Tea Party Extremist Claims President Obama Was Once Married To A Man As the election nears, the “NoBama” bunch is going pretty hard with the smear tactics . This week, it’s the good ol Tea Party claiming that President Obama was once married to his college roommate……who was a man. Jerome Corsi, Tea Party activist and author, now asserts that president Obama is bisexual and was once married to man. Corsi, a birther, who authored The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, claims he has compelling evidence that supports his theory that Obama was once married to his Pakistani roommate. Corsi does not indicate whether Obama was married to Imad Husain, Obama’s freshman roommate at Occidental, Mohammed Hasan, or Wahid Hamid, the two other Pakistani men who were once roommates of the president. Corsi has published photos of the president on 1776nation.com where, according to Corsi, it appears the president is wearing a wedding band. He also asserts that there was long-running joke among the president’s classmates at Harvard regarding the mysterious ring and why Obama wore it. Now this is just ridiculous. We wouldn’t be surprised if Michelle “Nutcase” Bachman was behind this….SMH. Source
Say what you will about Michael Jackson. He was the self-anointed King of Pop, but legions of fans around the world were his willing subjects for decades, crossing generations. So there is at least a reasonable in-house audience just itching for more about the moon-walker and Spike Lee is just the man to deliver. Lee and Jackson were friends in life and the filmmaker, whose Red Hook Summer opens next month, is working on a documentary tied to the 25th anniversary of the release of Jackson’s Bad album. And Lee has apparently come across a lot of material for the film-in-progress. He told the A.P. it’s a “treasure chest of findings” including footage the star shot himself from behind-the-scenes. “We had complete access to the vaults of Michael Jackson,” Lee said. “He wrote 60 demos for the Bad record. Only 11 made it. So we got to hear a lot of that stuff, too, so it was just a great experience.” Still untitled, Lee said that the film will be appealing to those who are not Michael Jackson fans. The doc will also show a personal side of the pop legend. “He had a great sense of humor and he was funny,” said Lee who interviewed Kanye West and Mariah Carey for the film. He also spoke to Sheryl Crow who was a background singer during Jackson’s Bad tour. “We really divided it into two things: Artists today who were influenced by Michael and then people who worked side by side…” Loyalists and new converts have been gobbling up Michael Jackson’s music since his death in 2009 at age 50 and the powers-that-be are very happy to oblige. The follow-up to the singer’s Thriller album, Bad includes hits “Smooth Criminal” and “The Way You Make Me Feel.” It will be re-released with additional tracks, a DVD and other goodies September 18th. Jackson would have turned 54 on August 29th. [Source: A.P. ]
Why do we believe, or need to believe, in the possibilities that lie beyond the laws of physics and known science — the unlikely, irrational hope that suggest something more exists in the universe, be it spiritual or simply supernatural? Actor Cillian Murphy explores these Big Questions in Rodrigo Cortes’ Red Lights as Tom Buckley, a paranormal debunker who goes head-to-head with a powerful pop psychic (Robert De Niro) whose self-proclaimed powers to bend spoons and read minds may be mere parlour tricks compared to what he’s really capable of. In researching the role of a paranormal investigator for the twisty thriller (Cortes’ follow up to Buried ), Murphy found himself studying real-life mentalists, magicians, and self-proclaimed seers. But while the self-described “boringly rational” skeptic may not believe in the existence of the supernatural, one encounter gave him an understanding of how these magnetic personalities inspire whole-hearted devotion in legions of hope-seekers. Murphy only met the magician David Copperfield for a few brief moments backstage in Vegas, but their exchange made an impact. “The man’s got an aura for sure,” he marveled, though De Niro’s Simon Silver combines the charisma of Copperfield with the mysticism of Uri Geller to create a much more intimidating onscreen adversary. Movieline spoke further with Murphy about what drew him to the storytelling and themes of Red Lights , acting opposite film legends