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Obama hits Hollywood on fundraising trip U.S. president to tap movie, music executives at Beverly Hills hotel LOS ANGELES - President Barack Obama looked not for votes in California on Wednesday but for millions of dollars to aid Democratic campaigns, including at a fundraiser hosted by such Hollywood names as Steven Spielberg. Like Bill Clinton and other top Democrats before him, Obama visits the Golden State now and then to tap wealthy, liberal-leaning activists, especially in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Wednesday night's two-tiered event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel offered tickets ranging from $1,000 to $15,200. The lower prices bought...

On Saturday, my wife and I went to see Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, which is a strange mix of UFOlogy, panspermia, the destruction of Earth by fire (2 Pet. 3:10), the Edenic Tree of Life, and determinism vs. randomness. Cage’s character, John Koestler, is giving a lecture to his astrophysics’ class at M.I.T. when he presents the conundrum of determinism vs. randomness. 1 When the class asks him what he believes, he picks randomness. “There is no grand meaning, there is no purpose.” He ends the session with “I think s**t just happens.” The perfect summary of an atheist’s worldview....

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and from the creators of “Band of Brothers”, The Pacific is a a 10-part HBO mini-series which tells the intertwined stories of three Marines, Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda), during America’s battle with the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. Produced on a budget of more $150 million, and shot on location in Australia, the series follows (from an early press release) “The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in...

There were two Hollywood-related moments that gladdened the heart over this past weekend. The first, obviously, was the glorious sight of the Oscar telecast end credits, the second was Kim Master’s “Slate” story reporting that Steven Spielberg’s long gestating passion project - an Abe Lincoln biopic, is all but dead. Steven Spielberg not making a film was good news. How things have changed in thirty years.

Obama's Billionaires Claire Obusan President-elect Barack Obama has had a slew of billionaire backers with him on his journey to the White House--plutocrats who provide economic and political advice and help to raise money. Lots of money. Obama's Billionaire Buddies Obama's national finance chairwoman during his presidential campaign was Penny Pritzker, one of 11 members of the famous Chicago family that appear on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans (combined net worth as of September: $21.6 billion). As of Nov. 24, 2008, Obama's campaign had raised a record-breaking $742 million during the election, according to the Center for...

Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama stands the podium in a dark Invesco Field stadium alone as he does a late night walkthrough for his acceptance speech in Denver, late August 27, 2008. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

Chinese call for Kung Fu Panda ban after Steven Spielberg pulls out of Olympics By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last updated: 2:22 AM BST 21/06/2008 Nationalist young Chinese are urging the country's censors to ban the Hollywood film Kung Fu Panda, in revenge for Steven Spielberg's decision to pull out of the Olympics. Spielberg was due to have been artistic adviser to the Games' opening ceremony, but announced he would no longer be taking part in protest at China's support for the Sudanese government, accused of war crimes in Darfur. His decision caused an uproar on China's active and often...

Today, at one past midnight, I have seen the latest Indiana Jones movie. Like many among you, I presume, I was a fan of that American raider travelling all over the world to look for treasures. A BIG warning : the latest Indy is absolutely AWFUL. This is the worst thing you can imagine. Actors are nuts, there are so many special effects even when Spielberg said he wouldn't use them, the screeplay is ridiculous. This is a nightmare, and I really encourage fans to boycott it. This is a shame, far away from the original Indiana Jones trilogy. Even...

There's a lot to enjoy about this fourth installment of Indiana Jones. It's fun, silly, adventure-filled and completely entertaining in ways we don't always get from movies these days, with the greatest parts coming straight from the marvelous imagination of Steven Spielberg. Plus, it's a summertime blockbuster that doesn't totally rely on CGI which feels practically old-fashioned — and I mean that in the best way possible.

Politicizing Beijing Olympics unacceptable A Western film director is so "naive and simple-minded" that he has made an inopportune move on the issue of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games by linking it to Darfur issue in Sudan, and this perhaps exhibited the "unique" qualities of this Hollywood celebrity. Nevertheless, the "naivety or innocence" shown by a few Western media seems all the more ignorant and funny. The bid to link the Darfur issue to the Beijing Olympic Games does not commence as off today. With regard to this issue, it is believed that about two million locals have fled their homes...

