movies
Selma Blair Announces ‘Hineni’ Doc About Antisemitism
More than two years later, Selma Blair is taking the fallout over her Islamophobic comments and channeling it into a documentary about antisemitism.
On Thursday, the actress announced at the ADL State of the Arts Reception in New York City that she’s making a documentary entitled Hineni (Here I Am) to say what she “couldn’t say two years ago” when she first apologized for her comments.
“Two years ago I learned what erased feels like, and I’ve decided the opposite of erased is making something. So I’m making a film,” she said in her remarks. “The last time I let cameras in, it was about my body. This time it’s about my people. It’s a documentary about antisemitism, and as confounding and confusing as it seems to be because no one wants to talk about geopolitics but it seems to get intermingled completely, but I wanted to make this made for the people who are not in this room.”
Blair continued, “It’s called Hineni. Here I am. The thing I couldn’t say two years ago, I’m now saying with a camera crew behind me. It goes to Israel, so people can see why that land is not an abstraction to us. And it talks to people who disagree with me, on camera, and keeps the disagreement in the cut, because you don’t change a mind by only talking to people who already agree with you.”
Acknowledging the “ignorance and rage” of her words at the time, in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Blair come under fire in February 2024 for writing in a comment, “Thank you so much. Deport all these terrorist supporting goons. Islam has destroyed Muslim countries and then they come here and destroyed minds. They know they are liars. Twisted justifications. May they meet their fate.”
During Thursday’s reception, Blair reflected on the moment. “It offended people, and I did apologize right away. No conditions, no fine print. I meant it then and I mean it now, and I’m leaving the comment there, because the comment was not the story,” she said.
“Here’s what happened next. I’ll try to tell it fast, because it happened fast,” added Blair. “The brands I worked with were gone within a day. A few partnerships I’d spent years building were shelved. My agency was gone. My lawyer was gone. My publicist was gone. My book agent was gone. My book publicist was gone. My social media manager was gone. My son’s godmother was gone – my best friend. While some friends in the business quietly stood by me, most of them were gone. And of course, my manager, my supposed friend of thirty years, and a Jew, was gone too. I still don’t know what any of them were thinking. No one returned my calls. I know the phone stopped. Not rang less. Just stopped.”
Following Blair’s 2024 comments, her representatives at CAA and Narrative PR parted ways with the actress known for roles in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing and more.
Blair was previously the subject of the Discovery+ documentary Introducing, Selma Blair, which explored her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and how she adapted to living with the neurological disorder.
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movies
DOJ Argues CNN & Other Outlets Can Be Banned From White House
The Justice Department argued that Donald Trump can legally ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House because he determined that they didn’t meet the “minimum requirements of professionalism.”
Last month, a federal judge granted the three outlets a temporary restraining order that forced the White House to reinstate dozens of their reporters’ hard passes. The outlets are now asking the judge to extend that 14-day order for a longer term via a preliminary injunction, claiming that Trump’s ban is a violation of their First and Fifth amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, has said that he is bound by the precedent set in In a 1977 D.C. Circuit opinion, Sherrill vs. Knight, in which the judges ruled that “the protection afforded newsgathering under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.”
In a court filing on Friday, the DOJ claimed that the Sherrill case still would allow for the president to restrict the three outlets from accessing the White House grounds because the White House has a “compelling interest.”
The DOJ lawyers claimed that the Sherrill decision does not “prevent the President from concluding that bona fide journalists would identify sources instead of relying on anonymous sources, commit to factual accuracy, and provide the White House an opportunity to comment, rather than ‘perform their duties in a way that … interfere[s] with the White House’s daily operations.’ …At a bare minimum, it is a significant violation of decorum to publish classified and sensitive national security information.”
The news outlets’ legal team has rejected that assertion, writing in a filing earlier this week that Trump’s “statements also make clear he implemented the ban to coerce more favorable coverage from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, and to deter other journalists and news organizations from newsgathering and reporting that the President might view as negative. And his administration has continued to retaliate against Plaintiffs even after the temporary restraining order, only underscoring that Defendants’ motive is to punish and chill journalism they dislike.”
Even as access to the White House grounds has been reinstated, the White House has continued to restrict CNN from coverage of TV pool assignments, including travel with Trump on Air Force One.
The outlets’ lawyers, led by Theodore Boutrous Jr., also noted that Trump and other White House officials “overlooked that the First Amendment protects reporting on matters affecting national security.”
Kelly has set a hearing for Thursday on the news outlets’ motion for a preliminary injunction.
In granting a TRO, Kelly concluded that the White House failed to provide due process to the news outlets.
The DOJ has pointed to letters sent to the outlets as evidence that they were given due process. But those letters were sent on Sept. 22, four days after Trump’s ban was started.
The judge also has noted that some of the objectionable stories cited by the DOJ do not have to do with national security. Kelly wrote in his order that “even the justifications provided to Plaintiffs after this case was filed are ambiguous about the true purpose of the revocations: while Defendants’ letters to Plaintiffs mention national security concerns, they purport to identify reporting that ‘threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods’ leaving open the possibility that all the stories fall into the later bucket, rather than the former.”
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movies
Zach Bryan Dons “Free Palestine” Shirt At Gillette Stadium Concert
Following Robert Kraft‘s campaign against Macklemore, Zach Bryan made a statement with his performance at Gillette Stadium.
During Friday’s stop at the Kraft-owned venue for his With Heaven on Tour, the Grammy winner stepped onto the stage with a “Free Palestine” shirt after Kraft and other venue owners pressured Ed Sheeran to drop Macklemore from his tour over his outspoken support for Palestinians.
With another performance scheduled at the Massachusetts venue on Saturday night, it remains to be seen if Kraft will pull the plug.
The show comes after Ed Sheeran was forced to cancel his Gillette Stadium shows last weekend amid a nor’easter headed for Boston, despite caving to Kraft’s demands.
Sheeran dropped Macklemore from his tour last month amid an outcry around the opener’s “Free Palestine” onstage remarks. Opting to remain publicly neutral on the issue, Sheeran subsequently released a statement saying it was the “promoter’s decision” after Kraft assembled several of the tour venues to give him an ultimatum.
Following the statement, fellow tour openers Finneas, Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham dropped out of the tour, along with Sheeran’s backing band Beoga.
Meanwhile, Macklemore announced the Free Palestine Tour last week, which is “supporting the Palestinian people and movement,” running 10/26-10/30 in Dublin, Paris and London. He since gave an update that the tour “sold out immediately.”
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movies
Pedro Pascal Was Surprised By Tony Gilroy’s ‘Behemoth!’
With the world premiere of Behemoth!, Pedro Pascal is praising Tony Gilroy for the intimate drama.
During a Q&A after the film’s premiere screening at the New York Film Festival, the Golden Globe-nominated actor admitted he thought Gilroy was “gonna be kinda mean” before they worked together.
“You have created this complex Jason Bourne-like puzzle over something that is so intimate and so healing this mysterious way,” Pascal told Gilroy in a video shared by NYFF. “And I didn’t think it was gonna come from him, you know what I mean? This intimidating intellectual … you know, I thought you were gonna be kinda mean. And you thought I was gonna be a dork.
In Behemoth!, premiering Dec. 4 in theaters, Pascal stars as cellist Alex Serian, a former child prodigy who returns home to Los Angeles to compose film scores and reconnect with his family.
Written and directed by Gilroy, the Searchlight Pictures film also stars Olivia Wilde, Eva Victor, Will Arnett, Hank Azaria, Margarita Levieva and Matthew Lillard.
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