Paul O'Donnell: November 2009 Archives

Entertainment Weekly and the usually astute, if crabby, Get Religion blog did their best to raise a kerfuffle last week about news that Dimension Films is hoping to market "The Road," the new apocalyptic movie thriller, to conservative Christians. Dimension has hired A. Larry Ross Communications, the media p.r. firm famous for representing Billy Graham, causing EW (Adam Vary's article is not online) and GR to question whether it's seemly to reach out to pastors on behalf of an R-rated, high-end zombie flick--and whether Christians will take the bait.

Let's out with it: Jared and Jerusha Hess, who wrote (both of them) and directed (Jared) the 2004 independent film "Napoleon Dynamite" are Mormons. Can we move on now? We cannot. The Hess family religious affiliation gets brought up in nearly every story about them--which are proliferating now that the couple are promoting their new movie, "Gentleman Broncos." I don't have any problem with asking people's religion, except that, having raised it, nobody seems to know what to make of the fact.

Here are three reasons to suspect that you're a fame-a-holic. One, your life is a disaster. Two, even when you come to terms with your mistakes and apologize to those you've hurt, you have a microphone clipped to your lapel. Three, you have turned your life over to your spiritual counselor, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Yesterday Jon Gosselin, erstwhile star of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" finally admitted he had a fame problem at a strange self-denunciation ceremony held at Boteach's West Side synagogue. "I don't sing. I don't dance. I'm not a Nobel peace-prize winner," he told the special gathering, hosted by Boteach. "I just had eight kids and I had a show on TLC."

But Gosselin has a way a to go before anyone would call him truly in recovery. Though he swore off dating his girlfriend, Hailey Glassman, until his divorce from Kate was final and recognized that he had embarrassed his wife publicly, it's a bad sign that Gosselin can't seem to get off-camera. Instead of being guided by what his celebrity rabbi calls "the moral obligations inherent in celebrity," Gosselin might try a different sponsor to help him into anonimity. Paging Kevin Federline?