Even in his advanced age Harry Belafonte remains a rebel with a cause… without a pause! Via Page Six reports : Harry Belafonte recalled the racism he suffered in the 1950s as a performer at Waldorf-Astoria during a speech there at the Amy Winehouse Foundation Gala Thursday, saying it “used to be one of the most racist pieces of real estate in America.” Belafonte recounted being hired by Claude Philippe, who was trying to desegregate the hotel. “I went into the hotel and [executives] realized that Belafonte wasn’t, as they suspected, some Frenchman on the loose. They went ape[bleep].” The hotel fired Philippe and tried to cancel Belafonte’s contract, he said, but it was iron-clad. “I did all I could to encourage my friends from Harlem, from Bed-Stuy to come . . . it was just a sea of black folk,” Belafonte continued, explaining they placed him in the Starlight Roof to avoid “racial contamination” in the Empire Room. He ended with how far the Waldorf has come. “I now have the lifetime right to stay in any Hilton hotel anywhere in the world for free if I would just keep my mouth shut and not tell this story.” We love this guy! And SMH @ the Waldorf for actin’ like that about segregation, although we guess we shouldn’t be surprised. WENN
The boys in the bing are going to have fun with this guy Ex-Tennis Pro Sentenced To Over 11 Years For Forcing 4 Children Into Slavery Via NYDailyNews A former tennis pro accused of fraudulently bringing four children from the African nation of Togo to the U.S. and forcing them to work as slaves in his Michigan home was sentenced Monday to more than 11 years in federal prison. Jean-Claude Toviave, who didn’t apologize when provided the opportunity to speak at his sentencing hearing in Detroit, also was ordered to pay two of the children $60,000 each. Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow to sentence Toviave to the maximum sentence within the guidelines, and he did, handing down a 135-month sentence, with credit for about two years of time served. “I can’t get a read on you,” Tarnow told Toviave. “I can’t tell if you understand what you did was really wrong.” The four children emigrated from Togo in 2006 with fraudulent immigration paperwork that listed them as being Toviave’s biological children, which they are not. The victims said Toviave beat them with toilet plungers, broomsticks and electrical cords and starved them if they didn’t follow his orders. They were forced to vacuum, iron, cook, clean and shine shoes at the home in Ypsilanti, near Ann Arbor, for nearly five years until January 2011. One of the unidentified victims had his statement read aloud in court: “The physical torture, beating me and starving me, you inflicted was so painful that I prayed at night that God would either help me to be free or allow your assaults to kill me,” wrote the unnamed victim. “The pain is something I will never forget. In the midst of your verbal and physical assaults, you worked the four of us to death.” We would have liked to see ol’ boy get sentenced to a lil’ more time, but we’re glad the victims got the justice they deserved. Image via Handout
An Indiana man who allegedly threatened to “kill as many people as he could” at an elementary school near his home has been arrested – and 47 guns were found at his home. Forty-seven. Von Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, Ind., was arrested on criminal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement on Saturday. Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer’s home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said. He was being held as of Sunday afternoon without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement. Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School “and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him,” the statement said. Meyer’s home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said, making the threat even more disturbing. Police notified officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday, the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were killed in a Connecticut school shooting . On Saturday, officers served warrants at Meyer’s home and arrested him. The statement said police had learned that Meyer kept many weapons. They weren’t kidding. Officers searched the home, finding 47 guns and ammunition worth more than $100,000 hidden throughout the home. Many of the weapons were collector’s guns.
