Charlie Sheen Headed for Jail

The Left Coast Report: A Political Look at Hollywood

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Charlie Sheen Headed for Jail
2. Johnny Depp’s ‘Gilligan’s Island’ Nightmares
3. Heidi Montag Ditches Spencer Pratt
4. 'Sex and the City 2' Accused of Disrespecting Islamic Culture
5. Remembering Art Linkletter, Eternal Optimist
 

1. Charlie Sheen Headed for Jail

Charlie Sheen will spend time in a jail cell as part of a reported plea deal with prosecutors for an alleged Christmas Day domestic altercation with his wife, Brooke Mueller.

The “Two and a Half Men” star was arrested in Aspen, Colo., after an incident in which he allegedly brandished a knife.

Earlier this year the actor had entered a not guilty plea to third-degree assault, menacing, and criminal mischief. A trial date has been set for July.

Sheen's legal team has been engaged in behind-the-scenes talks with prosecutors in an attempt to obtain the shortest time behind bars for him, if he agrees to a guilty plea.

Under the deal, he will plead guilty to a misdemeanor, which will likely place him in Aspen’s Pitkin County Jail for up to 45 days.

The plea is expected be entered in court on June 7.

It’s a safe bet that TV execs at CBS really care about the one big question: Will the star of the network’s #1 rated comedy be released in time to produce new shows for the fall season?

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2. Johnny Depp’s ‘Gilligan’s Island’ Nightmares

Johnny Depp is having some really strange dreams.

The actor revealed that his role as the Mad Hatter in the recent “Alice In Wonderland” film has resulted in some restless nights and unsettling nightmares.

“I had hideous dreams. But I have a tendency to have somewhat dark dreams,” Depp told Contactmusic.com.

He was only able to recall one of them, which involved “Gilligan’s Island.” The cult TV series is reportedly due to be made into a feature film.

“I did have a dream once that Alan Hale, the skipper of ‘Gilligan's Island,’ chased me through the streets of Hollywood,” Depp shared.

He didn’t offer an explanation as to why he would be running from the gentle skipper, unless in Depp’s dream the captain was trying to talk Depp into doing a sequel to “Sweeney Todd.”

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3. Heidi Montag Ditches Spencer Pratt

The MTV reality show, “The Hills,” has featured Heidi Montag and her spouse, the ever-exasperating Spencer Pratt.

After Heidi arranged to have a record number of cosmetic surgery procedures (10) in a single day, the publicity didn’t seem to last much longer than a Warhol 15.

Now the reconstructed star has announced that she’s splitting up with Spencer.

“I am not Heidi Pratt, I am Heidi Montag,” she posted on her Twitter page.

The reason for the breakup is especially instructive. Her rep told TMZ, “Heidi is looking to move out due to all the fake bad press that Spencer controls.”

Fake bad press? Sounds like the same explanation for why folks are decidedly dumping the mainstream media.

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4. 'Sex and the City 2' Accused of Disrespecting Islamic Culture

“Sex and the City 2” scored below box-office expectations following its opening last week. It came in second to yet another sequel, “Shrek Forever After.”

The film has been criticized for being impolite, insensitive, and disrespectful to the Middle Eastern culture.

The plot of “Sex and the City 2” takes place in Abu Dhabi, and the movie’s crude content caused the Islamic emirate to block production there. As a result, the sequel had to be shot in Morocco.

It was foreseeable that the wearing of revealing outfits by the four New York thrill seekers would produce the reaction it did in the Islamic nation.

However, a scene in which characters engage in public foreplay and another in which Samantha waves condoms and shouts out sex talk in a Middle East marketplace may explain why numerous critics have accused the film of “anti-Muslim” material.

There is also a defining scene where the girls are threatened by Arab males and subsequently saved by a group of Muslim women who proceed to strip off their burqas and reveal some skimpy clothing they were secretly hiding underneath.

The movie may be “blatantly anti-Muslim,” according to Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter. But Farber also thinks it is “proudly feminist.”

One of the movie’s stars, Cynthia Nixon, apparently felt the need to defend the sequel.

She told the Hollywood Reporter, “Samantha is disrespectful, but Samantha is disrespectful in New York and she is disrespectful in the Middle East and she just really doesn't care.”

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5. Remembering Art Linkletter, Eternal Optimist

We recently lost a most beloved entertainer, Art Linkletter.

With more than his share of obstacles and tragedies in life, he remained optimistic, and through the course of personal hills and valleys, he climbed to the pinnacle of success.

Linkletter hosted the Golden Age TV shows of the 1950s and ‘60s, “People Are Funny” and “House Party,” the latter of which had Linkletter’s best-known segment called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

A pioneer of a different kind of reality show, he had the uncanny ability to elicit surprise statements from ordinary folks, especially kids. He was brilliant at what he did, making children feel relaxed enough to be themselves and say whatever it was that was on their minds. The gift he had would produce consistently hilarious spontaneous programming.

Linkletter’s wholesome programs would have few venues in our present-day culture. Branson, Mo., might welcome him, but I’m hard-pressed to think of too many others. Can you even imagine a show today with a title that used the word “darndest” in it?

The intellectual elite and many of the television critics of his day hated Linkletter and his shows. But Middle America couldn’t get enough. “People Are Funny” was on NBC on radio and television for a combined 19 years. The show was in the Top 10 for more than a decade. “House Party” had a combined 25-year run on CBS radio and television and stayed at the top of the daytime ratings for its entire run.

Linkletter’s real-life story sounds as if someone may have made the whole thing up.

Born on July 17, 1912, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Arthur Gordon Kelly could have been a poster child for the “Choose Life” crowd, if there were such a dilemma back then. His unwed mom put him up for adoption when he was just a newborn. A middle-aged couple that had tragically lost two children took him in. It wasn’t until he was 12 years old that young Art, while rummaging through his father’s desk, would discover that Fulton and Mary Linkletter were not his birth parents.

Linkletter’s adoptive father was a one-legged street preacher. Neighborhood corners provided the family’s stage and pulpit. It’s where they all performed and prayed together. He would later say that the religious faith instilled by his dad had been a wonderful gift.

At 16 years of age, Linkletter became what used to be called a “hobo,” hopping freight trains across the country and working odd jobs. He eventually took employment in a bank on Wall Street, right before the 1929 crash.

San Diego would later be the place where he would start his radio broadcast career. He and quiz show producer John Guedel would come up with an audition tape of a program with a rather generic title, “People Are Funny.” The rest, as we say, is television history.

Art and his wife Lois had five children. With his own kids, though, unlike his TV alter ego, Linkletter would have to deal with a tremendous amount of heartache. In 1969 his daughter Diane leapt to her death from her sixth-floor flat. Drugs were said to be involved. In characteristic form, Art used the tragedy to become an anti-drug advocate.

Linkletter’s son, Robert, died in a car accident in 1980. Another son, Jack, died of lymphoma in 2007.

“Life is not fair ... not easy,” he said in an interview. “But I'm an optimist. Even though I've had tragedies in my life, and I've seen a lot of difficult things, I still am an optimist.”

No doubt he still is.