Crowe slams media over phone toss
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe slammed the media on Thursday for blowing his phone throwing incident out of proportion.
Crowe pleaded guilty earlier this month to third-degree assault, admitting to a judge that he threw a phone that hit a Manhattan hotel concierge in June. A Manhattan criminal court sentenced the actor to a conditional discharge, which means he must not get arrested for one year.
The judge also instructed Crowe to pay a $160 US court surcharge.
"I think it brings things back into perspective," Crowe told reporters in Melbourne when asked if he was happy with the outcome.
"Travelling businessmen get touchy or testy with hotel staff in every major city all around the world," Crowe told reporters in Melbourne. "That doesn't excuse the fact that I lost my temper ... What I did was stupid. I admitted that straight away."
But, he added: "I got a $160 court cost fine for something that would have had more news print about it than some very horrific and specific things that we should know about in our community," he told reporters in Melbourne.
"That is what I mean by getting it into perspective."
Had Crowe been convicted of the more serious charges initially filed against him - assault and criminal possession of a weapon, the telephone - he could have lost his right to work in the United States and might have faced seven years of prison time.
Crowe, 41, who won the Academy Award for best actor in 2001 for Gladiator, has also starred in such films as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man.
The actor said he was planning to make a film next year with Australian director Baz Luhrmann - who made Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom - and fellow Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, but would not provide any details.
AND THE TURKEY GOES TO...
It's time for Hollywood's roll call of shame for The New York Post's seventh annual Turkey Awards.
Ben Affleck may have taken the year off - and his "Gigli" co-star Jennifer Lopez got stuffed into one of the Weinsteins' 2004 leftovers - but Brad, Angelina, Nicole, Ewan and unpromising newcomers like Jessica Simpson and 50 Cent stepped up for critical bastings in another bumper crop of cinematic butterballs. So without further adieu, this year's Tinseltown list of the bad, the worse and the truly ugly:
† Most Likely to Have Their Oscars Confiscated: Adrien Brody chewing the scenery as a wacky veteran in "The Jacket"; Jamie Foxx hamming it up as a Navy flier in "Stealth"
† Cinematic Disaster Prefiguring a Real Disaster: The lame New Orleans-set horror movie "The Skeleton Key"
† Most Annoying Child Actor: Gap-toothed Dakota Fanning, screaming through "War of the Worlds" and "Hide and Seek"
† Most Financially Successful Cinematic Atrocity: The brain-dead and cheesy-looking "The Fantastic Four"
† Most Pointless Screen Reunion: John Travolta and Uma Thurman, fruitlessly trying to rekindle their "Pulp Fiction" chemistry in the uncool "Be Cool"
† War Movie Most Likely to be Used as an Instrument of Torture: The excruciatingly boring "The Great Raid"
† Most Convincing Impression of a Wax Dummy: Paris Hilton, in every single scene of "House of Wax"
† Don't Give Up Your Day Job: Jessica Simpson, impersonating an actress in "Dukes of Hazzard"; Nicole Ritchie as the world's oldest teenager in "Kids in America"; 50 Cent wearing a single expression in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'"
† Most Pointless Remakes: "The Longest Yard," "Amityville Horror."
† Worst Remake: "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" with Robert De Niro and Kathy Bates.
† Worst Sequel: "The Mask 2," a PG-rated horror flick filled with smutty jokes
† Most Totally Misconceived Movie Based on TV series: "Bewitched," starring Nicole Kidman as a real witch who plays one on TV in "Bewitched."
† Least Convincing Femme Fatale: Jennifer Aniston, "Derailed"
† Stick a Fork in Him: Orlando Bloom, lacking presence as a leading man in "Elizabethtown" and "Kingdom of Heaven"
† Most Dubious Demonstration of Versatility: Ice Cube in the witless family comedy "Are We There Yet?" and the witless action comedy "XXX: State of the Union"
† Worst Performance by the Director's Soon-to-Be Ex-Wife: Jenny McCarthy, "Dirty Love" (Director: John Asher)
† Worst Performance by the Director's Wife, Playing his Mother: Tea Leoni, "House of D" (Director: David Duchovny)
† Worst Movie Based on a Story by the Director's Son: "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" (Director: Robert Rodriguez).
† Best Reason to Hope for Ed Burns' Retirement: The hopeless sci-fi adventure "A Sound of Thunder"
† Best Reason to Hope for Gwyneth Paltrow's Retirement: As the world's unlikeliest math genius in "Proof"
† Best Performance in a Bad Movie Full of Overpaid Stars: Bart the Bear, who fared better than Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford or Morgan Freeman in "An Unfinished Life"
† Most Prentiously Empty Art Films: "Palindromes," "Last Days"
† Most Aggressively Stupid Movie Vaguely Based on a Real Person: Tony Scott's execrable "Domino"
† Why Will Ferrell Needs a New Agent: "Bewitched," "Kicking and Screaming," "Melinda and Melinda"
† Most Dubious Pro-Life Arguments: "The Island" (Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johanssen are clones) "Just Like Heaven." (Reese Witherspoon is in a coma)
† Most Embarrassingly Bad Oscar Bid: Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm"
† Three Reasons to Join Naomi Watts in Crying: "The Ring 2," "Stay," "Ellie Parker"
† So Bad We (Almost) Missed Ben Affleck: "Elektra" with Jennifer Garner
† Worst Chemistry: Sean Penn and the much taller Nicole Kidman, "The Interpeter,'' Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman, "Bewitched''
† Best Chemistry in an Appallingly Bad Movie: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, "Mr. And Mrs. Smith"
† Beneath Contempt: "The Pacifier" with Vin Diesel, "Doom" with the Rock, "The Weather Man" with Nicolas Cage "The Perfect Man" with Hilary Duff - or was that Lindsay Lohan?
† And Finally, a Drumstick, er, Drumroll For the Absolute Worst Movie of 2005 and the Decade So Far . . . "Deuce Bigelow, European Gigolo," starring the unforgivable Rob Schneider
Don't watch any of these and you're certain to have a Happy Thanksgiving.