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There’s the cliched phrase: “It’s like watching a train wreck.” In “Terror in Mumbai,” which airs tonight 8 pm ET/PT on HBO, you get to see what no documentary has shown before: a “360 degree view” of a multi-pronged terrorist act, seen partly and genuinely from the terrorists point view. The reason: “Terror in Mumbai” uses actual cell phone instructional conversations during the attack given to the terrorists in the field by a shadowy control “boss” in Pakistan. Not recreated -- the real thing…and it will make your blood both boil, and freeze. So, yes, even terrorists have “directors” who...

TERROR IN MUMBAI features exclusive audio tapes of the intercepted phone calls between the young gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan, and testimony from the sole surviving gunman. The Mumbai attackers' targets included the city's main railway station, a popular cafe, two major hotels and a Jewish center. Leaving the city's iconic Taj Mahal Hotel in flames, and Mumbai's woefully unprepared police and security forces paralyzed with fear, the attacks sent an ominous message to governments around the world. "Much as the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. did in 2001, the events that unfolded last November in Mumbai served as...

During the 10AM ET hour of America’s Newsroom on Fox News Channel, fill-in co-host Martha Maccallum told viewers what President Obama watched on election night while Democrats suffered big losses in New Jersey and Virginia: “Robert Gibbs said, well, he was actually watching, you know, the HBO special about his year-long campaign and how it all went.” On Tuesday night the White House had worked to downplay the Democratic gubernatorial defeats by claiming the President did not watch the election returns. Apparently Gibbs thought it would look better if the commander in chief was watching a self-indulgent fawning documentary about...

Harvard students will be able to watch the “The Wire” for class credit next year. At a panel last night, stars of the HBO hit series joined Harvard professors in discussing the applications of the show—which depicts the struggles of urban life in Baltimore—in understanding and combating real urban social issues. “‘The Wire’ has done more to enhance our understanding of the systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the poor than any published study” Sociology Professor William J. Wilson said. African American studies chair Professor Evelyn B. Higginbotham said that there would be a new course in which...

NEW YORK (AP) - Pivotal presidential campaigns are frequently defined in retrospect by documentaries. "The War Room" chronicled Bill Clinton's political operation in 1992, adding a phrase to the political lexicon in the process. Alexandra Pelosi's "Journeys With George" captured the oddities of a national campaign on board George W. Bush's airplane in 2000. The makers of "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama," which premieres Tuesday—Election Night—on HBO, wouldn't mind the same status. "That was our hope—that we would create something for history," said filmmaker Alicia Sams, who made the documentary with colleague Amy Rice and a key...

Good Morning America co-host Diane Sawyer on Tuesday helped promote an upcoming HBO documentary on Barack Obama and allowed producer Ed Norton to gush over the "zen" presidential campaign of the Democratic candidate. Sawyer breathlessly teased the program as "the Obamas behind closed doors. The grandmother who raised him and the man you’ve never seen." Sawyer played several clips of the By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, a film that followed Obama and his family during the 2008 campaign. The segment, which ran six and a half minutes, will be supplemented by more promotion on Tuesday’s Nightline. When...

Would Larry David Urinate on the Koran? by Jamie Glazov In a recent Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry David accidentally urinates on a picture of Jesus while he is a guest in someone else’s home. This, in turn, leads to a misunderstanding in which the homeowners think they have a miraculously weeping Jesus.Some Christians are understandably upset.Just some thoughts on what this episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm has revealed:Are producers of this show, or Larry David, or anyone else connected to it fearing for their lives right now? Are there Christian groups calling for the death of anyone in connection...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on HBO to apologize for an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which the main character splattered urine on a painting of Jesus. snip “It is beyond tasteless to insult the religious sensibilities of billions of people in America and around the world with such a cheap and vulgar publicity stunt. Jesus, peace be upon him, is loved and revered by both Christians and Muslims. Muslims view him as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind. snip “We understand the drive for ratings, but...

Last Sunday, in "Curb Your Enthusiasm", Larry David's new pill has increased his flow so much it is causing him to splatter, which leads to a misunderstanding about a miraculously weeping Jesus in Maureen and her mothers bathroom. Immediately after the air time Catholic groups came out with disapproving statements...

