syntax. It really...

Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn said in a Huffington Post blog entry this week that the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is a “warm” and “friendly man” with a “robust sense of humor,” who daily “risks” his own life for his country in ways former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney “could never imagine.” Penn also wrote that conservative talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity “hate” the principles upon which America was founded. Chavez, a frequent critic of the United States, is a military officer who supports neo-socialist policies and tried to take over Venezuela in a failed coup...

A prominent human rights activist has blasted Samoa's film censors for banning SEAN PENN's Oscar-winning movie MILK. Samoa's Censorship Board has rejected an application for DVDs of the movie - which is based on the life of gay activist Harvey Milk - to be distributed in stores. Principal Censor Leiataua Niuapu Faaui says, "There are rules and guidelines for these things." But the move has prompted outrage, with leading Samoan human rights activist Ken Moala angrily questioning the decision. He say, "I do not think it should be banned. It is basically a documentary about the human endeavour to conquer...

Sean Penn is going slapstick. MGM says the double Oscar winner has signed on to play Larry in the Farrelly brothers' big-screen update of The Three Stooges. Jim Carrey was in negotiations for the role of Curly, said MGM spokesman Grey Munford. The studio first featured the Stooges in a series of shorts and features beginning in 1933. Munford would not confirm reports that Benicio Del Toro will play Moe. He said filming begins this fall on the comedy, which is expected to be released in 2010.

MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for "The Three Stooges." Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans to gain 40 pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Jerome "Curly" Howard. The studio is zeroing in on Benicio Del Toro to play Moe. The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts. The quest by the Peter...

... The contrast between the media's portrayal of homosexuality and the reality of that lifestyle is striking. But, if the real behavior were shown, we would hear the truth about the medical problems associated with this behavior, the high rates of suicide and other issues that reflect reality--not the rosy picture that has been sold to the American public. Only God knows what we will be seeing 20 years from now. Will the media and Hollywood continue to demonize Christians and conservative Jews to the point it will be illegal to quote Scripture that offends those who practice ungodly behavior?...

[video. You have to see the video to hear all her comments. She thinks Penn is an imbecile and a commie]Don’t invite Sean Penn and actress Maria Conchita Alonso to the same party. Especially if it’s the Community Party. The actress rolled her eyes and groaned when she was asked about her former co-star. Then she really unloaded. “It’s just that he has no clue at all what’s going on in Venezuela, praising Hugo Chavez who’s a dictator and a killer…” said Alonso, who was born in Cuba and raised in Venezuela. “I tried to put aside his being an...

Maria Conchita Alonso, who co-starred with Sean Penn way back in 1988's "Colors," went off on Penn in a way we've rarely seen -- basically saying he's a moron when it comes to politics -- especially his support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The Cuban born actress was raised in Venezuela and says Chavez is a "killer."

First, Sean Penn played outed gay politician Harvey Milk. Now it looks like he may play the husband of outed CIA hussy Valerie Plame. “Fair Game,” based on the memoirs by Plame and Wilson, is being made in to a big budget Hollywood fiasco. Tinsel town normally calls a biographic picture a “bio-pic,” but in this case it might be more appropriate to call it a “lie-o-pic.” Producers are negotiating with Sean Penn to play ...

Somewhere, Bill O'Reilly just threw a fit. The always-busy Sean Penn, fresh off his Best Actor win on Sunday night for playing Harvey Milk, is already lining up his next hot button, politically-tinged role that will rankle the ire of many a Fox News commentator. According to Variety, Mr. Penn is negotiating to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson in Fair Game, a new film based on the autobiography by Ambassador Wilson's wife, outed C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame Wilson. In a bit of fairly spot-on casting, Naomi Watts is signed on to play Ms. Wilson, with Doug Liman set to direct. Of...