Spielberg ‘breached Olympic spirit’ By Mure Dickie in Beijing Published: February 14 2008 20:33 | Last updated: February 15 2008 01:35 Organisers of the Beijing Olympics denounced any linking of sport and politics as a contravention of the “Olympic spirit” on Thursday following the resignation of Steven Spielberg, the US film director, as an artistic adviser on the games’ opening and closing ceremonies. In spite of its insistence on keeping politics out of sport, the Olympics organising committee (Bocog) joined the foreign ministry in defending China’s stance on Darfur, which had been cited by Mr Spielberg as the reason for...

Spielberg quits Beijing Olympic role By Mure Dickie in Beijing Published: February 13 2008 02:07 | Last updated: February 13 2008 07:14 Steven Spielberg, the US film director, has quit as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympic Games, complaining that China was not doing enough to end violence in Sudan's Darfur region. The move by Mr Spielberg, an unpaid adviser to organisers of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, is a heavy blow to China's efforts to prevent international criticism of its support for the Sudanese government from casting a pall over the August Games. China has repeatedly denounced efforts...

US film director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In a statement, he accused China of not doing enough to pressure its ally Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the troubled western Darfur region. At least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in the five-year conflict. Beijing has not yet responded to the move, which correspondents say is its first big setback in staging the Games. Human Rights Watch welcomed Spielberg's move, and said it should prompt other corporate sponsors to press for reform....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg said on Tuesday he is withdrawing as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing due to the Chinese government's policy over Sudan and conflict in Darfur. "I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual," Spielberg said in a statement. "At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur," he added. Spielberg is one...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Film director Steven Spielberg, artistic advisor to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, sent a letter to China's president on Thursday urging Beijing to press ally Sudan to accept peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur. "I write to you now with a renewed sense of urgency in the hope that China will redouble its efforts to pressure Sudan to join in a fair peace agreement and, at last, bring an end to the genocide," said the letter to President Hu Jintao.

September 25, 2007 -- A BIG-mouthed extra working on the new "Indiana Jones" flick has blown his fledgling movie career to smithereens by spilling the film's major plot points. Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas made the entire cast and crew of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" sign nondisclosure agreements. But Tyler Nelson - cast as a "dancing Russian soldier" - gave an interview to his hometown newspaper, the Edmond Sun in Oklahoma, in which he revealed that: * Indy, played once again by Harrison Ford, and the Soviet army are both searching for a...

When the San Diego Natural History Museum applied to Stephen Spielberg's foundation for a $100,000 grant to help bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to San Diego and produce a film on the famous Khirbet Qumran site, the foundation was happy to oblige. Did Spielberg know (1) that the museum's scrolls exhibit would be plagued by allegations of bias due to the curator's decision to exclude a major group of Jewish scrolls scholars from the museum's lecture series; (2) that the money would go to a graduate student who is also a minister trained at Pepperdine University, affiliated with the Churches...

Spielberg Mulls Quitting Olympics to Pressure Chinese on Darfur Activists Look to Famed Director to Lean on China By RUSSELL GOLDMAN July 26, 2007 — Steven Spielberg, under pressure from Darfur activists, may quit his post as artistic adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, unless China takes a harder line against Sudan, a representative of the film director told ABC News. China, Sudan's largest oil customer and perennial defender, has come under renewed scrutiny in the lead up to the Olympics, as the country juggles its need for cheap energy with its desire to host a trouble-free games. As celebrities-cum-activists...

Alongside next summer's return of "Indiana Jones 4," Steven Spielberg's upcoming adaptation of "Team of Rivals" (about the political career of President Abraham Lincoln) is consistently one of the more popular projects he has in development at this time. While Spielberg's take on one of American history's most revered figures has been pushed back to accommodate one of American pop culture's most celebrated figures (Indiana Jones, of course!), the Lincoln project is still in serious development, and we can now officially say that things have taken a brilliant turn. Over the project's long-gestation, "Gladiator" screenwriter John Logan has had the...

Ultimate 'Indy' Flick: Fanboys Remake Raiders of the Lost Ark http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2007/05/diy_raiders http://tinyurl.com/2h488l Its a great article about three boys who remade "Raiders" starting in 1982 when they were twelve. It took them seven years to finish. If you read the article, I think you'll agree what they did was remarkable.

The Genocide Games Using China's pride in the 2008 Olympics as a weapon against its shameful support of the Darfur nightmare by Nat Hentoff May 8th, 2007 10:39 AM April 25 was a characteristically murderous day in Darfur. Rwandan Harry Soko, an officer stationed in Sudan with the African Union—whose small, underequipped "peacekeeping force" is increasingly endangered—made a complaint to António Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. Soko charged that, as usual, the Arab Janjaweed (which translates as "devils on horseback") were murdering and raping black Africans while Sudanese police merely looked on. Many of the more than 400,000...

