“Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of their country … Quit whining … If you ask your mother, the answer will be ‘no’ … Your move … You don’t have to stay in the lines! … You don’t have to do it just because he says so … Let’s outlaw high-heel shoes … Girl, I can’t wait to get this girdle off … Don’t put my social security into the stock market … The only one with sense enough to leave the Alamo was a woman!” This interesting advice has been printed on wOw before, as a tribute to the late onetime governor of Texas, Ann Richards.

It would be great if Ann were alive today to tell us what she thinks about Texas Governor Rick Perry and his suggestions, which he now denies, that the state should secede from the union. 

The Texans who elected Rick Perry are mighty dumb but that doesn’t mean all Texans agree with him. And I thought we already proved back in 1865 that states cannot secede from the union.

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Back on May 13, I warned you that Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” would be the big shock at the Cannes Film Festival and probably would end up X-rated, indeed, if it can find a distributor. Lars is often described as “an enfant terrible” of cinema. Remember his “Breaking the Waves” and “Dogville”?

Laughter, applause and boos were heard at the end of “Antichrist.” There is lots of beautiful photography but some find male and female castration and physical torture hard to take. And the jury is made up of half women. “Lars at his worst!” said one onlooker. The audience laughed loudest when a talking fox appeared to state in the movie, “Chaos reigns!”

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OK, we all know that Martin Scorsese will tackle a big-screen version of the tumultuous life and great career of Frank Sinatra. But did you know that Leonardo DiCaprio supposedly wants in on the role of Old Blue Eyes? “They” – the ubiquitous, shadowy “they” – say that Leo has hired a vocal coach so as to approximate the tough, tender, swinging sounds of Sinatra. 


Leonardo DiCaprio/Image © Colin Chau/Flickr

Well, now, Leo is a great actor, and I loved him as another real-life icon, Howard Hughes in “The Aviator.” But as HH, he only had to pretend to fly airplanes and huddle reclusively in dark rooms, toward the end. Perhaps DiCaprio can sing, but for sure any biopic of Sinatra, directed by Scorsese, is going to utilize Frank’s actual voice! This project is sanctioned by the Sinatra family, and I doubt they’d have it any other way.

As for Leo, he’d be brilliant because he almost always is, but … he’d have to get really skinny to play young Francis Albert, who was a mere wisp of a thing with a big bowtie when he made ‘em faint at the Paramount Theater in Manhattan back in 1942.

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In the new Playboy for June, Shia LaBeouf, Hollywood’s hottest young actor – aside from “Twilight” neck-nibbler Robert Pattison – comes clean about the car wreck that so badly injured his arm. He says, “I had a whiskey and three beers. It’s a good amount of alcohol. It’s enough to be impaired, for sure. I’m not going to start speaking law and stuff, but the fact that I ever got into the car was a mistake. What I remember of the accident is my finger lying in the street, a fireman putting me into an ambulance and my going into surgery. That’s it.” Shia’s hand is permanently damaged, and he says, “My hand is like a tattoo that says MISTAKE. It’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”



When writer David Hochman asks Shia if he still drinks, the actor answers honestly: “To say I haven’t had a drink is not true. I’ve had drinks, but it has been a leveling-out process. It’s coming to terms with my urges and limitations … drinking is not my problem. Being uncomfortable is my problem. Insecurities are my problem. Fear is my problem.”

Uncomfortable. Insecure. Fearful. Remember, folks, when you pick up the weekly glossies and tsk, tsk – the stars are just like you and me.