Comedian Larry David is under attack from critics who say he pushed the mocking of religion and Christian belief in miracles over the edge in the latest episode of his HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which the cable network defended as "playful."

Larry David New York City, N.Y., Oct 28, 2009 / 10:55 pm (CNA).-   Catholic critics have reacted to an HBO show that had a scene showing a painting of Jesus being urinated on and which also mocked Catholic devotion to Jesus. They have questioned an apparent double standard in the treatment of religions and have called for an apology from the show’s producers.Larry David, creator of the successful sitcom “Seinfeld,” now stars in the Sunday night show “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a fictional comedy about his life.In the most recent episode, the elderly David goes to the bathroom in...

"Outrage," a documentary that claims to expose closeted homosexuality among elected officials who have taken stances against gay rights issues - including, it says, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist - will make its cable television debut tonight. The film was in theaters last May. HBO is scheduled to begin showing it at 9 tonight. Director Kirby Dick said the message remains as important as ever. He said gays and lesbians are locked in the largest civil rights struggle in the United States today and his film examines hypocrisy among lawmakers that has set back the movement. "This is one of the...

Trailer for "The Pacific", the HBO series on the war in the Pacific during WWII

If smugness were a crime, they would put HBO "Real Time" host Bill Maher under the jail. On NBC's Aug. 24 "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," Maher expressed his frustration with President Barack Obama's inability to get health care/health insurance reformed and passed into law. "I think right now for example, this health care debate looks like it's - we could lose it because I don't think [Obama] he has been tough enough," Maher said. "You know, he used to say in the campaign, ‘It's your time.' This is his time. He should get mad, stop [expletive] around." ...more (w/video)...

HBO’s Potential New Star ‘Licked Doorknobs’ to Make Republicans Sick Posted By John Nolte On August 25, 2009 @ 5:03 am In Entertainment, Featured Story, News, Politics The first reaction to a story like this is get wrapped ’round the axle of HBO’s hypocrisy, so let’s get that out of the way: Of course no Republican who had behaved in the same manner as ”sex columnist” Dan Savage would get a shot at an HBO show. But there’s really no hypocrisy when you realize that Bill Maher’s network is waging ideological war. Through that prism of clarity, the network’s desire...

LOS ANGELES -- I met filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams when we all traveled to Africa to cover then-Sen. Barack Obama in August 2006. Rice and Sams were shooting a documentary on a senator who seemed to have a promising future. They started interviewing me and several others about Obama for a movie that none of us at the time knew would end up so soon with scenes of Obama in the Oval Office. Fast-forward to last Wednesday night, when their HBO documentary on the Obama presidential campaign "By the People, The Election of Barack Obama" was screened for...

During his recent HBO special, "Tall, Dark and Chicano," comedian George Lopez tore a hole in the Big Tent. Incensed that 31 Senate Republicans had voted against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, Lopez informed the GOP that it would never again get the votes of Latinos. In fact, he said, given changing demographics, Republicans might as well get used to losing in the years to come because "you won't win a . . . pie-eating contest." That's harsh, but fair. Republicans know not what they did. They're only fooling themselves if they think they won't pay a price...

Leftist talk show host Bill Maher is hardly an original talent. The jokes in each week’s opening monologue are usually predictable and rarely draw more than a slight chuckle. And so it comes as no surprise that he’s just as unoriginal in his serious moments as well. Just observe his decision to feature Jeff Sharlet, a contributing editor to Harper’s, one of the preminent organs of the literary Left. Sharlet was on to talk about — what else? — his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, a supposed expose of a religious lobbying group...

Trailers & Videos

NEW YORK – HBO scored highest among 15 networks for its representation of homosexual characters last season, according to a report released Monday. In its third annual Network Responsibility Index, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation found that of HBO's 14 original prime-time series, 10 included content reflecting the lives of homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people. That totaled 42 percent of the network's programming hours, in series such as True Blood, Entourage and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. By contrast, on NBC and CBS only 8 percent and 5 percent, respectively, of prime-time hours included them, the report...

