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11、2006 is the year of Celebrity Apologies By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer
Fri Dec 1, 3:14 PM ET



NEW YORK - "Love means never having to say you're sorry,"     Ali MacGraw said in the 1970 tearjerker "Love Story," a line whose iconic status belies its lack of any discernible logic.

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But that was so last millennium. In 2006, a better line might be: "Apologizing means never having to say you're sorry."

Rarely have there been so many prominent public apologies coming so close together, saying at once so much ― "That wasn't really me, it was the booze talking, I have inner rage, I have a dark side, I'm in rehab" ― and so little. So little, that is, about the actual transgression that made them necessary.

Entertainers, politicians, media figures, religious leaders. Why have public apologies become such a mainstay of our culture? It seems that the minute a transgression occurs, be it small or large, we wait for penitence. It's the other shoe that needs to drop before we can move on.

Maybe it's because as much as we love scandal ― and we love it especially now that we can capture it on cell-phone video or stream it on YouTube ― we love something else even more: "Everybody," says Ken Sunshine, a veteran publicist in both entertainment and politics, "loves a story of redemption."

And so, a thematic look back at a year in apologies, if you can call them that:

_THE "I AM NOT A (FILL IN THE BLANK)" APOLOGY. The most recent specimen:     Michael Richards, aka Kramer from "Seinfeld," who's having an unwanted second moment in the sun with his stunning "n-word" rant. In the first of several apologies, Richards made an awkward appearance on David Letterman's "Late Show" and explained that it was rage at being heckled that sparked his tirade: "I'm not racist ― that's what's so insane about this." (His publicist said Friday he also planned a personal apology to the men he targeted.)

Was it effective? "There's a piece of it that doesn't fit for me," says Jerry Deffenbacher, a psychology professor at Colorado State University who studies rage. "It's not unusual for a comic to be heckled. I would want to know more about his impulse control history."

Impulse control was clearly a problem for a much bigger star ―     Mel Gibson ― on the July night when he was pulled over for drunken driving and spewed anti-Semitic comments at the arresting officer.

"Please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite," Gibson said in a statement soon after the incident. "I am not a bigot." Jewish leaders said the healing would take work. "Anti-Semitism is not born in one day and cannot be cured in one day and certainly not through the issuing of a press release," noted Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

For cultural critic Roger Rosenblatt, the whole apology business is just that ― a business. "It's basically the way you get on with your career," says Rosenblatt, an author and essayist at Time magazine. "It wouldn't be made ― or publicly received ― if there weren't some tacit understanding that this is what you do in order to keep earning a living." Which means that those who accept the apology ― the public, in other words ― are part of the deal.

_IT WAS THE (FILL IN THE SUBSTANCE) TALKING: Gibson fits in here too. Diane Sawyer eventually got the big interview, and the movie star blamed his problems on alcohol: "Once you're loaded, you know, the balance of how you see things ― it comes out the wrong way." The claim led experts to debate whether booze could actually change one's social beliefs. In any case, Gibson is hardly the only figure this year to attribute his troubles to alcohol.

Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record), the Florida congressman forced to resign over his sexually explicit computer messages to congressional pages, never made a public apology himself, but through attorneys announced he had alcohol problems (some colleagues were skeptical), was gay, and had been abused by a priest as a teenager. He recently finished about a month in treatment for alcoholism.

Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio resigned late this year after pleading guilty in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation. Apologizing in September, he said he'd checked into an alcohol-abuse program.

And Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) entered rehab for addiction to prescription pain drugs in May after a nighttime car crash that he claimed not to remember. The Rhode Island Democrat was re-elected easily in November.

_THE "I HAVE A DARK SIDE" APOLOGY. "There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life," the Rev. Ted Haggard wrote his congregation in November amid allegations he consorted with a gay prostitute and snorted meth.

The former president of the National Association of Evangelicals is now on a course of rehab ― which is a common denominator of virtually all the prominent apologies this year.

"When in doubt, go to rehab or find God," says Sunshine.

For one analyst of popular culture, it's a measure of the "therapeutic culture" that we live in. "It's like a huge moving conveyor belt. Once you declare yourself to be a client of our therapeutic culture, we say, 'OK great! Welcome aboard,'" says Jerry Herron, professor at Wayne State University. "Somewhere, there will be a sofa waiting for you." (It could be Oprah's couch ― remember author James Frey? ― or Letterman's, or Don Imus' studio ― remember Sen.     John Kerry's regrettably botched joke involving the     Iraq war?)

