Styles & Scenes

Is "World Trade Center" truth or Hollywood fiction

If anyone else wonders why Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” feels simplistic and, at times, plodding, Rebecca Liss’s Slate piece on the film, is required reading.

“Rather than make a movie about the nearly unbelievable story of how Jimeno and McLauglin were first located by Dave Karnes, a former Marine turned accountant, and the truly death-defying rescue that ensued, Stone lingers on the time the men spent trapped and the anguish of their families as they wait for answers.

This is a case where Hollywood can't be accused of hyping reality—the real rescue was much more amazing and harrowing, especially when you hear the men tell it themselves.”

And Liss heard the men tell it themselves. She was one of the first reporters to interview many of the guys involved in the heroic rescue of Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLaughlin. She produced a widely praised segment for 60 Minutes in October 2001, wrote a piece for Slate a year later and offered to share her reporting with the filmmakers who told her they “had everything they needed.”

Turns out they really didn’t.

Chuck Sereika, an unlicensed paramedic and the first to reach the trapped Jimeno, tells Liss that he felt the entire rescue, as portrayed in the film, is  “fiction." She writes, “the facts are so distorted that he didn't recognize what he was seeing as what he lived through.”

In Stone’s film, Sereika’s rescue props go to New York City police officer Scott Strauss, a member of the elite Emergency Service Unit. And she notes several other firefighters vital to the rescue effort who were left out of the movie.

As for Karnes, the ex-Marine whose character in the film makes a bizarre biblical-like pronouncement before stepping on the rubble to search for survivors? He didn’t want to be involved in the film at all. Instead, he re-enlisted in the Marines, as he told Liss, “to go after the people who did this so it never happens again.”

Smart move, as anyone knows who has had their story told by moviemakers who think they know how to tell a better one.

Photo Credits: Got an amazing and inspiring real-life story of American heros? Don't tell it to Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone, seen at the New York premiere of "World Trade Center" with producers Brad Grey and Gail Berman.
WireImage/Jim Spellman

Hollywood braces for "Blood Diamond" War

Get ready for the big "Blood Diamond " PR War between Team De Beers and Team Zwick.

Nelson Mandela will act as a spokesman for the international diamond cartel to  defuse any negative publicity caused by Ed Zwick's new film “The Blood Diamond,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimoun Hounsou, due out in December.

The film, a fictional tale, is set during the all-too-real ‘90s decade of African civil wars when rebel armies seized control of diamond mines, traded conflict diamonds for arms and murdered, raped and mutilated thousands of innocent people.

The film’s barely finished shooting but the World Diamond Council has already asked Zwick, the film’s producer/co-writer/director to add a disclaimer at the end that puts the nasty rough diamond trade in the past and the current industry in a better light.

Honest, those creepy rebels with nasty amputation habits are gone. Today's mining conditions are way improved and diamonds are now carefully documented thanks to the Kimberly Process, a voluntary industry agreement made in 2000, which tracks and certifies the movement of rough diamonds.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International don’t buy it. But if you do, I’ve got some great New Orleans property near some lovely new levees you might also like. Zwick’s response? He gave it to E! Online yesterday.

A bitter battle is clearly brewing. But how will Team De Beers, headed by Mandela, do against Team Zwick? Let’s compare the players. Ready for their turn at bat are the “Blood” actors, all politically active and involved with a variety of humanitarian causes.

DiCaprio is outspoken about ecology and global warming issues. His website was redesigned and launched in 2004, the same year he joined the boards of NRDC and Global Green USA. Hounsou was born in Benin, near Niger. He participated in Amnesty International’s Live for Darfur concert series last fall. It's safe to say that he has strong opinions on the illicit diamond trade’s impact on Africa peoples. And Jennifer Connelly was just named Amnesty International USA's (AIUSA) Ambassador for Human Rights Education last winter.

But Zwick may also have a trump card, an actress who could give his team an unbeatable hand....

Before we say Good Night, Arianna

Arianna Huffington has said she's really, really sorry to her readers and promises to never run unattributed quotes on her HuffingtonPost blog site again.

But she's never apologized to George Clooney. And she still maintains she had permission to run his quotes as a blog.

