Call Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager the new “Odd Couple.”

Carolla, the podcast giant best known for his cultural rants and “Man Show” high jinks, hardly seems like a regular listener of Prager’s syndicated radio show. And Prager, an erudite talker with a strong spiritual side, would rather explore politics and the joys of marriage than complain about airport screeners or our feminized culture.

The two have more in common than meets the ear. Each rallies around rugged individualism, and both push past the usual talking points on subjects ranging from politics to popular culture.

“An Evening with Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager” lets the disparate talkers share the same stage for the first time tomorrow night. The pair will perform two shows – at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.

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Sacha Baron Cohen can turn just about any setback into a shrewd marketing vehicle for his comic creations.

The man who foisted “Borat” on us is back with “The Dictator,” a new comedy about a Middle Eastern leader landing on American soil. To hype the film, Cohen wanted to walk the red carpet on Oscar night in character.

Nothing doing, said the folks behind the annual ceremony.

Now, Cohen’s Dictator is having the last word, courtesy of YouTube:

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Filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon, whose documentary about Sarah Palin, “The Undefeated,” has just been picked up by ReelzChannel, is taking his Los Angeles-based Sunday radio show, KABC’s “The Victory Sessions,” to a national audience.

From the TVS press release:

Victory Media Group and WMPS “THE POINT”  (87.7 FM and 1210 AM) in Memphis TN jointly announced that KABCs The Victory Sessions will be now be carried on WMPS beginning Sunday, February 26, 2012. The program originates from KABC (790AM) in Los Angeles and is broadcast live on Sundays from 5-7PM (PST).

The Victory Sessions, which is commencing its national roll out, is a weekly radio show hosted by Stephen K. Bannon from its home station of KABC in Los Angeles. The Victory Sessions is “the thinking man’s radio” – a sophisticated and impassioned program for people who want to understand today’s events and how it shapes their lives.

Today’s announcement is the first of a planned nationwide roll out of The Victory Sessions, with additional markets planned for the spring of 2012. (more…)

Actor Robert Davi’s new album brings us back to a time when Frank Sinatra’s songs provided the soundtrack to a country brimming with optimism.

Now, the versatile actor/singer is hitting one of Las Vegas’ most celebrated clubs to share Sinatra’s timeless tunes with the public.

Davi will headline The Venetian at 9 p.m. tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. Tickets for the performances are available through The Venetian and you can order “Davi Sings Sinatra: On the Road to Romance” through iTunes or the album’s web site.

JazzTimes.com called Davi’s album “uniformly impressive,” while the album secured a position of honor on Billboard’s Top 100 Traditional Jazz charts.

Wonder if this is where Hanks came up with his “Queen” fiction?

Here’s FEC definition of an in-kind contribution:

Most people think of contributions as donations of money in the form of checks or currency. While these are common ways of making a contribution, anything of value given to influence a Federal election is considered a contribution. This section describes several forms of giving that are considered contributions under the Federal campaign law. All the contributions you make–whatever their form–count against your $117,000 biennial limit and your separate committee limits.

Donated Items and Services

The donation of office machines, furniture, supplies–anything of value–is an in-kind contribution. The value of the donated item (the usual and normal charge) counts against the contribution limits. A donation of services is also considered an in-kind contribution. For example, if you pay a consultant’s fee or a printing bill for services provided to a campaign, you have made an in-kind contribution in the amount of the payment.

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Like father, like son?

Director Oliver Stone’s son, Sean Stone, made headlines last week when he announced he had converted to Islam while making a film in Iran. Now, the young Stone is doing some pretty good spin for that country’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on “The O’Reilly Factor”:

The 27-year-old Stone announced last week that he had converted to Islam, thus the reason for his invitation to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s top-rated cable news program….

“Your association with Iran is interesting, since that country is an enemy to America,” O’Reilly says, as Stone smiles as if he expects to be grilled on the topic.

“Every time I had these conversations, I was very clear in saying, ‘you know, let’s stop with this down-with-America nonsense,’” Stone answers. “It really helped for the American image, frankly, by my being there.”

“You can be seen as somebody who’s being used, because, you know, you come from a family that’s very well known,” O’Reilly tells Stone.

