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Alexhead wrote:No shit, best wishes to Ebert... I though he got a stomach staple, had no idea it was cancer! That blows.
Jay Leno to the rescue...
Leno to sub for film critic Roger Ebert
15 minutes ago
Jay Leno's thumbs are about to get a workout. "The Tonight Show" host is filling in as a guest critic on the movie review show "Ebert & Roeper" while regular co-host Roger Ebert recuperates from cancer surgery.

Leno's appearance with Richard Roeper will air nationally Saturday and Sunday. He will be the first of at least two guest hosts — director Kevin Smith is slated to host in a show airing Aug. 12-13.

"This promises to be a special experience," Roeper said in a statement. "He's (Leno) been a great friend to our program over the years, and it's a real privilege to have him join me across the aisle."

Ebert, 64, is at a Chicago hospital, where he's in good condition "and improving each day" from surgery last month to repair complications from a previous cancer surgery, the show said in a statement.

This week's episode of "Ebert & Roeper" was taped in Los Angeles to accommodate Leno's schedule.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

82
Oh man, I was wondering when Fetzer would begin prancing around in the laugh-a-minute farce lovingly known as the 9/11 conspiracy community. It came sooner than I expected!
9/11 conspiracy theories persist, thrive
By JUSTIN POPE
AP Education Writer
Kevin Barrett believes the U.S government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the twin towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners.

These men aren't uneducated junk scientists: Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose mainstream academic job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists.

Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely discredited ideas about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, persists and even thrives. Members trade their ideas on the Internet and in self-published papers and in books. About 500 of them attended a recent conference in Chicago.

The movement claims to be drawing fresh energy and credibility from a recently formed group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

The organization says publicity over Barrett's case has helped boost membership to about 75 academics. They are a tiny minority of the 1 million part- and full-time faculty nationwide, and some have no university affiliation. Most aren't experts in relevant fields. But some are well educated, with degrees from elite universities such as Princeton and Stanford and jobs at schools including Rice, Indiana and the University of Texas.

"Things are happening," said co-founder James Fetzer, a retired philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who maintains, among other claims, that some of the hijackers are still alive. "We're going to continue to do this. Our role is to establish what really happened on 9/11."

What really happened, the national Sept. 11 Commission concluded after 1,200 interviews, was that hijackers crashed planes into the twin towers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, filed 10,000 pages of reports that found fires caused by the crashing planes were more than sufficient to collapse the buildings.

The scholars' group rejects those conclusions. Their Web site contends the government has been dishonest. It adds: the "World Trade Center was almost certainly brought down by controlled demolitions" and "the government not only permitted 9/11 to occur but may even have orchestrated these events to facilitate its political agenda."
Fetzer's involvement tells us everything we need to know about the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. He's got his name on books that quite seriously insist that not only is the Zapruder film a fake, but that every single photo pertaining to the JFK assassination is forged, too. The people who believe the moon landing was staged have more credibility.

Heck, even the photo "expert" who claimed the pictures of OJ Simpson wearing the Bruno Magli shoes are fake has a stronger grasp on reality - and he's a JFK conspiracy nut, too, by the way. During the Simpson civil trial, it was brought out that his only photographic know-how came from years of repairing photo processing machines. But hey, what a yarn he could spin. And that's all that matters, isn't it? :D
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

83
The idea that the goverment was behind bringing down the World Trade Center is just plain silly. We all know it was the aliens who did it. I have just as much proof of that as they do of their theory.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

84
Hey, Loose Change hit the big time! Paula Zahn's talking about it now on CNN.

A reporter asks the filmmakers that, rather than the massive conspiracy they claim existed, isn't it actually more likely that the government is just vastly inefficient and it completely failed to connect the dots before 9/11?

One of the kids says, "To believe that, you'd have to believe that the government is the Three Stooges."

I bet no one told him the truth about the Tooth Fairy, either.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

85
Our man Ollie weighs in again on the state of the world:
Stone says Bush set U.S. back 10 years
By CIARAN GILES
Associated Press Writer
Filmmaker Oliver Stone blasted President Bush Thursday, saying he has "set America back 10 years." Stone added that he is "ashamed for my country" over the war in Iraq and the U.S. policies in response to the attacks of Sept. 11.

