Free Republic

There was an era when Hollywood celebrities and film creators were treated as a kind of modern royalty, a representation of the heights to which the average person could strive and “make it big.” The glitz and the glamour were viewed as the culmination of the American dream. But as with all fantasies, the story must end and reality must return. Was the movie business always a farce? Yes. However, it was a farce that the public held up even in the worst of times as something of value; something more that frivolity.In the spans of around 7 years Hollywood...

Some members of a Hollywood organization are questioning whether to honor Ted Cruz. The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors this year chose the conservative Senator from Texas as one of its recipients of its annual "American Spirit Award." Another is to go to liberal Calif. governor Jerry Brown. The Caucus, founded three decades ago by Norman Lear, Aaron Spelling and others, has set a meeting Monday to determine whether to stick with its plan to give a Spirit award to Cruz after some of its more liberal members objected to the selection, and some threatened to quit if the...

A harmless symbol of Christmas cheer was once deemed so risky that the FDA had to regulate it. Tinsel once contained lead, which, as scientists realized in the 1960s, made it dangerous to kids. That prompted a deal between the FDA and tinsel makers to alter manufacturing methods, the American Chemical Society reports in a video. The 1972 change was at first kept secret, Popular Science reports, for fear “that many people preferring the lead variety would stockpile it,” an official said at the time. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the first time tinsel had posed a threat: One...

Pellicano did work directly with one president: during Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign Pellicano was hired, reportedly by Hillary Clinton, to discredit Gennifer Flowers, the woman who alleged that she had maintained a 12-year affair with the candidate. Six years later, with Clinton into his second term, the White House, according to the New York Post, hired Pellicano, considered a respected forensic audio specialist, to look into Monica Lewinsky's background. Another report places Pellicano, who was hired by OJ Simpson before the murder of Nicole Simpson, outside her house on the night that she was killed... Anthony Pellicano has worked...

Jon Stewart, the original choice, had to pull out as host of the Oscars because of a groin injury. The much-maligned peace activist will serve in his stead. Jon Stewart, the original choice, had to pull out as host of the March 5 Oscars because of a groin injury. Instead, Osama bin Laden will serve as MC for the ceremony that is broadcast, as always, around the world to the millions and billions in their homes and in their caves. The late replacement was announced by the Academy moments after the nominees were made public from a secret location in...

To judge from the way the weekend's box office is breathlessly reported in the news bulletins on Monday morning, more people seem to be interested in movie grosses than in the movies. Evidently, Hollywood's now recovered from this summer's all-time record "box office slump." Or at any rate news stories about the box office slump have themselves slumped. In a breathless dispatch on the opening weekend of ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,'' the Associated Press reported that ''the latest Potter movie led a lineup that helped reverse the Hollywood box-office slump." I wouldn't say the boy wizard and...

Feb. 28 issue - Dan Glickman isn't exactly the Hollywood type. More comfortable in pinstripes than Prada, he's a former Clinton Agriculture secretary, Kansas congressman and president of the Witchita school board—and nothing like the flashy, debonair Jack Valenti, the legendary head of the Motion Picture Association of America. After 38 years at the MPAA, Valenti has become a celebrity in his own right, landing his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But as Glickman heads toward his first Academy Awards since taking over for Valenti as the industry's chief lobbyist, he's the one schmoozing Hollywood directors and...

Warm and fuzzy, cute and cuddly have absolutely nothing in common with the venom spewing Leftist, Janeane Garofalo. Janeane makes her living as a comedienne and as an actor, but her calling seems to be that of emulating a shrew on a bad hair day. Janeane is now co-host of CNN’s faltering Crossfire TV show, at least for a week anyway. No doubt the wisest at CNN understands their prospective audience far better than ordinary folks who just tune in. In their infinite wisdom they chose to have a spokesperson of Janeane’s unique qualifications to represent the Left and democrats...

Having a Constitutional right to free speech was so essential to the Founding Fathers that they made it the first of the rights guaranteed in writing, in the creation of the United States. As time passed, lots of things were viewed as speech even though they were physical acts. Pretty soon, things got a little crazy and burning the symbol of the country that gave citizens the right of free speech was seen as a protected right under the first amendment. Apparently, it got folks who made a living pretending to be other people and read words written by other...

This Sunday, the annual Academy Awards will be held in Tinseltown. As our nation wages a just and righteous war in the name of human freedom and dignity, as heroic men and women who represent our nation's finest risk their lives to protect the world from tyranny and terrorist blackmail, overgrown adolescents with low self-esteem will bask in the adulation of each other in a pathetic attempt to pretend to be relevant and call attention to themselves. While Jacques Chirac continues to strut and preen in Paris, Hollywood stars will give him a run for his money in seeing just...