On Friday night’s Hardball, guest host Lawrence O’Donnell enthusiastically promoted HBO’s new, glowing Ted Kennedy documentary. He began by declaring "There‘s so much ground to cover. We don‘t have enough time for this. And I want to show the people out there, people under 60, who don‘t know the early Ted Kennedy, don‘t remember the early Ted Kennedy, I want to show what you have got in this movie." But O’Donnell’s interview completely left out the biggest scandal of "the early Ted Kennedy" – the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. This seemed especially odd as O’Donnell recounted with...

TEDDY: IN HIS OWN WORDS. 9 tonight, HBO. THERE ARE people who can forgive Ted Kennedy anything. There are people who can forgive him nothing. Many of the rest, perhaps, regard the senior senator from Massachusetts as a marvelously flawed human being who's somehow survived scandal and tragedy and more than three-quarters of a century in the public eye to arrive at a point where colleagues from both sides of the aisle appear to regard him with affection and respect. With Kennedy currently engaged in battles for both health-care reform and his own life, the timing of tonight's HBO documentary,...

<p>The documentary's Academy Award win puts it on the cable giant's radar.</p> <p>Sometimes winning an Oscar means more than bigger bucks for your next flick.</p> <p>Once in a while, it can even make the world a better place.</p> <p>That's the case with Megan Mylan, who won the Academy Award in February for her short documentary "Smile Pinki," which follows a young Indian girl and boy, Pinki Sonkar and Ghutaru Chauhan, as Pinki's cleft lip and Ghutaru's cleft palate are repaired. The film was commissioned and funded by the American charity Smile Train, a group that pays local doctors in 75 developing countries to perform the simple surgery that parents of such children rarely know is possible.</p>

HBO’s Into the Storm, dramatizing Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II, deserves close study from our statesmen, their spouses, and anyone with questions about the stakes and requirements of warfare. This Churchill, portrayed brilliantly by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, is an unapologetic conservative, a tenacious dynamo whose rhetoric and resolve protected Britain and the West from submission to tyranny. We pick up Churchill where HBO’s Emmy-winning 2002 film The Gathering Storm left off. Hitler appeaser Neville Chamberlain has been discredited, and Churchill takes over as prime minister. After the successful retreat of the British Army from Dunkirk, France, Churchill...

LOS ANGELES, May 26 (UPI) -- Hollywood filmmaker Barry Levinson has agreed to direct Al Pacino in an HBO movie about assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian is a real-life pathologist, nicknamed "Dr. Death," who made headlines and sparked ethics debates for helping ailing people who wanted to commit suicide. He served a prison sentence in Michigan for second-degree murder from 1999 and 2007 in connection with one person's death. Variety.com said Levinson will executive produce and direct the TV movie with Pacino playing the controversial Kevorkian, who is now 80.

For five years, Winston Churchill played perhaps the single most important role in thwarting the Nazis during WWII, with his intrepid leadership and rhetoric inspiring millions of Britons and other members of the free world to fight Hitler's Germany to the bitter end. Continuing the story of Churchill told in HBO's award-winning film, "The Gathering Storm," INTO THE STORM is set against the backdrop of World War II, and offers an intimate look at the making of a nation's hero, whose prowess as a great wartime leader ultimately undermined his political career and threatened his marriage to his lifelong supporter,...

Here is a video interview done by Hardball's Chris Matthews tonight about a new HBO film entitled, "Into the Storm," which focuses on the leadership of Winston Churchill during World War II. The film is set to air on HBO May 31, at 9:00 pm et. . . . . (Watch Video)

On his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," the comedian routinely makes vicious fun of celebrities, politicians, presidents and even God. But he's learned that, for much of his audience, Barack Obama is off limits. Not long after the historic presidential election, Maher joked that Republicans were feeling particularly superstitious: "They say the country is having bad luck because there's a black cat in the White House." The studio audience erupted in loud groans and boos -- a reaction, Maher observed in a recent interview, that exceeded his often scathing attacks on organized religion. "Obama is the new God,"...

For two and a half minutes near the end of "Taking Chance," the new HBO movie about the body of a young Marine returned home for burial, there is no sound except for the salute of the riflemen and the Wyoming wind battering the flags that stand at half mast as the shattered remains of PFC Chance Phelps are placed at rest. The silence amounts to perhaps the most eloquent statement Hollywood has yet made about the Iraq War. Its main competition is an earlier scene in the same movie. Driving along a country road behind an SUV carrying the...