“That could be,” Stone says. “I mean, with Ahmadinejad, he’s a little bit misunderstood because there are many factions in that country and he said some sensational things.”

“Look, look,” O’Reilly interrupts. “The one thing he said that’s undeniable was, he said that the Holocaust never happened. And once you get into that kind of fringe, lunatic assessment — all right — your father’s Jewish, I mean, come on.”

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Former basketball great Earvin “Magic” Johnson is getting into the television business.

Johnson, who parlayed his sports fame into a series of profitable endeavors, is starting the Aspire network meant to compete against channels like BET and TV One which target black audiences.

The Hall of Famer, who has become a successful business mogul, is preparing to launch Aspire, a 24-hour channel with a focus on what Johnson called positive, uplifting images of African Americans. The basic cable outlet will join other channels targeting black viewers, such as BET and TV One, and will offer opportunities for blacks who have struggled to find work in mainstream Hollywood.

“This is so exciting for me, I’m pinching myself,” Johnson said in a phone interview. “This is big for myself, for the African American community and the African American creative community. I wanted a vehicle to show positive images and to have stories written, produced and directed by African Americans for our community. Aspire — that’s how I’ve been leading my life.”

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HBO’s “Game Change,” a telefilm alleging Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was over matched, under-qualified and possible mentally unstable, makes its world TV premiere March 10.

The following night offers an elixir to that poorly sourced production.

“The Undefeated,” the 2011 documentary tracking Palin’s remarkable political ascent, makes its television debut March 11 on Reelzchannel.

“We’re thrilled to have yet another opportunity to bring a big story to viewers,” said Stan E. Hubbard, Reelzchannel CEO in a statement. “Sarah Palin is a charismatic figure who burst onto the political scene, and whatever your leanings, if you have any interest or curiosity in politics, social change or the Sarah Palin phenomenon, this is a must-see movie.”

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Huffington Post reporter Jordan Zakarin has written a piece on the upcoming film “Act of Valor,” set to open this weekend, and it’s not a review so much as a lamentation that the Pentagon would dare assert enough influence to portray American soldiers as the disciplined, sacrificial heroes they are.

The piece opens:

A crack team of highly skilled warriors, outfitted with the most advanced weapons of the world’s most powerful military force, storms an enemy compound, firing round after round of ammunition through concrete walls and the skulls of their terrorist adversaries.

The good guys have yet to suffer a single casualty until, suddenly, one of its leaders takes a rocket to the chest. The audience cringes, but the bang never comes — the rocket clangs to the ground, unexploded, and the battle rages on.

The upcoming film “Act of Valor” is replete with that kind of action, but there are a few things it doesn’t have: There are no corrupt officers, no damaged heroes, no queasy doubts about the value of the mission or the virtue of the cause.

That’s because “Act of Valor” was born not in Hollywood, but in the Pentagon. It was commissioned by the Navy’s Special Warfare Command and its success will be measured not in box-office receipts, but in the number of new recruits it attracts to the Navy SEALs. [emphasis added]

Zakarin, right after quoting the film’s producers state their desire to tell the story of SEALs in the modern day, casually labels “Valor” “the U.S. Armed Forces’ first feature-length recruiting film,” then goes into the history of how “unsuspecting audiences have been treated to Pentagon propaganda at the movies.” (more…)

Sara Palin has already gone on record saying she’s not interested in seeing HBO’s telefilm “Game Change.” Anyone who so much as glanced at the trailer understands why. The film portrays the former Alaskan governor according to the most garish caricatures painted by her political enemies.

Those who saw the real Sarah Palin in action back in 2008 aren’t willing to let the film’s distortions stand without challenge.

SarahPAC responded to the film, which will debut on HBO March 10, with a new post published today:

Pay channel HBO has produced another docudrama based on the political arena. This time it is a subscription-only television movie sensationalizing 40 pages of a three-year-old book about the 2008 presidential election. The real 2008 Election was an incredible, moving experience that brought together the nation to celebrate our democracy. HBO has taken that experience and twisted it into tabloid drama for its own profit.

The docudrama Game Change has not been released, but the content and clips available and scenes as reported by the media make it clear that HBO studio heads decided they would generate more profit by inventing facts and scenes for the purpose of fictionalizing a history written by people with no personal knowledge of the situations they attempt to depict.

