November 16, 2009 | 8:44 am

‘Twilight: New Moon’ smashing advance ticket sales records

Posted by Danielle Berrin

If you’re not in on the “Twilight” phenomenon, get with it! Because you might not understand the huge significance of a bestselling series written by a stay-at-home mom/first time author (with scripts penned by a Jewish screenwriter) becoming the biggest global franchise since “Star Wars.” Wait…what? Did she really just say that? “Star Wars” is one of the most successful film franchises of all time!

Yes, that’s right. And “New Moon,” the second installment in “The Twilight Saga” just beat out “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith” as the no. 1 advance online ticket seller of all time, according to Fandango.

Think it’s just a silly tween vampire movie?

According to Time Magazine, author Stephenie Meyer has sold 45 million books in the U.S. and 40 million more worldwide. Her books have spent 235 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, 136 of them at No. 1. The movie version of Twilight, which came out a year ago, made $350 million, Time reports, though other figures clock in at more than $380 million. Right now, as Nikki Finke reports, fans are camping out in Westwood awaiting tonight’s “New Moon” premiere.

This excerpt from Time’s review of the first film deftly points out the timeless, age-blind appeal of “Twilight”:

Defiantly old-fashioned, the film wants viewers to believe not so much in vampires as in the existence of an anachronistic movie notion: a love that is convulsive and ennobling. Bella could be any Hollywood heroine in love with a good boy whom society callously misunderstands. She’s Natalie Wood to Edward’s James Dean (in Rebel Without a Cause) or Richard Beymer (in West Side Story). Cathy, meet Heathcliff. Juliet, Romeo.

This brand of fervid romance packed ‘em in for the first 60 years of feature films, then went nearly extinct, replaced by the young-male fetishes of space toys and body-function humor. Twilight says to heck with that. It jettisons facetiousness for a liturgical solemnity, and hardware for soft lips. It revives the precept that there’s nothing more cinematic than a close-up of two beautiful people about to kiss.

A recent article in the magazine aptly titled “It’s ‘Twilight’ in America” beautifully (and somewhat appallingly) explains how the franchise’s success irrevocably alters the lives of its stars, who in this case, have gone from unknown to the world’s most rabidly consumed faces:

At the heart of all this are Stewart and Pattinson, who have gone from obscurity straight to superstardom. People wait for them outside buildings. People try to follow them home. “In Vancouver shooting New Moon, I tried something,” Pattinson says. “It’s the only city in the world where hoods are not fashionable. If you’re wearing a hood, you’re going to mug people. So I wore a hood, and then I’d sort of spit on the ground a little bit and do a little bit of shaking around as you’re walking. Everyone moved to the other side of the street.”

If there’s an irony to the success of Twilight, it’s this: life as the idol at the white-hot center of the hottest entertainment franchise in the world isn’t that much different from being a vampire. Pattinson has become the immortal object of global fandom’s hopeless yearnings. What began deep in Meyer’s unconscious mind has become Pattinson and Stewart’s reality. They’re living the dream.

Read my interview with “The Twilight Saga” screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg here

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November 13, 2009 | 11:30 am

Director Jon Turteltaub goes Greenpeace

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Here’s a weird move by “National Treasure” director Jon Turteltaub: he’s going green—and I don’t mean box office green. In fact, quite the opposite.

The Jerry Bruckheimer-beloved director will take on a bigscreen project about the history of the Greenpeace movement, Variety announced. You know, the people that sent you letters about evil Norwegian hunters poaching baby seals and promised “I love Greenpeace” bumper stickers in exchange for a donation? That’s where the blockbuster director is headed. And rumors have it that “West Wing” scribe Aaron Sorkin may be joining him. Producers are in talks with Sorkin to pen a script informed by the books written by Greenpeace founders Bob Hunter and Rex Weyler.

It might go like this with Wyler’s book: “Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World” starring Nicholas Cage and The Rock. Or, with Hunter’s: “Warriors of the Rainbow: A Chronicle of the Greenpeace Movement” starring Vin Diesel and Ken Watanabe.

