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For more than a year, some of the most powerful women in entertainment — including Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy, Stacey Snider and a 'Homeland' director — have been impersonated by a cunning thief who targets insiders with promises of work, then bilks them out of thousands of dollars. The Hollywood Reporter has obtained exclusive audio recordings of the savvy imposter as victims come forward and a global investigation heats up. He was a freelance documentary photographer, 27 and eager, but not inexperienced. He'd worked in conflict zones for several prestige newspapers and magazines and shot ad campaigns for corporate clients....

Tom Hanks plays famed newspaper editor Ben Bradlee in Steven Spielberg's upcoming drama The Post. Here, the two-time Oscar winner discusses the man he plays (and also knew); the issues the film raises; and why he would refuse to go to the White House for a screening of his movie. You knew Ben Bradlee? He said: "You don't get it. We're covering the stories that are changing the world... And then, of course, the Nixon administration, the Justice Department, says: "If you print these papers, you're going to be traitors," which complicated absolutely everything, because it happened in the week...

One of the most prominent A-list presences in the emails ripped from Sony’s servers by the hacking collective Guardians of Peace is none other than Jennifer Lawrence (who is, sadly, no stranger to hacking herself). Lawrence and her fabulous email handle (peanutbutt) make several cameos in the leak, including numerous pleasant exchanges with Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, over her dazzling turn in American Hustle, which was co-financed by Sony arm Columbia Pictures. There’s also an interesting email exchange between Pascal and Brian Helgeland, screenwriter of the planned Cleopatra biopic, with Pascal suggesting that Helgeland dump Angelina Jolie...

Looking back at our popular culture in 2014, it appears that Hollywood's power is on the wane. Politically, the leftist celebrities and the "Rock the Vote" gang couldn't help dig the Democrats out of their rut. Even that paragon of permissiveness Sandra Fluke couldn't exploit her Limbaugh-victim aura to win a state Senate seat in libertine California. The year's biggest loser was Sony, which looked pathetically powerless in the wake of an alleged North Korea's hack attack. Worst yet were the people involved. A clearly frustrated George Clooney announced there was no one in that industry willing to sign a...

North Korea is so isolated that rather than bring the Internet to its hackers, it brings them to it—in a swank hotel in China. The luxury hotel that has been called a command post for North Korean hackers would make for a unique holiday getaway and give you lots to talk about back home. “Surprisingly Great Hotel - Clean, Tasteful.... and North Korean!” says a trip advisor review for the Chilbosan Hotel in Shenyang, China. For just $53, you get “a deluxe twin room,” including a North Korean breakfast considerably more substantial than those enjoyed by the vast majority of...

Looking at the vast attention given to this Sony hack, I began to realize today that the media, egged on by Team Jarrett, is REALLY UPSET that a MOVIE was not going to be released. Compare this, though, to the NORKS efforts to build missiles and bombs that could annihilate millions of lives and leave cities radioactive for decades..... You can barely get the media to care.... Same goes for Iran. Let Iran's leader make an untoward remark about society or something.....the media talks. Iran building weapons to destroy Israel or sell to other terrorists to be used against America?...

Hunter Walker December 20, 2014A North Korean official said on Saturday that the secretive regime wants to mount a joint investigation with the United States to identify who was behind the cyber attack against Sony Pictures. An unnamed spokesman of the North Korean foreign ministry was quoted by the country's state news agency, KCNA, describing US claims they were behind the hack as "slander." "As the United States is spreading groundless allegations and slandering us, we propose a joint investigation with it into this incident," the official said, according to Agence France-Presse. After they began publishing leaked Sony movies, internal...

Ladies and Gentlemen, as the new CEO of SONY Corporation, I am hereby announcing our strategy for the challenges presented by the North Korean hacking incident. I have: 1) Contacted via our representatives all our participating theaters, urging them to show "The Interview" at a special late night showing as the only film offered in that time slot. We don't want any innocent byestanders hurt and therefore all who attend will understand the risk they are taking. 2) Assembled our legal team to indemnify all said theater owners who screen the movie, both against physical/property loss and against lawsuits, should...

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton appeared on CNN Friday afternoon to address the company's decision to pull "The Interview" from theaters.Lynton told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that Sony did not cave to the hacker group Guardians of Peace (GOP) by pulling the movie.A clip of the interview ran Friday afternoon on CNN. The full interview will air Friday night on Anderson Cooper 360.He said the decision to pull "The Interview" only came after the major theater chains decided not to show the film. It wasn't because Sony didn't want to distribute the movie."Movie theaters came to us … one by one...