The presidential election is coming to the small screen. HBO will make a film based on the landmark 2008 election, featuring larger-than-life political characters like Sarah Palin, John McCain and President Barack Obama, the network announced this week. The film will be based on the book "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," by Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin and New York magazine political correspondent John Heilemann.

HBO Films has optioned "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," an in-the-works Harper Collins book by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The pay network has hired "Blood Diamond" scribe Charles Leavitt to adapt the behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential election from the perspective of the candidates and their respective camps. Halperin is editor-at-large at Time magazine, and Heilemann is national political correspondent for New York magazine. They will be consultants for the film. The book will be published early next year. Heilemann and Halperin have covered other presidential...

It might be par for the course, but liberal cable talk show host Bill Maher has once again done his best to offend with a distasteful and insensitive wisecrack about the U.S. military. Maher launched into a rant on his March 27 HBO show, "Real Time with Bill Maher" about American soldiers still stationed in Germany and Japan and took a swipe at the soldiers, insinuating they were rapists. "Forget about bringing the troops home Iraq - we need to get the troops home from World War II," Maher said. "Can anybody tell me why in 2009, we still have...

I don’t know why Bill Maher still has a platform. Well, no, I take that back. I know why he does; it’s because he’s a liberal and he spews liberal [edited] out of his mouth on a regular basis, and the liberals at HBO love it. But he’s sunk to yet another despicable low, slandering our troops. It’s not like it’s the first time — remember when he called our troops “cowards” right after 9-11? Maher replied: “We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the...

I was watching Bill Mahr this weekend - Not because I like him, trust him, or agree with ANYTHING he says, just to see what the other side is saying about things - and one of his guests was Hip Hop Artist Mos Def. Mos Def made a statement that I would like to know a little more about. I'm still learning about politics and history and things so I am hoping that there is a good answer to this question as it will probably come up in conversation with friends and family and I want to be prepared to...

Fox New's Glenn Beck is increasing "the chance for people to take horrible action" on President Obama. So said HBO's Bill Maher Friday evening in a lengthy discussion about FNC's new primetime star. I guess Maher missed the hypocrisy concerning his disturbingly caustic views of the Bush administration while they were in power, in particular his expression of regret that the March 2007 assassination of Vice President Dick Cheney failed. Possibly even more delicious was that sitting to Maher's left was MSNBC's Keith Olbermann who himself has made an almost endless number of personal attacks on members of the Bush...

Political commentator and TV host Bill Maher won “Quote of the Year” at the Media Research Center’s annual Dishonors Awards for his remarks about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign. Maher – on HBO’s “Real Time” in September 2008-- questioned whether Palin’s infant son Trig was her child or that of her teenage daughter, Bristol. “I’m not that convinced that that’s her baby,” Maher said. “It’s not like they’re not willing to lie about everything else.”

So, HBO is at it again, trying to attract attention -- and, consequently, subscribers -- by outraging the Mormons. Can we really blame them? Offending Latter-day Saints by mocking or misrepresenting our faith has proven to be a very lucrative business, after all. Take, for example, Jon Krakauer's inflammatory bestseller, "Under the Banner of Heaven." The book, which was released in July 2003, tells the story of two Mormon fundamentalists who brutally murdered Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter, claiming they acted on divine revelation. Krakauer attempts to prove that such behavior has roots in the history of Mormonism, and...

CBS merely brushed off the controversy that upset many members of the Mormon Church when interviewing HBO’s “Big Love” star Bill Paxton on March 16, 2009. The TV series about a Mormon polygamist has not surprisingly gotten plenty of attention in its three years on air. This time, however, “Big Love” is causing trouble because the March 15 episode showed a highly sacred Mormon temple ceremony. CBS’s The Early Show host Chris Wragge mentioned the controversy during an interview with Paxton: read more here: http://www.cultureandmedia.com/articles/2009/20090316141843.aspx

As NewsBusters previously reported, conservative Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart went into the belly of the liberal beast Friday evening by appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." Although he was treated abysmally by the host, his co-panelist, and the audience, Breitbart stated in Monday's Washington Times column that he had the time of his life. More importantly, he strongly made the case concerning why conservatives must stop avoiding encounters with shameless, liberal media members such as Maher, Jon Stewart, and even the good ladies of "The View" and instead "take [them] on head-on" (h/t Hot Air): Pretty much everyone...