“We want to look at these unlikely heroes who became activists in spite of themselves,” producer Janet Zucker told the trade. “Jon likes to make a big adventure movies. And we’ve found that the best way to reach people’s hearts and minds is through entertainment.”

It’s difficult to imagine the audience for a film like this, which is slated to be a “big canvas pic with an environmental message.” There have been a slew of documentaries touting environmental awareness in recent years, including Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and the Leonard DiCaprio hemled “The 11th Hour” but fictionalizing an environmental advocacy movement doesn’t strike with the same authority. And did anyone actually see “The 11th Hour?”

Then again, you’ve got built in exotic locales, endangered sea creatures and the evil forces of the world conspiring to annihilate them all. It’s a save-the-whales version of national treasure.

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November 11, 2009 | 6:30 pm

‘They’re kosher vampires’ says ‘Twilight’ screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Melissa Rosenberg, the screenwriter of “The Twilight Saga,” is 6 feet tall with straight blonde hair, a pale complexion and a long, slim nose. Not exactly the most ethnic mien imaginable.

“I don’t look particularly Jewish,” she says sheepishly, half wondering why she’s on a lunch date with The Jewish Journal. “But I have a very Jewish name.”

Her name — Rosenberg — has been strangely, if not surprisingly, advantageous to her career. Back in the 1990s, when she was first looking for an agent, one interested agency made an incorrect assumption about her that proved fortunate. “They said, ‘We just made a deal for your mother’ and I was thinking, ‘You guys are good. [My mother] has been dead 10 years.’ Then I realized they thought I was Joan Rivers’ daughter, who at the time was Melissa Rosenberg.”

In the 18 years since, Rosenberg has made a name for herself as a television and film writer. But her career really took off in 2007 when she was anointed movie scribe of the “Twilight” franchise, based on the best-selling series of young adult novels by Stephenie Meyer. The story, about a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire, became a tween/teen phenomenon. Rosenberg penned the first script, “Twilight,” which grossed $380 million worldwide, and has since gone on to write the sequels “New Moon,” which hits theaters Nov. 20, and “Eclipse,” which wrapped production in Vancouver in late October and is set for release in June. Rosenberg is also the writer/executive producer of the Showtime series “Dexter,” about a sociopathic serial killer who justifies his life of crime by knocking off the bad guys.

Bloodlust, vampirism and ambiguous morality could be seen as decidedly un-Jewish. After all, vampire mythology, as Rabbi David Wolpe notes (see accompanying article), is philosophically at odds with Jewish values. And if you ask Rosenberg, “The Twilight Saga” in particular is a departure from religion-based vampire lore and instead is an exercise in secular storytelling.

“Vampires aren’t very Jewish,” Rosenberg says. “The most basic thing about them is that they are born out of Christian mythology.” Nevertheless, she is quick to point out that Meyer, a devout Mormon, has created her own vampire mythology, devoid of religious connotation, absent the Christian symbolism of crosses and holy water.

And yet, the protagonist vampires of “Twilight” are different in another way from other vampires.

“They’re kosher vampires,” Rosenberg says, laughing.

To read the full story, click here

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November 4, 2009 | 5:12 pm

Big Spender Nic Cage blames losses on (Jewish) money manager

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Actor Nicholas Cage reportedly owes the government $6.3 million in back taxes, but instead of ponying up, he’s blaming his money manager.

Cage is suing Samuel J. Levin, his former business manager, who he claims encouraged the purchase of “numerous highly speculative and risky real estate investments” which resulted in the actor “suffering catastrophic losses,” according to the $20 million lawsuit.

But before a dispirited and guilt-ridden Jewish world assumes Levin is akin to Madoff, they might consider a closer look at Cage’s spending habits.

Writing on The Daily Beast, Jacob Bernstein unearths a history of Cage’s profligate spending, and suggests that the actor is at least partly (if not wholly) to blame for his current financial calamity.