Weaver and De Niro, and rumors that he’ll pop up in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Dark Knight Rises . What was your initial reaction to the concept of Red Lights ? Part of what’s intriguing about the script is how it plays with viewer expectation — what hooked you? Every script that you get, you always have to judge it on the word on the page and that’s always been my sort of mantra. A lot of the time when you read scripts you can kind of predict where they’re going to go pretty quickly, and with this one I couldn’t. And that’s no fun, when you can guess at a story’s secrets. No! But that tends to be the majority of scripts. You kind of know what’s going to happen and what the character is like. This one took turns that I was pleasantly surprised by. And I’d also seen Rodrigo’s two other films, and you could see he was the real deal — he was a real director. And obviously you throw in a couple of legends, and the whole package was very, very appealing to me. By legends, you mean Sigourney Weaver and Robert De Niro. Of course, but unless the part and the director and the script is any use, that’s immaterial. But the fact that they were already signed on to do those parts … that was definitely appealing. Rodrigo has said that he wrote Sigourney’s character with her in mind, which is great — those interesting kinds of female characters don’t come along that frequently. Did her character and De Niro’s character leap off the page as much for you early on? It was really well written, and it was very smart; it didn’t pander to an audience. And the twists and turns were surprising to me, and as you say that’s a great strong female part — where her character goes, you don’t expect. I enjoy the way in the TV debate equal credence is given to both camps, and it wasn’t about ridiculing or pointing fingers — it was about rigorously looking for the truth. I like scripts that presuppose a level of intelligence in the audience, and again they’re sort of rare. When it comes to the themes in the film — faith, skepticism, these huge ideas — how much did the chance to play with those ideas factor in for you? I think they’re obviously big questions in the film, but for me I focused on the character, and for me the character the two driving forces are obsession and self-acceptance, or the lack of self-acceptance. Those were the two things for me that drove Tom Buckley’s character and I focused in on those, because those are quite universal. The broader picture about skepticism and belief and blind faith and science and all those things, I would personally be very much in the skeptic camp. I’d be very much about proof and logic and reason, that’s always been my boringly rational approach to life, but I’m fascinated by why people needed to believe in these things. The need to believe was the thing that really struck me — the need to believe, rather than to understand. To many people that’s a need to have something to believe in, in order to get through. To get through — and that’s absolutely fine and valid, but where it becomes darker is where that is preyed upon. If people are ill, or people have lost loved ones, and then people are willing to set aside logic and reason and rational thought and bankrupt themselves because some charlatan is promising them relief. Rodrigo did a fair amount of research into real world healers and the like; did you do much of the same, and how did what you learned affect your perspective? I did a lot of reading about it, a great deal in fact. I also went to Vegas to see the more showbizzy aspect of it. Like a Criss Angel show? Criss Angel, David Copperfield — that stuff is good, harmless fun. It’s like showbiz. But De Niro’s character is more an amalgam of the televangelists, the psychics, Uri Geller and all these sorts of guys who claim something beyond what the Copperfield and Criss Angel do, which is pure entertainment and great fun. But you can see there how they use their aura, or their personality — which is large anyway — and then magnify that on stage. I do think there’s a power of personality that’s important in this, that we haven’t talked about that much. I met David Copperfield afterwards very briefly backstage in Vegas, and the man’s got an aura for sure. You put that up on stage and magnify it and that’s what De Niro’s character Simon Silver plays on. That’s why it’s great casting to put someone like De Niro in there because the man’s presence is