“Since April, JC Penney’s has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets,” their statement reads. One Million Moms, a Christian organization created by the American Family Association which focuses on the “exploitation of children” by the media, has taken offense to a new holiday ad from JC Penny that featu
Poor little Nahla … According to US Magazine: Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry have called a truce in their bitter custody battle over daughter Nahla, 4. On Thursday, Nov. 29, the Cloud Atlas actress, 46, and her model ex, 37, “reached an amicable agreement” over the care of their child, Berry’s attorney, Blair Berk, informed E! News in a handwritten note. No details were released about what that agreement is, but for now, at least, the former couple have called a ceasefire. “There will be no further statement on the matter,” Berk’s message read. The settlement comes just one week after Aubry came to blows with Berry’s fiance, French actor Olivier Martinez, at Berry’s home on Thanksgiving. Following that fight, an emergency protective order was put in place preventing Nahla’s dad from coming near his ex or their child. (That order was set to expire today.) SMH. Glad they were finally able to work things out, because we’re not sure if Gabriel’s grill can withstand any more beatings. WENN
Kevin Clash, the voice of Sesame Street’s Elmo, agreed to pay his accuser $125,000, under one condition – that Sheldon Stephens retract the allegation that he was underage. Stephens alleged he was only 16 when Clash began an affair with him. Clash admits an affair , but insists it started when Stephens, now 23, was an adult. Stephens recanted his allegation days later, but only after a secret settlement was struck between the two parties. Under the terms of the settlement: Clash agreed to pay Stephens $125,000 . He releases a statement saying he [Stephens] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship. If Stephens is asked by anyone about his relationship with Clash, he must only repeat the statement in the settlement that recants his story. Although Sheldon Stephens signed the document, he insists Clash, now 52, had sex with him when he was a minor and was pressured into signing the settlement. According to TMZ, Stephens was crying during the final negotiations with Clash’s lawyer and repeatedly insisted he didn’t want to sign; he did, however. It’s unclear who leaked these details to the celebrity gossip site, but it makes you wonder.
Kevin Clash, the voice of Sesame Street’s Elmo, agreed to pay his accuser $125,000, under one condition – that Sheldon Stephens retract the allegation that he was underage. Stephens alleged he was only 16 when Clash began an affair with him. Clash admits an affair , but insists it started when Stephens, now 23, was an adult. Stephens recanted his allegation days later, but only after a secret settlement was struck between the two parties. Under the terms of the settlement: Clash agreed to pay Stephens $125,000 . He releases a statement saying he [Stephens] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship. If Stephens is asked by anyone about his relationship with Clash, he must only repeat the statement in the settlement that recants his story. Although Sheldon Stephens signed the document, he insists Clash, now 52, had sex with him when he was a minor and was pressured into signing the settlement. According to TMZ, Stephens was crying during the final negotiations with Clash’s lawyer and repeatedly insisted he didn’t want to sign; he did, however. It’s unclear who leaked these details to the celebrity gossip site, but it makes you wonder.
There’s a five-minute tracking shot in the middle of Joe Wright’s 2007 film Atonement that is impossible to forget once you’ve seen it. A wounded Robbie ( James McAvoy ) is on the beach at Dunkirk, waiting to be evacuated, and in a nightmarish, beautiful single Steadicam take he wanders past crowds of soldiers, burning cars, horses being shot, a beached ship, a choir singing, the ferris wheel still spinning in the ruined background. It’s a mind-boggling piece of work, requiring immaculate timing and choreography, and it takes you right out of the movie because it’s there to show off. As impressive as it is from a production standpoint, the shot takes your focus away from the story and puts it on the mechanics of what’s happening on screen. Wright’s new adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina lives in the hollow clockwork world of that shot. From a filmmaking perspective, it’s a gorgeous shadowbox of a production, filmed largely in a single location: a set resembling a run-down theater that was built on a Shepperton Studios sound stage. It starts with the sounds of an unseen audience settling down — there are no visible viewers of this story other than ourselves — and closes in on a proscenium arch as a curtain goes up. The scrim behind it reads “Imperial Russia, 1874.” Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen) is on stage, receiving a shave. When a door opens off the side, it is to a snowy street exterior in Moscow. He pays a visit to the family governess he’s having a fling with, and when he heads home, through a backstage area, he opens a door to see his wife Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) weeping over evidence of his infidelity. The scene sets the story into motion as his sister Anna ( Keira Knightley ) comes to visit in an attempt to save their marriage. Anna Karenina isn’t a filmed stage production in any way — it lives within this theoretical theater while not being confined to it. Characters stride up wooden stairs into bustling rafters that stand in for a city street, or walk through a bureaucratic office that, as the camera rotates, is pulled away and restaged as an upscale restaurant. Musicians