After viewing the Game Change trailers purporting to show actual events from the campaign, we sifted through over 2,000 behind-the-scenes photos of actual events, people and moments.

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El Rushbo has New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s back.

Christie critics are harping over his plans to have flags fly at half-staff to honor the Garden State’s own Whitney Houston this weekend. They argue the tribute should be reserved for fallen soldiers and police officers, not entertainers. Others contend Houston’s drug history – which may or may not have been a factor in her death – make her a poor choice for such an honor.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh wasn’t having any of it on his radio show this week:

Actress Julianne Moore’s new film “Game Change” won’t hit HBO until March 10. But the 51-year-old actress can’t stop talking down her character, Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin.

“Game Change,” based on the 2008 election chronicle by authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, zooms in on Sen. John McCain’s presidential run and his decision to nominate the first female vice presidential candidate in GOP history.

But Moore isn’t feeling any grrl power connection to Palin.

Julianne, 51, told Capitol File magazine: ‘She wasn’t qualified to be vice president. She wasn’t a qualified candidate.

‘I think that became quite evident during the campaign.

‘It was so shocking to me when she resigned the governorship of Alaska when the presidential election was over.

‘I was stunned. I just think that shows such an unbelievable lack of interest in the actual governing.

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Associated Press:

Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy.

Penn made the remarks after meeting with socialist President Hugo Chavez at Venezuela’s presidential palace, when he was asked by a reporter about criticisms of Chavez by some Republican candidates.

Penn said he doesn’t think “the use of those exploitive sort of demonizations will be very beneficial to this crew of candidates.”

“That would be the least amongst their weaknesses,” Penn said. “It’s never predictable what can happen in an American election, but we certainly believe at this point that it’s becoming increasingly clear to the American people that the policies of the far right are the policies of the rich, and that they are to the exclusion of the middle class and the poor, and that no society has a future on that basis.”

The Oscar-winning actor has met with Chavez several times in Venezuela and has a friendly relationship with the leftist leader.

Penn attended a speech by Chavez earlier. The president joked that he thought the actor would be joining the left-leaning Bolivarian Alliance, or ALBA bloc, which includes some of Venezuela’s closest allies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Penn “is a good friend, not only ours, of the cause of humanity, of peace in the world,” Chavez said during the televised speech to graduating medical students.

Here we go again.

Conservatives are still reeling from the heavy handed treatment Sarah Palin received in HBO’s “Game Change” trailer. Now, a new science fiction comedy uses a Palin impersonator (Stephanie Paul) to play the U.S. president dealing with an invading army of … Nazis.

Any chance Palin is depicted as a strong, effective leader fighting back the new Nazi scourge?

The year is 2018, and the Nazis apparently have been biding their time on a moon base waiting to strike … again. “Iron Sky’s” campy elements are crystal clear. What remains to be seen is the kind of fun the story will have mocking the Palin stand-in.

An early review of the film suggests the Palin cracks have all the subtlety of a Gallagher watermelon skit.

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Hope. Change. It just doesn’t happen overnight.

So says Questlove, the leader of the hip hop band The Roots who was behind the vulgar attack on Congresswoman Michele Bachmann late last year on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

Now, Questlove is throwing all-new and improved support behind President Barack Obama.

When I started supporting Barack Obama in 2008, he promised to bring real change and hope to our country and community as a whole,” Questlove, drummer for The Roots, says in a video posted on the campaign’s website. “This is not a quick fix. It’s not like you can take a wand — bing! — and just make magic overnight. He needs eight years to finish the mission and we need to have his back.”

Questlove flaunts a hair pick that features the Obama campaign logo in the video.

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President Barack Obama has done a “remarkable” job over the last three years, says famed poet Maya Angelou. But the 83-year-old predicts that won’t stop Republicans from pulling “off their sheets” to criticize him in the ugliest manner possible.

Don’t worry about Barack Obama, says the chronicler of black history. He’ll be re-elected. He deserves to be re-elected. But between now and November, it’s going to get nasty.

“I think we are going to see a number of people who say: ‘I have no racial prejudice in my heart, not in my conversation,’” Angelou says. “But in the next few months, as we wind up to the double campaign, I tell you we are going to see some nastiness, some vulgarity, I think. They’ll pull the sheets off.”