One of the many problems with that approach, says Herron, is that it becomes all about one individual's recovery ― not the larger problem. Whatever the Michael Richards flap reveals about the actor, he notes, it probably says something important about latent racism in our society decades after the civil rights movement. And yet, he says, we'll never talk about that bigger issue: "It's all about him."

In this very sorry year, even the pope has been called upon to apologize, for comments seen by Muslims as offensive to Islam. While not making a full-scale apology, Benedict XVI has expressed regret for offending Muslims and said the remarks did not reflect his personal views.

Herron, of Wayne State, looks back to the 19th century for a lesson on how to do an apology right in America. Grover Cleveland, running for president in 1884, was faced with accusations that he'd fathered a child out of wedlock; the bachelor acknowledged right away that he'd had a relationship with the woman and said he'd support the child even though he had no idea if it was his (this was pre-DNA testing.) He won the election.

Whoever was doing Cleveland's PR, Sunshine, the publicist, approves. The important lessons to remember for a successful public redemption, he says, are to come clean and be honest. Don't spin a lot of baloney. Don't pretend to be a saint. And don't go expecting a "quick fix" ― that doesn't work anymore in our crime-and-punishment obsessed world.

Oh, and one more thing, something our mothers told us:

"Don't ever do it again."

12、Alleged Munch thief believed dead Thu Nov 30, 12:25 PM ET



OSLO, Norway - One of the three masked gunmen who snatched the Edvard Munch masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" in a brazen August 2004 raid is believed to be a 27-year-old Norwegian who died this month, Oslo police announced Thursday.

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The masterpieces, which are considered priceless, were recovered by police in August, two years after they were stolen. The paintings suffered minor damage and were undergoing repair at the Oslo Munch Museum, where they had been on display.

"The Scream," probably Munch's best-known work, has become an icon of modern anxiety, appearing on everything from T-shirts to costume masks. There are four versions of the painting, depicting a waif-like figure apparently screaming or hearing a scream.

In a news release, Oslo police said they learned "with a large degree of likelihood" of the 27-year-old's role in the theft when an undercover officer infiltrated his circles. The policeman secretly recorded him admitting that he had been one of the robbers, Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang, reported.

The man, whose name was withheld, died of a suspected heroin overdose on Nov. 3, without knowing he was suspected in the theft or that he had leaked to a police agency, the statement said.

"We have no comment on who it is, because the case involving this person is still being investigated because he recently died," said Oslo Police Inspector Iver Stensrud.

The announcement came after Norwegian news media on Thursday reported that one suspected robber had been found dead after being tricked into giving police the names of suspects in the Munch theft, and in an April 2004 bank robbery that left a police officer dead.

Although police referred to the deceased suspect as "the third robber," the Oslo District Court had no proof that any of six other suspects tried for the heist in May had participated in the theft itself. Three of those suspects were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to eight years for their roles in theft, such as providing the getaway car. All three have appealed.

Police have declined to say how they recovered the missing paintings.

"The Scream" and "Madonna" were part of Munch's "Frieze of Life" series, in which sickness, death, anxiety and love are central themes. He died in 1944 at the age of 80.

___

On the Net:

http://www.munch.museum.no

(dm)

13、Anna Nicole Homeless by Gina Serpe
Thu Nov 30, 8:59 AM ET



Los Angeles (E! Online) -     Anna Nicole Smith is running out of places to call home, sweet home.

The embattled TrimSpa spokesmodel has been ordered to vacate the Bahamas mansion she has been residing in since September after failing to respond to eviction papers filed by the home's rightful owner.

The Bahamian Supreme Court issued a default judgment in favor of G. Ben Thompson on Tuesday after Smith let a two-week response window lapse with nary a court filing.

Shortly after the judgment was entered in the books, Thompson's lawyer sent a letter to Smith, demanding she exit the premises―which the model has alternately maintained was a gift or loan from Thompson―within a 48-hour period, a timetable that expires at the end of today.

The housing brouhaha kicked off last month, when Thompson, a South Carolina real estate developer and former Smith boyfriend, disputed that his generosity had included a million-dollar mortgage and claimed that his onetime paramour was woefully in arrears on the property and as such, was "unlawfully occupying" his tropical estate.

Earlier this month, Thompson twice shut off power at the estate, dubbed Horizons. The blackouts lasted just a few hours each, but resulted in increased tensions between the camps, with Smith's attorney, Wayne Munroe, blasting the plug-pulling move as "shenanigans that are totally inappropriate."

Perhaps sensing her days in Horizons were numbered, Smith and her current beau, Howard K. Stern, reportedly have begun house hunting on the island.