"We have destroyed the world in the name of security," Stone told journalists at the San Sebastian International Film Festival prior to a screening of his latest movie, "World Trade Center." ...

"From Sept. 12 on, the incident (the attacks) was politicized and it has polarized the entire world," said Stone. "It is a shame because it is a waste of energy to see that the entire world five years later is still convulsed in the grip of 9/11.

"It's a waste of energy away from things that do matter which is poverty, death, disease, the planet itself and fixing things in our own homes rather than fighting wars with others. Mr. Bush has set America back 10 years, maybe more."

The director of blockbusters such as "Platoon," and "JFK" said the U.S. reaction to the attacks was out of proportion.

"If there had been a better sense of preparation, if we had a leadership that was more mature," he said. "We did not fight back in the same way that the British fought the IRA or the Spanish government fought the Basques here. Terrorism is a manageable action. It can be lived with," said Stone.

Stone rejected allegations that U.S. authorities may have known about the attacks in advance and said the real conspiracy came after.

"I think that conspiracy-mongering on 9/11 is a waste of time," he said. "The far greater conspiracy occurred after 9/11 when basically a neo-cabal inside our government hijacked policy and went to war. That was as broad a conspiracy as we can get and it was about 20, 30 people. That's all, they took over and all these books are coming out and they are pointing it out," said Stone.


"This war on Iraq is a disaster. I'm disgraced. I'm ashamed for my country," he said. "I'm also ashamed that America has attacked itself with its constitutional breakdowns. I'm deeply ashamed."

In the United States' favor, Stone posited that it's not responsible for all the world's problems.

"You can't see that the United States is responsible for all the evil in the world because you can see so many dictators and so many bestial acts all over the world now. .... There is something in the human heart, the international human heart, that is evil," said Stone.

"That's the evil that turns its mind and ears on humanity and is able to say `I can kill a person in the name of God or religion.' This is not a human being, this a fanatic. And I fear that fanaticism is the result of our overreaction to 9/11," said Stone.
Who'd ever expect Ollie as the voice of reason in this sad, sorry saga we've witnessed the past few years?
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

86
More on Ollie, courtesy the IMDb:
Stone Hires Conservative To Write Script About Afghan Conflict
Director Oliver Stone, an outspoken Hollywood liberal who has condemned the war in Iraq, has raised eyebrows by his choice of Cyrus Nowrasteh, a political conservative who wrote the controversial ABC miniseries The Path to 911, to write his next movie, Jawbreaker. The movie is to be based on a book by former CIA operative Gary Berntsen that is critical of efforts by the Clinton administration to end Taliban rule in Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden. Nowresteh, who last year participated in a panel at the Liberty Film Festival titled "Rebels With a Cause: How Conservatives Can Lead Hollywood's Next Paradigm Shift," has claimed that critics of The Path to 911 reacted with "hysteria" towards its depiction of a Clinton White House that avoided taking a firm approach to radicals in the Middle East.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

87
Stone should be making a move about the 20-30 man cabal that drove us into Iraq that he mentions above, much more useful an exercise in propaganda IMHO.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

88
Bush- and war-bashing has gotten too trite and predictable to make a good enough movie.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

89
True in some respects, but nobody's made a full-on big budget big-star version of it, though...
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

90
You just may get your wish, A-head:
Stone Confirms He's Planning Film About Afghanistan War
Oliver Stone, often criticized for bringing liberal conspiracy theories to the screen, has confirmed that he is considering a film about the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman, in an item headlined "Oliver Stone Still Looking for Conspiracies," reported Wednesday that at a private dinner Monday night for the DVD release of his World Trade Center Stone told him that the Afghanistan movie is one of five new projects he is mulling. "No one has ever told the real story," Stone reportedly remarked. Last October, Variety disclosed that Stone and Paramount had optioned rights to the book Jawbreaker about the Afghanistan conflict but had kept the deal quiet in order to prevent World Trade Center from being drawn into controversy.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

91
There are going to be a whole load of very pissed off servicemen if he dares to make a movie about what he thinks is going on in Afghanistan. The notion that someone would make a movie about a war that they have not personally engaged in pisses me the fuck right off.

