Sharon Stone and Chinese Karma

Sharon Stone spoke last week at the Cannes Film Festival about Tibet and the earthquake in China, and said China was suffering from bad karma because of the way it deals with the Tibet situation.

This caused an uproar, and Stone has had to apologise for her "erroneous words and deeds" which she admitted have saddened and angered the Chinese.

Dior China has decided to drop all her ads, in which she promotes anti-aging skin-care products, from their advertising in China.

This appears to be swift karma for Stone.

Sydney Pollack, Director of The Way We Were and Out of Africa

Sydney Pollack, who directed movies such as The Way We Were and Out of Africa has died at the age of 73.

His films in the 70's and 80's captured the movie-goers' spirit of the time and therefore their attention. There was then a sense of idealism, and young people expressed this by engaging to a greater or lesser degree in political activism. The Way We Were was a movie that spoke of a conflict between idealism and success in the material world. Starring Robert Redford and Barbra Striesand, the haunting and melancholic movie theme song was also great hit.

Tootsie, which is a pretty zany movie with Dustin Hoffman dressing up as a woman, was also a great commercial success. Anyhow it was something different.

Pollack's other movies included Havana, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and recently The Interpreter. He took on a bit of acting himself and appeared in A Civil Action and Husbands and Wives. He even did appearances on the TV shows The Sopranos and Just Shoot Me.

Indiana Jones Faces Russian Music

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may be banned in Russia for distorting history.

Communist leaders have called for the movie to be banned. They worry that Russian teenaged movie-goers would get a completely misinformed view of what really happened.

The movie is set in the time of the Cold War, when the West used to perceive the omnipresence of evil KGB agents.

The Russian leaders are angry because the film depicts the Communists as almost starting a nuclear war in 1957, and running throughout the U.S. with crystal skulls, not to mention that Cate Blanchett plays the role of the evil Communist KGB agent to perfection.