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Update: Helen Thomas Resigns, Leaves White House Press Corps

Roger Friedman
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5
Update: Helen Thomas Resigns, Leaves White House Press Corps

Helen Thomas has retired. Her career ends in disgrace thanks to comments she made on May 27th to Rabbi David Nesenoff at a White House event.

Thomas was criticized today at a White House press briefing. Here’s the link: http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html?bcpid=19407224001&bctid=90405445001

The New York Times, which did not even mention what was going on previously, now reports the story online.

The Times has simply ignored the entire Thomas fiasco, even though: Thomas’s lecture agent has dropped her, her co-author has disavowed her, and there’s an open letter to her in today’s Jerusalem Post.

The Times–and all the New York newspapers–have completely ignored the fact that man who interviewed Thomas and posted the now infamous video on You Tube is a rabbi who lives right here on Long Island. Considering how much the papers want to increase their local coverage, you’d think they’d be camped out on Rabbi David Nesenoff‘s front yard. Nada.

See the video at www.rabbilive.com.

The last reference to Rabbi Nesenoff in the New York Times was in 1996.

Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe the eldest member of the White House Press Corps didn’t insist on video that the Jews in Israel “get the hell out of Palestine” and return to “Poland or Germany.”

Meantime, the Times story today on jailed money manager Ken Starr reflects a complete lack of knowledge of anything in that story. Starr’s been in jail since June 1st, but the Times can only get movie director Robert Benton to say he can’t help but feel sorry for him. There’s curiously no mention of Starr’s business partner and connected at the hip pal, Marvin S. Rosen, former Democratic National Party fundraiser from 1995-97 for President Clinton.

Business writer Nelson Schwartz also somehow missed the point of the lawsuit brought by the estate of Joan Stanton against Starr. The other defendant was film producer and Planet Hollywood owner Keith Barish, who settled with the estate. Starr, the Stanton lawyers complained, had directed Stanton’s millions into Barish’s failing Planet Hollywood despite instructions not to make that investment. Barish isn’t even mentioned in today’s Times story.

As a Democrat and a liberal, I’d hate to think these omissions are because Thomas has stood for progressive politics and Rosen is a Democrat.

PS The Washington Post has equally avoided the Thomas story, making passing reference in a blog (written by someone from the Conservative right) and a short summary of it in Howard Kurtz’s column today.

Golden Globes Re-elect Same President for 8th Time

Roger Friedman
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3
Golden Globes Re-elect Same President for 8th Time

Is it the Hollywood Foreign Press or Cuba? The organization that administers the Golden Globes has re-elected Philip Berk for the 8th time. And they’re proud of it.

Berk says he’s a correspondent for Australia’s FilmInk and Malaysia’s Galaxie magazine. The former carries just one of his stories, an interview with Johnny Depp, on its website, from 2008. The publisher, Dov Kornits, tells me via email this is because FilmInk’s website is really just news and reviews, and that Berk writes features for them.

FiilmInk has two other correspondents in Los Angeles and two more in New York. None of them belong to the Hollywood Foreign Press, only Berk.

Over at Galaxie, the only reference to Berk on their website is his role as Golden Globes president. Their correspondent posted a story about meeting Berk and his family in Berk’s Beverly Hilton Hotel suite on the day of the Globes. There’s also a long description of the backstage green room, to which no other press person is allowed.

According to Galaxie: “Furnishings in the Presenters Lounge include vintage Lalique pieces shipped from France valued at US$800,000 including an antique dining table from 1920 with the signature of Renea Lalique, exquisite furniture from Moura Starr including a leather sofa and black crystal coffee table valued at US$400,000, and hand-embroidered black and white silk drapes valued at US$25,000. There are also art masterpieces on loan from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and the Yehoshua Kovarsky Family Trust estimated to be worth more than US$1,000,000.  There are also bronze sculptures by famed sculptor Gilad Ben-Atzi in addition to a crystal chandelier.