But Camp Clooney is pleased as punch that their March 15 statement about her blog being nothing more than recycled interview quotes, not a blog written by Clooney, has sparked discussions about blogdom ethics, honesty and the attribution of quotes.

Clooney’s publicist Stan Rosenfield maintains, "For the hundredth time, what Huffington calls a misunderstanding was, and still is, a blatant misrepresentation. She did not have permission to use George’s quotes and make it look like he wrote a blog,” says Rosenfield. “We asked her to clarify this on March 13 and when she refused, George released his statement on March 15.”

So before we bid "Good Night, and Good Luck" to the George Clooney blog brouhaha, there are a few statements Arianna made that bear examination for the public record.

In a March 15 Envelope blog item, explaining why she sought permission from freelance publicist Lisa Taback to use Clooney's old quotes in a blog, Huffington explained: "I had met Lisa Taback at every “Good Luck” event and she was always with George. She told me to just send her the compiled quotes for the blog and that she would run it by George. The fact that it was for a blog was very unambiguous. Naturally, I didn't think twice about it."

After reading the story, Taback told The Envelope,  “There are a couple of inaccuracies,” including Huffington's description of their meeting and phone conversation.

Taback said that while she had met Huffington years ago when doing PR for a Michael Moore film, she didn't meet Huffington at any “Good Luck” events, not even the only “Good Luck” event Taback organized at the GM penthouse in the Beverly Regent Wilshire. The Feb 12 reception was hosted by talk show host Larry King and honored Clooney and “Good Night, and Good Luck” co-screenwriter Grant Heslov.

"Arianna didn't attend,” says Taback. "Her sister did." Huffington's producer pal Lawrence Bender brought her sister, Agape Stephanopoulus, to the reception.

That week Huffington called Taback about using a quote from Clooney for her blog. Taback sent an email on Feb. 17 to her Warner Independent Pictures boss Laura Kim seeking permission  to reprint a partial quote from the Guardian.

A copy of Taback's email fowarded to The Envelope from Kim indicated that after Huffington's sister attended the "Good Night" event, Huffington's interest was sparked in reprinting Clooney's Guardian quote.

Kim's Feb. 18 response gave Taback the go ahead.

Kim explained to The Envelope: "Arianna requested to use an attributed quote from The Guardian. Larry King's interview was never brought up. I gave the okay because everyone does that, uses a quote and links to the original article."

Taback also recalls a phone call prior to the Clooney blog posting, when she asked Huffington about quote attribution. “I said, "You are going to source the quotes to the Guardian, right?' And Arianna replied, “Naturally.”

In an interview with The Envelope, Huffington denied that this phone conversation took place. "All our contact was done by email," Huffington said.

On March 13, the day the faux blog went up, Taback says she spoke to Huffington by phone in the Caribbean and emailed her boss, Kim, who sent us a copy of the missive:

"I spoke to Arianna --  She is on a boat right now...     They are moving the blog down to the bottom of the HuffPost immediately.  She is afraid if she removes it completely that it will cause more attention.   They are replacing the item on Yahoo immediately.   It will be removed completely from the blog by tomorrow.     Arianna is sorry if it was misleading – they never attribute where comments originally appeared.  (although I told her it was misleading.....)Please call me if you want to discuss more..."

So we think that ends this chapter from our end. Over to you, blogosphere.

Photo Credit: Hey, maybe Arianna Huffington got permission for Clooney's Larry King quotes from Shawn King, whom she really did meet at Shawn’s Skybar album launch party.
(Eric Neitzel/WireImage)

Say you're sorry, Arianna

The ongoing tussle between George Clooney and Arianna Huffington isn't cooling off. It’s heating up.

This week Clooney told New York Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove that he's furious after his phone conversation with the Huffster. He said Arianna told him that all this publicity since his statement denying writing a blog for her Huffington Post website - a blog she compiled using several of the Oscar-winner's unattributed past quotes - could be "bad for his career."

But judging from the responses of Arianna’s readers to this incident posted on her site, it looks like it’s her blog career that may be in jeopardy.

Respected blogosphere denizens, such as the The New Republic's "The Plank" blog and web-guru Jeff Jarvis, are baffled less by her blunder in not securing approval from Clooney and his uberpub Stan Rosenfield than by her  insistence that it was kosher to post Clooney’s quotes without attributing the sources, Britain's Guardian newspaper and Larry King’s CNN talk show.