However, if the twosome is to maintain their Bahamian residency―something they only received after claiming to have purchased the million-dollar digs―the couple will need to shell out more than $500,000 for a new property.

In any case, the new residence may have to come equipped with a second nursery.

In a pretaped interview with Smith that aired on the Insider Wednesday, the former Playboy Playmate let slip that she might be expecting.

"I think I might be pregnant again," she told the show. "I'm not ready. But Howard wants to have a little boy."

The Insider wasted no time in clearing the air, reporting that Smith, who turned 39 Tuesday, told producers after the cameras stopped rolling that she was only joking about being pregnant.

As it is, big announcements about Smith's other offspring is expected in the next few weeks.

First, a Los Angeles judge is expected to rule in the coming days about whether the model needs to return to California and submit her infant daughter, Dannielynn, to a paternity test. Although Stern is listed on the child's birth certificate, former paparazzo Larry Birkhead has gone to court in attempt to prove he's the father.

Meanwhile, the Royal Bahamian Police Force, which completed its investigation into the sudden death of Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel six weeks ago, will, per TMZ, announce the findings of their inquest on Dec. 15.

14、Anna Nicole told to leave Bahamas home By JESSICA ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 30, 9:15 PM ET



NASSAU, Bahamas - A former boyfriend of     Anna Nicole Smith has obtained a court judgment ordering the reality TV star out of her oceanfront residence and he plans to seek her forcible eviction, his lawyer said Thursday.

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But an attorney for Smith, Wayne Munroe, said he secured a temporary stay of the order and his client has no intention of leaving.

Emerick Knowles, the attorney for South Carolina businessman G. Ben Thompson, entered the default judgment on Tuesday after Smith missed a deadline to respond to a suit declaring his client the rightful owner of the gated mansion known as "Horizons."

Munroe appealed to the court, which scheduled a Feb. 19 hearing on whether the default judgment was filed irregularly, he said.

The office of the Supreme Court's registrar could not be reached despite several phone calls seeking confirmation.

Smith, who moved to the Bahamas while she was pregnant with her nearly 3-month-old daughter, has remained secluded in the house since her 20-year-old son Daniel died at her hospital bedside on Sept. 10.

The 39-year-old former Playboy playmate has claimed that Thompson bought her the nearly $1 million house as a gift. Thompson, who had a brief relationship with Smith, says it was a loan.

Knowles said he gained authority to file the judgment with the Supreme Court after a two-week deadline expired Monday, and he asked Smith in writing to vacate by Thursday.

Howard K. Stern, an attorney who is Smith's companion, said the couple did not believe they would be forced to leave anytime soon.

"I can assure you that we will continue to stay in Anna Nicole's house as long as we want to," he said Thursday in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

A private pathologist concluded that Daniel Smith died from a lethal combination of methadone and two antidepressants. Official toxicology results have not been publicly released.

Bahamian police completed their investigation into his death and submitted their report six weeks ago, but authorities have not indicated whether they will convene a jury inquest.

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Asner helps kick off 'Cards for Troops' Fri Dec 1, 4:38 PM ET



LOS ANGELES - When Americans mail holiday greetings this month, Ed Asner hopes they'll remember U.S. soldiers serving overseas, especially in     Iraq and     Afghanistan.

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The 77-year-old Emmy-winning actor visited two military hospitals in the Washington area this week as part of the kickoff for a national "Cards for Troops" campaign.

"The unwavering dedication these men and women show for their cause ― and each other ― is remarkable beyond words," he said. "Their thoughts are never for themselves, but only for those comrades that are still in harm's way."

Asner, who unveiled a holiday card as part of the campaign, co-stars in "The Christmas Card," set to air Saturday (9 p.m. EST) on the Hallmark Channel.

"The Christmas Card" is about a career soldier based in Afghanistan who receives an anonymous holiday card and is so touched by the encouraging words that he travels to meet the sender and ultimately falls in love with her.

"During the holiday season there's no better way to lift the troops' spirits than to send them cards and letters carrying warm wishes from home," said Asner, who appears on NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

He and the movie's cast helped in the packaging of more than 17,000 care boxes to be sent to U.S. troops overseas.

Asner's TV credits also include "     Mary Tyler Moore" and "Lou Grant."

___

Crown Media Holdings Inc. owns the Hallmark Channel. NBC is owned by General Electric Co.

___

On the Net:

Hallmark Channel:

http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/

16、Axel Foley Lives! by Josh Grossberg
Thu Nov 30, 7:32 AM ET



Los Angeles (E! Online) - The heat is on―again.