Actress Mia Farrow has condemned director Steven Spielberg for aiding China's staging of the 2008 Olympic Games, warning he could become known as "the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games." Farrow, a United Nations UNICEF goodwill ambassador, launched an impassioned appeal on behalf of African victims in the over-spilling Sudan crisis earlier this month. And The Omen star, 62, is astonished so many big names and corporations like Coca-Cola and McDonald's are also readily lending their support to what they have dubbed 'The Genocide Olympics', because China openly supports the government of Sudan. She writes in a Wall Street Journal...

See for example this thread first. So Spielberg owns a Rockwell --but it's stolen, so who could tell? If you use Google (which is quite frugal) It's right there! This story doth smell...

LOS ANGELES -- A Norman Rockwell painting stolen from a suburban St. Louis gallery more than three decades ago has turned up in Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday. Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom" was nabbed during a late-night burglary in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973. The Oscar-winning filmmaker purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an...

Excerpt - Academy Award-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg has turned over to federal authorities Russian Schoolroom, a 1967 oil on canvas by Norman Rockwell that was filched from a Clayton art gallery in 1973, according to the FBI. No charges have been filed in the case, and federal officials say they have no evidence that Spielberg knew the painting had been stolen when he purchased it in 1989. "It appears that he is an innocent buyer," says St. Louis-based FBI agent Frank Brostrom, a member of the agency's Art Crime Team, who initiated the investigation. Spielberg is an avid...

Jan. 24, 2007 — - Is Hollywood abandoning Hillary? On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Hollywood's movers and shakers received an invitation that they may find hard to refuse. They've been invited to come meet Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's new superstar. He already has the buzz, but can he bring home the prize? Movie moguls Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg want their Hollywood peers to join them at a Feb. 20 fundraiser the three are throwing for Obama. For $2,300 a person and $4600 a couple, they can meet the candidate at a reception at the Beverly...

Talk about great news to jet us into the New Year and Steven Spielberg's return to the director's chair. George Lucas confirmed today that the screenplay for "Indiana Jones 4" has finally -- finally been approved by all parties, and that filming will commence in 2007 for a May 2008 release. Spielberg wasn't messing around when he told us that David Koepp was his "closer" on the project, since Mr. Koepp obviously nailed it. "It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be the best one yet," Lucas told the Associated Press. Lucas wouldn't talk details, of course, but he...

Please, bear with me. I posted this before but didn't do a very good job of it. Forgive me. When I was a child actress at Universal, everyone knew that Sid Sheinberg was Steven Spielberg's uncle. Somehow that family connection never made the news. I would like to know if it's true. A Hollywood Story -- Sid Sheinberg, former MCA Universal President and credited for "discovering Steven Spielberg, may have been his maternal uncle. Do you wanna graduate college or do you wanna be a film director?" – Spielberg makes his choice More from this book. Following on from the...

Someone out there must know the truth. I was told that MCA Universal President Sid Sheinberg, credited with "discovering" Steven Spielberg, was really his uncle on his mother's side. Please respond with citations or URL. Thank you -- Migjagger

I'm told some Hollywood Democrats are furious they've been "outed" by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign. On Friday, the Los Angeles Times, in what was tantamount to a press release for Ah-nuld, presented the laundry list of Hollywood Dems who have joined Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Haim Saban in the turncoat category for giving money to Schwarzenegger. But what the paper didn't report was that the Guv's campaign and/or its surrogates contacted many of these contributors and asked to use their names. And I'm told some of these Hollywood types said absolutely not. The main reason was that they...

Some of Hollywood's most reliable and generous donors to the Democratic Party — Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul Haim Saban — are endorsing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for reelection. Their support is partly a matter of friendship over partisanship. But it could deal a blow to the governor's main opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, by signaling to other Democrats that it's acceptable to embrace a Republican.

Steven Spielberg is set to defy gravity in a new film he'll direct for Paramount Pictures. The Oscar-winning filmmaker's latest venture is an untitled sci-fi film that delves into Caltech physicist Kip Thorne's theories of gravity fields. Though the project is considered embryonic--it has no screenplay and would likely take at least three years to make--Thorne wrote a treatment with the help of producer and science enthusiast Lynda Obst, prompting Spielberg's involvement. Obst ("How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days") will produce the film through her Paramount-based production label. Based on real science, the film would explore the mind-bending...