“Public domain” is how she justified using his unattributed quotes in our March 15 phone conversation for a March 16 story in the LA Times Calendar section. C'mon. Every journalist knows they're not supposed to run quotes without attributing them. Writers have been forced to resign from major newspapers, including USA Today, when it was discovered they'd used quotes from other sources without attribution.  And bloggers routinely link to their sources when referencing stories and/or quotes. It's not just ethical and non-copyright infringing, it's also polite and inclusive.

Arianna’s stubborn insistance that she did nothing wrong is raising hackles. And suspicions.

“She got caught because Clooney wouldn't let get her get away with it,” an inside source told me.  “Now everyone is wondering if this is the first time this has happened. Given her arrogant reaction, she may have bull-dozed her other celebrity bloggers like this - used past quotes - and they've just kept quiet about it.”

And people are wondering about the other celebrity bloggers on her long contributor list that includes Walter Cronkite, Diane Keaton, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, John Kerry, Norman Mailer and Chris McMillan, Jennifer Aniston's hairdresser. So if any of you famous folks are unhappy, now's the time to speak out.

On the surface, Arianna getting people to write for her site who know nothing about blogging, including etiquette and ethics, appears to be a generous attempt to include, in her words, “some of the most interesting voices of our time that are not already there.”

Gosh, how else would the voice of Larry David, whom she says phones his blogs in from a cell phone when he's on the set of his HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm, be heard?

But make no mistake. Famous names are also a huge draw for her almost 1-year-old blog site. And admitting that she goofed using unsourced quotes for Clooney's concocted blog might hurt business because it raises the issue that this is the norm, not the exception, on HuffPo. But that 's exactly what's happening with her staunch refusal to take responsibility for a serious mistake.

The bottom line on the Clooney/Huffington tussle is this: if Arianna would simply admit making an error and apologize - to Clooney and her readers - for not crediting the quotes, all would be forgiven. Of course, she should also promise never to do it again. Ever. Since she's relatively new to the blog world, it’s almost a slam-dunk that she'd get a pardon. Or at least a second chance.

Gosh, has the longtime political observer learned nothing from watching politicians such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush, even California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger do that always winning “Admit and Apologize” act?

Photo Credit: Arianna Huffington and HBO's "Real Time" host Bill Maher, also one of her many celebrity bloggers, pose for the  paparazzi outside Vanity Fair's star-studded Oscar bash on March ,5 2006.
(Eric Charbonneau/WireImage)

Hollywood's liberal Oscars conspiracy

Remember when Michael Moore, winner of the 2003 best documentary Oscar for “Bowling for Columbine," used the podium to make an anti-war, anti-Bush statement, inviting the other doc nominees up onstage with him?

"We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times," Moore said that night. "We live in a time where fictitious election results give us a fictitious president. We are now fighting a war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious 'Orange Alerts,' we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you're time is up."

George Clooney remembers. Especially since he knew about it beforehand, the triple Oscar-nominee revealed Friday to Leonard Maltin (and the Arlington Theatre audience) at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Modern Masters Awards ceremony.

Seems the day before the 2003 Oscars, Clooney was invited to meet with Moore, Gore Vidal, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn and like-minded others to talk about what Moore would do at the Oscars.

“Moore actually told us all what he was going to do if he won and there was a long discussion with everyone," Clooney recalled. "And I’d never been to the Oscars, so I was like, Well, I don’t know..”

“Then, like six months later I was watching Bill O’Reilly on some TV talk show about whether or not my political views were ruining my Hollywood career, and he started talking about how all these Hollywood liberals are, they all get together beforehand to talk and plan what they’re going to say or do at the Oscars. And someone else said, ‘Now, c’mon, Bill. Think about what you’re saying. Do you actually think all these actors get together in a room and plan out what they’re going to do.  Do you really believe that?”

“And O’Reilly said, 'Well, yeah, I know, I know it sounds a little crazy'…”, said Clooney, imitating the conservative political wonk's gruff voice. "But, in fact, he's right and that’s exactly what happened!”

Photo: What, me liberal? George Clooney has the last laugh, poking fun at conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly during his Q&A with Leonard Maltin at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Modern Master Awards.
(Chris Weeks / WireImage)