The silver lining of this plot to kill Barack Obama and 102 black youths? That it was foiled, of course. But a quick perusal of the Stormfront boards, an Internet haven for white nationalists around the world, yields another consolatory fact: even a lot of white power shitheads believe it's insane to kill people for no reason at all.
Having won his invasion of privacy lawsuit against News International last week, Foruma 1 chief and S&M enthusiast Max Mosley filed formal libel charges against the media company's News of the World for claiming his videotaped spanking romp carried a Nazi theme. He's also going after Germany's largest newspaper, Bild, which repeated the News' claims and licensed its video and photos. Also, in Germany, isn't accusing somebody of Nazi cheerleading kind of a serious accusation to get wrong?
Remember this photo, at right? It was part of our item "The 2 Photo Scandals Rocking Hollywood," which also included a possible Iron Man infringement. But this photo was at the center of Slate's argument that United Artists may have Photoshopped a pic of Claus von Stauffenberg — who Tom Cruise plays in the ill-fated Valkyrie — to make the would-be Hitler assassin look more like the high-profile star playing him, all in an effort to appease Germans who were furious a Scientologist would be playing a national hero. Except as Slate now concludes in a correction: CONTINUED »
Two eyebrow-raising Hollywood scandals popped up this week, one including an actual eyebrow! Must we make Tinseltown worry about anything other than budgets and insuring Lindsay Lohan?
First up, the battle between Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment and paparazzo Ronnie Adams, who snapped a photo of Robert Downey Jr. on the set of big-budet action flick Iron Man while the movie was still filming.
As producers for the big and small screen continually battle back against potential spoilers, the studio demanded Adams remove the photo from his website, where he had posted it. He refused, but they eventually got to his web host, who yanked his account.
And then … his photo resurfaced. In Iron Man.
That's according to Adams' lawsuit, which claims that after all its complaining, Marvel used the copyrighted photo – after removing Adams' watermark – in a scene in the movie, showing a newspaper article headlined "Who is this Ironman." Fiscally savvy Adams, filing suit against the studios, now wants to get remunerated for his unsolicited efforts in contributing to this "pivotal scene."
So that's one photo scandal. This next one features Tom Cruise and Nazis! And an eyebrow! CONTINUED »
Things are different in Europe. In Spain, maintaining a healthy body mass index is more important than free speech, and in Germany, belittling the Holocaust isn’t controversial so much as it is illegal.
The November issue of German Vanity Fair ran an interview with Horst Mahler, a neo-Nazi whose attitude toward the Jews is uncomfortably retro. Mahler denied the Holocaust in the piece, which is illegal in Germany. Now Vanity Fair is being sued by Arno Lustiger, a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor.
Vanity Fair has offered no response beyond, “Eak, this is awkward.”
Editorial Director