'UNITED 93' vs. 'MUNICH'Paul Greengrass--thank the stars--is no Steven Spielberg by Mia T, 5.09.06   hereas both 'United 93' and 'Munich' derive their initial tension not from uncertainty but from what we already know, one movie remains scrupulously true to the facts--art in the service of history--while the other quickly devolves into a verisimilitudinous contrivance in the service of a director's political agenda. Paradoxically--poetic justice in its purest form, some would say--the honest movie is the one that ultimately delivers the powerful political message. Spoken by its heros--our heros--as they prepare to rush the cockpit, shortly before the plane...

Avner Kaufmann, the reluctant warrior and protagonist of Steven Spielberg's movie "Munich," is honorable, strong, a family man--that is, a typical Israeli. That is why "Munich," although intensely criticized by pro-Israel commentators, ultimately does Israel and the civilized world at least one service: At a time when anti-Semitism is all-too-often repackaged and sold in politically correct form as "anti-Zionism," "Munich" offers mass audiences a compelling portrait of an Israeli struggling courageously to confront evil. Despite its lapses, "Munich" still has value for illuminating Israel's position--and that of all civilized people confronting terrorism...

STEVEN SPIELBERG BRAVELY CONFRONTS HIS FUNDAMENTALIST CRITICS. "So many fundamentalists in my own community, the Jewish community, have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue and for allowing Tony Kushner to be the author of that dialogue." Thus did a self-pitying Steven Spielberg, in Newsweek this week, explain the opposition to Munich. Fundamentalists! Is there any greater curse? And those who admired Munich, they are--what? Rationalists? Progressives? Children of light? Since I was one of the children of darkness who wrote cruelly about the film, and since I do not take kindly to being...

Thirty-three years after the event, we now have a film by a great director memorializing the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. But, although much hyped in advance, it has not exactly been a blockbuster at the box office, and it has also engendered considerable controversy. To Time magazine, Steven Spielberg’s Munich is a “masterpiece.” It has “all the virtues we’ve come to expect when he is working at his highest levels.” To Newsweek, Munich is “a superbly taut and well-made thriller . . . staged with a mastery Hitchcock might...

DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg says moviemakers have become much more politically vocal since the re-election of President George W. Bush. In remarks released by Newsweek magazine yesterday, Spielberg said: "I just feel that filmmakers are much more proactive since the second Bush Administration. "I think that everybody is trying to declare their independence and state their case for the things that we believe in. No one is really representing us, so we're now representing our own feelings, and we're trying to strike back."

Munich continues to stimulate controversy. Steven Spielberg's film was initially criticized by variety of columnists, from the conservative Charles Krauthammer to the liberal Leon Wieseltier, for its alleged anti-Israel bias. It is now being hotly debated in London, where it debuts this weekend. And back in Hollywood itself, there is now the ultimate in hype: A controversy is brewing about the controversy. In this new hyper-controversy the villain is our old friend ---- "the vast right-wing conspiracy." This conspiracy is apparently so vast that, on this occasion, it includes left-wingers like Wieseltier. And, like God, it moves in mysterious ways...

US director Steven Spielberg discusses his controversial new film "Munich," which deals with the aftermath of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. In an interview with DER SPIEGEL he talks about the moral aspects of dealing with terrorism and responds to critics who claim he's betrayed the Jewish people. SPIEGEL: Mr. Spielberg, can you remember the hours of the Olympic massacre? Do you know where you were when you heard the terrible news? Spielberg: Yes, I do. I was watching a "Wide World of Sports" live broadcast from Munich when the news suddenly flashed in, and the...

AT A RECENT family gathering, my cousin-in-law, Janice, asked me to respond to complaints she'd read over and over again about "Munich"... ***Why does the movie show Mossad agents having doubts and regrets about killing terrorists when apparently they never have doubts and regrets? Why did you make that up? I've never killed anyone, but my instincts as a person and a playwright — and the best books I've read about soldiers or cops or people whose jobs bring them into violent physical conflict — suggest that people in general don't kill without feeling torn up about it. ***Janice asked...

Steven Spielberg said that he made Munich to promote a dialogue about the nature of terrorism and the efficacy of counterterrorism. His screenwriter, Tony Kushner, said that he did not feel compelled to portray Israel's retaliation against the Munich killers accurately because "an audience has the resources to check" what is real and what is fiction. Well, here's a reality check. • Did Israel's anti-terrorism efforts following Munich create a "cycle of violence"? The film portrays a squad of Mossad agents, led by a fictional character named Avner Kauffman, tracking down and killing the Black September terrorists who perpetrated the...

