November 14, 2011 | 12:27 pm

Gene Simmons to save the day

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

Follow me on or

Kiss rock star Gene Simmons, aka Chaim Weitz, lectures at the London Business School on how to save the British economy and build a billion-dollar brand.  Sure, because our top economists and brilliant minds around the world obviously are missing the answer, so lets invite the make-up clad hard rock singer to clue us in. 

“We’re in a mess, that’s for sure…and it starts with the welfare state.  When the government becomes Mum and Dad and when people want free cheques from the government, the economy breaks down.  You’ve got to make money mean something,” Simmons explains to the Daily Mail. 

But behind the scenes of his pyrotechnics and partying hard lifestyle, Simmons has built up a multi-million dollar empire over the past 40 years, “saturating the market with more than 3,000 items of Kiss-branded merchandise (everthing from coffins to condoms and coffee houses)” reports the Daily News, and founding ortsbo.com, a language translation service.  He also runs a financial planning business for those infamous 1%. Who knew??

Not new to the political scene, Simmons recently endorsed Rick Perry for the US Presidential elections and now weighs in on the financial side of world issues. 

This past Thursday night, Simmons spoke at the London Business School on how to build a billion-dollar brand, as part of the Gene Simmons Rich and Famous Lecture Tours. And he knows what he’s talking about, valued at around 100 million pounds.  “I make a living,” Simmons winked, as he informs the audience that it’s the pursuit of “stuff” that Simmons believes is at the root of our current economic crisis. 

“You know who’s to blame for the mess we’re in? People.  Because we’re greedy and don’t want to take responsibility…Just because you can buy it doesn’t mean you can afford it.  Never a lender or a borrower be.  It’s common sense.  But people don’t have common sense, they have greed,” reports the Daily Mail.

Ok, well glad he could help save us from financial ruin.  Thank you Mr. Weitz!

November 11, 2011 | 12:13 pm

‘Friday Night Dinner’ (aka Shabbat) heads to NBC

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

Shabbat dinner, the weekly Jewish ritual that comprises almost as much drama as the Bible, is headed for sitcom status.

NBC is developing an adaptation of the British show “Friday Night Dinner,” featuring a Jewish family and their weekly Shabbat dinner antics, for an American audience.

Greg Daniels, who developed and executive produced “The Office” for NBC will help adapt the British version created by Robert Popper. The British series premiered last February and was recently picked up for a second season, according to Deadline.com.

Let the prayers begin.

For those eager to celebrate the newfound celebrity of challah, the show can be seen on BBC America starring Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Mark Heap and Tom Rosenthal as the Goodman family.

 

2 Comments — Leave your comment

November 11, 2011 | 11:36 am

Howard Stern’s got talent?

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

It’s been a big week for Howard Stern between chatting with ousted Oscars producer Brett Ratner and negotiating with NBC.

Stern, the infamous radio jock, is in talks with NBC to become the next “America’s Got Talent” judge, replacing Piers Morgan.

If he decides to join Howie Mandel and Sharon Osborne for a lively trio, Stern stands to earn around $15 million per year from the show, according to The Wrap.

So things are looking up for Stern although we can’t say the same about his guest earlier this week…

More on Howard Stern and “America’s Got Talent”: The Wrap

Read coverage on Brett Ratner & Howard Stern here: HollywoodJew.com

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 10, 2011 | 3:42 pm

Hitler quote of the day by Mario Batali

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Thank God the most sophisticated news organization in the world, The New York Times, has a sense of humor: “After Chef’s Hitler Remark, Bankers Change Lunch Plans,” read a Times headline earlier today about celebrity chef and restauranteur Mario Batali comparing Wall Street cats with fascist dictators.

At a Time magazine event promoting their “Person of the Year” issue, Batali was asked what person has had the most influence on the world, for better or worse, during the past year. He reportedly said:

...I would have to say that who has had the largest effect on the whole planet without us really paying attention across the board and everywhere is the entire banking industry and their disregard for the people that they’re supposed to be working for… the ways the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed and taken most of it into their hands is as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys…They’re not heroes, but they are people that had a really huge effect on the way the world is operating.”

Apparently the quote really riled some bankers, many of whom are threatening to boycott Batali’s restaurants—among them, the upscale Del Posto, Babbo and Lupa, as well as his grand Italian market, Eataly. The Website Eater reported that one investment bank circulated a memo that it would not reimburse employees for meals at any Batali-owned location.

“The irony is that he has made millions of dollars building a restaurant empire off the backs of Wall Street wealth,” an anonymous source was quoted as saying to The Times.

It’s true that Batali’s restaurants can be exceedingly expensive and are probably popular power lunches for the Wall Street crowd who can afford to dine in them. And nobody likes being compared to Hitler (except for maybe Ahmadinejad) so smartly, Batali apologized. But the incident is yet another example of the countless ways modern culture invokes Hitler, usually without humor, and usually to the utterer’s detriment.

2 Comments — Leave your comment

November 10, 2011 | 1:14 pm

Mikveh time for Oprah?

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

Oprah still isn’t a member of the tribe, despite a visit to a Brooklyn Heights mikveh last week.

JTA caught the eye of Jewish hopefuls last week with a title that suggested she was visiting the mikveh to mark the beginning of her new show. 

“Oprah did not embrace the Jewish ritual of immersion in a mikveh before launching her new show…but she did visit with two Hasidic Jewish families for an upcoming episode and toured a mikveh. The new series, called “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” will premiere in January on her OWN network,” reports the Huffington Post.

Alas, the talk show maven won’t be joining us for seder. That’s ok.  We always have Madonna for entertainment.