92
Draegonis wrote:The notion that someone would make a movie about a war that they have not personally engaged in pisses me the fuck right off.
If you go by that, then no one could ever make movies about the Civil War. SK couldn't have made FMJ or Paths of Glory, and we never would've seen Apocalypse Now.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

93
Eh, I guess I mis-worded that - SK at least had people working for him to advise who had served. I just think making a movie about a war without any experience of that war is not only innacurate but dis-respectful to those who actually did serve. I'm biased though, so whatever.

94
couple of things here -

1) i think that ollie would make a film more about the reasons behind the war than 2 hours of war footage, and
2) there are so many cameras in so many different aspects of war now that you really don't need to be there to know what it was like. just interview a few people from both sides that were there and take a look at all the CNN archival footage.

95
If the movie goes ahead, I've no doubt Ollie will load up on technical advisers, just as he did with his Vietnam movies, JFK, Nixon and World Trade Center. Regardless of the story, he'll at least get the sights, sounds and details right.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

96
Last I checked Ollie was a true-blue veteran of a war, which sets him apart from the likes of Kubrick, Spielberg and many others who tackled the subject. He's probably travelled over there too. In any case, I'm sure you'll get a solid Ollie-ized version of the tale...
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

97
Speaking of Ollie, let's see what that boy's been up to lately...
Stone Stuns Comedy Audience with Serial Killer Joke


Hollywood director Oliver Stone shocked the audience at last night's British Comedy Awards in London by joking about the recent murders of five prostitutes. The Suffolk killings, thought to be the work of a serial killer, have dominated British headlines this week and Platoon movie-maker Stone's bad-taste gag was met with horror by the celebrity audience including Sacha Baron Cohen and Charlotte Church. On presenting the Best Comedy Film prize to Wallace And Gromit creator Nick Park, the American quipped, "It's great to be back in England. I feel like Jack The Ripper (prolific 19th century serial killer) days are back. Nothing ever changes here." Realizing the gag had bombed, Stone jeered, "You're a lovely crowd."
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

98
well, he speaks sooth. it is very similar, and with all the technology available, the masses are handling it about the same. it's going to make a great A&E and/or Discovery Channel show, the comparisons of the two. probably won't be made for a couple of years - they'll give the bobby's plenty of time to solve this one first.

99
Alexhead wrote:Speaking of Ollie, let's see what that boy's been up to lately...
Stone Stuns Comedy Audience with Serial Killer Joke


Hollywood director Oliver Stone shocked the audience at last night's British Comedy Awards in London by joking about the recent murders of five prostitutes. The Suffolk killings, thought to be the work of a serial killer, have dominated British headlines this week and Platoon movie-maker Stone's bad-taste gag was met with horror by the celebrity audience including Sacha Baron Cohen and Charlotte Church. On presenting the Best Comedy Film prize to Wallace And Gromit creator Nick Park, the American quipped, "It's great to be back in England. I feel like Jack The Ripper (prolific 19th century serial killer) days are back. Nothing ever changes here." Realizing the gag had bombed, Stone jeered, "You're a lovely crowd."
Speaking of Borat:
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Intrepid Kazakhstan TV reporter Borat Sagdiyev was in Iran at a Holocaust denial conference, and accordingly unaware that the hit comedy about his exploits garnered two Golden Globe nominations Thursday.

Or so claimed a prepared statement from Sacha Baron Cohen, the British actor who plays the anti-semitic title character in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Cohen was a best comic actor nominee, and the film a competitor in the best movie musical or comedy category, Globes organizer the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. announced.

"I am extremely honored," said Cohen. ...

But then the irrepressible comedian couldn't resist adding, "I have been trying to let Borat know this great news but for the last four hours both of Kazakhstan's telephones have been engaged. Eventually, Premier Nazarbayev answered and said he would pass on the message as soon as Borat returned from Iran, where he is guest of honor at the Holocaust Denial Conference."
:mrgreen:
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

100
Heh, fantastic :mrgreen:

I bought my brother in law the first season of Ali G but am tempted to keep it and give him a 6 pack instead.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."