People: Step forward, or goose egg?
Two hot-button issues in Germany – the Nazi era and Scientology – are being pushed by a new film in which Tom Cruise plays the country’s most-famous anti-Hitler plotter.
Cruise, one of Scientology’s best-known adherents, is set to play Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg – the aristocratic army officer executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944 – in director Bryan Singer‘s new film “Valkyrie,” due in 2008.
Germany’s government considers Scientology a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of vulnerable people.
“This is a slap in the face to all upstanding democrats, all resistance fighters during the Third Reich, and all victims of the Scientology sect,” Social Democratic lawmaker Klaus Uwe Benneter said on his Web site.
The film’s producers in turn are accusing politicians of making hay of a nonissue.
“This is not a Scientology film, it is a Bryan Singer film, and Bryan Singer is Jewish … and they want to make this film to show that during the Nazi regime there was heroic resistance,” says Carl Woebcken, head of the German studio that is slated to co-produce the film.
Less time for Sizemore
Tom Sizemore‘s 16-month prison sentence for violating probation in a drug case has been dramatically reduced.
The “Saving Private Ryan” actor received 213 days of credit for time he has already spent in jail and two live-in drug programs, leaving him with about nine months in state prison. He’ll likely serve about half of that.
Sizemore was arrested again last month after authorities found methamphetamine in his car.
Bending the truth
Victoria Beckham has accepted undisclosed damages from a celebrity magazine that claimed the crew of her new reality special considered her “picky, demanding and rude.”
The former Spice Girl and wife of soccer star David Beckham sued Star magazine over an April article that claimed staff working on the NBC show had also described her as “full of herself and not very nice.”
“Victoria Beckham: Coming to America” will air July 16.
When the bee sings …
Former boy-bander Joey Fatone will host “The Singing Bee,” a sing-along variety game show set to premiere July 10 on NBC.
Contestants will try to accurately sing the lyrics to the most popular songs of all time in a variety of karaoke-style competitions. If they mess up, they’re out of the game.
Fatone, one of the members of ‘N Sync, was a runner-up on the fourth season of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
Quoteworthy
Comedian and late-night talk host Jimmy Kimmel, on his recovery from last week’s emergency appendectomy: “I feel much better now and am delighted to announce that Brad and Angelina may choose to adopt my appendix and give it a loving home.”
The birthday bunch
Director Mel Brooks is 81. Actress Kathy Bates is 59. Actress Mary Stuart Masterson is 41. Actor John Cusack is 41. Actress Danielle Brisebois (“All in the Family”) is 38. Actress Tichina Arnold (“Everybody Hates Chris”) is 36. Country singer Kellie Pickler is 21.