immense, it’s just massive — so you put a camera on that and it’s magnified tenfold. Certain people do have that sort of charisma that’s palpable in the air, in a room, on a screen — but it’s interesting to hear this from you, being an actor. Some might say the same about you, given the nature of your work. Well, I don’t know if they would or not! Obviously when you’re playing a part, there’s a part of your personality in it, but you try and sort of project different sides of it. You use whatever aspects of the personality that work. I don’t have a clue — its’ very hard for me to talk about acting, or the process of acting. What was David Copperfield like? Well, that was a really brief thing, and for whatever reason we were backstage and it was really dark. It was like in a little corridor and he came out, and — yeah, he definitely had an effect. You felt it. Yeah. And I’ve seen that, people walk into a room and they change the energy. And it’s not anything paranormal or extra-sensory, it’s just that they have, like you say, this charisma. Red Lights is interesting in that it’s a genre movie that doesn’t act like a genre movie. No, it doesn’t — and I’ve been in plenty of so-called genre movies and never for a moment thought they were science fiction or a zombie movie or whatever, I just thought they were about character and story. It’s easier for people to slot them into genres because they can sell them easier that way. What was your impression of Rodrigo as a director? Rodrigo is ferociously intelligent, very clear in his vision, very clear in his aesthetic, and luckily, our sensibilities were kind of the same. I think that when someone has that clear a vision, you feel safe, then — safe to experiment, to sort of improvise because you know that within that structure he knows what every frame of that film is going to be like. And I like working with writer-directors because they’ve lived with the character, they’ve lived with the story, so they have a deeper sense of it. They might not have all the answers, but you can really knock it around with them and you can ask them, “Why?” or “What does this mean?” We really got on; he’s got a great sense of humor, too, and shooting in Spain we shot very, very fast. It was very intense. It was something like ten weeks… Yes — it was eight in Spain and then some in Toronto. I like the immersive experience of acting, I like just completely disappearing into a character, into an environment, into a role — that’s always appealed to me, and this was very much like that. Are you an actor who takes this disappearing into character off-set as well? I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m probably not that easy to live with when I’m working on something very intensely, but you know, you’re working 16-17 hours a day, so you just come home and go to bed. And then you get up and go to set. I love that. It’s pure concentration, and they say happiness is concentration. I love that. Seems like it might be something like an extended adrenaline rush. It kind of is! And we were working, we did a crazy amount of set-ups a day, it was very fast. It’s exciting. You said part of what drew you in was the opportunity to work with Sigourney and Robert — what was that like for you when you finally got to shoot with them? Amazing. You’ve got to just observe and learn, don’t you? And they were beautiful and warm and generous, and ultimately you really have to put aside the legend thing as best you can when the camera turns over and it’s “Action!” you’ve got to serve the scene and the character, but they were all about that. I think they must be aware of the effect of their legacy on an actor of my generation, but they were never anything other than people there to do the work. But it was fascinating getting to watch actors that good. You’ve got to learn from that. Was it fun shouting at De Niro? Hey, he shouts at me, too! [Laughs] Lastly, folks have been wondering if you’ve been working with Chris Nolan again on The Dark Knight Rises . I love working with Chris. I’ve been lucky to work with him a few times, and any time, I’ll be there. But listen, it comes out [soon]. So let’s try and be patient! People are so impatient these days! Let’s wait and see. I do believe there were reports of you being spotted on the set… [Smiling] Look, I’m not going to add to any speculation. I just think that it’s going to be a phenomenal film, and the best way to watch a film — surely — is by going in there hugely excited and not knowing anything about it. I suppose in a way that brings us full circle with Red Lights and the idea of the filmmaker as a sort of magician, keeping tricks up their sleeve. Yeah, I do think this is a film sort of about filmmaking. Rodrigo talks about distracting here, and showing something there, and it is all smoke and mirrors. But I wouldn’t get too into that metaphor, because I didn’t make the movie. Red Lights is in limited release this week. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
