‘The Company You Keep’
Director: Robert Redford
Stars: Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf
Rating: R
3 (out of 5) Globes

The radical Vietnam-era organization Weather Underground has long been a favorite weapon of the right with which to bludgeon the left. Liberals, for the record, tend to be conflicted on the subject. The 2002 documentary “The Weather Underground” explores the circumstances that birthed the group, as well as the regret and remorse felt (by some of them, anyway) over their less defensible deeds. Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep,” meanwhile, is downright tortured over acts the film only supports up to a point.

Redford’s “Lions for Lambs” also teemed with chatting — endless, hilariously didactic chatting — but “Company” avoids that one’s mistakes. Where “Lambs” simply sought to prove an already-arrived-at point (the Iraq War was bad,) “Company” trods upon less sure ground, genuinely searching for a way to bridge noble intentions with, shall we say, questionable deeds. Redford’s character is made overly likable — he’s even fitted with a very young daughter whom he adores —but that we’re not made fully hip to his past makes him a refreshingly wobbly moral center to a film that also gives one character (violent activist-turned-suburban mom Susan Sarandon) a major scene to explain how her pride overshadows her guilt.

The chase picture plot that breaks up the discussions is, not surprisingly, sleepy and silly, especially with Shia LaBeouf trying very hard to play an intrepid small town reporter out to get a national scoop. “Lambs” featured Redford actually giving a stern talking-to to America’s youth (embodied by Andrew Garfield), so it’s better that the younger actors here — also including Brit Marling and Anna Kendrick, both more or less wasted — are used more as pawns in the plot, not condescending representatives of the country’s young. The nobility of “Company” is always greater than its artistry, but occasionally the two come close.

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It’s been a week of shake-ups for the cast of “Glee.” First, it was announced that main cast member Cory Monteith was admitted to rehab on Monday morning for a substance abuse problem and now it looks like Heather Morris, who portrays the ditzy cheerleader Brittany on the hit show, is pregnant. Us Weekly broke the news that the 26-year-old is expecting a baby with her longtime boyfriend Taylor Hubbell. “She’s a little more than three months along and starting to show,” the source tells Us Weekly. “It was totally unexpected, but they are incredibly happy and excited.” Keep her off the dance numbers, “Glee”!

LaBeouf and Baldwin: Not buds
Shia LaBeouf is looking to put the turmoil that drove him out of his Broadway debut in “Orphans” behind him, but he’s not afraid to admit that he and co-star Alec Baldwin definitely had issues. “I’m pretty passionate and impulsive, and he’s a very passionate individual as well, and I think that impulsiveness and passion make for some fireworks,” LaBeouf tells David Letterman during a visit to his talk show, adding that he and Baldwin “had tension, as men. Not as artists, but as men. In a room, that became hard to deal with.” Meanwhile, in an interview with MTV for his new film, LaBeouf says that the public has the wrong perception. “I feel like there’s a misconception of me being this angry little elf. I’m not, I’m really not,” he tells the site. You know, I used to think Wallace Shawn was Hollywood’s “angry little elf” but now that LaBeouf mentions it, he totally is.

Mrs. Carter: ‘A modern-day feminist’
Beyonce has heard what her critics have to say — particularly about her decision to name her new tour the Mrs. Carter Show — and she’s just going to ignore them. “I guess I am a modern-day feminist,” she muses to British Vogue. “Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I’m just a woman, and I love being a woman.” As for taking husband Jay-Z’s last name for her tour? “I feel like Mrs. Carter is who I am, but more bold and more fearless than I’ve ever been,” she says. “It comes from knowing my purpose and really meeting myself once I saw my child. I was like, ‘OK, this is what you were born to do. The purpose of my body became completely different.”

Beckham’s desire as a father
Despite being possibly the most famous man in the world, David Beckham is desperate for his four kids to have a normal a life as possible — even though that can be pretty tricky sometimes. “My eldest now is at the age where he wants to do things and go to places, and we have to hold him back,” Beckham tells CNN World Sport about 14-year-old Brooklyn. “You have to explain to him that there are certain things he can’t do. But to be honest, we let our children do 99 percent of the things they want to do because we want them to lead a normal life.

Bynes keeps getting crazier
If Amanda Bynes couldn’t get any crazier, she now claims there’s a redheaded woman running around New York pretending to be her. “My hair is blonde. I’ve never been a redhead! Somebody keeps posing as me! Check my photos and Twitter for up-to-date pictures,” Bynes posted to her Twitter account Tuesday night. “I don’t own those clothes and I’m blonde.” If it’s an imposter, she’s put a lot of work into it. Not only does the woman in the photos look exactly like Bynes, but she has the same cheek piercings and the manicure Bynes has been sporting recently. To add to the confusion, Bynes quickly deleted the tweets insisting she’s being impersonated.

Brown calls Bieber ‘wack,’ mentions ‘little black boys’
Chris Brown feels Justin Bieber’s pain. When asked during an interview with radio station Power 105.1 how he copes with paparazzi attention, Brown says, “It’s sort of like what Justin Bieber’s going though right now. With him, it’s just a cause of how I feel. Being young, having a limitless amount of income, whatever you want to do as a young guy, and then at the same time you don’t have nobody that’s going to say, ‘Hey bro, you look wack right now.’” Brown is particularly worried Bieber’s friends — like rapper Lil Twist — will get an undue amount of blame for any of the Canadian pop star’s troubles. “I just feel like they’re going to target the little black boys around him and say, ‘Hey, so this is why he’s doing it,’” Brown says.

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Shia LaBeouf
Credit: Getty Images

Shia LaBeouf recently dropped out of the Broadway production of ‘Orphans’ citing creative differences and disagreements with fellow actor Alec Baldwin.

The news is not particularly shocking. We imagine these types of things happen in the theater world all the time. Right?

Last night LaBeouf released his apology email to Baldwin over Twitter. We tend to keep our apology emails private (or you know, just apologize to someone in person) but to each his own.

LaBeouf’s email read:

My dad was a drug dealer. He was a sh-t human. But he was a man. He taught me how to be a man. What I know of men, Alec is-

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.

Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation.

A man knows his tools and how to use them – just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud.

A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.
A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to.

He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.

Alec, I’m sorry for my part of a dis-agreeable situation. – Shia.

Who knew LaBeouf was such a wordsmith. Don’t get too excited, he’s not.

It turns out LaBeouf completely plagiarized an essay published in Esquire titled “How to Be a Man” in 2009.

The original text is:

A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn’t matter what his job is, because if a man doesn’t like his job, he gets a new one.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt…

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation…

A man knows his tools and how to use them – just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails…

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.

A lazy apology or another diss toward Baldwin? In any case, well played, Shia. Well played.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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