Obama has critics and doubters. Angelou, the sage of black America, now 83, has no time for them. “I think he has done a remarkable job, knowing how much he has been opposed,” she says. “Every suggestion he makes, the Republicans en masse fight against him or don’t vote at all.” It’s about him being a Democrat and being the first black president, she says….

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Telegraph:

I’d like to make a statement about the growing crisis in the Americas. It’s time for justice. It’s time for liberty. It’s time to end the ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology. It’s time Sean Penn handed his Malibu estate back to the Mexicans.

Sean Penn pretends to be a friend of the developing world, but really he is not. To be fair, his recent call for the Falkland Islands to be returned to Argentina was an admirable strike against capitalist imperialism. Moreover, I and the entire North Korean press corps cheered him on when he flew to Iraq to parley with Saddam Hussein, or when he spoke about Hugo Chavez in such glowing terms. But there have always been hints that his sympathy isn’t really with the workers at all. Aside from that time that he spent 32 days in prison for hitting an extra, his net worth of an estimated $150 million is a bit of a giveaway.

His continued occupation of Malibu is an unacceptable mockery of national self-determination. The Mexicans owned that stretch of real estate well into the early 19th century and it was stolen by the Americans in a naked act of imperialist aggression. America’s claim over Malibu is tenuous and rooted in patriarchy. Sean Penn’s house is a mocking reminder of that brute chauvinism, with its high white walls and spacious interiors. Its swimming pool is an insult to the honour of the Mexican people.

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The entertainment industry is still sore that the Obama administration didn’t get that online piracy legislation passed. And celebrities like Matt Damon and Robert Redford may kevetch about some of the president’s policies.

But when Obama touches down in Los Angeles today he’ll be greeted by the industry with open arms … and wallets.

As Obama arrives in Los Angeles on Wednesday, local campaign fundraisers said there has been no drop-off in Hollywood donations to his reelection bid since the D.C. demise of long-sought anti-piracy legislation. Hollywood’s chief lobbyist Chris Dodd suggested last month that Obama and his fellow Democrats could pay a price for not representing the industry’s interests in Washington.

But there was no evidence of that in the run-up to Wednesday’s fundraising events. A dinner and a reception at the Holmby Hills home of “The Bold and the Beautiful” producer Bradley Bell and his wife, Colleen, co-hosted by actor Will Ferrell and his wife, Viveca, sold out faster than any fundraiser in the last several years, according to Ken Solomon, co-chairman of Obama’s Southern California fundraising committee.
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Director Brett Ratner lost his gig as producer of this year’s Academy Awards telecast after GLAAD and other groups ripped him for using the word “fags” in a derogatory manner.

Now, it’s time for Ratner to say, “how high?” when GLAAD asks him to jump.

…the media advocacy group announced a new video campaign, which will be produced and directed by Brett Ratner. The announcement follows meeting between Ratner met and GLAAD’s Board of Directors this past weekend that included Ratner’s successor as Oscar producer, Brian Grazer, directors Adam Shankman and Bryan Singer. “Working together with GLAAD has been a very positive and enlightening experience for me, and I could not be more pleased to be developing this crucial campaign to help educate people that we all share the same humanity,” Ratner said.

Apparently, losing a once-in a lifetime gig wasn’t punishment enough for the garrulous director.

Some media outlets are having a hard time with Bill O’Reilly’s latest no-spin sermon.

The Fox News Channel host had some stern words regarding the tragic death of singer Whitney Houston.

She follows in the footsteps of Elvis, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, and scores of other entertainment figures. The hard truth is that some people will always want to destroy themselves, and there’s nothing society can do about it.

EW.com’s Lanford Beard used the clip to call O’Reilly a “conservative hardliner.”

MSNBC.com’s Courtney Garcia was more aggressive in her online report.

Whether Bill O’Reilly is begging for attention or just plain insensitive, he managed to criticize Whitney Houston and Tony Bennett in one accusatory slap on his FOX News program, “The O’Reilly Factor,” Monday night. The outspoken conservative’s latest rant points the finger of blame at the late singer for causing her own death, while also criticizes singer Bennett for his personal thoughts on the matter.

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