Eric Hartsburg, also known as Romney Face Tattoo Guy for obvious reasons, is now looking into getting his ink removed … also for obvious reasons. Hartsburg was “totally disappointed” by the 2012 presidential election results, having worn his support for Republican challenger Mitt Romney so prominently. The Indiana resident wants his tattoo gone, and not just because Romney lost; his remark about President Barack Obama giving gifts to supporters didn’t go over well. “It stands not only for a losing campaign but for a sore loser,” Hartsburg, an independent wrestler, says of the face tattoo he got at the behest of a winning eBay bid. “There’s no dignity in blaming somebody else for buying votes and paying off people. I can’t get behind that or stay behind that,” he lamented to Politico. “He’s pretty shameful as far as I’m concerned, man.” Hartsburg says that he’s accepted an offer from tattoo removal chain Dr. TATTOFF, after initially turning them down, to remove the double “R” logo for free. No word on whether Dr. TATTOFF’s co-investor in that company was Dr. Hindsight. As for Romney, he attempted to mend fences during lunch at the White House with Obama today, but it looks like at least one supporter is lasering off ties for good.
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
Mitt Romney can still enjoy a nice silver lining following his loss in the 2012 presidential election, brags adviser Stuart Stevens, who feels the Republican won where it counts. Seriously, this isn’t an Onion article … these are real quotes. Stevens penned an op-ed in the Washington Post today arguing that by winning wealthier and whiter voters, Romney secured a huge moral victory over Obama. “On November 6, Mitt Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income,” Stevens wrote. “He carried the majority of middle-class voters. While John McCain lost white voters under 30 by 10 points, Romney won those voters by seven points, a 17-point shift.” “The Republican Party has problems, but as we go forward, let’s remember that any party that captures the majority of the middle class must be doing something right.” As a result, “Republican ideals – Mitt Romney – carried the day.” The implied argument – at least how some interpreted it – that poorer votes are inferior seems to undercut the campaign’s central message over the last two years. Then again, so did Romney’s own 47 percent comment. Mitt’s top concern in 2012 was providing jobs for the jobless, he said again and again and again, with unemployed Americans highlighted in ads, speeches and photo-ops. Those individuals make under $50,000 a year almost by definition. Stevens notably never mentioned jobs and unemployment, instead focusing on how Romney championed “the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.” Unfortunately for Romney, poor and minority votes counted just the same as the allegedly superior votes Stevens favored, and they went for the other guy. The 2012 election results were not even all that close: a margin of 3.5 points, over four million overall votes cast and an electoral college blowout for Barack Obama. Powered by strong turnout and margins among young voters, Latinos, African Americans, and women, he won a second term despite a struggling economy. Why? Stevens had an explanation for that, too, of course. Obama was “a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and a media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. How easy is that to replicate?” We imagine his supporters will have a rebuttal or 20. Wonder if the Prez himself will bring this up during lunch with Romney at the White House tomorrow.
Reporter 1, Drunk Lady 0. That’s the score of this fun viral clip, in which an Austin, Tx., TV journalist brushed off a seriously awkward video bomb like it was no thing. While we fully support drunk photo and video bombs in general, you gotta make it count, people. It’s going to take more than a creepy, glazed-over look and some intoxicated wobbles to faze a veteran reporter like this. Come on. At least yell “Hook ’em Horns!” Drunk Lady Video Bombs Reporter
The Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, turns 70 years old today. Say it is so, Joe! The gaffe-prone Happy Warrior is the 47th man to hold the #2 spot in the federal government, and likely the first to fake tan or use hair plugs. Just kidding Joe! Before being elected (and recently reelected ) alongside President Barack Obama, he represented his home state of Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973-2009. During his career, Biden amassed a reputation for loquaciousness, with his questions and remarks during Senate hearings being known for their long-windedness. Not widely considered an academic or a theoretical thinker, he is regarded as a terrific retail politician, often regaling audiences with tales of his working class roots. Biden’s unabashed defense of his views and unpredictable nature have made him the target of many parodies, and deservedly so. At times he is like a caricature. Love him or hate him, he’s authentic, and has been consistent throughout. What you see is what you get … gaffes, f-bombs, Cheshire Cat smiles and all. Joe has been married to Dr. Jill Biden since 1977; they have one daughter, Ashley Biden. His first wife Neilia was killed in an automobile accident in 1972 along with their infant daughter. Their two sons, Beau and Hunter, made full recoveries. Happy birthday to the father, grandfather and Veep who needs no further introduction!
President Obama made the trek to the country of Burma Monday (Nov. 19), becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so. Obama, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, came to the South-Asian country armed with a message of hope… Continue
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting… Tarry? According to Mario Lopez, Taylor Swift – who performed Thursday night on The X Factor – is involved romantically with Harry Styles of One Direction. Just read what the co-host said last night on his 104.3 MY FM radio show: “During rehearsals, Harry from One Direction came and slapped me on the back, and said, ‘Hey, Mario, how ya doing?’ And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And he sort of [pointed] toward Taylor.” Swift, of course, recently split with Conor Kennedy . But she isn’t typically one to remain single for long. Lopez says he saw the pop singers “walking off hand in hand,” adding: “So Taylor Swift and Harry from One Direction — you heard it here first.” And we’ll all hear more about it later, after these two break up and Swift comes out with a new album.
Might it truly be over now for Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez? The estranged couple reportedly spent Wednesday night together , leading many to believe there was hope for Hollywood’s most adorable twosome. But TMZ sources say it all came crashing down on Friday, as Selena allegedly stormed out of a dinner date with Justin. A witness inside a San Fernando Valley Japanese eatery tells the site that Selena ditched the meal after just 10 minutes. She then drove off with Bieber in hot pursuit… only for him to be denied entry to Gomez’s residence when he arrived at her front gate. It’s certainly not a good sign for the heretofore happy couple. Is Bieber’s rumored penchant for supermodel booty really to blame? And do you want to see these two back together? Yes, they are so meant to be! No, they are so over! View Poll »
President Barack Obama met with McKayla Maroney and other members of USA’s Fierce Five Olympic gymnastics team – Kyla Ross, Jordyn Wieber, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas – yesterday in the Oval Office. But the Leader of the Free World was not impressed. Emulating the look Maroney made famous on the medal stand this summer, Obama folded his arms and curled his lips alongside the gymnast, promoting McKalya to Tweet soon afterward: “Did I just do the Not Impressed face with the President?” Yes, McKayla, you sure did. We wonder how Obama feels about the Kim Kardashian wedding, the Grand Granyon and many other events/monuments the Internet hilariously super-imposed Maroney into a couple months ago.