A good match. One’s a far-left entity with poor English skills that maintains power by stoking grievances against America and the other’s North Korea.Here’s this week’s reminder that there’s no situation so terrible that Al Sharpton can’t make it worse. Hollywood ​came to the Rev. Al Thursday as embattled Sony exec Amy Pascal ​met ​privately with the ​black leader for 90 minutes ​in a bid to fix the fallout from the ​cyberhacking ​leak of embarrassing, racially charged emails.Pascal agreed to let Sharpton have a say in how Sony makes motion pictures, in an effort to combat what he called...

Professor Susan J. Douglas, a department chair at the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and Arts, wrote a column this week for the liberal website inthesetimes.com entitled, ‘It’s Okay To Hate Republicans.’ Douglas, who is chair of the Communications Studies program, opened her article with the line, “I hate Republicans.” The article includes a photo of three U.S. Senators who are Republicans, with the caption, “It’s okay to despise these men.” Douglas, whose university pay was $178,786 last year, did not respond to a request seeking comment. “We see this as a free speech issue,” said Rick Fitzgerald,...

During his final 2014 press conference, President Barack Obama had some pretty stern words for Sony Pictures over their decision to pull The Interview in light of terror threats from North Korea-affiliated hackers. Amidst his remarks, though, came a notable flub that sent Twitter into a tizzy with joking responses. See transcript for the gaffe [emphasis added]: I think it says something interesting about North Korea that they decided to have the state come out with an all-out attack because of satirical movie starring Seth Rogen and James Flacco. I love Seth and I love James, but the notion that...

Did you know that having First Amendment rights in the United States comes with the responsibility not to offend dictators from North Korea? Had no idea? Me either. Last night on CNN "journalist" Sharon Waxman, who has worked at a number of media outlets including the Washington Post, argued that having First Amendment rights means we shouldn't be making fun of North Korean dictators because they might get upset. She was of course referring to the recent and massive hack on Sony pictures by North Korea as retaliation for "The Interview," a comedy about assassinating Kim Jong-Un. "I also want...

The Sony scandal may be about to take a giant turn. An FBI source tells RadarOnline.com exclusively that arrests “are imminent” in the case that has rocked the major entertainment company over the past few weeks. Radar can reveal that the FBI has been busy interviewing former Sony IT employees, and while the law enforcement agency believes that North Koreans are responsible for the hacking crimes, they must have had help from the inside. Whoever did this had to have either been an insider or someone who had been an insider,” explains the source. “They knew where to go and...

  TRIGGER WARNING* This has to be the best real estate deal since Whitewater.  Through a complex series of events that even our 24-hour news junkies have trouble following, Al Sharpton will now get to produce rap music in Cuba, while the U.S. sets up its embassy on the current site of North Korea’s diplomatic mission in Havana.  And Kim Jong Un will get to share a Cohiba cigar with Dennis Rodman, Al Sharpton, Amy Pascal and President Obama. It’s all in this one infographic.   Sony Pictures greenlights a film titled The Interview, a comedy which depicts the assassination...

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has invited the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to Moscow next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, the Kremlin’s spokesman said on Friday. It would be Kim’s first foreign visit since taking the helm of the reclusive east Asian state in 2011. His personal envoy travelled to Moscow last month as part of efforts by the two Cold War-era allies to improve relations. “Yes, such an invitation was sent,” a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the state news agency, Tass. Russia marks the...

Do you think this guy is gay? :P Quickly, someone buy him my book, Raising Boys Feminists Will Hate before it is too late! She graces several magazine covers a month, has her own reality show clothing and make-up brand, and has millions in the bank So perhaps it’s no surprise that 23-year-old Jordan James Parke wants to be just like Kim Kardashian.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Moscow next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two, the Kremlin's spokesman said on Friday. It would be Kim's first foreign visit since taking the helm of the reclusive east Asian state in 2011. His personal envoy came to Moscow last month in the framework of efforts by the two Cold War-era allies to improve relations.

The widespread reporting on hacked emails from Sony Pictures -- spurred by the upcoming release of an allegedly funny movie about assassinating North Korean despot Kim Jong Un -- might encourage some gloating from people who would like to bring Hollywood down a peg. But hold the schadenfreude. The media's ethics -- or seeming lack of ethics -- are troubling. Take CNN "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter in an interview with the program "Access Hollywood." His ethical position? Anything goes, as long as the journalists aren't the hackers. "It would be wrong and it would be illegal for the journalists...

On Thursday’s Hugh Hewitt radio show, conservative commentator Mark Steyn, author of “The Undocumented Mark Steyn,” said the actions by Sony Corporation not to face down apparent threats from North Koreans was a bad sign for the so-called power of American pop culture in its current state.