“It’s only fitting that they be pampered with luxurious and glamorous accommodations before they venture on stage to present a Golden Globe before multimillions of viewers in 160 countries worldwide,” said Mr. Berk.”

He’s right; it’s only fitting.

Anywho, here’s a picture of a very happy President Berk backstage with Alfre Woodard and her daughter, Mavis, last season’s Miss Golden Globes. The HFPA pays its president approximately $72,000 a year.

The Berk election, by the way, was not without controversy. Berk lackey Jenny Cooney was not elected with him. Neither were a couple of other candidates whom the President endorsed. According to sources, Berk himself was unopposed as he is really serving the second year of a two year term. No word on the whereabouts of Berk waterboy Munawar Hosain, party animal extraordinaire.

Exclusive: Helen Thomas’s Rabbi- Interviewer Speaks

Roger Friedman
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9
Exclusive: Helen Thomas’s Rabbi- Interviewer Speaks

The rabbi-journalist who got the explosive interview with veteran reporter Helen Thomas spoke to me tonight exclusively.

Rabbi David Nesenoff is a journalist and filmmaker from Long Island who has his advanced degree from the Jewish Theological Seminar. He went to the White House on May 27th with his 17 year old son and the son’s 18 year old friend on a press pass. Both boys as well as the Rabbi wore yarmulkes and tsi-zit. They were obviously religious Jews.

And that’s what shocked Nesenoff when Helen Thomas told him — as he filmed her on his Flip camera– the Jews should “get the hell out” of Israel and go “home” to Poland or Germany–places they’d been tortured and killed in, and escaped from during the Holocaust.

“There’s anti-Semitism in the world,” Nesenoff told me. “And it’s sitting a foot from the president.”

Nesenoff says he isn’t aligned with any political party or ideology. He’s basically pro-Israel and is happy to meet any politician who agrees with him. Thomas surprised him, he says, because she knew who she was talking to. “She must have felt comfortable to just tell us how she felt.”

“It was shocking,” he said. The reason it took a week or more to post the video interview on his site, www.RabbiLive.com, or YouTube? “My 17 year old son is my webmaster and this week was finals,” he laughs. “So we had to wait.”

Nesenoff says there’s a little more that he’ll post, including a conversation with Thomas on the state of journalism. Once she made her “Poland” remarks, Nesenoff says there wasn’t much time to respond. Thomas was whisked away by a helper or page.

The Rabbi, by the way, has credentials: one film he worked on went to Sundance a few years ago, another garnered several prizes. A few years ago Nesenoff worked for the U.S. Department of Justice as an intervention consultant on a famous racial hate crimes case with Denny’s.

More recently he’s consulted Mel Gibson on the aftermath of his DUI arrest and anti-Semitic crimes. The rabbi says, by the way, that Gibson still has not really apologized for what he did. “You can’t just say you’re sorry for what you’ve done. You have to become the Poster Boy for apology, and he hasn’t done it,” Nesenoff says.

As for Helen Thomas, Nesenoff is all for sitting down with her and talking this out. “I’m into expose and propose,” he says.

Helen Thomas Self Destruction: Rabbi Has More on Tape

Roger Friedman
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4
Helen Thomas Self Destruction: Rabbi Has More on Tape

Has Helen Thomas destroyed her career after 50 years of covering the White House?

It doesn’t look good. I am told the Rabbi who videotaped her anti-Semitic comments has more that he hasn’t posted yet.

Thomas’s video taped anti-Semitic comments have rocked the internet. Thomas, speaking directly to a camera, tells a roving reporter that the Jews should get out of Palestine, and return to Poland and Germany. And America. And everywhere else. She’s sort of forgotten about why they left Poland and Germany, but that’s another story.

Subsequently, Thomas has sort of apologized on her website. (Who knew she even had one? But it’s for the 89 year old member of the White House Press Corps to hawk her books. Thomas currently works for Hearst Publications.)