WTF !? Why can’t it be a blowfish? When biologists say the pacu fish eats nuts, they may be correct in more ways than one. The pacu, a toothy fish that can weigh up to 55 pounds, has been spotted in Lake Lou Yaeger in Illinois, KSDK reports. Responding to a report that a fisherman had reeled in a piranha on June 7, lake superintendent Jim Caldwell brought the fish to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, where it was identified as a pacu. Some reports say another pacu was seen a couple of weeks later. Caldwell said he is still swimming in the lake nearly every day. Pacus primarily eat nuts, aquatic vegetation and snails, he told KDSK, and pose no real threat to humans. Residents of Papua New Guinea may beg to differ. There, according to British fisherman Jeremy Wade, the pacu is known as the “ball cutter.” “The locals told me that this thing was like a human in the water, biting at the testicles of fishermen,” Wade said. The Ball Cutter boasts an impressive set of man-like molars, which tear off the testicles of unwitting hunters, leaving them to bleed to death. Yikes! Someone tell Joseline to stay out the water and protect her nuts. Source
The anticipation levels couldn’t be any higher over in these parts when it comes to Nas’ new album Life Is Good but in the meantime we have been happily taking in all the leaked songs, interview excerpts and video footage from Nas’current European tour. Speaking of which, Nas just released this live performance of “A Queens Story” with Green Lantern from their Paris show. Check it out: And it’s interesting that he declares Marvin Gaye his favorite artist in that clip, because he’s described “Life Is Good” as his own version of Gaye’s “Here, My Dear” particularly because he’s holding part of Kelis’ dress on the album cover: “I found it in my house and thought, it’s going somewhere! Either on the cover of my album, or burning in a garbage can.” He laughs. “I was angry when I first found it. Hurt and angry – but I don’t think she left it deliberately to hurt me. It’s just part of the dress, so I don’t know where the rest of it is. But it made all the sense in the world for me to … hold on to that.” He pauses. “I guess that’s just my personality. “My wedding and my marriage was, for the most part, some of the most amazing times of my life.” He clears his throat. “She’s an incredible woman. It just ended really publicly, it seemed real bad. I guess this is my Here, My Dear album, that Marvin Gaye made. It might not be quite so much about the marriage or the divorce, but it’s still that kind of record for me.” The latest song to leak off “Life is Good” is a brilliant tribute to his former lady love Kelis called “Bye Baby.” The song, produced by Salaam Remi and Noah “40″ Shebib samples Guy’s “Goodbye Love” and we couldn’t help but to smile a little as Nas recounts his life with his former wife. If you haven’t heard it yet, you have to check it out: Do you think Nas will catch any flack for getting “sensitive” in song? Just a thought. Hit the flip for Nas’ collabo with Amy Winehouse.
Kim Kardashian says she still believes in love . And that’s a good thing. Because a Kanye West insider claims this rapper is totally smitten with the personality-free reality star – and truly is thinking marriage! “I really think this girl is the one, and Kanye may step his game up and put a ring on it,” the Kanye source tells Hollywood Life. This isn’t the first time an anonymous mole has gushed over West’s feelings and plans for Kardashian. Previous reports said Kanye even hopes to impregnante Kim in the near future. Shudder . “They’re bonded,” the Hollywood Life source concludes. “They’re just enjoying each other’s time, and he’s spoiling the sh-t out of her. He [lavishes] her with clothes and jewelry and sh-t, and he doesn’t even have to. He just wants her to feel appreciated and wants her to know how much he’s digging her.”
