People who were introduced to Kiefer Sutherland through "24" may be surprised, but Sutherland had about 18 years of film experience before "24." When I saw him in "Stand By Me" and "The Lost Boys" in 86-87, he blew me away.

Canada!

Kate Beckinsale's discussion on Conan of Seth Rogen's joke was hilarious:
http://teamcoco.com/video/kate-beckinsale-porno-f...

"What was so sad was, it was barely discernible."

Given that
A) no one who has sufficient security clearance to actually know what is being monitored and how is going to say word one to the press, and
B) the Obama administration has authorized lying about the existence of relevant documents in FOIA requests
C) the referenced Privacy Compliance Review was constructed in an entirely self-serving fashion (you don't ask the Fox to construct his own "Hen House Access Review.")

I think it is early to be very sanquine about what the Federal government is or is not monitoring.

Understand that the technologies involved go way behind "what you and I would do simply by firing up our browsers."

There is on-going research into expert systems that parse through large amounts of freely-available information to draw inferences and create associations about user behavior on the internet. This is stuff that you can't do unless you have several racks of distributed systems in your rec room. The individual info is innocuous, but the big picture that they're able to build from it is Orwellian. Check out Narus, Inc., for an example.

I have no interest in Hollywood's self-indulgent parade of self-congratulation festivals. It's gotten to the point where "Oscar Winning" or "Award Winning" attached to a film actually makes me less interested in seeing it.

You know, there ought to be a way to rate authors on the Big sites, not just comments. If there were, I think we'd see that Mr. Hanlon's rating in the toilet right about now.

How dare you even post a review of that child rapist's film here? You owe the whole Big community an apology. The implied attitude is despicable, "Well, it's Roman Polanski, and his films are important enough to review positively despite the fact that he's an unrepentant child rapist." That's exactly what we hate in mainstream Hollywood, that they're willing to give Polanski a pass. Don't bring that garbage here!

Alec Baldwin, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Charlie Sheen -- all of them have shown themselves to be utterly despicable human beings, but are still accepted by the Hollywood elite. Not Mel Gibson. They will never allow him to atone, never forgive him, not because of his behavior which pales in comparison with the men I mentioned, but because of The Passion. Jodie Foster's practically the only one among them with some honor and integrity.

Just a word about Rourke's looks. We have way too many pretty boys in Hollywood as it is. His ravaged face is far more interesting than DiCaprio's.

Was Ernest Borgnine's face ever pretty? Or Edward G. Robinson's? Bogart was actually a pretty darn ugly guy, and if John Wayne was handsome, it was due to a certain craggy manliness, not classic good looks. I smile every time I see Rourke's face, because it reminds me that he could pick up half the current generation's crop of pretty boys and beat the other half to death with them.

ETA: And if the thought of listening to Shia LeBeouf scream "Oh, God! Please! Stop! Put me down!" while Mark Ruffalo screams "Oh, God! Please! Stop beating me with Shia LeBeouf!" doesn't make you giggle a little, you're probably a racist.

You know, I actually liked Clooney in a couple of his early roles, and I admit my growing dislike is indeed tied to his outspoken and idiotic political opinions -- just like I can no longer watch a movie with Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon or Tim Robbins, and the list is growing.

And ... I don't know where I'm going with this. He's at his best when he's a glib, charming, vaguely ruthless character with a heart. We see variations on that theme in From Dusk Til Dawn, Oceans 11 and Three Kings.

But, I see his name, and those other names above, and I can no longer divorce myself from the visceral disgust that I feel when I think of their politcal statements. There are many other Hollywood liberals I still watch -- mostly those that don't talk too much about it, but Clooney and those in his circle are people who have clawed their way to the top of one of the most ruthlessly capitalistic industries in the world, who are firmly ensconced in "the 1%" yet spend their time trying to make it harder for others to achieve what they have, by bashing the capitalist system that made it possible. Screw them.