Her initial comments were made at an event in Washington for Israel on May 27th. The apology reads: “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

When I first saw the Thomas video, I thought: she’s old, she’s confused. She doesn’t understand. But watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQcQdWBqt14

Thomas seems to be talking about Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian state. Maybe, you think, she’s talking about West Bank or Gaza settlements.

But that’s not what she’s thinking when she says the Jews should go back to “Poland, Germany, America or anywhere else.” That’s not Israel she’s criticizing. And in that split millisecond, her entire career comes crashing down. All the good Helen Thomas did, sitting in those White House press conferences, asking tough questions of president after president–it’s all gone. Over. Done.

You wonder now, what else has been on her mind all these years?

Can she survive what she’s done? Others have managed come backs from similar situations, but they were younger, or in show business, and not held to a very standard. Thomas has been a flag bearer for nearly a century, and has come to represent what they think of a honesty and integrity in journalism. But I do think that’s it. A legacy has been destroyed. In the process, we learn something very grave and deeply disappointing.

Billionaire Producer Still Shooting Jazz Movie, Three Years Later

Roger Friedman
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5
Billionaire Producer Still Shooting Jazz Movie, Three Years Later

Dan Pritzker is the heir to the Hyatt fortune. He’s also a jazz fan, and a big one. He’s been writing and directing his first film, “Bolden!” a jazz movie set at the turn of the last century, since 2007. Shooting re-commences on June 14th for three more weeks.

“Bolden!” is billed as a “mythical interpretation” of the life of legendary New Orleans cornet player, Charles “Buddy” Bolden, considered the King of Jazz from around 1900 to 1907.  After that, Buddy Bolden, only 30, succumbed to schizophrenia.

Pritzker has been shooting the film since 2007 at studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. This week he resumes new shoots–not re-shoots–as star Anthony Mackie is finally available. The in-demand actor has just finished his run on Broadway in “A Behanding in Spokane.”

“Bolden!” has no distributor, no finish date, a fuzzy release date of sometime 2011, and a $30 million budget, according to sources. It co-stars Jackie Earle Haley and Wendell Pierce, as well as a name not heard so often these days, Michael Rooker. It’s not an expensive cast, but it’s a big one.

The big money has been spent behind the scenes. Wynton Marsalis wrote an original score. Vilmos Zsigmond is the cinematographer. Brothers and Steven and Derick Martini, and David Rothschild wrote the screenplay.

Not only that: an hour long second film has only been made by Pritzker. “Louis,” about Louis Armstrong‘s early days on the cornet, is a silent film with overlapping actors and characters from “Bolden!” The silent film, supposedly finished, is set to debut on August 25th in Chicago as part of Wynton Marsalis ‘s tour. (The presentation comes to our beloved Apollo Theater on August 30th.)

PR people who didn’t want to be quoted said that finishing “Louis” was what had stalled “Bolden!”

AOne insider told me: “We don’t this movie to end. It’s like a perpetual paycheck. When they say it’s time for more shooting, we just say where and when.”

Pritzker did not respond to calls, but publicists fell over themselves trying to explain all of this. The 51 year old Tufts grad is the grandson of A.N. Pritzker and the son of Jay Pritzker, who died in 1999 at age 76. Jay pritzker took the family’s massive wealth and built the Hyatt Hotel chain. They also own Royal Caribbean.

Dan Pritzker was listed in 2008 as the 246th richest American on Forbes 400,so he can definitely afford to make any movie he likes.And while jazz movies always welcome, they are not traditionally successful. Both Robert Altman‘s “Kansas City” and Clint Eastwood‘s “Bird” were more admired than attended by paying ticketholders.

Six Weak Films In Search of An Audience

Roger Friedman
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5
Six Weak Films In Search of An Audience

Chemistry is everything in the movies, and everything at the box office.

The current low ebb of films and audiences is just a bad mix. Currently a half dozen films are just mediocre enough to cause not a scintilla of a spark anywhere on this hot, humid weekend.

They are: “Sex and the City 2,” “Killers,” “Prince of Persia,” “Marmaduke,” “Splice,” and “Get Him to the Greek.” One or two of these would be bad enough for most weekends, but the combination is deadly.