Congratulations !!! Gabby Douglas has spent most of her 16 years preparing for this moment, and yet she is wholly unprepared for what is about to hit her. Now that she’s on her way to the Olympics, Gabby Douglas has a new goal. “I’m hoping I can catch an accent,” she said. “I’ve always wanted an accent.” Look out London. The 16-year-old whose “Flying Squirrel” nickname might be the only thing more appealing than her personality or her high-flying uneven bars routine is ready to take on a new continent after upsetting world champion Jordyn Wieber to win the Olympic trials Sunday night. Oh, she’s bringing friends, too. Led by the 1-2 punch of Douglas and Wieber, this will be the strongest team the Americans have had since 1996, one that will be not just favored but expected to bring home only the second Olympic team gold. Congrats Gabby! We’ll be cheering for you, on your way to the gold! Source
Pixar is at its best when it’s making movies about rats working in restaurants and families of superheroes with not-so-super powers; not so much when it’s spinning cautionary environmental tales with robots-in-love subplots and sentimental weepers about grumpy codgers “learning to love again.” Somewhere at the more golden end of that yardstick is Brave , in which a peppery redheaded Scottish princess from days of yore named Merida – her voice is provided by the wonderful Glasgow-born actress Kelly Macdonald – decides she doesn’t want to marry from the selection of gents her parents have chosen for her and would much prefer traipsing through the forest with her trusty bow-and-arrow. Note: This review includes spoilers. Except Brave doesn’t go where you’re probably expecting it to. (And if you’re sensitive to spoilers, you may not wish to read further.) There isn’t an ultimate prince, a swain of Merida’s choice who steps in to offer her everlasting happiness, while letting her be herself, of course. This is a story about mothers and daughters and the ways they clash over basic, seemingly simple things, only to find their ultimate connection in the very things they can’t change about each other. Even that oversimplifies Brave a little too much, but you get the idea. Brave has a marvelous secret weapon in Emma Thompson, who provides the voice for Merida’s mother, Elinor, a queen with a sense of propriety and a desire to keep her daughter from making bad decisions. But this is a queen who turns into a bear, a big growly girl with a pear-shaped body and a most unladylike manner when it comes to eating fish. The quivering, multi-hued strands of Merida’s curly mane notwithstanding — and they are a sight to behold – the character design of Bear Elinor, coupled with the personality Thompson gives her, steals the show. You might be wondering how a queen turns into a bear. Why, via a witch’s spell, of course. Merida is at the age where she hates her parents, Thompson’s Elinor and the scruffy, burly, affectionate Fergus (Billy Connolly), chiefly because they’re intent on marrying her off, and she wants none of it. She hurls hurtful words at her mother — if you’ve ever been either a teenage girl or the mother of one, the sting will be familiar — and stalks off into the forest on her trusty horse, only to stumble upon the cottage of a witch (Julie Walters), who sells Black Forest-style carved-wood gewgaws as a front for her real trade. Merida, frustrated by her mother’s directives to always behave like a proper lady, and by her insistence that she knows what’s best for her daughter, gives the witch vague, exasperated instructions to “change” her mother. The witch gives her a little magic cake to bring back to the kingdom, and Merida is off and gone before she receives instructions for its proper use. Merida gives the cake to her mother as a wily peace offering, only to watch in dismay as Elinor first falls ill and then awakens as a half-clumsy, half-dainty she bear: Elinor Bear, horrified when she discovers her changed form, reaches instinctively for the delicate crown she wore as a human — it perches on her enlarged, furry head like a lady’s cocktail hat, giving her an aura of ridiculous elegance. But aside from the fact that Elinor simply does not like her new shape, bears are simply not welcome in her kingdom: Years earlier, when Merida was just a sprout, Fergus lost his leg to a great warrior bear and has always hoped to avenge this wrong. What would he do if he found a girl-bear in his own castle, not realizing it was his own wife? Both Elinor and Merida know the scene wouldn’t be pretty. The best part of Brave is the section in which Merida and Bear Elinor head out into the wilderness, hoping to find the witch and learn how to break the spell. The grudging camaraderie that forms between them is more like what might happen on your stereotypical father-son camping trip: Elinor Bear scavenges for berries that she believes are edible, only to be told by her more knowledgeable daughter that they’re poisonous. Unable to speak, she points to Merida’s bow, suggesting her daughter will have to be the one to feed them. Later, Bear Elinor learns to catch her own fish in her paws, gulping the shiny wriggling things with unbridled glee. But Bear Elinor will also do anything to protect her child, and she has the physical strength to do so. The newfound symbiosis between Elinor and her daughter could be a metaphor for lots of