September 1st, 2008

John McCain recently called Barack Obama “the biggest celebrity in the world.” If so, then it’s appropriate Hollywood’s biggest celebrities would come out to celebrate Obama and this week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver last week.

Among the stars included Oprah Winfrey, Scarlett Johansson, Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw, Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lopez, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, Charlize Theron, Angela Bassett, Ashley Judd, Kirsten Dunst, Chevy Chase, Forest Whitaker, Josh Brolin, Hill Harper, Fran Drescher, Annette Bening, Spike Lee and Jamie Foxx.

And it wasn’t just actors. Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson sang the national anthem, and singers Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Kanye West and the Black Eyed Peas were also on hand.

Celebrities publicly endorsing candidates and making a spectacle at the convention is both criticized and embraced by citizens – even among the celebrities themselves.

Private Practice and Wings star Tim Daly, who is the president of the nonprofit group Creative Coalition that brings stars together to discuss important issues, thinks celebrities have every right to discuss their viewpoints.

“Performers are citizens and in the U.S., we are allowed to talk about our beliefs. It’s also the privilege of people not to listen,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “The interesting thing about celebrity involvement is that they’re the only group of so-called lobbyists who stand to gain nothing from what they do, except to support the causes they believe in.”

Yet, Kid Rock tells Showbiz Tonight he thinks stars shouldn’t publicly endorse candidates. In fact, when a big star announces who he or she picked, he doesn’t want to vote for that candidate.

Nevertheless, the stars will continue to mingle with politics. Daly told the L.A. Times the Creative Coalition will also be bringing stars to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul this week.

Three-time Emmy winner, James Gandolfini, best known as “He’s-not-all-that-bad-a-killer” Tony Soprano, married his fiancé, Deborah Lin, in Hawaii over the weekend.

Sources say the bride wore a white, Italian lace gown as she strolled down the aisle accompanied by harp. Gandolfini’s 8-year-old son, Michael, a child by his first wife, was the best man.

Johnny Depp, the lovable, swashbuckling antihero of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, is a kid at heart.

Strapping on a guitar, Depp reunited with his old band, The Kids, for a fundraiser in Florida over the weekend. The eclectic thespian and band mates performed for 90 minutes to a crowd of 2,500 to raise money for the Dan Marino Foundation, an organization aimed at helping kids with special needs.

The event, dubbed the Annual Sheila Witkin Memorial Reunion Concert, honors The Kids’ late manager, who was a prominent rock manager in South Florida. This makes the second annual performance by Depp and his Kids’ band mates, having performed at last year’s concert for the noble cause.

It seems like Neil Young is always touring. Now with a new box set ready to hit stores, he’s on the road again for a fall tour which kicks off on Sept. 20 in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The show there will be a benefit for Farm-aid.

Young is a musician who always seems to have an agenda. He doesn’t but he’s been very outspoken about his discontent for our current president and Republican party politics in general – going as far as recording songs like “Lets Impeach the President” and “Looking for a Leader” for 2006’s Living with War album.

The resulting tour for that album (with CSNY) drew the ire of many pro-Bush Young fans with the singer even receiving his share of death threats. The experience is documented in the documentary feature of the tour, an experience Young has no desire, obviously, to ever revisit.

The 2008 fall tour comes at a time when the Bush presidency will, thankfully, be ending. Young will be at a stop in Omaha, Nebraska on election night and there will surely be some celebrating taking place once that show has ended.

The tour makes its way to St. Paul, Minnesota at Xcel Energy Center on Oct. 14. For a complete list of tour dates you can visit neilyoung.com/tour.

Hamlet 2, the new comedy starring Steve Coogan, is ridiculous. Ridiculous only in a way where a film whose premise is a high school staging of a sequel to Hamlet can be.  

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the best part of the film.  The musical sequence from the play, ‘Rock Me Sexy Jesus’ was absolutely stellar.

The movie itself tracks a supremely untalented Tucson drama teacher and his quest to unleash his creative juices. Apparently, his stagings of famous films as the highlight of the schools dramatic season was not going so well. Those juices form Hamlet 2, a play involving Hamlet, Jesus and light sabers.

The cast (including Amy Poehler, Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Shue) is hilarious, but the script lacks a cohesive element.  It seems more like little vignettes revolving around the same cast of characters. Also, I still don’t have a really good idea of the plot of Hamlet 2.

ALSO! Just a P.S. for other geeky musical theater nerds like me out there: Spring Awakening starlets Skylar Astin and Phoebe Strole are in the film as the star theatrical students.

This mamma to be certainly has not let pregnancy take away her fun, funky and punk fashion. Simpson-Wentz stays chic and trendy and maintains her fresh, rocker edge, People Magazine reports.

Here in this leopard print head band, her fav black skinny jeans and a loose black tank with lengths of gold around her neck, Simpson-Wentz hangs out with Miley Cyrus at the taping of the MTV FNMTV. 

In her signature pregnancy look, Simpson-Wentz rocks oversized aviators and a long, flowing black-n-white Indah maxidress.  She certainly is a funky mom to be. 

I told you this girl loves maxidresses. Here she is again in a bright Juicy Couture with Coach Sandals staying cool and chic at lunch with hubby Pete. 

She also keeps it sexy with these towering tan platforms, oversized gold chain necklace and a black slim minidress, supporting husband Pete’s at the opening of his new bar in Chicago.

All mothers have their own maternity must haves, for Ashlee Simpson-Wentz its rocker mom.