As it turns out, “SATC2” will do well enough, and cause the filmmakers to really give some thought as to how they’ll wrap up the trilogy in two years.

“Get Him to the Greek” is showing a blah response from the audience. Its first weekend will be its best, by far.

But “Killers” is DOA, “Prince of Persia” is an overblown mess, “Marmaduke” is barking up the wrong tree, and “Splice” is still born.

I’,m still not sure how “Splice” came out of Sundance a winner. There was no feel for it at the actual festival. It seems like it was a cabin-fever buy, purchased by people who let the snow get to them.

“Killers” has been discussed ad nauseum. It’s a bad TV version of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” a movie that would not have merited much attention had not the main players been romping romantically in real life. I do mean, Brangelina.

“Prince of Persia” remains a quandary. It’s made $50 million in America, and another $100 million abroad. It cost at least $200 million, excluding the massive amount of promotion. Jake Gyllenhaal, a talented actor, as inflated for the role. His pictures have been on the internet for what it seems like a year. By the time the movie was released, Jake was back to normal. The movie fell flat. So it will rake in Euros and other currencies. Are we really going to depend on it not mattering that films aren’t good or coherent, just noisy, in foreign languages? (Answer: I guess so.)

What’s coming next Friday won’t help matters much: “The A Team,” also advertising a star’s Soloflex program (Bradley Cooper) and “The Karate Kid” remake with Will Smith‘s precocious son, Jaden.

It may be a good month to read a book.

Katherine Heigl Leaves “Grey’s Anatomy” for Worst Movie of the Year

Roger Friedman
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4
Katherine Heigl Leaves “Grey’s Anatomy” for Worst Movie of the Year

So far, Katherine Heigl’s movie career is not what you’d call a march to the Oscars.

Today, someone (Lions Gate) is releasing “Killers” starring Heigl and Ashton (Mr. Demi Moore) Kutcher. It’s the worst movie of the year, maybe including 2008 and 2009. No one’s reviewing it today because there were no critics screenings. Rotten Tomatoes can’t rate it because it has just four reviews. They are not positive.

On the imdb.com website, there’s a good review of “Killers” from, of all places, Egypt.

“There are two kinds of bad movies: The so-bad-it’s-good, and so bad-it-hurts. But then, there is Killers; an amorphous blob that exists in a vacuum where no films has ever been made before. It’s not a comedy in the sense it’s assembled out of jokes and humorous conflicts — Killers constructs its own parallel universe reality and giddily makes fun of it. And it’s not an action in the sense that good guys and bad guys chase one another — Killers’ has a snake-eating-its-tail moral stance. Killers is Meta in the truest sense of the word, and it’s not even aware of it.”

Haisam Abu Samra continues: “Critically analyzing Killers is like reasoning with an alligator before it eats you alive; it’s a waste of precious time better used for self reconcile. The only shining piece of the film is Heigl’s teeth. The script seems to have begun its existence as a Mr. & Mrs. Smith book report, rewritten by a conspiracy theorist, and finally polished by an ESL student.”

Now, why isn’t this man in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? He’s the Roger Ebert of the Nile!

Seriously, Robert Luketic is the culprit here. The director of Heigl’s awful “The Ugly Truth” started his career with “Legally Blonde,” a flukey hit that shower promise. But “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton” and “Monster in Law” are not exactly “The Palm Beach Story” and “Annie Hall.”

And then there’s Ashton Kutcher, Twitter expert and producer of “PunkD” on MTV. The former “That 70s Show” star should stick to game shows and the cult of Kabbalah. Acting is not his forte.

I took 14 producers, and at least $75 million, to cook up “The Killers,” a movie I will see in August, no doubt, on American Airlines. Until then, Katherine Heigl–who is talented and gorgeous–should consider looking for a great TV series.

Exclusive: Mariah IS Preggers…With New Album!

Roger Friedman
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9
Exclusive: Mariah IS Preggers…With New Album!

