President Obama Calls Out Sony For Canceling The Interview, Says Decision Was A "Mistake"

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 2:14pm PDT       By X17 Staff

Obama is not happy with Sony for letting the terrorists win.

In his year-end press conference, President Barack Obama addressed Sony's decision to pull the controversial film The Interview earlier this week after threats of a terrorist attack.

The President said that pulling the Seth Rogen, James Franco satire allowed a foreign power to censor America, “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States."

The commander in chief continued:
    “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or a news report that they don’t like — or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. That’s not who we are. That’s not what America is about."


The President did say he understand the film company was in a hard situation but that ultimately failed to make the correct decision. “Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage, threats against some employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. Having said that, yes I think they made a mistake," Obama said sternly.

Obama added, “That’s not what America is about…I wish they’d spoken to me first. I would have told them, ‘Do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks’.”

The President's got a valid point -- actually a lot of valid points. We're 'Merica -- we don't negotiate with terrorists!

Poll

Do You Agree With Obama That Sony Shouldn't Have Pulled <em>The Interview</em>?
Do You Agree With Obama That Sony Shouldn't Have Pulled The Interview?
Yes - this is America and censorship ain't cool!
No - the safety of the public and Sony employees was at stake.

 

Report: Kanye West Spent $74K On Daughter North's Christmas Presents

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 1:45pm PDT       By X17 Staff


How can you spend that much on a toddler, you ask? You buy them jewels and new rides!

Kanye West is over the top in everything he does, so it doesn't surprise us that the rapper has dropped more cash than most people make in a year on his daughter Nori's Christmas gifts. Yeezy bought his little princess a $62,000 diamond-encrusted tiara and a $12,000 on a toy replica of his matte black SUV, according to a Heat magazine report. So much for Kim Kardashian claiming she won't let her child grow up spoiled!

So what does the Louis Vuitton Don have under the tree for Kimmy K? "For Kim, he’s got specially commissioned designer clothes, shoes, bags, and jewels, too. Well, actually he asked his stylist to do it," the source dished.

Meanwhile, there are millions of starving children all over the world...

 

Patrick Schwarzenegger Is Soaked After A Champagne Shower At The Club

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 1:05pm PDT       By X17 Staff


At least it looks like he bathed in bubbly, because his shirt is mighty wet!

Patrick Schwarzenegger had a wild night at 1OAK nightclub in Hollywood last night, and the USC student was flying solo without girlfriend Miley Cyrus by his side. The songstress is known for her crazy antics, but it almost seems like she's the good influence in the relationship.

Arnold and Maria's son attempted to hide under his jacket as he waited for his ride to arrive, and part of us thinks he didn't want to be photographed in fear of upsetting his lady love. The twerking queen has gotta know that when the cat's away, the mice will play… or go clubbing and make a complete scene!

 

Anna Paquin And Stephen Moyer's Twins Are The Spitting Images Of Their Parents

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 12:40pm PDT       By X17 Staff


Too cute!

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer arrived at LAX with their twins to fly out of town for the holidays, and we couldn't help but notice how much son Charlie looks like the actress and daughter Poppy looks like the True Blood actor. They each have a mini-me!

You're welcome for your daily dose of adorableness!

 

Stephen Collins Tells Katie Couric: I Am Not A Pedophile

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 12:12pm PDT       By X17 Staff


We are confused -- former Seventh Heaven star Stephen Collins says he's not a pedophile -- but he also said he's "inappropriately touched" young girls. Sounds like he's really splitting hairs here -- and we don't like it so much.

During a Yahoo! interview, the 67-year-old actor told Katie Couric that he was not a "pedophile" because, "A pedophile is someone who is mainly or wholly attracted to children. I'm not." He went on to say, "I had a distortion in my thinking where I acted out in those ways. But I'm absolutely not attracted, physically or sexually attracted to children. I'm just not."

Umm dude, you already admitted on tape that you molested three young girls -- that pretty much makes you a pedophile in our book! You say potato -- we say pedophile.

In October, Collins' sexual abuse was brought to light when TMZ published audio recordings that the actor's estranged wife, Faye Grant, secretly taped during a therapy session in which he confessed to abusing three young girls.

Couric's full interview airs tonight on 20/20 on ABC.

