PETA says Moore’s size a weighty issue

Plus: ‘Troy’ doesn’t play things by the book

	PETA says that filmmaker Michael Moore should stop living large.
Jennifer Szymaszek / AP file

By Jeannette Walls

msnbc.com

updated 9:30 a.m. ET May 6, 2004

Michael Moore is making headlines with his controversial documentary, but one group is targeting the filmmaker for his waistline.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has selected the gadfly filmmaker as one of its “Flab Five” and is treating him to a Veg Eye for the Fat Guy makeover. “Looks like the ‘Downsize This’ author has been doing too much supersizing,” notes PETA.

“We’ll be sending him a nice little care package, a makeover kit filled with health and diet tips, PETA’s vegetarian starter kit, and suggestions on how he might change his lifestyle,” PETA’s Michael McGraw tells The Scoop.

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American Idol winner Ruben Studdard is also getting targeted by PETA. “If ‘The Velvet Teddy Bear’ doesn’t want to become known as ‘The Velveeta Teddy Bear,’ he might want to idle his meat and dairy intake,” notes the group.

Disney blocks release of Moore's new film

Others celebs who’ll be receiving PETA’s Flab Five pack include Luciano Pavarotti (Says PETA: “He’s three tenors rolled into one!”), John Madden (“Pass on the Turducken and rush for the salad bar”), and actor John Goodman (“TV’s ‘West Wing’ senator looks like he’s been indulging in a few too many Buffalo wings.”).

PETA says it's not worried about a controversy for targeting obese people. “It’s a light-hearted approach to a serious issue,” McGraw says. “The Veg Eye has the potential to save these guys’ lives.”

Taking liberties
“Troy,” starring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, may have lots of fine-looking hotties playing ancient Greeks, but Homer purists are complaining that the Warner Bros. flick takes too many liberties with the epic poem it’s based on.

“They COMPLETELY BUTCHER the story of the Iliad and in so many ways,” laments one poster at IMDB.com. “I won’t reveal how so as not to spoil anything but a lot of important elements are gone or significantly altered for the worst.”

“It’s another case of ‘Why let a good story get in the way of a Hollywood blockbuster?’” complained a poster at another site.

Warner Bros., for its part, has said that the film is “loosely” based on the Iliad.

Notes from all over
IMAGE: Pitt
Speaking of “Troy,” co-stars Pitt and Bana made a deal that one would pay the other if he wounded him during one of the fight scenes: $100 for solid hits, $50 for minor ones. Pitt ended up paying Bana $750. . . .Britney Spears’ controversial “suicide” video wasn’t about suicide at all, she says. “If you watch closely, my head gets hit by a camera and that’s what it’s about,” Spears told MTV. . . . .So what do Spears, Madonna, and other Kabbalah devotees believe? The New Republic visited the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre to find out. The reporter found The Rav, the leader, and his followers, chanting “Chernobyl” and some other words he didn’t understand. “A devotee explains, straight-faced, that these are all names of nuclear power plants,” notes the mag New Republic. “The Rav is trying to heal the problem of nuclear waste, which the Centre’s devotees believe is spreading AIDS.”