According to Bernstein, Cage has royal tastes and expensive proclivities, and little regard for his own financial recklessness. He writes:

Cage’s appetite was extreme even for Hollywood, with a decade-plus shopping spree that saw him snapping up houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, vintage and new cars, expensive watches, meteorites, dinosaur skulls, an enormous pet collection, massive amounts of jewelry for the women in his life, group vacations for his entire entourage, and on and on and on. “He lived like a sheik,” says one person who’s known him for several years. “Spent money like it was water,” says another.

Most glaring is Cage’s penchant for luxury real estate. Bernstein claims that he owns more than a dozen properties “in places like Newport Beach; Venice Beach; Malibu; San Francisco; Middletown, Rhode Island; New York; and Las Vegas.” Not to mention the $30 million Bel Air mansion where he spends most of his time, or the two mansions in New Orleans, “a 13,000-square-foot, six-bedroom house in the Garden District” and another in the French Quarter ($3.45 million and $3.5 million, respectively), plus “a castle near Bath, in England, an 11th-century estate in Etzelwang, Germany, and not one but two Bahamian islands.”

Old habits die hard, and Cage has been forced to liquidate most of his real estate. That is, the properties that are not already being foreclosed upon.

Of course, when things were good, and Cage was flush with cash, investing in cars and real estate seemed shrewd.

Cage’s penchant for acquisition was aided by the fact that for years, many of the things he spent money on appeared to be good investments. The vintage cars he bought frequently doubled in value, so Cage made a lot of money buying and selling them. (In his case, most sales were followed by more purchases). Real estate was seen as an even safer bet. According to a source from his inner circle, when the first few houses he bought began to accrue in value, Cage began to borrow heavily against them to buy more properties. Unlike the cars, though, he didn’t do nearly enough selling, which placed him in a particularly precarious position when the market began to collapse over the last two and a half years.

Here’s my favorite part, where two of Hollywood’s biggest stars flex their fragile egos in a testosterone-fueled haze:

There also was a dinosaur skull that Cage purchased in 2007 for $276,000 in a heated auction with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Woe to the ills of fame and fortune.

To read Bernstein’s full article, click here.

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October 30, 2009 | 11:10 am

Rabbi Schmuley to rescue Jon Gosselin

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Jon Gosselin is moving from the dog house to a house of God, thanks to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

The embattled reality star of “Jon and Kate Plus 8” is seeking spiritual guidance from “Rabbi Schmuley” as he is known in Hollywood circles, and who counseled Michael Jackson before Jackson admitted to sharing his bed with young boys. (Boteach cut off ties after that, though he plans to release the book, “The Michael Jackson Tapes” based on recorded conversations he had with the deceased King of Pop.)

Boteach, host of TLC’s “Shalom in the Home” and who likes to think of himself as “one of the world’s leading relationship experts and spiritual authorities” isn’t one to let an floundering star founder.

Lately, Gosselin, who is self-proclaimed “half Jewish, half Korean” has come under fire for alleged infidelity, looting $200,000 from his and Kate’s joint account and for neglecting his duties as a father.

“I have allowed myself to become somewhat severed from my own moral anchor and be carried away by the challenges of fame,” Gosselin told CNN.

“It is for this reason that I have endeavored of late to reconnect with my deeper, more spiritual, more altruistic self with regular study sessions and counseling with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.”

As the good book says, all human beings are created in the image of God, which is evidently why there’s hope for Gosselin’s newfound spiritual self.

“I have always endeavored to be a loving father and a devoted parent who serves as a moral exemplar to his eight children,” he said. As such, Gosselin has agreed to appear at Rabbi Schmuley’s upcoming lecture, “Fame: Blessing or Curse?” at New York’s West Side Synagogue, where he plans to apologize to those he’s hurt.

“More than anything else, Rabbi Shmuley, as someone who has counseled others in similar circumstances, has impressed upon me the moral obligations inherent in celebrity and I understand that if a spotlight is shined on me, especially as a father of a large family, that I have to inspire others to do the right thing always.”

