James Toback’s name isn’t familiar to those outside the Hollywood ecosystem. The veteran writer/director still made his presence felt with films like “Bugsy,” “The Pick-Up Artist,” and “Tyson.” Toback got ensnared in the early days of Hollywood’s MeToo movement, established after producer Harvey Weinstein’s precipitous fall from grace.
We’ve spent the better part of a decade hearing liberals cry 'The Handmaid’s Tale' series was coming to life before our eyes (but only during GOP administrations).
Now, six years later, Toback will officially pay the price for his alleged actions. A jury ordered the now 80-year-old filmmaker to pony up $1.68 billion to dozens of women who claim he sexually assaulted them. Forty women testified against him in all.
MeToo’s net spread wide in the late 2010s, snaring some who were later deemed innocent in the court of public opinion (like comic actor Aziz Ansari). Toback’s alleged crime spree spanned four decades.
Justice proved slow but relentless in the end ...
The box office has been bittersweet for Hollywood up until “A Minecraft Movie” gave the industry a jolt. Now, just about any IP is fair game, including the popular card game “Magic: The Gathering.”
Yes, that’s just been greenlit. So has a brand known for its sugary sweetness.
We’ll soon see a movie based on the Hershey candy company. Just don’t expect Wonka-esque gags or bratty preteen girls named Veruca.
“Hershey” will tell the story of Milton Hershey, the key player behind the candy company. Finn Wittrock will play Mr. Hershey, while Alexandra Daddario co-stars as his wife, Kitty. Together, they did more than fuel endless dentist vacations. They also created the Hershey Industrial School, a place where underprivileged children could get free education and housing.
The McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-ins, at the very least, should be delicious ...
Who knows New York better than Billy Joel?
The piano man is one of the state’s most famous citizens, and he’s been playing to packed Madison Square Garden shows for years. And yet he just cut a massive check to a man who turned the Empire State into a pandemic house of horrors.
Disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) oversaw a ghastly COVID-19 regime. He steered vulnerable seniors into nursing homes, where the virus caught up with them and doctored critical death numbers.
A report released in March 2022 by the New York state comptroller later found that Cuomo’s New York State Department of Health “was not transparent in its reporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes” and it “understated the number of deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%” during some points of the pandemic.
That’s not mentioning the sexual improprieties that led to his 2021 resignation. (He still denies the allegations.)
Now, Cuomo wants to become the next Big Apple mayor. And sadly, Joel just wrote him a $50K check to help make that a reality.
Joel’s “New York State of Mind” includes a heaping helping of amnesia ...
We’ve spent the better part of a decade hearing liberals cry “The Handmaid’s Tale” series was coming to life before our eyes (but only during GOP administrations).
Yawn.
That rhetoric helped sell plenty of plain red costumes, but reality never aligned with the fear and loathing. Maybe that explains why the show’s co-star Bradley Whitford made a scene in front of a Variety scribe.
We just aren’t paying attention to Hollywood scare tactics.
Whitford, who previously attacked actress Cheryl Hines for being married to a Trump supporter, raged about you-know-who during an interview tied to the series’ sixth and final Hulu season.
His Variety Q&A took place in a café, but the actor couldn’t stop from yelling while attacking all things Trump.
“Misogyny is at the reptilian brain stem of these right-wing Christian white nationalists. It’s punitive. And, man, I’m pissed at all the people I work for. Like, f***ing speak up.”
That’s what Whitford did in a crowded café. And then some. The Variety scribe, whose Trump derangement mirrors the unkempt star, shares how his voice rose high above the shop’s usual din.
Pipe down, sir.
Maybe Whitford can share a room with fellow TDS patient Rob Reiner.
Gwyneth Paltrow has come under fire recently for the comments she made in an interview with Vanity Fair regarding her latest role in Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” in which her character was in a romantic relationship with the much younger Timothee Chalamet.
“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” Paltrow said in the interview. “There’s a lot — a lot.” However, Paltrow was not familiar with what is called an “intimacy coordinator,” which she didn’t know existed.
“I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on,’” Paltrow recalled telling the coordinator when filming sex scenes for the new movie.