wander through the space providing a soundtrack to the transition as it happens in front of our eyes. It’s an incredible thing to behold, at least at the start. Wright is clearly a fan of Aleksandr Sokurov ‘s Russian Ark , and the intense cleverness of his direction and the way Anna Karenina revels in artifice set the film apart visually from typically glossy film adaptations of classics that gleam with assured self-importance. But the gorgeous look and stage work and the way the movie connects impossible spaces — backdrops lift to reveal the Russian countryside, a grassy field running down the stage into the orchestra — is only a temporary salve. The unfortunate truth is that beneath the initial brilliance of its stylized setting, the film is just as dramatically inert as a more stuffy, traditional take on the material might have been. Scripted by playwright Tom Stoppard , the film labors to fit Tolstoy’s sprawling story into its two hour and ten minute runtime by drawing its characters with minimal lines. The film may be experimental, but the adaptation is actually fairly traditional, if briskly efficient. Anna, a Saint Petersburg aristocrat married to the stiff but good and moral Alexei Karenin (Jude Law), meets the handsome cavalry officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) when departing the train for Moscow. Everyone expects Vronsky to propose to Dolly’s sister Kitty (Alicia Vikander), but he falls for Anna, following her home to Saint Petersberg and around to the parties, operas and other frilly gatherings until he wins her. As Anna struggles with wanting to leave Karenin for Vronsky, a scandal that would result in her being shunned by society, Kitty comes back around to Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), the earnest, shy childhood friend of Oblonsky whose proposal she at first turned down. The performances in Anna Karenina are strong, albeit built around a story told in shorthand, and the actors sometimes feel like they’re staging recreations of famous paintings rather than embodying characters. Knightley, lit sumptuously and dressed in luxurious gowns, stands out among the performers-as-props, but she can’t portray the complicated journey of a character who gives up everything for love, only to doubt and regret it. In this condensed version of the story, she seems more like someone who dithers for a few hours before throwing herself in front of a train. Wright has said that his inspiration for this adaptation was that the aristocrats at the time of Tolstoy’s novel were constantly on display and observed in society, living their lives as if they were always on stage. But this Anna Karenina feels like a diminishment of the story, not the essence of it. Rather than a tale of an affair that would have been fine had it not turned into a more serious love that broke societal rules, Anna Karenina feels like a group of people play-acting at passion. They hit all the famous elements in the story — the train station, the ball, the races, the running off together, the suicide — without a sense of them as a coherent whole or as anything other than opportunities for innovatively staged sequences. It’s a beautiful creation, but a remote and empty one. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. 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A 20-year-old man was arrested in Bolivar, Missouri after admitting he bought firearms and 400 rounds of ammunition with the intent of shooting patrons this weekend at a screening of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 — an attack that, had it been carried out, would have echoed the Aurora, Colorado tragedy . Blaec Lammers, who was charged on Friday with first-degree assault, making a terroristic threat and armed criminal action, told police that he bought a ticket to Breaking Dawn — Part 2 for Sunday with the intention of shooting people at the theater. According to the police report, however, he changed his mind and instead plotted to make his attack at a local Walmart so that he’d have access to additional ammunition if he ran out. The report also indicated that Lammers had never before shot a gun and that he was off his medication, although it did not offer specifics in terms of the latter. Lammers’ mother contacted police when she became concerned that he might be planning an attack similar to the Aurora, Colorado shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in July. Per the Springfield News-Leader (via Deadline ): An officer approached Lammers at the Bolivar Sonic and he agreed to come to the police station to be interviewed. During the interivew, Lammers said he had purchased two assault rifles for hunting, the statement said. As the conversation progressed, police asked Lammers about recent shootings that had been in the news. “Blaec Lammers stated that he had a lot in common with the people that have been involved in those shootings. Blaec Lammers state that he was quiet, kind of a loner, had recently purchased firearms and didn’t tell anybody about it, and had homicidal thoughts,” the statement said. Read more at the Springfield News-Leader . Related Story: You Will Never Feel Safe In A Movie Theater Again Revisit Movieline’s Coverage of the Aurora Tragedy Here. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
“Mike Shanahan did have money and a passport stolen out of his locker room in Pittsburgh,” the statement read. “The Pittsburgh Police insisted on filing a police report because of the missing passport. There is an ongoing investigation. The missing property was not stowed in another bag as reported.” Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan had approximately $3,700 in cash and his passport stolen from his locker at Heinz Field while the team#39;s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers as being pla
