FACT CHECK: No, Ben Stiller Wasn’t Paid $4 Million To Take Photos With Zelensky
There is no evidence Stiller was paid $4 million by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to take photos with Zelensky.
'Weekend at Biden's'? Sleepy Joe ready for his Hollywood close-up
He’s ready for his close-up!
Departing President Joe Biden spent four years hiding his still-unidentified cognitive decline. He had plenty of help, from duplicitous journalists to an inner circle insisting he was “sharp as a tack.”
Stars like Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Alicia Keys, and host Trevor Noah reminded us they voted for the candidate who couldn’t handle a three-hour Joe Rogan chat.
You’d think the former president would spend his remaining days with friends and loved ones. Turns out he’s got one last trick up his sleeve.
Biden just signed with Creative Artists Agency, one of Hollywood’s premiere talent agencies. Biden could be thinking book deals and speaking engagements. Maybe he’ll drop by “Squid Games” or one of Taylor Sheridan’s many TV dramas.
Or, he might fulfill the dreams of countless social media denizens. That “Weekend at Bernie’s” reboot isn’t going to cast itself ...
'Kiss' off
Jenny from the Block’s 2025 is looking a lot like her 2024.
Jennifer Lopez’s marriage to Ben Affleck (pour one out for Bennifer) ended last year, and she had to suspend her concert tour due to slow ticket sales.
Now, her starring role in a “Kiss of the Spider Woman” movie musical is drawing blank stares on the Hollywood circuit. The film debuted to tepid reviews at the just-wrapped Sundance Film Festival, and no one is lining up to acquire the film for a 2025 release.
That J-Lo magic may be in decline. Or, Hollywood still isn’t sure what to do with movie musicals. “Wicked” Hoovered up all the money last year, while “Joker: Folie a Deux” proved a supersized dud. And the Netflix musical “Emilia Perez” went from surefire Oscar contender to a title Netflix suits hope will go away.
Maybe lyrics like, “Man to woman or woman to man? Man to woman, from penis to vagina,” just aren’t music to many people’s ears ...
Off-key
Was it something they said?
Ratings for Sunday’s Grammy Awards cratered 9% from its 2024 addition. The annual gala draws plenty of eyeballs, putting the spotlight on clever collaborations, covers, and other goodies for music fans.
This year, the focus shifted to, what else, the Resistance 2.0. And some viewers said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Stars like Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Alicia Keys, and host Trevor Noah reminded us they voted for the candidate who couldn’t handle a three-hour Joe Rogan chat.
The ratings reflected that hard truth.
Awards show producers know lecture-filled shows yield smaller audiences. The stars keep spouting off all the same.
In recent years, the awards show scene has dialed back on the politics. Even the Jimmy Kimmel-led Oscars did just that, despite the host’s hard-left politics.
Sunday’s Grammys showcase was a return to, in the grand “Young Frankenstein” tradition, Abby Normal ...
Full Stiller
Never go full Ben Stiller.
The actor/director is a whiz on both sides of the camera. If you haven’t seen his director gem, the miniseries “Escape at Dannemora,” you should. His latest project, Apple TV’s “Severance,” is a critical and commercial darling.
He’s less adept, sadly, at political activism. Remember his cringeworthy quotes as part of the White Dudes for Harris campaign?
“[Kamala Harris is] also a historic candidate. ... It’s going to be the first woman president, and that’s incredibly exciting. She’s Indian, she’s black, she’s everything. You can be more than one thing, it’s incredible.”
Now, Stiller is pushing the obvious lie that X mogul Elon Musk gave a Nazi salute at President Donald Trump's inaugural festivities. He told far-left podcaster Kara Swisher that he’s no fan of the Tesla founder.
“I know he really likes 'Tropic Thunder.' Great. Good for him. But after the Nazi salute — the double Nazi salute — I’m just not into it. Never was into it.”
This week, Musk appeared alongside Presidents Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Worst. Nazi. Ever ...
Bullet time
Filmmakers can’t stop making stories about lovable, wacky, misunderstood hit men. Think “Bullet Train,” “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” and its sequel, “Hit Man,” with Glen Powell. “John Wick.” “Asher.” “Polar.” “Anna.” “Kate.”
That’s a partial list. And it’s about to get longer.
Next up? “Old Guy” with Christoph Waltz. The two-time Oscar winner plays an aging hit man training a new kid on the killing block. Awww.
“The Hit Man’s Bodyguard” alum Samuel L. Jackson is back on the beat. His untitled hit man thriller finds him working alongside his nephew (Daveed Diggs), but if things go south, he might have to eliminate him.
The same industry that lectures us about, well, everything, has no moral qualms making us root for paid assassins.
No regrets for Hamas-happy 'Scream' queen
Boo-hoo, Melissa.
Actress Melissa Barrera is opening up about her brief Hollywood exile following some ghastly comments said after Oct. 7.