things, among them the way we switch from child to caretaker when our parents get older. But Brave doesn’t get too hung up on deep meanings. The story is a simple one, told with agility and grace — a little surprising, considering the movie is credited to three directors (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and, as co-director, Steve Purcell) and four writers (Andrews, Purcell, Chapman and Irene Mecchi, from a story by Chapman). Perhaps it’s a wonder that Brave hangs together at all, but the picture’s charms just keep mounting in its favor: Merida has three mischievous redheaded triplet brothers, who of course love cake, especially magic cake – their transformation into miniature Three Stooge-style cubs is one of the movie’s silliest delights. And Macdonald makes Merida a likable but not overbearing heroine: At one point she utters the line “It’s just my bow,” and it comes out “It’s just m’ boe,” an adorable and hilarious niblet of Scotspeak. But my heart belongs to Bear Elinor, whose movements and mannerisms are a tender echo of Human Elinor’s – her character is designed and drawn just that carefully. Bear Elinor becomes more and more bearlike as the spell wears on, and if she and Merida can’t reverse the witch’s handiwork, she will be a bear forever. You can see why she doesn’t want that fate: Bear Elinor is embarrassed by her furry clumsiness, by the way she devours whole fish – live ones, no less! – instead of nibbling away at them with a knife and fork, as her human self would do. Yet she’s a marvel of bearlike grace, almost ballerina-like even in her rotund ursine form. It’s inevitable that Elinor will have to return to human form at some point, but her bear form is so much more memorable. It’s the beast in her that’s really the beauty. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Bar Refaeli is boring…she’s a draft dodger in Israel, because she was too busy running around the world half naked with A-List celebrities all while securing her own over-hyped career….and sure her half naked body isn’t all that bad…but then again what half naked body is bad to begin with when you’re not fat and have rocking tits…..and this photoshoot of her doesn’t really make her any more interesting as a person…but I guess when you’re a half naked bitch, being a person, or her personality, morals, values, and character don’t really factor into things….you see cuz being half naked takes precendence…
Facebook-aholics, do you agree with this one?? From bad breakups to bathroom updates to the amount of bacon your best friend can eat in a single sitting, we’ve all grown used to oversharers spilling their guts both online and off. “I share pretty much everything,” says Laura Keesee, a 25-year-old public relations account coordinator from Orlando, Fla. “From my random ADD thoughts to when some food has upset my stomach to details about my relationship. I think oversharing is part of my personality.” It’s also intrinsically rewarding, according to new research out of Harvard University that used fMRI scans to show how our brains react to sharing information about ourselves with others. “The Internet has drastically expanded the number of mediums through which we can talk about ourselves to other people,” says Diana Tamir, a graduate student in the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Harvard and lead author of a study published today in the journal PNAS. “We were interested in why people engage in self-disclosure so seemingly excessively. The hypothesis we wanted to test was whether or not this behavior provided people with intrinsic or subjective value — did it feel good to do it.” As it turns out, it feels so good, our brains responds to self-disclosure the same way they respond to pleasure triggers like food, money or sex. Tamir and her colleagues conducted five studies involving nearly 300 people, most of them from the Harvard and Cambridge community. In some studies, participants were asked to disclose their own opinions while being scanned using fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technique that directly measures the blood flow in the brain, thereby providing information on brain activity. In others, participants were asked to complete certain behavioral tasks in exchange for varying amounts of money. Study subjects, as it turns out, were willing to go without 17 to 25 percent of their potential earnings if they could reveal info about themselves to others. “We called this the ‘penny for your thoughts study,’” says Tamir. “We wanted to know if people would pay money to engage in this behavior — to share information about themselves with other people — and it turns out they will.” Brain scans of participants revealed even more about the rewards of self-disclosure. Lawrence Winnerman, a 42-year-old project manager from Seattle, says he definitely finds oversharing rewarding. “If I post something on Facebook or say something that I think is going to be really funny and also particularly revealing about myself, I’m looking for a reaction and a laugh,” he says. “And I get really disappointed if I don’t get one. I know I’m absolutely doing it for the value of the rewards.” Damn, even 42-year-old project managers get a tingly sensation when people “Like” and interact with their FB updates. SMH. Thoughts?? Don’t forget to “Like” BOSSIP on Facebook now! Source