Mariah Carey is expecting a bundle of joy this December! It’s a…new Christmas album!

While People, US Weekly, Radar Online and the rest of tabs hound the 40 old year songstress for news of a blessed birth, Carey is busy indeed gestating.

She’s working hard on a Christmas album, with all new versions of her hit, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” That song is now the most peopular of all holiday songs, downloaded more and played more than even “White Christmas.” So Mariah has smarted up, brought in best pals Jermaine Dupri and Randy Jackson, and they are hard at work getting together their Christmas surprise.

As for the alleged baby–kids, Mariah is not going to tell us anything until the time is right and she’s comfortable with it. A 40 year old woman is not going to announce a pregnancy before the fourth month. If you remember, Jennifer Lopez never did announce she was with child. Her twins are on their way to college now! (Just kidding.)

Anyway, Mariah’s Christmas album is said to be very lush, with lots of strings and no hip hop. A lot of it is said to be “live” and there’s an ochestra. So let’s chew on that news, and calm down about the other. And believe me, she won’t be announcing anything at Radar Online owned by the National Enquirer. That won’t be happening!

And PS: It’s not like Mariah’s sitting at home with her feet up. She’s doing a special gig for Wal Mart tonight outside of Los Angeles.

(photo, like most of our pics, courtesy PR Photos. My caption: “Her lips are sealed.”

Sean Penn in Haiti: His Wealthy, Mysterious Backers Also Want American Idol

Roger Friedman
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4
Sean Penn in Haiti: His Wealthy, Mysterious Backers Also Want American Idol

Sean Penn has been in Haiti for five months doing killer work as a Good Samaritan. Vanity Fair has an elucidating piece on him in their new issue.

No one can question Penn’s commitment. But who’s paying for it?

The answer is blonde, beautiful 36 year old Diana Jenkins, a Bosnian refugee whose husband, Roger Jenkins, is a British billionaire banker. Jenkins is famous for rescuing failing banks with Middle East money. That’s how he saved Barclays last year from being taken over by the British government–with $15 billion from oil sheiks.

Now Roger Jenkins, who’s left Barclays after 25 years, is reportedly looking to buy Irish banks with Middle East money.

He’s been written about extensively in Britain, particularly in the Times:

“Jenkins is known primarily as a tax expert. The 52-year-old is famous for devising complex structures that ferry profits around the world, helping companies to minimise their tax bills. Tax experts credit him as the leading authority on “double dipping” – in which companies get two sets of tax deductions from two different countries. Although there are no legal improprieties in such arrangements, they are the scourge of governments around the world.”

Ironic then that money made from skirting taxes is now going to rebuild the infrastructure of Haiti.

More importantly, Roger Jenkins is reportedly the money behind “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller‘s to buy CKX,  the company that owns his creation. Reports say he and Jenkins have put together a $1 billion fund for this purpose.

The Jenkins family merits a lot of interest themselves. Roger’s brother David Jenkins owns a company that makes a drink called Designer Whey–a protein drink for athletes just cited by Consumer Reports for having high levels of metal and arsenic. (To be fair, others were much higher.)

David Jenkins, a British Olympic sprinter in the early 70s, spent time in jail for steroid smuggling in the 1980s. When he got out of jail, he started an American company called Next Protein. Now he’s a billionaire living in San Diego.

Diana Jenkins— her real name is Sanela Dijana Catic–was raised in poverty, she’s told the British press–and emigrated to London 20 years ago. When she met Jenkins she says he wasn’t wealthy, just a well to do banker. Jenkins, 18 years her senior, credits her with changing his life.

Once they conquered Barclays and made billions, the couple became incredibly popular in Hollywood. They’ve thrown many A list parties, and raised money for George Clooney‘s Darfur efforts. Diana and her kids now live in a Malibu mansion where, presumably, Roger joins them from his international finance exploits.

Now Diana Jenkins has taken a page from her brother-in-law’s book and started her own drink company. Neuro Drinks, distributed by Pepsi, are sugar-and-caffeine beverages loaded with Vitamin B, presented in colorful bottles, and marketed in the diet, sleep, and improved sex categories.

