FORT BENNING, GA. — Actor Tom Hanks was inducted Thursday as an honorary member of the U.S. Army's Ranger Hall of Fame for his accurate portrayal of a World War II Army Ranger company commander in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and for his continued commitment to honoring those who served in the war.
Besides his role in "Saving Private Ryan," Hanks was cited for serving as the national spokesman for the World War II Memorial Campaign, for being the honorary chairman of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and for his role in writing and helping to produce the Emmy Award-winning miniseries, "Band of Brothers."
Hanks, who was unable to attend the induction ceremony, becomes the first actor to receive such an honor.
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*No more iPod party shuffle for me. Now I listen to the songs alphabetically by title. Mixes them up real good and there are no repeats...at all.
Can these guys...
1. Um
2. Hmm. Well… uh
3. You know, some girls… no, nevermind.
4. Because… wait, what was the question?
5. Pass.
HOLLYWOOD - Moose, the Jack Russell terrier who played Eddie for over a decade on the TV series Frasier, has died. He was 16-and-a-half (115 in dog years). Moose died Thursday night of old age at his home near Los Angeles, according to his trainer Mathilde Halberg.
She tells People magazine, "He just had an incredible charisma and was such a free spirit."
Halberg rescued Moose from a dog pound in the early 1990s and soon discovered he was a natural actor.
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TEL AVIV (Reuters) - "The Blood Diamond, a film in production starring Leonardo DiCaprio, could hurt diamond sales and the livelihoods of people in Africa, industry leaders warned on Tuesday.
The Warner Brothers film being shot in Africa shows how "conflict diamonds" financed bloody civil wars. DiCaprio portrays a mercenary jailed for smuggling in Sierra Leone, where a civil war lasting until 2002 killed 50,000 people...
In a press release issued in February, Warner Bros. Pictures said "The Blood Diamond", starring DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, had started production in South Africa and Mozambique. It did not say when it will be released and company officials could not be reached for comment. The unofficial IMDb movie database has the U.S. release date as January, 2007.
The diamond industry fears the movie could hurt sales, especially if it hits theatres around the end of the year during the peak holiday shopping season.
"The people that the movie is trying to help could be hurt the most if it's left without an explanation since livelihoods in Africa depend on income from diamonds," said Eli Izhakoff, chairman and CEO of the World Diamond Council (WDC).
"It will hurt them with a downturn in sales. It can have an adverse effect on all of Africa," Izhakoff said.
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I finally got through episodes 2 of Lucky Louie and Dane Cook's Tourgasm currently running on HBO. Lucky Louie continues to disappoint, lying there on the screen like...
LONDON - A British army regiment's ceremonial pet goat was demoted in disgrace after it marched out of line before a host of dignitaries during a parade to mark Queen Elizabeth II's birthday, a military spokesman said Saturday.
The military mascot, a 6-year-old male goat called Billy, was downgraded from the rank of lance corporal to fusilier — the same status as a private — after army chiefs ruled his poor display had ruined the ceremony earlier this month at a British army base in Episkopi, western Cyprus.
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He teaches a literature and fine arts class at Syracuse University. He can be seen on The History Channel's new documentary on Roman engineering.
He holds a master's degree in Roman and Renaissance art and is working toward a Ph.D. One of Syracuse University's most popular professors.
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NEW YORK - Bidders flipped their wigs Thursday at a Manhattan auction where one of pop art icon Andy Warhol's signature silver hairpieces sold for $10,800.
The wig, complete with three strips of toupee tape applied to its inside, was worn by Warhol during the early 1980s. Warhol first began wearing the hairpieces in the early 1960s, and they eventually turned into fashion accessories more than a cover-up for his baldness. Presale estimates for the hairpiece were $4,000 to $6,000.
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*I quit using the Party Shuffle on my iPod because of too much repetition. Now I listen to the songs alphabetically. Every bit as mixed up, absolutely no repeats, and you'll hear every song you've got...
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - James Gandolfini, star of HBO's mob drama "The Sopranos," is muscling into a salary dispute between two of his castmates and the cable network before production begins on the show's last batch of episodes.
With less than two weeks until the scheduled production start of the show's last eight episodes, Gandolfini is said to be looking to intervene in the network's standoff with Van Zandt and Sirico over their demands for higher pay.
Only a handful of "Sopranos" actors -- including Emmy winners Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli and Vincent Curatola -- have closed deals to appear in the final installments of the HBO gangster drama.
Following the network's decision in the summer to extend the sixth season of "Sopranos" from 13 to 20 episodes -- 12 to air this year and eight in 2007 -- the cast of the Emmy-winning series began negotiations for substantial salary increases for the final batch of episodes.
With the first table read scheduled for July 5, several key cast members, including Lorraine Bracco, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Steven Schirripa and John Ventimiglia, have not signed on the dotted line to continue.
But it has been Sirico and Van Zandt, who play iconic characters Paulie Walnuts and Silvio Dante, respectively, who have had the toughest and most publicized renegotiations.
With each of the two actors and HBO still more than $500,000 apart on the money, and Sirico and Van Zandt not budging on their $200,000-an-episode asking price -- more than double their most recent fee -- a conclusion of the groundbreaking series without Paulie and Silvio looms as a real possibility.
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Introducing a one-hour weekly game show competition where only one contestant has unique skills, passion and determination sufficient to win the ultimate title -- Master of Champions.
Each week six competitors with some of the world's most unique talents face off in this one-hour competition to determine who is the best of the best. Our studio audience will pare the contestants down to three, who will then face the Panel of Champions for the final selection of one as the next Master of Champions!
Contestants will participate in such unique and extreme challenges as the International Human Fireworks, Interpretive Pizza Tossing, Blind-folded Foot Archery, the Extreme Unicycle Obstacle Course and Amazing Drift Driving.
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Cher, who opposes the war in Iraq but supports the troops, says using her celebrity to promote effective helmets for U.S. soldiers is rewarding and "the right thing to do."
"To be able to use your celebrity for something that you really think is worthwhile is so rewarding," the 60-year-old singer-actress says in an interview that was to air Wednesday night on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" (10 p.m. EDT).
"It just makes you feel like this is the right thing to do. This is the American thing to do," she tells Cooper.
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A low-budget, inspirational football movie made by Baptist pastors in Georgia has triggered a flood of attacks by Christian groups that accuse Hollywood's main trade association of penalizing the film by giving it a PG rating.
In the last week alone, the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which oversees the rating board, has been swamped with more than 15,000 e-mails arguing that "Facing the Giants" deserves a more family-friendly G rating. The complaints — the number of which may be 10 times the previous record for reaction to a ratings decision — say the movie is being unfairly targeted for its religious themes.
This incident raises the disquieting possibility that MPAA considers exposure to Christian themes more dangerous for children than exposure to gratuitous sex and mindless violence," said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
Joan Graves, chairwoman of the MPAA's rating board, said Tuesday that the decision had nothing to do with Christianity but was based on football violence as well as the inclusion of mature topics such as depression and infertility.
In a rare interview granted in an attempt to defuse what she calls a controversy born of miscommunication, Graves said that although infertility and depression are involved in the coach's "crisis of faith," the religious story line itself did not raise a red flag.
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