 

Jennifer Lawrence Looks Fab From The Waist Up

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 11:45am PDT       By X17 Staff


Half of this outfit is great, the other half not so much!

Jennifer Lawrence touched down at LAX yesterday, and we thought the actress looked adorable in a J.Lo-esque black floppy hat and black sweater, but then we saw those terrible pants and leopard slippers and changed our mind!

J.Law might want to change before meeting up with rumored new beau Gabe Polsky. The Oscar winner and the producer have been spending time together lately, which has set tongues wagging that the A-lister has moved on from Chris Martin. We're not sure she's done with the Coldplay rocker, though!

 

Justin Bieber Parties With Pals Despite Losing 3.5 Million Instagram Followers

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 11:15am PDT       By X17 Staff


Nothing's too much when you are the Biebs. The "Baby" boy spent a whopping $2,700 for a dozen friends to do some after hours go-karting at the MB2 Raceway on Wednesday.

Bieber and his crew, which consisted of a bunch of drop-crotch pants-wearing dudes and "good friend" Hailey Baldwin, were celebrating a bud's birthday on Wednesday night at the raceway.

The blonde "Boyfriend" crooner also had some fun when he partied down with will.i.am at the launch of the former’s I.amPULS smartband on Wednesday.

We're happy to see JB is still having some fun despite no longer being dethroned as the most popular person on Instagram. The 20-year-old lost 3.5 million followers after the "Instagram Rapture" earlier this week. Turns out that %15 of the singer's followers were fake accounts.

Take that, you unruly Canadian! Kim Kardashian is the new king of Instagram.

 

George Clooney Slams Sony For Pulling The Interview

Posted on Fri Dec 19th, 2014 10:30am PDT       By X17 Staff

He makes a good point!

George Clooney slammed Sony for cowering in fear of North Korea and the hackers in a new Deadline interview, and the actor also gave his insight on why Kim Jong Un was successful in his intimidation tactics.

"Here’s the brilliant thing they did. You embarrass them first, so that no one gets on your side. After the Obama joke, no one was going to get on the side of Amy, and so suddenly, everyone ran for the hills," he explained. "Look, I can’t make an excuse for that joke. It is what it is, a terrible mistake. Having said that, it was used as a weapon of fear, not only for everyone to disassociate themselves from Amy but also to feel the fear themselves. They know what they themselves have written in their e-mails, and they’re afraid," he continued.

    "On November 24 of this year, Sony Pictures was notified that it was the victim of a cyber attack, the effects of which is the most chilling and devastating of any cyber attack in the history of our country. Personal information including Social Security numbers, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers and the full texts of emails of tens of thousands of Sony employees was leaked online in an effort to scare and terrorize these workers. The hackers have made both demands and threats. The demand that Sony halt the release of its upcoming comedy The Interview, a satirical film about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un," read a petition drafted by Clooney and his agent Bryan Lourd.


The problem was nobody was brave enough to sign it!

"This is just where we are right now, how scared this industry has been made. Quite honestly, this would happen in any industry. I don’t know what the answer is, but what happened here is part of a much larger deal. A huge deal. And people are still talking about dumb emails. Understand what is going on right now, because the world just changed on your watch, and you weren’t even paying attention," he lamented.

The A-list star then laid out how this situation has set the tone for future filmmaking. "What’s going to happen is, you’re going to have trouble finding distribution. In general, when you’re doing films like that, the ones that are critical, those aren’t going to be studio films anyway. Most of the movies that got us in trouble, we started out by raising the money independently. But to distribute, you’ve got to go to a studio, because they’re the ones that distribute movies. The truth of the matter is, of course you should be able to make any movie you want. And you should take the ramifications for it. But to say we're going to make you pull it, we're going to censor you — that's a whole other game. That is playing in some serious waters, and it's a very dangerous pool," he noted.

The Monuments Men star then concluded his argument by slamming the notorious dictator!

"I just talked to Amy an hour ago. She wants to put that movie out. What do I do? My partner Grant Heslov and I had the conversation with her this morning. Bryan and I had the conversation with her last night. Stick it online. Do whatever you can to get this movie out. Not because everybody has to see the movie, but because I'm not going to be told we can't see the movie. That's the most important part. We cannot be told we can't see something by Kim Jong Un, of all f***ing people," he fumed.

We couldn't agree more!

 

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