Exclusive: This Must Be The Place Clip

Sean Penn hits the roadAt first glance this clip of Sean Penn's kooky rock star in This Must Be The Place looks like Robert Smith's take on The Straight Story. Which isn't too far from the truth. Any resemblance to the Cure frontman is purely deliberate in Penn's performance - Smith was a conscious jumping-off point for the radically tousled ex-rocker Cheyenne - but the road trip he's embarking on here owes even more to The Boys From Brazil.Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, whose political thriller Il Divo won him a stack of plaudits in 2009, This Must Be The Place sees Cheyenne tap into his inner Expendable to hunt down the Nazi who killed his father. Helping in his unlikely quest is the ever-wonderful Judd Hirsch as a Simon Wiesenthal-alike Nazi hunter and the also-ever-wonderful Frances McDormand as Cheyenne's long-suffering wife. Moments of Lynchian weirdness sit cheek-by-jowl with a poignant exploration of a troubled soul. If you're a fan of the leftfield end of the arthouse spectrum, Sean Penn's bold choices or just have a soft spot for his Hair Bear hair, this is definitely for you. Click on the new poster below for a closer look.{This Must Be The Place poster}This Must Be The Place is out via Trinity Films on April 6.

Bill Maher Makes $millions of Obama Donation

According to his longtime publicist Sarah Bigger, this happened tonight within the finish of Bill Maher’s comedy specialCrazyStupidPolitics: Live from Plastic Valley which streamed survive Yahoo. Maher presented an inspection and pledged a person donation of $millions of dollars to Obamas SuperPAC, Points of interest USA Action. According to Bigger, he referred to that obtaining a rustic governed by Obama rather than the Republican candidates might be worth huge amount of money and mentioned this really is really the very best investment In my opinion I really could make. More youthful crowd advised other wealthy liberals like themselves to accomplish the identical.Maher’s pledge comes at any time when Hollywood financial support for Leader Obama’s re-election remains ebbing rather than flowing. Maher’s longrunning Cinemax show, Real-time With Bill Maher, is presently within the tenth season. Though his liberal sights are very known, Maher tried to provide panel site visitors of several political persuasions to voice a spectrum of sights.Within the nearly 2 decades hosting political talk shows, Maher has acquired 27 Emmy nominations but has not won in what is the longest such losing streak on record.Maher also provides written 5 political bestsellers.He alsoperforms no less than 50 dates yearly in Las vegas too as with offered-out theaters all nationwide. Therefore I guess all this suggests that Maher needs to produce good on his political donation pledge. What this might to his ratings will probably be another story. However Cinemax doesn’t depend on advertising.

Safe House Director's Previous Feature Finally Hitting Theaters

It's only taken a few years, but the success of director Daniel Espinosa's Safe House means that Harvey Weinstein is finally ready to let the filmmaker's Swedish-language hit Easy Money -- ne Snabba Cash -- off his shelf on July 27. The distributor cited the eventual Stateside publication of the film's source novel (as opposed to Safe House's $83 million-and-counting domestic haul) as his motivation: We love the movie, but we needed the book to be out here, he told the LAT. Right. As always with Harvey, all release dates are subject to change and/or revocation at any time, so remember to mark your calendars in pencil. [LAT]

Prez pumps H'w'd for renewed support

Despite his rising poll numbers and signs of disarray among potential rivals, President Obama warned hundreds of donors at a posh Holmby Hills estate Wednesday night that this year's presidential campaign "is not going to be easier this time, it's going to be harder this time.""I'm going to need you," he said. "You're going to carry this thing like you did in 2008."Obama spoke for nearly a half an hour outside the home of producers Colleen and Bradley Bell, best known for "The Bold and the Beautiful." With tickets starting at $250 per person, the fund-raiser took on the air of a rally, with thesps Jack Black and Rashida Jones giving remarks and the Foo Fighters performing songs like "Hero," "Walk" and "Learn to Fly." Dave Grohl performed a solo of the song "Everlong.""Love the Foo Fighters," Obama said of the recent Grammy winners. "They were tired of winning so many awards, so they said, let's do something else tonight."Obama later attended a $35,800-per-person dinner for about 80 people in a giant dining room in the Bells' home, with George Clooney, Jim Belushi, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Nicole Avant, former ambassador to the Bahamas, among the guests. Will Ferrell was listed among the co-hosts, but could not make it because he was in production.According to a pool report, Obama's speech did not address an issue that has, by and large, pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley: a pair of anti-piracy bills in Congress that were sidelined after White House criticism and a storm of protest from the netroots.In fact, as his campaign seeks to deploy celebrity surrogates as a way to boost enthusiasm, the starry introduction for Obama seemed to belie studio chiefs' unhappiness over the way that the White House staked out its position.Instead, Obama focused a great deal on the economy -- "We're starting to see the economy rebound," he said -- and he spoke to the frustrations of the sputtering recovery.He told the crowd, "We did not realize how long it was going to take. We didn't realize how profound the nature of the crisis was. ... We did not fully comprehend how deep this crisis would be. ... But don't underestimate the nature of the change we've made."Obama was to travel to Orange County on Thursday morning for more fund-raising, and to San Francisco for a trio of events that were expected to draw donors from Silicon Valley.Earlier on Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the Obama campaign expected to continue to enjoy support from both the showbiz and tech communities, and are "absolutely committed to working to find solutions to the problem of copyright infringement and intellectual property rights infringement, but we need to do it in a way that doesn't restrict Internet freedom. We believe that it's a both/and, not and either/or proposition." Contact Ted Johnson at ted.johnson@variety.com

Netflix Debuts First Original Series Lilyhammer

Steven Van Zandt Netflix has released its first original series Lilyhammer. Netflix and Kevin Spacey on deck with House of Cards The eight-episode season stars The Sopranos' Steven Van Zandt as ex-gangster Frank Tagliano, who makes its way into the witness protection program and should proceed to Norwegian. Obviously, it does not take lengthy before Frank strays from following your rules. Lilyhammer may be the to begin many projects Netlix has planned. House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, is striving to have an finish-the-year start.

Cheers & Jeers: Jimmy Fallon Rocks Indiana

Tim Tebow and Jimmy Fallon Cheers to Jimmy Fallon for beginning off a great quantity of shows in Indiana. Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine. The host of NBC's Late Evening needed his show on the road to the web site of Sunday's Super Bowl and acquired large laughs along with his old SNL friend Tracy Morgan - who amusingly states his biological father is ex-Dallas Cowboy Came Pearson - and Nfl celebrity Tim Tebow, who taunted Fallon that his performance as "Tim Tebowie" was "somewhat pitchy. "Fallon's comedy was on key, however, whether he was creating the Roots (with special site visitors the Indiana Symphony) to accomplish freestyle raps about audience people or kidnapping Bob Costas inside the killer bit "Mind Swap." With three more shows to go to from Indiana - plus a postgame special Sunday - Jimmy is NBC's late-evening MVP. What can you consider Late Evening in Indiana? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!