Blake Lively, Harvey Weinstein and Hollywood Makeup Artists Create Teachable Moments at White House

It was all Michelle Obama's idea, gushed mega-producer Harvey Weinstein, as he and some of Hollywood's greatest gathered at the White House Friday for a careers-in-film workshop for high school students out of D.C., New York and Boston.

Weinstein, Whoopi Goldberg, actress Blake Lively and a handful of directors and producers gave the kids a serious pep talk, emceed by CBS News' Gayle King.

Weinstein said that the idea to bring Hollywood to Washington to talk jobs came about around the same time Michelle Obama was being tapped to announce best picture last year at the Academy Awards.

"This is what I want to do," Weinstein recalled the first lady saying in a meeting. (Weinstein also revealed that he couldn't believe it didn't leak that FLOTUS was going to play such a pivotal part in the Oscars. "Amazingly, enough, we did keep in a secret," Weinstein recalled.)

[READ: Country Crooners Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood Knock Obamacare at CMA Awards]

At the afternoon discussion, while Goldberg, producer Bruce Cohen, director Ryan Coogler, actress Naomie Harris and director David Frankel all spouted words of wisdom, Lively's story stood out as she talked about her unexpected path into the business.

Lively said in high school she was disinterested in acting, the family business, and interested in attending an Ivy League school.

"It was the only thing I knew I didn't want to do," she said of a career in Hollywood. "I wanted to get a great education."

To pursue this goal, Lively became class president and practically overdosed on extracurriculars, to the point where the school tried to tell her no.

"They said, 'you can't do this,'" she recalled.

But the acting bug eventually got Lively and high school administrators again came down on her, not allowing her to walk at graduation because she missed too many school days shooting the movie, "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."

"They didn't let me do that because they wanted to shut me down," she said. (Years later, they asked the star to speak at graduation. She said no.)

Lively's breakout role came on the CW soap "Gossip Girl."

Via: US News

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Steyn: Sesame Nation

Apparently, Frank Sinatra served as Mitt Romney’s debate coach. As he put it about halfway through “That’s Life”:

“I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly . . . ”

Mark Steyn

That’s what Mitt did in Denver. Ten minutes in, he jumped right on Big Bird, and then he took off — and never looked back, while the other fellow, whose name escapes me, never got out of the gate. It takes a certain panache to clobber not just your opponent but also the moderator. Yet that’s what the killer Mormon did when he declared that he wasn’t going to borrow money from China to pay for Jim Lehrer and Big Bird on PBS. It was a terrific alpha-male moment, not just in that it rattled Lehrer, who seemed too preoccupied contemplating a future reading the hog prices on the WZZZ Farm Report to regain his grip on the usual absurd format, but in the sense that it indicated a man entirely at ease with himself — in contrast to wossname, the listless sourpuss staring at his shoes.

Yet, amidst the otherwise total wreckage of their guy’s performance, the Democrats seemed to think that Mitt’s assault on Sesame Street was a misstep from whose tattered and ruined puppet-stuffing some hay is to be made. “WOW!!! No PBS!!! WTF how about cutting congress’s stuff leave big bird alone,” tweeted Whoopi Goldberg. Even the president mocked Romney for “finally getting tough on Big Bird” — not in the debate, of course, where such dazzling twinkle-toed repartee might have helped, but a mere 24 hours later, once the rapid-response team had directed his speechwriters to craft a line, fly it out to a campaign rally, and load it into the prompter, he did deliver it without mishap.

Via: National Review

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Desperate Dems Hide Behind Big Bird

by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Mitt Romney sure ruffled a lot of feathers over his proposal to eliminate taxpayer funding for government-sponsored TV. As soon as the GOP presidential candidate singled out PBS for cuts during the presidential debate in Denver, the hysterical squawking commenced.

Left-leaning celebrities immediately erupted on Twitter. “WOW!!! No PBS!! WTF how about cutting congress’s stuff leave big bird alone,” Whoopi Goldberg fumed. “Mitt is smirky, sweaty, indignant and smug with an unsettling hint of hysteria. And he wants to kill BIG BIRD,” actress Olivia Wilde despaired. “Who picks on Big Bird!!! #bulliesthatswho,” actress Taraji Henson chimed in.

Social media activists called for a Million Muppet March on the National Mall to “show your support for Big Bird, Muppets, PBS and all that is good.” The grammar-challenged operatives of George Soros-funded Media Matters for America lectured “right-wing media” to be “more concerned with Americans having jobs insteading (sic) of obsessing whether or not Big Bird has one.”

Indignant PBS, which employs not-so-neutral debate moderator Jim Lehrer, issued a statement decrying Romney’s failure to “understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation.” And President Obama, awakened from his beatdown-induced stupor, scurried the next morning to the safe confines of a campaign rally to mock Romney for “getting tough on Big Bird.”

The kiddie character kerfuffle is a manufactured flap that may play well to liberals in Hollywood and Washington. But beyond the borders of La-La Land, desperate Democrats who cling childishly to archaic federal subsidies look like cartoonish buffoons. Let’s face it: The Save Big Bird brigade is comically out of touch with 21st-century realities.

Via: Michelle Malkin

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