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Gerald R. Molen is an Oscar-winning film producer whose credits include "Rain Man," "Minority Report," "Twister," "Schindler's List" and "Jurassic Park." My fellow patriots, As we sit in our comfort-laden abodes, sipping our lattes or pink lemonades and either wishing the snow would be gone for another year or baseball season would start so there was something interesting to do, the world continues to move forward. But as we seek other interests, we are not listening to the sounds emanating from the world around us. If you would listen carefully you would recognize the woeful sounds of America gasping for...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Producer prices rose 0.2% in July as a decline in energy costs didn’t immediately filter through the rest of the economy, according to government data released Wednesday. The Labor Department said prices rose on a seasonally adjusted basis in July as a surge from tobacco offset a decline in energy costs. Gasoline prices fell 2.8% while tobacco shot up 2.8%, the biggest gain in more than two years. The cost of light trucks, pharmaceuticals as well as beef and veal also played a role in the advance. Excluding food and energy, core PPI rose 0.4%, the largest...

Today on the 2:00 pm segment of CNN Newsroom, anchor Randi Kaye spoke with CNN political producer Shannon Travis about criticism directed at President Barack Obama: TRAVIS: Yes, really, really quickly, billionaire Steve Wynn, you've seen his resorts all over Las Vegas. He's blasting President Obama. I'm going to read this quote from a call, an earnings call yesterday. Quote, "I'm saying it bluntly that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime". Those are from Steve Wynn. We know there are a lot of businesses who have been on a...

“Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” which opens April 15th, is a movie unlike any other. Based on Ayn Rand’s novel, it dramatizes the fundamental conflict gripping our world: the battle between those who create value and wealth through their own efforts (the producers) and those who seek them through force (the looters and moochers). With eerie accuracy, Rand’s novel depicted — in 1957 — the very struggle between these diametrical opposites that we’re witnessing today. This battle couldn’t be more important because the fate of civilization rests on the outcome. Since this conflict inescapably affects everyone, it’s crucial to know which...

...five well-known Hollywood Democrats -- David Geffen, Bob Iger, Peter Chernin, Haim Saban, and Ari Emanuel -- are hosting a November 4 fundraiser for Ari's brother Rahm Emanuel in his bid to become Chicago's next mayor. Rahm, a former Democratic U.S. Representative from Illinois' 5th Congressional District (2003-2009), resigned as President Obama's White House Chief Of Staff on October 1 to throw his hat into the mayoral race following the retirement of Richard M. Daley whose last name more or less owned that political office the way most families would takeover the dining table. The Hollywood fundraiser will be held...

BUSAN, South Korea (AFP) – Hollywood producer Jon Landau said Friday he had no doubt that his latest feature with "Titanic" director James Cameron would live up to its billing as the year's most-anticipated film. The 300-million-dollar "Avatar", packed with computer-generated imagery and 3-D effects, is the pair's first project together since scooping 11 Oscars with "Titanic" in 1998.

A CBS producer was arrested Saturday after deputies say he attempted to arrange sex with 11-year-old girl by communicating with undercover investigators posing as the fictitious girl's father, authorities said. Daniel J. Barron, 56, a 15-year producer with CBS News who lives in New Jersey, allegedly told an undercover St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office detective to bring his 11-year-old daughter to the Fort Lauderdale hotel where he was staying while in town to cover Sunday's Miami Dolphins game, according to an arrest report. Barron allegedly told the undercover detective, whom he met Saturday afternoon in an America Online chat room...

NEW YORK (AP) _ A former Emmy-winning television producer who worked with Tom Brokaw at NBC News died Monday after falling from his apartment building, police said. Police initially reported that the producer, Eric R. Wishnie, was hit by a vehicle that fled the scene, but later they said they had located a witness who saw him as he fell from an adjacent building. The medical examiner's office said it had scheduled an autopsy. NBC News President Steve Capus said in a statement that Wishnie, 44, was "an enormously talented former senior producer at NBC News, who had a hand...

Link only -- http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/NEWS01/303090042/-1/all

Call it a Hollywood shocker: Mel's Apocalypto will have a bigger weekend opening than his Braveheart. Despite scandal, an R-rating, subtitles because of an ancient dialect, no stars, and direct competition from movieland AAA-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, Gibson's Mayan epic won Friday's matinees and evenings, I'm told. At first, box office gurus were warning me that the weekend victor among three very competitive films all opening against each other would be too close to call. cameron_jude.jpgBut now I've learned it looks certain that Apocalypto will win the weekend -- bearing out my reporting back on December 1st when...