For years now, the bloated full of themselves super-rich in Hollywood have been preaching socialism to the rest of us while personally engaging in both the worst form of capitalist exploitation of the masses and very un-socialist snobbery. I guess the examples Penn, Sarandon and Robbins so loudly and “nobly” laud, are meant for lesser mortals to follow not for the likes of their own elite! I am even willing to bet that if fatcat Michael Moore is ever in need of serious medical treatment, getting treatment in Cuba will not be a choice he’ll consider. These self-important Hollywood types...

[photo] Sean Penn won the Best Actor award Sunday night for his portrayal of Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay elected politician. In accepting his award, Penn gleefully described the Academy voters as “commie, homo-loving sons of guns.” He also criticized California’s voters for their ban on gay marriage. But let’s not forget what else Sean Penn is. He’s also a Hugo Chavez-ACLU-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-Cindy Sheehan-Dennis Kucinich-Ralph Nader-Fidel Castro lovin’ son of a gun. He’s supported every anti-American tin horn dictator, politician and policy that’s come down the left side of the road in the last twenty-five years....

"Fair Game," the drama about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, has come together with Naomi Watts starring, "Mrs. and Mrs. Smith" helmer Doug Liman directing and William Pohlad's River Road financing. But the big question is whether Oscar-winning "Milk" star Sean Penn will close a deal to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Penn is negotiating, but no deal has closed.Pohlad has a strong relationship with Penn: he was a producer on the Terrence Malick-directed "Tree of Life," which stars Penn and Brad Pitt, and Pohlad also was a producer and financier for "Into the Wild," which Penn directed....

San Francisco -- Hundreds of people who watched the Academy Awards from San Francisco's Castro Theatre on Sunday night gave polite applause to "Slumdog Millionaire" - which won best picture and seven other awards - but roared with foot-stomping standing ovations for "Milk" when it took the prizes for best original screenplay and best actor. "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns," Sean Penn told the academy upon accepting the best actor award for his portrayal of the slain San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights leader Harvey Milk. "I did not expect this, and I want it to be very clear...

Sean Penn, friend of Latin American autocracy, made a political acceptance speech for his leading man Oscar last night that served to remind us why he’s made his living reading other people’s words: I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect, and anticipate their great shame, and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone. And there are these last 2 things. I’m very, very proud to live in a country that is...

Gay rights took center stage at the Oscars ceremony when actor Sean Penn and the writer of the film "Milk" made impassioned pleas for opponents of same-sex marriage to rethink their stand. Penn won the Academy's best actor award for his role as gay politician Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay man to be elected to public office, who was shot and killed in 1978. "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if...

Sean Penn picks his guest spots very carefully. It could be that the “Milk” star was just Oscar hunting during a recent PBS appearance, but Penn seized the opportunity to take a shot at the Fox News Channel and an implicit poke at hosts Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. During an interview with Tavis Smiley, the dude who can’t seem to shake his Spicoli alter ego said, “For example, the criticism people get tend to be from failed actors. Like the Fox anchors who are just clearly very envious, the failed actors, and that kind of people. And...

SEAN Penn is getting worried that his cozying up to Marxist dictators might cost him an Academy Award. We reported last month how Penn was smacked by the gay Advocate magazine over his visits to Fidel and Raul Castro, whose regime murdered and imprisoned gays. Last week, Penn called José Miguel Vivanco, head of Human Rights Watch's Latin America division, and asked for a meeting. Vivanco flew to San Francisco to dine with the star Thursday and brief him on the situation in Cuba and Venezuela. Vivanco was thrown out of the latter country by Penn pal President Hugo Chavez.

The Daily Beast reports that it's obtained a private text message in which "Mickey Rourke bashes Sean Penn — his chief rival in the Oscar race — as a 'homophobe' and an 'average' actor. " Columnist Gerald Posner says a Los Angeles entertainment honcho showed him the text message, which read: "Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all—thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno' [sic] "

Issued Concealed Carry Permit EVENT Name Occupation Birth Death Known for

NEW YORK (AP) - "Milk," Gus Van Sant's movie about gay rights leader Harvey Milk starring Sean Penn, has been named best film by the New York Film Critics Circle. Penn was also chosen as best actor by the critics, who announced their picks Wednesday.

The Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez, has not had things all his own way recently, but at least he has famous friends. Falling oil prices and some significant losses in recent elections may have delivered blows to Hugo Chávez's self-styled socialist revolution, but he can still count on the support of Sean Penn.

Dear Mr. Penn: Although I am not a frequent moviegoer in this stage of my life, I understand that you are an excellent actor. Good for you. I also understand that, as an American citizen, you are fully entitled to exercise your civic rights of free political expression. As a senior Venezuelan residing in your country, I admire and respect the U.S., among other things, because this freedom exists and can be exercised without restrictions or fear of retaliation by those in power. I have nothing to say in connection with your political activity in the U.S. However, I have...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - U.S. actor Sean Penn is visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - again. Venezuela's state-run news agency reports that Penn accompanied Chavez during the inspection of a natural gas pipeline on Sunday. Chavez has praised Penn for his criticism of the U.S. war in Iraq, but he did not mention Penn's visit during a televised address. Nor did state media broadcast images of the Oscar-winning actor......."

Sean Penn had long ago wondered about the source of his irrational disdain for America and its values. At home or on the movie set, the progressive actor would often find himself muttering, "The Great Satan must be destroyed!" but couldn't quite put his finger on the reasons why. His mysterious predisposition towards wife-beating, accentuated by wearing a mustache, made him wonder on many occasions, who he could blame for it. "I knew it couldn't be my fault," the Oscar-winning actor told us. "Individual responsibility is a sham invented by the Republicans to put minorities in jail. So I couldn't...

Cannes' Voyage to Neverland By Yervand KocharDuring the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, few had a doubt that Federico Fellini’s “8 ½� was not just a masterpiece but a milestone achievement that will signal a new epoch in filmmaking. The film was not merely contending for the Grand Prize; it was clear that no conventional prize can put a tag on the sheer artistic genius and refreshing power of the movie. Threatened by Fellini’s highly formalistic language, the Communist party’s movie department that was behind making the decisions of the festival, as usually, suspected something potentially harmful for the cause...

Jack Black, master thespianwhat's goin on with this ensemble? short pantsuit = little Hillary?Richie HavensJulianne Mooreand this year's President of the Jury, that's right, your friend and mine, Jeff Spicoli.

Sean Penn unleashes on FOXNEWS: 'We know their end is near'... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CABLE NEWS RACE MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2008 VIEWERS FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,040,000 FNC HANNITY/COLMES 2,337,000 FNC GRETA 1,862,000 FNC SHEP 1,583,000 FNC HUME 1,508,000 CNN DOBBS 1,227,000 CNN KING 983,000 CNN COOPER 976,000 MSNBC OLBERMANN 962,000 CNN BLITZER 839,000 CNNHN GRACE 663,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 604,000

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq's former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

SAN FRANCISCO, Actor Sean Penn and Peace Activist Cindy Sheehan will headline "Iraq: 5 Years Too Many", an event marking the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Also featured will be Reverend Gregory Stewart, Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; and Justin Raimondo, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com. The program will begin at 5pm on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin Street (near Geary) in San Francisco. After the speakers finish, attendees will march to the War Memorial Auditorium on Van Ness...

"Al Qaeda's latest display of terror has made its way onto the Internet, showing horrifying images of what appear to be prisoners in Iraq being doused with an inflammatory liquid and then burned alive." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330810,00.html

Dressed in a tan cloth coat and crocheted white hat and pulling a wheeled shopping basket behind her, Eve Rojek trudged up and down Castro Street in a sputtering rain the other day. She walked up a stretch of sidewalk between 18th and 19th streets and then down and then back up again. Rojek is an actress, cast as a middle-aged extra in a long-anticipated feature film about the life and death of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk that began shooting in the city last week. Like everyone and everything in view of the camera, Rojek needed to convey the...