'We haven’t seen this before in our country. So Americans who don’t travel, who 80% don’t have a passport, who are uneducated, are in their extraordinary naivete.'
The “Scream” star appeared to be Hollywood’s next “It” girl before she took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That cost her a part in “Scream 7” and appeared to chase some studios away.
“It was quiet for, like, 10 months ... I was still getting offers for small things here and there – I’m not going to lie and say there was nothing — but [the message] was, like, ‘Oh, she probably doesn’t have work, she’ll say yes to anything.’”
What did she say? She called Israeli’s counterattack against Hamas “genocide and ethnic cleansing” and suggested the Jews control the media.
She currently has three new projects in the works, for what it’s worth. Some exile.
Now, compare that to conservative actors who face years of shunning for sharing conservative thoughts. Think Kevin Sorbo, James Woods, and many more.
Sorry, “Scream” queen. We’ll save our sympathies for them ...
Stiller not sorry
Ben Stiller admits comedians work with cultural handcuffs today.
Yes, cancel culture isn’t as muscular as in recent years, and the woke mind virus has taken some body blows of late. Take a bow, Christopher Rufo, Robby Starbuck, and Matt Walsh.
Still, comic actors have to tread carefully when trying to crack us up. Stiller said as much while reflecting on his celebrated 2008 comedy “Tropic Thunder.” The film’s politically incorrect yuks are legendary, including Robert Downey Jr. donning blackface to play a vain actor desperate for Oscar fame and fortune.
Obviously, in this environment, edgier comedy is just harder to do. ... Definitely not at the scale we made it at, too, in terms of the economics of the business. I think even at the time we were fortunate to get it made, and I credit that, actually, to Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. He read it and was like, ‘All right, let’s make this thing.’ It’s a very inside movie when you think about it.
He's right, of course. Stiller also refuses to publicly apologize for making the film, no small measure given the cultural pressures facing him. Remember, blackface sitcom episodes were memory-holed in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 death.
Still, wouldn’t a better reaction be to do it all over again? Make another raucous comedy that’s smart, satirical, and hits below the belt. Stiller has the clout to do it, the celebrity Rolodex, and the wit.
Don’t just lament the cultural scolds. Defy them ...
Stone cold
At least she didn’t call us “Deplorables.”
Actress Sharon Stone lashed out at the election results by insulting more than half the nation.
“We haven’t seen this before in our country. So Americans who don’t travel, who 80% don’t have a passport, who are uneducated, are in their extraordinary naivete.”
Now, let’s see if she follows that up by making good on her threat to leave the country under a Trump 2.0 administration. We may lose a third “Basic Instinct,” but somehow we’ll survive ...
Diddy's OJ play
It’s the only card he has left.
Sean Combs played the Race Card™ during his latest legal maneuver to avoid decades of jail time. The superstar singer/actor/producer is facing charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, part of an elaborate lifestyle that was covered up for far too long.
Suddenly, his infamous “freak-off” parties and lavish lifestyle are under new, withering scrutiny, and his future looks bleak. So he charged his legal team with slamming the prosecution as being racially motivated.
"The government’s arguments that asking his children to post birthday wishes on Instagram and that he is not entitled to publicly express his opinion that this prosecution is racially motivated are, quite simply, an unconstitutional effort to silence him,” read a letter to the court on his legal team’s behalf.
This could be the trial of the new century, and it’s already taking a page from the O.J. Simpson playbook ...
Are you not entertained?
They just can’t help themselves.
Hollywood stars just can't resist making everything about President-elect Donald Trump
Legendary director Ridley Scott is the latest to catch DJT fever, comparing a villain in “Gladiator 2” to the 45th and 47th president.
Denzel Washington’s Macrinus proves formidable in the Hollywood sequel, a power broker who uses the heroic main character played by Paul Mescal for his own nefarious purposes.
He evolved into a very rich merchant selling s*** to the Roman armies — food, oil, wine, cloth, weapons, everything. He maybe had a million men spread around Europe. So he was a billionaire at the time, so why wouldn’t he [have ambitions toward the throne]? ‘Why not me?’ He’s also a gangster — very close to Trump. A clever gangster. He creates chaos and from chaos he can evolve.
Whatever you say, Ridley. The rest of us are over here munching our popcorn and trying to escape from the 24-hour news cycle.
‘I wish I was black’: Ben Stiller bows down to Kamala in HUMILIATING fundraiser speech
The rich and famous love to tell middle-class Americans how to live and who they should vote for, and unfortunately, once funny guy Ben Stiller is no different.
“Is there anything better than Hollywood celebrities on the things that they say?” Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” comments before playing a clip of Stiller speaking during a Kamala fundraiser, during which he says a whole lot of nothing.