I just finished watching this season’s second to last episode of HBO’s Big Love soap opera, and I believe there may be another hidden reason that the show makes Mormons uneasy. Much of the media’s attention has been on the fact that this episode portrayed a scene in a Mormon temple, however, the show did have one line that caught me: the main character expressly claimed that the Mormon church was just as corrupt as the show’s main antagonists who are practicing polygamy and generally in trouble with the law. This theme has underlined the entire season of the show....

Did the creators of HBO’s “Big Love” cross a line in Sunday's episode by portraying a ritual that normally happens behind the sealed doors of a Mormon temple? Some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say there are corners of the religious landscape where Hollywood is just not welcome. I checked in with polygamist fans of the show who I've written about in the past — fundamentalist Mormons who practice the kind of plural marriage portrayed in “Big Love.” Anne Wilde, a plural wife for 33 years until the death of her husband, also voiced her...

If The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had not uttered a single word about this Sunday's episode of "Big Love," it wouldn't have exploded into the hotbed of controversy it has become. Now, a lot more people are sure to watch Sunday night's episode. In a statement released on Monday, the Church criticized an upcoming scene inside an LDS temple that shows sacred practices, rooms and garb. "Certainly Church members are offended when their most sacred practices are misrepresented or presented without context or understanding," officials said. No one outside of the network has seen the episode, including...

Full disclosure: I am a big fan of "Big Love." And I find the LDS (Latter-day Saints, aka Mormon) faith fairly baffling. That said, I thought this was an interesting, detailed and reasonable take on the whole HBO vs. the Mormons controversy. (And if this sounds a little like a press release, the author owns a PR agency; he probably can't help it.) [EDITED TO ADD: I've posted a LDS-sanctioned video, "Why Mormons Build Temples." Equal voice and all that. Thanks to commenter HiveRadical for the suggestion.] Dear Daily Variety and Daily Variety Readers: As a devout member of the...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — HBO...defended its plans to depict a sacred Mormon temple ceremony in an upcoming episode of "Big Love." The drama about a Utah polygamous family will show an endowment ceremony Sunday. ... ...the ceremony is an important part of the "Big Love" story line, HBO said. In the scene, actress Jeanne Tripplehorn's character, Barb, goes through the endowment ceremony as she faces losing her membership in the Mormon church... ... Only church members in good standing can enter temples to perform or witness sacred ceremonies. The ceremonies are centered on religious teachings and re-enactments of Bible...

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...

"Big Love," HBO's television drama about a polygamous Utah family, will air an episode March 15 depicting a sacred and private LDS temple ceremony, prompting an official response from the church criticizing the network. According to a TV Guide interview with series creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer published in this week's magazine, both said the episode will include the depiction of an endowment ceremony within a Mormon temple. Only LDS members with a temple recommend and in good standing may witness such ceremonies. "We go into the endowment room and the celestial room, and we present what happens...

It was bad enough last week when the powers that be decided that Sarah would have to lose her baby, but Big Love jumped the shark tonight when Sarah declared to Barb that she was glad she had lost her baby, and Barb concurred. That occurred at 9:51 eastern time, and we turned the TV off that very minute.

..."Taking Chance," which is the only Iraq movie to show the troops in a wholly positive way, is also the only one people are watching...

Did you watch “Taking Chance” on HBO? If not, you missed a sensitive, well-written, well-acted film that was pro-military and pro-American. You would do well to see it when it is rebroadcast. There is no surprise ending. The surprise is that the film was made at all.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2009 – Coinciding with the HBO Film premiere of “Taking Chance,” based on a Marine’s tribute to a fallen comrade, more than 100 servicemembers joined the Run4Chance team at the 28th Annual Los Alamitos 5K “Race on the Base” in California to honor the fallen hero. More than 100 servicemembers made up the Run4Chance Team at the 28th Annual Los Alamitos 5K “Race on the Base” at the Joint Forces Training Center in California, Feb. 21, 2009. HBO and the Chance Phelps Foundation joined forces for a series of running events around America to benefit members...