Actress Glenn Close isn’t spending her days pretending to be a commoner at any Occupy Wall Street protest. She’s busy prepping an Oscar-bait film – “Albert Nobbs” – for awards season and helping out an Army veteran in need.

Close recently nominated Army Staff Sgt. Allen Hill as a subject for an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” episode, helping to dramatically improve his life in the process.

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Hill, 43, is a National Guard and U.S. Army veteran who served nearly 20 years, including two tours in Iraq. He earned a Purple Heart for injuries sustained when an Improvised Explosive Device demolished a Humvee he was riding in. He has been in treatment for post-traumatic stress since the Nov. 1, 2007, incident and away from his wife and two children for much of that time. It was a dismal existence.

But earlier this year, on a hot August night, Hill and his family stood on a street in rural Franklin County, Kan., awaiting a life-changing event. Friends, neighbors, well-wishers, military members and American Legion Riders also waited. The Hill family was about to see their new home built by volunteers on the ABC television series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition …

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In the aftermath of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group’s successful raid to take out Osama Bin Laden last week, I feel privileged to be covering the only film festival in the world to feature films about the military. The Washington D.C. based G. I. Film Festival runs from today through Sunday, May 16 at both the U.S. Navy Memorial at 701 Pennsylvania Ave and the nearby Canadian Embassy. In five short years this outstanding collection of films about the American military experience has became the quality venue for films portraying our troops in a positive light. The festival features everything from combat intense dramas, to personal stories of military families, feature documentaries and shorts to historical epics. This year’s Wounded Warrior night film is the exciting medieval themed epic Ironclad about the brutal aftermath of the signing of the Magna Carta. Through the generosity of corporate sponsors, wounded service men from Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital will be hosted by the festival for that evening.

Various Hollywood professionals who support the military like actors Robert Duvall Jeremy Renner, Kelsey Grammer, Rick Schroeder, Glenn Close and JAG’s Karri Turner, as well as directors and producers like Ron Maxwell and Lou Reda, are often in attendance. CSI: New York and Forrest Gump’s Lieutenant Dan,  Academy Award-nominated Gary Sinise, will host a reception for Congressional members who have served, or who are currently serving in the U.S. Military. With veterans on both he and his wife’s side of their families, Sinise has been an active supporter of the festival since its inception, as he has of so many other pro-military causes. This year actor William Devane will premiere the drama Flag of My Father at the festival’s Hollywood Patriots Night and a salute to International Warriors will host military films from several other countries.

Last year at I wrote a piece for Big Hollywood highly critical of box-office and morale-killing Hollywood military films like The Green Zone that have dominated movie screens. Well, the G.I. Film Festival has been out front in the battle for positive depictions of the military since it started back in 2007. Festival creators, husband and wife Brandon Millett and Major Laura Law-Millett, first created the festival to combat the continuing inaccurate and negative stereotypes that Hollywood has so often fostered about the United States Armed Forces. In an interview with the Washington Post during the launch of the first G.I. Film Festival, Major Law offered up that, “In movie after movie all you see then was soldiers raping and killing. We want to show something more positive.”

Her husband Brandon emphasized that, “We wanted to do something to focus public attention on the courage and selflessness of the American soldiers.”

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The above video is some sort of promotion for the Norwegian television show “Gylne Tider,” that’s set during the 1980s.

Whatever.

Just when we were sure VH1 celebrity reality shows were the bottom of the fame barrel along comes this — something so stupefyingly awful and embarrassing we actually said, “Poor Tonya Harding.”

Mickey Rourke? Glenn Close? They still have careers. Okay, they’re 80s icons in a way but Jason Alexander is all over this thing and “Seinfeld” was a 90’s phenomenon. And what’s Peter Falk doing there? Last we heard he was suffering from a serious case of dementia. Did some mercenary relative hustle him out there for Norway’s daily rate?

Most heartbreaking is David Faustino; the Mighty Bud Bundy — and Kathleen Turner, who just stands there as though she’s no longer capable of even a lip sync. They were giants! It is always nice to see Leslie Nielsen, though.

Five, ten years ago an American star could grab a quick overseas payday and get away with something like this without anyone stateside becoming the wiser. It’s fairly common for a movie star to do commercials in a foreign country, something they wouldn’t do here for fear of the effect it might have on their image. With YouTube and the Internet, those days are now over and whatever the celebs in this particular video got paid can’t be worth it (Tonya Harding excepted) now that the end product’s gone viral. (more…)

This Sunday, the 62^nd Primetime Emmy Awards will be handed out to some of the best shows and actors from the past year. Although some shows and performances were snubbed, there are numerous nominees that are worth rooting for during the award show which will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon. In the midst of a lot of previously-nominated shows and performers, there are also some newcomers and previously-overlooked nominees that are worth getting excited about.

In the best drama category, the highly-acclaimed and perennial winner “Mad Men” will be facing some mildly tough competition. It will be up against HBO’s “True Blood,” Showtime’s “Dexter,” AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” ABC’s “Lost,” and CBS’ “The Good Wife.” Even though “Lost” just aired its final season, many expect that “Mad Men” will walk away with its third consecutive best drama award. Several of last year’s nominees for this category were snubbed this year (“House,” “Big Love,” and “Damages”) along with at least one departing show that had previously won this competition (“24”).    (more…)

If cable is the place where the best shows get made, Damages is the proof. It’s third season started with a bang and continues to surprise its viewers with tightly written, clever stories acted by some of the best talent out there.

Glenn Close stars as Patty Hewes, a high-powered trial lawyer who takes on big corporations for massive damages. For the first couple seasons you couldn’t tell if she was a villain or a hero. Patty’s a legal shark and a world class poker player without the cards. Her manipulations and schemes are Machiavellian to the extreme, which is why Patty is at the top of her game.

In season one she hires Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a young attorney out to make a name for herself by working with a top law firm. Her relationship with Patty is reminiscent at first of the John Grisham classic The Firm. What seems like a plum job soon becomes dangerous and you can’t tell if Patty’s out to murder her or it’s one of the defendants they’re trying to bring down.

Patty’s loyal lieutenant is Tom Shayes (Tate Donovan). Shayes gets things done for Patty but even he finds tackling the biggest game in town can put your life at risk. (more…)

I bet that headline got your attention!  But, as you’ll see a little later in this post, the scene in question is not really a “rape” at all.  But that didn’t keep the NY Daily News from running this headline yesterday:

‘Bye Bye Birdie’ revival on Broadway drops scene for ‘gang rape’ concern

“Just a copy editor trying to get attention by over-exaggerating a story,” you think?  That’s what I thought, too.  But here is the story with Gina Gershon’s quote: (more…)

The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend in Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), and one prominent blogger wrote this headline:

Duplicity soft: Julia’s Comeback? Audiences Say Go Back

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in the fun, smart DUPLICITY, from writer/director Tony Gilroy

Roberts’ last starring role was in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($63.8M domestic), and since then she has become a full-time Mom. Overall, she has 8 movies on her resume that have reached $100M in the US with her as a lead (I’m not including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise). Her most successful string of movies started in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding ($127.1M cume) and ended with her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich ($125.6M cume). During that span, she starred in 6 movies, generating an average of $115M in domestic box office.

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