“I’m so genuinely excited about the potential to actually win this election,” Stiller began. “What’s happened the last couple of weeks, just the turn of the tide, and that you know, Vice President Harris can actually win this thing if we all just rally around and really take advantage of this incredible energy.”
“I just want a decent person in the White House, you know, a person who cares about democracy more than themselves, who doesn’t lie, who’s not fomenting anger and rage, someone who cares about people, and that’s what Kamala Harris is,” he continued.
Stiller then went on to praise that she’s “like a human being” and “acts like a human being.”
“She has empathy and she has humor and it's beautiful when she laughs because she’s a real person who is reacting to things,” he said, sounding fairly delusional.
Stiller attempted to talk policy by exclaiming that Kamala “wants to put an end to gun violence in this country” and “the fact that she’s going to fight for a woman’s right to choose.”
While his discombobulated and ill-informed speech didn’t seem as if it could get any worse, it got worse.
“I’m Jewish and Irish. I wish I was black. Every white Jewish guy wishes he was black,” he attempted to joke, adding, “It’s just, get out there and vote and donate and like take advantage.”
Want more from Dave Rubin?
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'I must have really f***ed this up': Ben Stiller says 'Zoolander 2' failure made him question if he still knows what's funny
Ben Stiller revealed that the release of "Zoolander 2" didn't sit well with him and made him wonder if his perspective on comedy was still relevant.
Stiller, who has produced amazing comedies like "Dodgeball" and "Tropic Thunder," followed up his 2001 hit "Zoolander" with a sequel in 2016.
The original had seen over a decade of memes and quotes that kept certain themes of the movie alive, making Stiller expect that fans were clamoring for the second film.
"I thought everybody wanted this," Stiller said. "And then it's like, 'Wow, I must have really f***ed this up.' Everybody didn't go to it. And it's gotten these horrible reviews."
With a reported budget of $50 million against making just $29 million domestically (Variety), Stiller appeared to believe that reigniting the old flame was a good move. The film's original stars all returned, including Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell. It also included Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Mila Jovovich, Penelope Cruz, and Stiller's father, iconic actor Jerry Stiller.
Stiller revealed how big a toll the failure took on his psyche during an interview with actor David Duchovny on the "Fail Better" podcast.
"It really freaked me out because I was like, 'I didn't know [it] was that bad?'" Stiller continued. "What scared me the most on that one was I'm losing what I think what's funny, the questioning yourself. ... On 'Zoolander 2,' it was definitely blindsiding to me. And it definitely affected me for a long time."
Stiller recalled that the movie's poor performance affected him so much that it actually stopped him from making films and led to developing more series.
"The wonderful thing that came out of that for me was just having space where, if that had been a hit, and they said 'Make Zoolander 3 right now,' or offered some other movie, I would have just probably jumped in and done that," he added. "But I had this space to kind of sit with myself and have to deal with it and other projects that I had been working on — not comedies, some of them — I have the time to actually just work on and develop."
This stopped the 58-year-old from jumping into a series of other comedy movies that he may have regretted.
"Even if somebody said, 'Well, why don't you go do another comedy or do this?' I probably could have figured out something to do. But I just didn't want to," he explained.
Duchovny, now 63, asked, "Why didn't you want to? Was it anger?"
"It was just hurt," Stiller answered. "Finding yourself in terms of what creatively you want to be and do, I always loved directing. I always loved making movies. I always, in my mind, loved the idea of just directing movies since I was a kid, and not necessarily comedies. And so, over the course of like the next like nine or 10 months, I was able to develop these limited series."
"Sequels are hard because really what audiences want is to feel what the first movie made them feel, but again. That wonder, that newness, that love at first sight. And they're not always going to get that from a sequel — sometimes they're going to get that from just some other film that you make," producer Cody Clarke told Blaze News.
"To me, 'Tropic Thunder' is more of a 'sequel' to 'Zoolander' than 'Zoolander 2' is, because what I loved about 'Zoolander' is that it was this whole other world, completely out of left field, that was so committed to and so uniquely funny. And 'Tropic Thunder' does that in spades, and 'Zoolander 2' doesn't do that at all," he added.
Stiller has either produced or help produce five series since 2020, including "La Flamme," "Severance," "Le Flambeau, les aventuriers de Chupacabra," "In the Dark," and "High Desert."
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Ben Stiller refuses to bend the knee to the woke mob, declares he will make no apologies for 'Tropic Thunder'
Actor Ben Stiller made it clear that he will not bend the knee to the woke outrage mob regarding the controversy surrounding the 2008 movie "Tropic Thunder."
Earlier this week, a Twitter user implored Stiller to stop apologizing for the controversy swirling around blackface-wearing and the mentally challenged farm boy characters in "Tropic Thunder." The fan told Stiller that "liberals" are trying to cancel "Tropic Thunder," but he proclaimed that the movie is "even funnier now with cancel culture the way it is."