Read more at JTA and the Huffington Post

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 10, 2011 | 12:34 pm

Adam Sandler proposes wife swap with Tom Cruise

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

Actor Adam Sandler is a reasonable guy.  Hence his agreement with Tom Cruise that anything he does with Cruise’s wife, Katie Holmes, in his new movie “Jack and Jill”, Cruise is more than welcome to do with Sandler’s wife, Jackie Sandler. Sounds fair, especially to Mrs. Sandler who has held a long-time crush on the “Mission Impossible” star.

According to the Huffington Post, Sandler told Cruise “It’s a PG movie, no worries, nothing is going to happen,” he told Cruise. “In fact, anything I do with your wife in the movie, you can do with my wife. So every morning I’d go to the set and hear ‘please do a love scene. Please slowly take your shirt off in that scene and rub her ever so tenderly.’”

For more details on the Sandler’s sex life, and how Elmo makes a cameo, visit the Huffington Post

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 10, 2011 | 12:12 pm

Arab spring comes with bikinis

Posted by Lauren Bottner, Hollywood Jew contributor

Huda Naccache spurred the “Arab bikini revolution” by being the Israeli Arab model with the least amount of clothing ever to be featured on the front page of a magazine, according to AFP.  The 22-year-old model from Haifa graced the cover of Lilac magazine as part of her campaign for the Miss Earth Competition which takes place in Thailand this December.

According to Ynet news, media buzzed with claims that Naccache was taking on conservative Arab social norms (“Miss Huda Rocks This Earth!” blared the English translation of the caption), though the news site suggested that this was only possible because she was Christian and not a Muslim Arab. 

Naccache dismissed the criticisms to Ynet, mentioning her family’s absolute support and that she’s focusing on her future:  “My life’s dream is first to finish my degree in geography and archaeology. And then I want to be successful, to be a world famous model.”

Sometimes it’s not about politics.  It’s really just all about looks.

For the full ynet article, click here: ynet news

0 Comments — Leave your comment

November 8, 2011 | 8:56 pm

The morning after: What I learned from Brett Ratner hitting on me

Posted by Danielle Berrin

Every time I see the director Brett Ratner I remind him who I am.

“Danielle Berrin, from The Jewish Journal.”

For starters, I figure the lecherous lothario could use some help keeping tabs on all the women in his life. But second, I want to remind him that if he acts like a jerk, I could wind up writing something like this:

I’ve been cornered downstairs in the gold lamé disco basement at Brett Ratner’s house and he’s hitting on me.

That was the opening line of a profile I wrote of Ratner in October 2008. I worked hard to persuade him to interview with me, but not that hard, since the very first time I met him, at an event at American Jewish University, he gave me his phone number.

My M.O. after that was turn his own trick right back on him: Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

That line is part of the Brett-Ratner-rise-in-Hollywood mythology – and has been referenced countless times (see: Entourage, profiles etc.). But it’s also part of the mythology of Brett Ratner the man: He doesn’t take ‘no.’ He has no boundaries. He does whatever the heck he wants. It’s part of his big-Hollywood-director cache. And most of the time, he gets away with it.

Not anymore.

My guess is that if it were up to Brett Ratner The Man, and not Brett Ratner The Director, to get women to like him, he could have played The Forty-Year-Old-Virgin instead of Steve Carrell. And not because he’s modest and cute and shy; because he’s disrespectful and smarmy and childish.

Every time I see Brett Ratner, he hits on me again. Though only after he insults me: “You’re still at the Jewish Journal? Your piece on me was supposed to advance your career.” (Editor’s note: It did. I got salaried and health insurance.)

The last time I saw him, at the Museum of Tolerance dinner honoring Tom Cruise, he said, “You’re cute, but can you cook?”

Months later, I texted him to ask for an interview about “Tower Heist” (which he did not grant) and to maybe do a live Q-and-A with me in advance of the Oscar cast he was supposed to produce. I asked if we could have lunch and talk it over. He only wanted to know if I still had a boyfriend.

After all this, I figure, ‘This is his shtick. This is what he does. This is who he is.’ But when I read what he says about other women, how he humiliates them with the bully pulpit he doesn’t deserve – for example, he referred to Olivia Munn, who at the age of 30 has accomplished more than most, as a “whore” and revealed to Howard Stern that he forced Lindsay Lohan, who has enough problems, to get checked for sexually transmitted diseases before he would sleep with her—I get angry.

Then I feel inclined to say things like this: If Lindsay Lohan was infected with the Ebola virus, Ratner would be lucky to get five minutes in a room with her.

But admittedly, I have Ratner baggage. When I look back on my first big Hollywood interview, I remember sitting on Ratner’s couch, with a handful of people around, watching Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, and repeatedly removing Ratner’s hands from between my legs.

I was a young, inexperienced journalist then, and told myself that getting the story was more important than my dignity. So in a big way, I’m grateful to Brett Ratner – because the very same profile that got me a full-time reporting job was also the one that taught me that no story is worth compromising my integrity. I should have slapped him and stormed from the house. It would have been cinematic.

It is precisely because movies represent some imaginative ideal that the movie industry should have standards. Lots of directors get away with way worse than Ratner – Roman Polanski comes to mind, for example. Famous people tend to get away with things, because they’re famous and they can.

Today was the first day Brett Ratner didn’t get away with it.

Earlier today, I wrote that I didn’t care whether Ratner produced the Oscars or not, but in the dark of evening, long after the sun has set, I applaud the Academy for taking a stand – for standing for something.

It was a Jewish thing to do.

21 Comments — Leave your comment