But is Gosselin waking up to his parental obligations too late? And where has Boteach been all along, while Gosselin has been serving up his children’s childhoods for the viewing pleasure of millions?

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October 29, 2009 | 3:11 pm

Taylor Swift’s Swastika Shock

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Taylor Swift and the Nazi-Jew?

Everyone’s in a tizzy over a photo of Taylor Swift dancing next to a dude sporting a swastika.

Last weekend, Swift attended singer Katy Perry’s birthday paint party where guests splattered their clothes with various words, squiggly lines and symbols. Somehow, the squeaky clean Swift found herself dancing next to a guy with a bright red swastika painted on his chest.

“Taylor Swift Parities With Nazis,” read one headline at Celebjihad.com. To add insult to injury, the Web site referred to Swift as a “blond hair Aryan super race beauty.”

But Blackbook put it best when they described the incident as deliciously shocking because Swift is “who we love best as a victim and not as a woman who can probably hold her liquor.”  At last month’s MTV Video Music Awards, Swift was famously upstaged—and insulted—by Kanye West, who jumped on stage during her acceptance speech for Best Female Video and blurted out that Beyonce deserved it more.

“It’s backlash season for Swift now,” Rohin Guha wrote on the Blackbook blog. “As a celebrity whose star is sparkling especially brightly following some incident that we’ve long forgotten that left her looking a lot like those wounded kittens on those Sarah McLachlan-ASPCA commercials, any measure of swastika-proximity is not advisable.”

So why was Swift dancing next to a parading paint Nazi? And who is this guy?

One blogger speculated that it was all a silly, let-the-good-times-roll joke: “This guy looks Jewish, so I’ve decided he’s Jewish and therefore is just some nerd who does stuff like this for attention.”

Sadly, judging by this photo, the Nazi in question does look a lot like a Jewish boy.
Someone ought to call the “Inglourious Basterds” and tell them someone needs a skinning. Or at least, a paint lesson.

UPDATE:

A reader drew my attention to a TMZ update on the Swift swastika scandal. Turns out, swastika guy is A.J. English, and he says Swift couldn’t possibly have noticed the chest-encompassing symbol on his shirt when he pulled her close for a pic. English says the swastika started as an “X” but told TMZ it was “perverted” throughout the night. Either Swift needs glasses or she can’t hold her liquor after all. What do you think?

Read more at TMZ

ANOTHER UPDATE: A colleague just emailed that some people are saying the “JH” on Swift’s dress stands for “Jew Hater.” Outrageous! As much as the world loves to aggrandize Jewish victimhood, this is ridiculous. In all likelihood, “JH” stands for Julianne Hough, Swift’s friend and fellow songstress, whom she was photographed with at the party. But like my colleague says, “It’s Hollywood! Why let truth get in the way?”

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October 28, 2009 | 10:36 am

Larry David pees on Jesus, pisses off Catholics

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Larry David has once again proven his ability to indiscriminately offend—this time, with a bodily function.

On Sunday’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Larry takes a new pill that causes him to pee with the force of a firetruck spray hose. While in the bathroom at his assistant’s house, the back splash lands on a portrait of Jesus, which his assistant later interprets as Jesus “crying” and perceives as some sort of miracle.

According to the Huffington Post, however, Catholic League president Bill Donohue is not feeling especially humored.

In a statement, Donohue said:

Mention Larry David in a word association game and “Seinfeld” rolls off the lips. That show, which David created, wrote and produced, was brilliant. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is not. Indeed, last night’s episode demonstrates that David’s best years are behind him. He ought to quit while he’s ahead.
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Was Larry David always this crude? Would he think it comedic if someone urinated on a picture of his mother? This might be fun to watch, but since HBO only likes to dump on Catholics (it was just a couple of weeks ago that Sarah Silverman insulted Catholics on “Real Time with Bill Maher”), and David is Jewish, we’ll never know.

Check out the clip with a cameo by Jerry Seinfeld:

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