Hatch helps spring Austin from Dubai jailBy The Associated Press Sat Jul 8, 5:50 PM ET Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, sits at a piano in his Capitol Hill office in this May 6, 1997 file photo. Hatch, a musician in his own right, helped secure the release of Atlanta R&B producer Dallas Austin from a Dubai jail after a drug conviction, his office confirmed Saturday July 8, 2006. (AP Photo/Cameron Craig, File) SALT LAKE CITY - U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a musician in his own right, helped secure the release of Atlanta R&B producer Dallas Austin from a...

A Hollywood producer has agreed to plead guilty to income tax evasion and conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with an alleged scam that bilked millions of dollars from people who thought they were investing in a television series about the Department of Homeland Security, according to a report published Tuesday. Joseph Medawar, 44, faces up to 10 years in prison and $9 million in fines under the plea agreement, which is set to come before a federal judge on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing federal court documents filed Monday. He also would pay $3.4 million in...

After coming up dry on such costly movie flops as "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Sahara," Hollywood's highest-rolling wildcatter is looking for his first gusher. And once again, Philip Anschutz is risking big. The Denver-based multibillionaire, who made a fortune in oil, natural gas, railroads, telecommunications and real estate, has spent $90 million — half the film's $180-million budget — to produce the screen adaptation of the children's classic "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." But whether the movie, which opens Friday, will produce the lucrative family-oriented franchise that Anschutz hopes for depends...

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - Herbert L. Strock, a television producer and director who directed such B-movies as "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," "How to Make a Monster" and "The Crawling Hand," has died. He was 87. Strock died Wednesday of heart failure at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley following a car accident, according to his daughter, Leslie Mitchner. In a television career that began in the 1940s, Strock worked on series including "Highway Patrol," "Sky King," "Sea Hunt," "Maverick" and "77 Sunset Strip." His creature features included "Blood of Dracula" and "Gog," shot in 3-D. "He was...

I just finished reading another amazing novel by Dean Koontz, "Cold Fire". The afterword ... is hilarious: "Then, as is often the case when life is good, someone said, 'Hey, let's make a movie!' and life got strange, dark, and scary. "By this I do not mean to imply - although I can't stop you from inferring - that a lot of movie-industry executives are as brainless, voracious, and destructive as the flesh-eating bacteria ... I've met smart, fair, creative executives over the years...although I've noticed their kind either eventually get fired," (NOTE TO SELF: KELLY GOODE!!!) ... He goes...

...I wanted to address the Lifetime series of "The Dirty Girls Social Club" again. First, I should let you all know I haven't heard a peep from anyone at the network since I last posted. I have talked to my co-executive producer, Nely Galan, who talked to an exec at the network who, I am told, told her that they have no problem with me at the repitch meeting. Rather, they just want to meet with everyone but me in order to "bond". Okay. ... Basically, there's a thing that happens in Hollywood. Moneylust. They all want to make money,...

"CBS News and I have reached an amicable resolution, and I have resigned my position," Murphy said in a statement. She said she wished "my good colleagues well" and looked forward to moving on in her career. Murphy and "60 Minutes Wednesday" executive producer Josh Howard were asked to resign after an independent panel found they rushed the Bush report to the air without proper checks. CBS News senior vice president Betsy West also was asked to give up her job. Murphy, Howard's top deputy, worked at CBS News for more than 17 years and was head of the political...

Israel and the Palestinian Authority were engaged in intensive efforts Monday night to bring about the release of an Israeli Druze employee of CNN who was kidnapped by armed Palestinians in Gaza on Monday. The kidnapping occurred at approximately 6:30 P.M., just outside CNN's offices in Gaza City. Riad Ali, who works for the television station as a producer and translator, was standing and chatting with two other employees, a reporter and a cameraman, both American. According to the reporter, Ben Wedeman, a white Peugeot stopped nearby and five armed Palestinians, all in their twenties, jumped out. Some carried pistols,...

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- A group of armed men abducted a CNN producer in Gaza City on Monday. There has been no claim of responsibility for the abduction of CNN producer Riad Ali, and the militant group Hamas condemned it.

My daughter is set as the producer for the election night news coverage of the Presidential race on her Emmy winning High School cable station.