Disagree with me – that’s what I want Goaded by critics of his new film Munich, Steven Spielberg tells Christopher Goodwin he is not guilty of sympathising with terrorists The eternal wunderkind of American cinema is tired. “I made two films, War of the Worlds and Munich, in the same calendar year,” says Steven Spielberg wearily, “and I’m not 30 years old any more, so I’m looking to rest for a little while.” Spielberg, 59, is also tired of sitting back and taking the furious barrage of attacks from critics of Munich, the most controversial film he has made in...

DSC — Munich: The Real Assassins Munich: The Real Assassins 1972 Munich Olympics: before the eyes of millions of television viewers, 11 Israeli athletes are murdered by Black September, a radical group within the PLO. This is the true story behind the extraordinary mission of revenge planned by Israel in response. JAN 22 2006 @ 10:00 PM

It’s been 48 years since I last reviewed a movie without first seeing it. Back then, a fellow UCLA student, Shirley Mae Follmer, and I were competing to be the film critic for the Daily Bruin. One night, passes were supposed to be left for each of us at a press screening. However, she arrived ahead of me, and she had either brought a guest along or there had simply been a glitch somewhere along the line. In any case, they wouldn’t let me in. All I knew was the title of the movie and the name of the star,...

As the first wave of Oscar voting closes, a sibling rivalry between films at UNIVERSAL has turned sour. The enthusiastic backing of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN by UNIVERSAL chief Stacey Snider has come at the expense of MUNICH, a top source involved with the Steven Spielberg drama tells the DRUDGE REPORT. "Stacey and her team believe BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is their winner this year," claims a well-placed insider. "The movie has been spoiled, spoiled and spoiled again, with endless promotion and support. MUNICH, on the other hand, has been horribly neglected. Steven has been thrown in the backseat. It has been painful." Tensions...

Steven Spielberg is one of America's greatest filmmakers. He wasn't always. Allow me to recap his career. This context-setting is important.Steven Spielberg's earliest commercial successes as a director -- Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, the Indiana Jones series, and Jurassic Park -- were great entertainments and great commercial successes, but there was no intellectual weight to them. The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun started showing his serious ambitions but he didn't quite pull it off. The Color Purple was a commercial success, while Empire of the Sun bombed, but neither film won him any Oscars...

My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it.by George Jonas January 7, 2006 EXCERPTS [emphasis is mine, T]:    ...Spielberg is quoted as saying that the real enemy in the Middle East is intransigence. He conceives of "Munich" as a prayer for peace. His screenwriter Tony Kushner says they do not wish to demonize either side.Such remarks illustrate why, in an era of moral chaos, Hollywood is unlikely to restore clarity. With due respect to pop culture and its undisputed master, one doesn't reach the moral high ground by being neutral between...

If Steven Spielberg had made a fictional movie about the psychological disintegration of a revenge assassin, that would have been fine. Instead, he decided to call this fiction "Munich" and root it in a historical event: the 1972 massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games. Once you've done that -- evoked the killing of innocents who, but for Palestinian murderers, would today be not much older than Spielberg himself -- you have an obligation to get the story right and not to use the victims as props for any political agenda, let alone for the...

My New York Times Review of Munich(please FReep) CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE WORST KIND January 9, 2006 Reviewer: miat22 (Mia T) ... to borrow a phrase, perversely, from a Spielberg flick about benign intelligence.Munich, with its false premises, phony pieties and outright lies -- Spielberg fantasy wrapped in sober documentary -- is a verisimilitudinous contrivance that is pernicious, especially now, especially here, especially if we understand Spielberg's real motivation. Truth matters not at all to Spielberg, and courage matters even less. To advance his fallacious argument, he has Golda Meir speak words she never said, never would have said...

Nearly every review of the Steven Spielberg film "Munich," especially those that are sympathetic to the film's "stop the cycle of violence" message, describes the movie as a story about Israeli "revenge" for the Palestinian murder of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In so doing they reveal their instinctive ambivalence, if not antagonism, toward what Israel did: sending out a hit team to kill those involved in the Munich massacre. So let's deal with this whole question of revenge and the widespread assumption -- from the secular Left to the religious Right -- that revenge is by definition morally...