James Hirsen
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Cameron Diaz, Tom Hanks, Charlize Theron and Quentin Tarantino are among the stars expected to make the scene at Cannes Film Festival.

Among the 18 films vying for the influential Palme d’Or prize are “Shrek 2,” “The Ladykillers” and the factually challenged Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911.”

Stars, though, are likely to come face to face with a group of angry French workers, who, coincidentally, also happen to be actors, directors and show-biz employees themselves. The workers already managed to stop several other festivals last year.

Some of the films that were going to be delivered to the French Riviera town for the event were recently delayed for several hours, when a hundred protesters blockaded the warehouse in which the movies were stored. The laborers have been clashing with the French government for months. They’re fuming over changes in France’s unemployment fund. Their intention is apparently to use the Cannes festival as a platform for their cause. No doubt they’re hoping that their famous labor-loving counterparts will give them support.

The Left Coast Report will be interested to see if Hollywood libs choose principle or capital.

Lauren Hutton’s Terror Watches

Lauren Hutton, one of the granddames of supermodels, recently returned from Tanzania.

What she brought back with her was a bunch of watches decorated with pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Maybe Hutton has forgotten that, in 1998, terrorists bombed a U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. Two hundred fifty-eight people met an untimely death, and more than 5,000 individuals were injured.

When asked by the New York Daily News about whether the trinkets were anti-American, Hutton responded: “I've been feeling pretty un-American myself, lately. But then I didn’t approve of the Roman Empire either when it went stomping around the world.”

The Left Coast Report thinks Hutton has too much un-American time on her hands.

Walter Cronkite’s MTV Landing

As if MTV isn’t weird enough, later this month amidst the grunge, punk and rap, Walter Cronkite, formerly known as the “most trusted guy in the nation,” will make his MTV debut.

Now before you go thinking the guy is putting together a senior boy band, you should know that the news anchor is set to host a special called “Choose or Lose: Work It” for the video-oriented audience.

The program will air in late May and focus on the politics of employment for young adults. It’s part of MTV's whole Choose or Lose campaign. Supposedly, it will follow the ups and downs of five people who are seeking the same entry-level management job.

MTV News exec Dave Sirulnick believes that Walter Cronkite will “add gravitas” to the program.

The Left Coast Report says, Gravitas? Most MTV viewers will be asking, Who the heck is Walter Cronkite?

PETA Pounces on Michael Moore

As if the manufactured controversy with Disney weren’t enough to have to endure, now Michael Moore has PETA on his behind.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has selected Moore as one of the “Flab Five,” a quintet of celebs that the group will award with a “Veg Eye for the Fat Guy” makeover.

According to PETA, “the ‘Downsize This’ author has been doing too much supersizing.” It recommends that “before he gets too big for his britches, Moore should cut out the stupid white meat and embrace tofu.”

In addition to Moore, another PETA pick is “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard. The organization recommends a change of nosh “if the ‘Velvet Teddy Bear’ doesn't want to become known as the ‘Velveeta Teddy Bear.’”

The remaining targets of PETA’s rudeness are Luciano Pavarotti, described as “three tenors rolled into one,” “West Wing” senator John Goodman, who PETA says “looks like he’s been indulging in a few too many Buffalo wings,” and Monday Night Football host John Madden. The five celebs will be given PETA’s “Veg Eye” makeover package, which includes a vegetarian starter kit and celebrity cookbook.

Still on an insensitive roll on its Web site, PETA asks, “Do you have a chubby chum in need of a refrigerator redux?”

The Left Coast Report renames the stunt “Black Eye for the PETA guy.”

Hollywood Snubs John Grisham

Besides looking like Sen. John Edwards’ older bro, John Grisham is one of the best-selling fiction writers of our generation.

He has taken the legal thriller genre to new heights. His best-selling books “The Firm,” “The Client,” “The Pelican Brief,” “A Time to Kill” and “Runaway Jury” were lobbed onto the big screen, too, each generating lots of dough for Hollywood insiders.

With that kind of leverage one would think Grisham would have no trouble finding a distributor for his latest flick, called “Mickey.”

Not so. Mel Gibson’s recent experience proved that Hollywood clout isn’t necessarily helpful when the content of your flick doesn’t match Tinseltown’s prevailing worldview.

What? Does Hollywood have a problem with Little League baseball now?

The novelist’s memories of playing Little League in Southhaven, Miss., in the 1960s were the inspiration for “Mickey.” Grisham wrote the script and produced the movie.

The plot involves a widower named Tripp Spence who finds himself on the run with his 12-year-old baseball phenom son, named Derrick.

Tripp and Derrick assume new identities and move to Las Vegas, which forces Derrick (whose new name is Mickey) to skip his final year of eligibility in a Virginia Little League. Mickey's newly adopted identity reduces his age by a year. So he plays the following year as still a 12-year-old, believing that the deception will end with the final game of the regular season.

As it turns out, the league Mickey joined has a dream season and a shot at reaching the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

Although the movie stars Harry Connick Jr. and is directed by Hugh Wilson (who, incidentally, directed “The First Wives Club,” “Guarding Tess” and episodes of “WKRP in Cincinnati”), Hollywood has taken a pass on distributing the film. So Grisham and Wilson are distributing it on their own, circumventing the normal channels of Hollywood.

“We got tired of talking to distributors and studios,” Grisham told the Associated Press. “That went on for a couple years. It was a pretty frustrating experience, and we finally made the decision several months ago that we’d made the movie totally independent of Hollywood and we could also distribute it that way.”

The Left Coast Report points out that Hollywood has already chucked traditional mom. Now it’s passed on Little League baseball. Could it be that apple pie’s next?

The Left Coast Report is put together by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax.

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