Paramount has signed up     Eddie Murphy to reprise his role as wisecracking detective Axel Foley for a fourth installment in the Beverly Hills Cop saga, the studio confirmed Thursday.

The sequel will be supervised by former Warner Bros. head turned producer Lorenzo de Bonaventura, who's currently locking down writers. No director has been named.

There's no word on a plot, although the film is expected to stick to the fish-out-water formula of the first three films, in which Murphy's ace Detroit police officer finds himself in unfamiliar territory conducting a murder investigation in the 90210.

Paramount is also hoping the sequel follows the box-office formula of the earlier films―at least the first two, which did bang-up business.

The 1984 origina, helmed by Martin Brest (Midnight Run, Meet Joe Black) and released in 1984, was a massive hit, grossing $234.7 million in the U.S. and $81 million internationally. The 1987     Tony Scott-directed sequel, Beverly Hills Cop II, fared even better, raking in $153.6 million in domestic ticket sales and another $146 million overseas.

However, 1994's Beverly Hills Cop III, tanked. The film which saw Murphy reunite with his Trading Places and Coming to America director     John Landis, featured Foley taking down a counterfeit money ring operating out of a Los Angeles amusement park. But it was a yawner with moviegoers, who shelled out a meager $44 million domestically.

The third film suffered from the absence of Top Gun über-producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, who oversaw the first two movies, as well as several MIA key players (     Ronny Cox, John Ashton and     Paul Reiser) and the trademark '80s synthesizer score by Harold Faltermeyer.

Bruckheimer won't be involved in Beverly Hills Cop IV (his partner Don Simpson died of heart failure in 1996), but di Bonaventura told Daily Variety that he has high hopes of resurrecting a franchise that made Murphy an international star.

"Axel Foley is one of the great action-comedy characters, a character that Eddie loves. I'm lucky enough to help bring it back," the producer told the trade. "This genre is missing from the landscape."

Of course, there might be another reason for Murphy to cash a Beverly Hills Cop paycheck. He and his girlfriend, ex-Spice Girl Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown, are expecting their first child together early next year. The sequel money should keep the kid in diapers for a few months.

While Beverly Hills Cop IV takes shape, Murphy remains busier than ever. Aside from lending his voice to the character of Donkey in next year's Shrek the Third and a half-hour holiday-themed TV special, Shrek The Halls, the comic actor is set to play multiple roles in his new comedy Norbit, unspooling in February.

Before he can do that however, Murphy will show off his pipes, playing the part of chitlin circuit star James "Thunder" Early in director Bill Condon's big-screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Dreamgirls, due out Dec. 15.

17、Bloody "Apocalypto" draws good early reviews
Fri Dec 1, 2006 4:42pm ET

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More Entertainment News... Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints [-] Text [+] By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mel Gibson's new movie "Apocalypto" drew several good early reviews on Friday from critics who cautioned the thriller set against the end of an ancient Mayan civilization is also extremely violent.

"Blood-and-guts action audiences should eat this up," said show business newspaper Daily Variety.

"Despite the subject's inherent spectacle, conflict and societal interest, Central America's pre-Columbian history has scarcely been touched by filmmakers," writes Variety critic Todd McCarthy, who also called the film "remarkable."

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Another veteran critic, Maxim magazine's Pete Hammond, said he was "blown away by the filmmaking."

"Say what you will about Mel Gibson, but the guy knows how to get the goods up on the screen," Hammond told Reuters. "It's a chase movie; it's an action movie ... it's extremely violent."

"Apocalypto" is being closely followed because of Gibson's arrest this summer on drunken driving charges in Malibu, California, outside Los Angeles, and because of his subsequent anti-Semitic tirade against a police officer.

Gibson, 50, later apologized, and industry watchers are curious to see whether his legions of fans and the general public have forgiven him and will turn out for the movie's December 8 debut in the United States.

"I don't think it's going to matter with the core audience. At it's heart, this is a pure action movie," Hammond said.   Continued...

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

18、Britney ditches her panties, raises eyebrows
Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:22pm ET

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By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Her necklines have plunged, she's plying the all-night party circuit with new best pal Paris Hilton, and she has even ditched her panties.

As if to prove, as she once sang, that she really is "not that innocent," newly separated pop star and mother of two Britney Spears is letting it all hang out -- shocking her fans, causing concern among friends and making herself the butt of jokes on late-night TV.

"Girls Gone Wild!" Us Weekly magazine blared in its cover story this week, charting a manic two weeks in which Spears was seen gambling all night in Las Vegas, spent time nightclubbing and shopping with "celebutante" Hilton, and was photographed on several occasions climbing in and out of cars without panties.


