Scarlett Johansson Held in Arsons
February 24, 2009 –
On Friday, citizens from Pennsylvania to Hollywood expressed shock that actress Scarlett Johansson, 24, had confessed to setting nine of the 24 fires that have recently plagued the Coatesville area. “Why would anyone, but especially the girl from Match Point, want to do such a thing?” asked South Coatesville Mayor James Kennedy. “Is it because everyone laughed at her Tom Waits cover album? Who knows?”
 Others were just as stunned to hear that a pale-faced, crew-cut-wearing Johansson had been a source of their months-long distress. “I thought [the fires] might have been related to gangs, or maybe drugs,” said Coatesville resident Rae Johnson, 46. “I certainly never suspected the nice lady from The Nanny Diaries.” According to Johnson’s neighbor, Bart Schultz, 50, “Me and my wife watched The Island not two weeks ago. Little did we know that at that very moment, that little bitch might’ve been sneaking around in our trash.”
Representatives for the actress, meanwhile, offered little insight into why the millionaire sex symbol would engage in such despicable acts. “All I know is, I hadn’t heard from Scarlett in months, and I was becoming extremely worried,” said Dave Ryzik, Johansson’s manager, by telephone from Los Angeles. “I can see that my concern was warranted.” Mayor Kennedy, for his part, hoped that the four-time Golden Globe nominee’s whereabouts would no longer be in doubt. “I hope that Ms. Johansson is sent to prison for a long, long time,” he said, anger rising in his voice. “Even without these fires, she probably deserves it for being in He’s Just Not That Into You.”
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Save Arts Program, Pleads My Dog Skip Star
February 24, 2009 –
Philadelphia native Kevin Bacon, star of such films as My Dog Skip, Picture Perfect, and The Air Up There, last week implored Gov. Ed Rendell to reinstate a teen arts program recently trimmed from the Pennsylvania budget. “Without the Governor’s School For Excellence in the Arts, I might never have appeared in Death Sentence or The Demon Murder Case,” said the 50-year-old actor and musician. “And the Bacon Brothers would not have released six albums of enchantingly forgettable country pop.”
 Arts boosters throughout the region agreed with the Hollow Man star. “If not for the early support of the Governor’s School, we would have lost those wonderfully Bacon-y moments in classics such as Beauty Shop, Criminal Law, and Balto,” said Sandy Pinker, regional director of the National Endowment for the Arts. “And could we even imagine an America without his courageous dancing in Footloose?” According to Nancy Sherman, of Chester’s Arts for Kids, “Ed Rendell absolutely must reinstate funding to the school. If he does not, we run the risk of losing future generations of mildly likable character actors.”
Despite such grave implications, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said that the governor would stand by his decision to cut the $3.2 million program. “Pennsylvania is facing an extremely serious budget crisis, and, unfortunately, the Governor’s School does not qualify as a core service,” he said by telephone from Harrisburg. “And I say that as someone who loved Quicksilver.” Bacon, though, urged the state’s leadership to reconsider. “Over thirty years ago, I was given the tools and training needed to go on to make Pyrates, Trapped, and Cavedweller,” the statement read. “Without the Governor’s School? I might have gone on to a less productive career.”
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