Diana Jenkins is also funding a big human rights project at UCLA and operates a charity called the Sanela Diana Jenkins Foundation in Bosnia in memory of her brother. (The latter isn’t registered in the US or UK. Originally named for the brother, Irnis Catic, it seems now to be named for its patron, who herself received an award from the Foundation according to its website.)

In Haiti she and Penn have started the J/P Human Rights Organization. And so, as the universe works, all this money is now underwriting Sean Penn‘s humanitarian efforts and helping the people of Haiti.

Ron Galella: Hotsie Totsie Paparazzi

Roger Friedman
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1
Ron Galella: Hotsie Totsie Paparazzi

Ron Galella: if you lived in New York in the 1970s, he was a villain with a camera. Stalking Jackie Onassis like she was a rare rhinoceros, Galella was the first American paparazzi. Now he’s the subject of a new documentary on HBO called “Smash His Camera,” which will also have a theatrical release.

On Tuesday night at MoMA, and then at the Monkey Bar, Galella became a movie star. “Smash His Camera” started at Sundance last January, and has made it all the way to the big time. Expertly directed by Leon Gast, “Smash His Camera” now suggests that if Gallela hadn’t driven everyone crazy taking their pictures, an important historical archive would not have been created.

Still at the screening, Nobu owner Drew Nieporent said, “Wasn’t he a bad guy when we were growing up?”

Not any more, apparently, even though Jackie O took Gallela to court not once, but twice.

The word paparazzi always had a tinge of menace–camera toting maggots a-prey on celebrities–and got a worse name after the throng chasing Princess Diana through a Paris tunnel caused her death.  But the Ur-paparazzo, a lone figure lurking behind Central Park foliage, disguised in funny wigs and hats, was Ron Galella.

A career defining encounter with the obsession of his life provides the title. (It was not his gorgeous wife Betty, to whom he proposed within two minutes of their meeting and whisked off to bed “to seal the deal.”) Jackie, by this time, O, commanded her secret service detail, “Smash his camera.”

It’s easy to be competent in photography, says artist Chuck Close eloquently in this biopic, hardest to be distinguished because of all the arts photography lacks the human hand, begging the question, is self-proclaimed superstar Galella, artist or stalker? This topic was much debated at a premiere screening at MoMA on Tuesday. Dick Cavett, Floyd Abrams and son Dan, Bob Balaban, Marie Brenner, David Margolick among photographers Harry Benson, Sonia Moskowitz, Neil Leifer, watched as Galella on film presented his extensive, historic archive, millions of photos of Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Robert Redford, and more, neatly stored in his Montville New Jersey mansion. Galella explained his guerilla tactics, how he got his “Mona Lisa” shot, “Windblown Jackie,” the former first lady in jeans and t-shirt walking, her tight torso half turned toward his camera, her hair strewn across the iconic semi smile.

Gossip doyenne Liz Smith, splendid in yellow silk, suggested in her Q&A that Jackie, despite taking him to court, loved his attention. Betty, shouting out from the audience, reminded everyone that he was Andy Warhol‘s favorite photographer because Galella recorded the famous in the unexpected act of being who they really are.  Roger Ebert called him a “national treasure.” Is he still an idealist, asked Smith. Oh yes, it all paid off, said the unrepentant Galella. “I want to thank Jackie for suing me,” he went on. “She made me famous.”

While the famous supped on sea bass at the Monkey Bar after party, Galella snapped away soon joined by celebrity photographer Patrick McMullan. At his table sat newly discovered relations, Ottavio Galella and family from Montreal, responsible for a show of his work in the small town in Italy of his ancestry. Ottavio’s wife Marisa nailed it. Ron may have started as a stalker but he became an artist, which may just show a change in the times. As Galella laments a loss of fun, “there are few to photograph now. The new girls, Lindsay Lohan, are bombarded, they expect it and they love it.”

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