Stiller replied on Twitter, "I make no apologies for 'Tropic Thunder.' Don’t know who told you that. It’s always been a controversial movie since when we opened. Proud of it and the work everyone did on it."
In 2018, Stiller admitted that he apologized for his mentally challenged character "Simple Jack," but also said he stood by the premise of the character and "Tropic Thunder." Stiller made the comments while defending Olympic Gold medalist Shaun White, who wore a Simple Jack costume for Halloween.
"Actually 'Tropic Thunder' was boycotted 10 years ago when it came out, and I apologized then," Stiller tweeted. "It was always meant to make fun of actors trying to do anything to win awards. I stand by my apology, the movie, Shaun White, And the great people and work of the Special Olympics."
In 2020, Stiller admitted that "Tropic Thunder" probably couldn't be made in the climate of political correctness.
"Honestly, I don't know if it's the politics as much as just the atmosphere of the political correctness now and everybody being afraid to say something that's offensive," Stiller said.
"But at the time — that's the thing to me that's so complicated about how we approach what's appropriate and what's not in terms of the timeframe that it was made," the Hollywood actor continued. "It doesn't necessarily mean that anything was more appropriate at another time, but you have to look at the context and realize that that's what was happening."
Fellow actor Robert Downey Jr. has also refused to apologize for "Tropic Thunder."
Downey played pretentious Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes "pigmentation alteration" surgery to temporarily darken his skin for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris — who is black.
"I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me, it blasted the cap on [the issue]. I think having a moral psychology is job one. Sometimes, you just gotta go, 'Yeah I effed up.' In my defense, 'Tropic Thunder' is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception," Downey said during a 2020 interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast.
Downey said the controversial acting roles were meant to "hold up to nature the insane self-hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion."
Speaking of "Tropic Thunder," Downey added, "It was impossible to not have it be an offensive nightmare of a movie."
In 2020, Stiller batted away woke backlash and defended the cameo of Donald Trump in the movie "Zoolander."
Could You Make Tropic Thunder Today? w/Robert Downey Jr. | Joe Rogan www.youtube.com
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‘Severance’ Could Have Brilliantly Satirized Our Joyless Technocracy, But Season 1 Falls Short
'Severance' doesn't squander its potential so much as leave so much of its potential untouched.'Well-liked among the ladies': Check out all the celebs who gushed over 'national sex symbol' Andrew Cuomo last year
Readers of TheBlaze likely recall a magical time last year — well, maybe magical for half the country — when far-left New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was all the rage and seemingly could do no wrong.
Oh, that Emmy
In fact, Cuomo received 2020's International Emmy Founder's Award "in recognition of his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world."
Yup, an Emmy.
Cuomo also received 2020's Edward M. Kennedy Institute Award for Inspired Leadership fo the same reason, despite New York at the time sporting the most COVID-19 deaths in America.
Oh, and then there were the celebrities who lauded Cuomo not only for his political swagger, but also because a number of them — self-described "Cuomo-sexuals" — said they were enamored with him in a not-just-friends kind of way. In fact, it was said of Cuomo that he was a "national sex symbol," "well-liked by the ladies," and "single and ready to mingle."
None of the accolades — particularly with regard to Cuomo's apparent animal magnatism — aged particularly well considering he announced his resignation from the governor's chair Tuesday following ramped-up allegations of sexual harassment against him.
But sometimes it does the heart good to indulge in a little nostalgia. That said ... roll 'em!
For the record, it was Ben Stiller who referred to Cuomo as the "Love Gov" and a "national sex symbol" (although allegedly they were the words of Cuomo's brother, CNN host Chris Cuomo). Late night TV host Jimmy Fallon said Cuomo was "well-liked among the ladies" and "good looking."
Late night TV host Stephen Colbert — an unapologetic leftist — attempted to comfort Americans' "perfectly natural" feelings of being "Andrew-curious, if not fully Cuomo-sexual." TV hosts Trevor Noah and even Ellen DeGenerous admitted the same amorous tugs.
Anything else? (Oh, you betcha)
The aforementioned accolades weren't the only ones showered upon Cuomo:
I’m in Love With Andrew Cuomo 💋“ANDY”🎶
— Cher (@cher) 1586926086.0
And who among us can forget TV host Chelsea Handler's revelation late last year that she asked Cuomo out on a date and was hopeful she could "flatten his curve" and they could "apex together" — to say nothing of the fact that during their "repartee" that she "would sexually harass him on his Instagram."
Chelsea Handler Has a Crush on Gov. Andrew Cuomo youtu.be
Finally, check out this snippet from last year's Emmy's presentation to Cuomo, which features some repeat celeb statements — but enough additional gooey stuff to make it worth a watch:
2020 International Emmy® Founders Award Presentationyoutu.be
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