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The latest media frenzy over Spears comes two years after she put her recording career on hold for motherhood and three weeks after filing for divorce from husband Kevin Federline.

"Lately, I hear things and see things, and I'm just wondering, 'girl, WHAT IS UP?' Please stop acting like someone you're not. WEAR UNDERWEAR!!" pleaded one longtime fan on Spears' Web site on Thursday.

Talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, who has jokingly offered to adopt Spears and her two baby sons, on Thursday offered her a gift -- a pair of red panties inscribed "No Peeking."

But celebrity watchers say the singer, who shot to fame with her debut 1998 single, "... Baby One More Time," and the accompanying video in which she dressed provocatively in a Catholic schoolgirl's uniform, appears to be enjoying the limelight.

"Britney is succeeding in getting us to talk about her. From the beginning, Britney has made her career out of shocking us, and she ultimately will win because of it," Ken Baker, West Coast editor for Us Weekly, told Reuters.

With Federline -- now dubbed Fed-Ex by the tabloid media -- out of the picture, Spears has been inseparable from Hilton for the past two weeks.

On one occasion, Spears and the hotel heiress split a pair of fishnet stockings and each wore a leg. On another, they were pictured in coordinated leopard-skin outfits -- Spears wearing a thigh-hugging, cleavage-baring mini-dress.

Spears, who turns 25 on Saturday, was seen this week shopping for thongs and corsets at a Hollywood lingerie boutique. Celebrity Web site TMZ.com said she spent more than $3,000 at the store. But the following day, she was photographed again -- in another open-leg crotch shot.

19、Burstyn tells Oprah of her troubled past Fri Dec 1, 4:37 PM ET



CHICAGO - Oscar winner     Ellen Burstyn says she struggled through decades of abuse and hopes her story will inspire other women. Burstyn, who has written a memoir, "Lessons in Becoming Myself," told     Oprah Winfrey on Thursday's show that her mother was violent and her husband stalked her for a decade before his death in the 1970s.

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"It's so humiliating to put all this stuff out there," the 73-year-old actress said. "Finally, you have to say, `It's all right. I can be powerful and be a woman and be loved all at once.'"

Burstyn won an Oscar for 1974's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." She has received Oscar nominations for "Requiem for a Dream," "Resurrection," "Same Time, Next Year," "The Exorcist" and "The Last Picture Show."

When she was young, Burstyn said, she learned to use her sexuality as a means for survival.

"When I was 18 or 19, I wasn't earning very much money, so I ate when I had a date," she said on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." "But that was all the food I got. So I felt the least I could was say `thank you.'"

It took nearly 25 years of study, therapy and meditation to feel ready for an emotionally healthy relationship, she said.

"This is quite a book," Winfrey said. "It's easily one of the most candid and most thought-provoking memoirs."

___

20、Celine Sidelined by Illness by Natalie Finn
Wed Nov 29, 12:51 PM ET



Los Angeles (E! Online) - A New Day... will have to wait until after Christmas.

Five performances of     Celine Dion's Las Vegas show have been canceled, starting Wednesday, so the French-Canadian songstress can recover from mycoplasma bronchitis, a respiratory infection that can be highly contagious.

Because Dion was scheduled to take a holiday after Sunday's concert, A New Day... will pick up again Dec. 28. A spokesman for the show said disappointed Dion fans who have tickets for the upcoming week can either get refunds or book a new date.

"Her doctor has prescribed medication to treat the infection and has given Celine strict orders to stay home and rest in order to recover as soon as possible," Dion's camp said in an apologetic statement on the singer's Website.

The "My Heart Will Go On" purveyor won't be able to make her scheduled performance at the Billboard Music Awards on Monday, either.

Dion's Caesars Palace-based spectacle, which features the diva running through her greatest hits, accompanied by a live orchestra, 48 dancers and enough fancy lighting, costumes and special effects to make Cirque du Soleil proud, opened in March 2003.

Caesars, which built a brand-new 4,000-seat theater to house A New Day…, originally inked a three-year, $100 million deal with Dion but ended up extending it to next year. The Grammy winner's $81.3 million in ticket sales last year made her the third highest-grossing act of 2005, according to Pollstar.

Her last cancellations came in April, just days before her 500th show, due to an ear infection.

    Elton John's Red Piano concert extravaganza takes over the same theater during Dion's off days.

When not bringing down the house in Vegas, Dion found time to release the multimedia concept album Miracle in 2004 and put out a best-of album of her French recordings, On Ne Change Pas, last year.