“How did you not know this existed?” Dave Landau comments to Stu Burguiere on “Stu Does America.” “Harvey Weinstein gave her the career she has. You don’t know why there’s an intimacy coordinator on set now? It’s because of what he did to you.”
Paltrow also recalled telling the intimacy coordinator to “step back a little bit.”
“I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but … if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that,’” she told the reporter. Paltrow also then joked that she’s “109 years old” while Chalamet is “14.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it,” Stu comments, noting that there is a “bizarre double standard” when it comes to predatory older men and the glorified older woman.
“Now, maybe in comparison to the horrible things that were done by so many in Hollywood, it doesn’t stand up. Probably, Timothee Chalamet is like, ‘Yeah, this is great,’” he continues.
“You see the parallels throughout life, like when the hot 27-year-old teacher hooks up with the student, everyone kind of just jokes about it and it’s hilarious, and we don’t say ‘statutory,’ those words don’t come out of anybody’s mouth,” he adds.
To enjoy more of Stu's lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein scored a major legal victory on Thursday when an appellate court in New York overturned his rape convictions from 2020.
In February of that year, Weinstein was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual assault in connection with former "Project Runway" production assistant Miriam Haley and third-degree rape in connection with once-aspiring actress Jessica Mann. Though acquitted of three other charges, he was ultimately sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Haley and Mann both testified at trial, but they were not the only alleged victims to do so. Other women also took the stand as Molineux witnesses, or witnesses who help establish a defendant's pattern of behavior. Weinstein was not charged with any crimes against these women, but his defense team still had to cross-examine these witnesses based on their allegations of sexual misconduct.
In appealing Weinstein's convictions, his lawyers argued that the testimony and cross-examination of the Molineux witnesses was unfairly prejudicial against the defendant.
The New York Appeals Court has since agreed. In a narrow 4-3 decision, the court ruled to overturn the convictions in this case.
The appeals court claimed that Judge James Burke, who oversaw Weinstein's trial, made a critical "error" in allowing into testimony "irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts."
The majority also seemed to take aim against Molineux witnesses more broadly, claiming that "the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality."
"At trial, a defendant stands to account for the crimes as charged. Proof of prior crimes and uncharged bad acts are the rare exception to this fundamental rule of criminal law."
The three dissenting judges addressed the issue of Molineux witnesses directly, lamenting that this ruling could ultimately bring the use of Molineux witnesses in sexual assault cases to a swift end.
But the minority justices especially took issue with the majority's "fundamental misunderstandings of sexual violence" committed by powerful men. In fact, the minority practically insulted their panel colleagues, suggesting in their dissenting opinion that the majority may not actually strive for justice in sexual assault cases.
"By ignoring evidence of defendant's manipulation and premeditation, which clouded issues of intent, and by failing to recognize that the jury was entitled to consider [Weinstein's] previous assaults, this Court has continued a disturbing trend of overturning juries' guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence," the dissenting opinion said.
Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Weinstein, claimed to be "cautiously excited" about the ruling but also noted that Weinstein "still has a long road ahead of him."
Indeed, he does. For starters, the overturned convictions do not let Weinstein, now 72, off the hook for the alleged assaults against Haley and Mann. It just means he will have a new trial, should Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg opt to retry him. Bragg claims he will, so long as the victims agree to testify again.
"We will do everything in our power to retry this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault," Bragg said.
Secondly, Weinstein still remains behind bars because he was convicted of rape and sexual assault in 2022 in a separate case in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to serve 16 years for those crimes.
However, Douglas Wigdor, who represents eight Weinstein victims, including the Molineux witnesses, still sees the appellate ruling as "tragic" and a "major step back" for victims of sexual assault.
"Courts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts where they assist juries in understanding issues concerning the modus operandi or scheme of the defendant. The jury was instructed on the relevance of this testimony, and overturning the verdict is tragic in that it will require the victims to endure yet another trial," he said.
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Unlike obnoxious, woke celebrities, Quan modeled genuine gratitude, humility, and grace during his acceptance speech.
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