Editor - From reading The Chronicle's banner-line propaganda, which teases the "star envy" piece within ("A modest proposal for celebs on the skids," Thursday), I could only hope this great city was more clever than its increasingly lame-brain paper. In its unequivocal naming of Chavez as dictator on A1, either "Pop Culture" man Peter Hartlaub or his equally biased Chronicle editor, doesn't quite understand that Venezuela's President Chavez was democratically elected, and that dictators don't lose constitutional referendums. The Chronicle should take comfort that the New York Times generally does no better than them here. Yet, in the paper's attack...

SAN RAFAEL Sean Penn may soon be a single man walking. Robin Wright Penn has filed for divorce from her actor, director husband. The divorce papers were filed on Dec. 21 with the Marin County Superior Court. Wright Penn cited irreconcilable differences as a reason for the split. The split was first reported by the Web site CelebTV.com. The couple has two teenage children and seeking joint custody of the children. Penn directed "Into The Wild" and starred as a death row inmate in "Dead Man Walking."

Actor-director Sean Penn issued a nonendorsement endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich on Friday in a speech to nearly 400 San Francisco State University students, urging his audience not to fall into the trap of voting for someone only because they could win. "We've got Iowa coming up; New Hampshire on its ass," said Penn. "Do we sell out for electability?" Penn, who spoke from a low wooden stage in the Creative Arts Building in front of a "Kucinich for President" banner, made it clear from the start that he was not issuing a traditional endorsement, a political tradition...

Sean Penn endorsed Dennis Kucinich for President, after tipping off news agencies of a major political announcement earlier this week. While his choice of candidate may not suprise many, it should have surprised John Edwards. After all, Penn had already given him twice as many greenback endorsements as Kucinich (via the Political Machine): Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn endorsed Dennis Kucinich for president in San Francisco Friday. Penn made what had been billed as a "major political statement" at San Francisco State University. Andy Juniewicz, National Press Secretary and senior advisor to Kucinich told NBC11 that Penn made the endorsement...

Dictator-gadfly Sean Penn told Australia's The Age that Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez is “much more positive for Venezuela than he is negative” and the Chavez-crafted constitution is “a very beautiful document.”

Ninety years ago this week, a Bolshevik mob stormed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, arrested the provisional government, and installed a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in its place. Though the Russian revolution is no longer widely celebrated (not even by the Russians, who instead commemorate the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow in 1612), I felt it important to mark the occasion. In honor of the anniversary, I reread Ten Days That Shook the World, the famed account of the revolution written by John Reed, the American journalist and fellow-traveler. Then I reread last week's press reports of the...

TORONTO - Sean Penn made a disheartening discovery on his latest trip to Alaska this summer: Someone had walked off with a pair of boots that had sat in an old bus in the wilderness for almost 15 years. The bus had become something of a shrine for Christopher McCandless, the subject of Penn's latest movie, "Into the Wild," a young man who died of starvation there in 1992 after four months of trying to live off the land. McCandless had taken shelter in the bus, which still held pots, pans and other artifacts he left behind after all those...

Actor-turned-director Sean Penn refrained from smoking during his return to the spotlight at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, but could have used something to calm his nerves as he repeatedly lashed out at media for distracting him during a news conference. The intense movie star sucked on ice cubes and swore as he met with dozens of reporters to discuss his riveting new film, "Into The Wild," featuring a tour de force performance by newcomer Emile Hirsch.

The new documentary "War Made Easy" isn't just a searing critique of how administrations over the past 40 years have manipulated the media to build support for war. The 72-minute film is a media provocation itself - a challenge to federal copyright laws. Based on a 2005 book by Bay Area media critic Norman Solomon and narrated by actor Sean Penn, roughly 90 percent of "War Made Easy" consists of archival news footage from major television networks that would cost a ton of money to license - if the filmmakers had paid for all of it; they bought only about...