“The heart wants what it wants.”

Director Woody Allen’s famous line regarding why he pursued Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of then-girlfriend Mia Farrow, became one of those quotes that captures the pop culture zeitgeist.

“Where’s the beef?” did the same back in the ’80s, but that was merely a comical riff from a burger commercial. Allen’s explanation for why he began dating his longtime partner’s daughter made most people queasy.

That line came back to mind today after this news snippet hit the Web courtesy of IMDB.com:

Director Woody Allen was secretly pleased by the media attention surrounding his 1992 love affair with his then-girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, because the scandal added a little “edge” to his boring Hollywood reputation …

… The filmmaker has refrained from speaking in detail about the odd relationship for years, although he has now opened up about the romance for new TV special “Woody Allen: A Documentary, which is set to air in America on Sunday [Nov. 20].

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#10: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

To 1966! The year one!

No special effects, no sensational scares, no tricks of any kind. Using little more than a perfectly calibrated tone, director Roman Polanski (who brilliantly adapted the script from Ira Levin’s novel) blends the psychological with the supernatural into a slow cooker of paranoia and ultimately stark terror, using only the recognizable elements of our everyday: Our loved ones, the eccentric and meddlesome neighbors next door, and that strange demonic chanting heard through the bedroom wall in the middle of the night.

Mia Farrow is Rosemary Woodhouse, a young, delicately beautiful everywoman very much in love with a husband she wants to please and the idea of eventually becoming a mother. The husband is Guy (a never better John Cassavetes), a struggling New York actor whose personal insecurities are only overshadowed by his ego and selfishness. The young, chic, upwardly mobile couple have just opened a fresh chapter of their life with a move into a Gothic-style apartment building (the Bramford) right in the heart of the city. Their elderly neighbors, especially the oddball and sickly sweet Minnie and Roman Castevet (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), have welcomed them with open arms and Rosemary has lost herself in the joys of remodeling.

During a small, personal dinner party, Rosemary’s old family friend Hutch (Maurice Evans), tells the couple about the history of their new home (the real-life Dakota just off Central Park). Witches, covens, cannibalism; what seems like nothing more than the stuff of fascinating gossip among close friends over good food and drink — at least until the next dinner party. Rosemary and Guy reluctantly accept an invitation from the Castevets after a gruesome introduction over the dead body of their ward, a young, troubled woman the kindly old couple took off the streets who jumped several stories to her death. (more…)

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, military tribunals, Dick Cheney, C.I.A., budget deficits, robot surgery, Nancy Pelosi, Congress, CraigsList, illegal immigrants, Michelle Obama, Maxim magazine, Wanda Sykes, Mia Farrow, and Kirstie Alley.

I have been a proud conservative Republican my entire life. My father and Jimmy Carter saw to that. My first vote ever was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and I have never voted for a Democrat. Ever. Even today, the reasons for my being so have not changed, despite the media’s and liberal Democrats’ tireless efforts to discredit my belief system. Though the times may change, core principles never do. I have also served this nation proudly in uniform for six years, and don’t regret a minute of it.

In the early 1980s, my military service brought me to some of the darker corners of the world. I spent time in South Korea and Marcos’ Philippines when both countries were under martial law. Knowing I could be shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time really woke me up to what exactly it is we have here in America. Seeing a thousand Vietnamese Boat People pulled out of the South China Sea in one day only reinforced my belief in America, Sweet Land of Liberty.

Today, the Party of Lincoln and Reagan appears to be in political disarray, which is why I am writing this OpEd now. Yet many promising developments, along with some huge mistakes by Congress and the Obama Administration, have opened many new doors for us. If only we will enter. (more…)

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: Barack Obama’s first 100 days, CNN, CIA torture memos, Politico.com, AirTran, Cuba, Laser light, LeBron James, Mia Farrow, and Rosie O’Donnell. 

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There were two Hollywood-related moments that gladdened the heart over this past weekend. The first, obviously, was the glorious sight of the Oscar telecast end credits, the second was Kim Master’s “Slate” story reporting that Steven Spielberg’s long gestating passion project – an Abe Lincoln biopic, is all but dead. Steven Spielberg not making a film was good news. How things have changed in thirty years.

Anyone my age, anyone who was around ten years-old when “Jaws” hit theatres, remembers when the name “Spielberg” meant something magical. From childhood straight through to my mid-twenties, Spielberg was what the joy of movies was all about. Not only did he direct four of the greatest films in the history of American cinema: “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.,” but as a producer his name was attached to such crowd pleasers as “Used Cars,” “Poltergeist,” “Gremlins,” “The Goonies,” “Innerspace,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” and the “Back to the Future” trilogy. (more…)