Call him Barack the rock star
VENICE, Italy -- Barack Obama has the aura of a rock star, says George Clooney, who also had some kind words for other Democratic presidential candidates.
"You've been in a room once in a while with a rock star. He walks into the world, and he takes your breath away. I'd love him to be president, quite honestly," the actor told reporters Friday at the Venice Film Festival, where his legal thriller "Michael Clayton" was premiering.
Clooney, who banked a check for Obama at a private $1.3 million fundraiser in Beverly Hills last February, praised the U.S. senator for speaking out early against the Iraq war.
But with more than a year until the election, Clooney also said he liked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards -- and pondered whether former Vice President Al Gore might vie for the presidency again.
"It could be interesting," he said.
The politics of war was in the air at Venice, with two U.S. films competing for the Golden Lion dealing with the impact of the Iraq conflict.
Clooney -- who said he made "Syriana" and "Good Night, and Good Luck," out of anger that he was labeled a traitor for questioning the decision to go to war -- told reporters he thinks change is coming.
He said he believes Americans are now in the process of fixing the mistakes of the last few years.
Fixing things, "that's what Americans have been really good at," he said.
BOULDER, Colo. -- Brian Bonsall, who played Andy Keaton in "Family Ties," pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in a case involving his girlfriend and was sentenced to two years' probation, prosecutors said.
Three other charges against Bonsall, 25, were dismissed under a plea agreement entered Friday. He was arrested in March after his girlfriend told police he poured an alcoholic drink on her face while she slept, put her in a choke hold and threw her onto a bed when she tried to leave.
Bonsall told investigators he pushed her down in self-defense after she cut his arm and face with a steak knife. She denied the claim and wasn't charged in the case.
Bonsall's lawyer, Paul McCormick, said Bonsall went through a 30-day rehab program and has been sober for over five months. Prosecutor Peter Maguire said Bonsall has been compliant with sobriety monitoring.
McCormick said Bonsall, who is working in construction and playing in a band, has gotten back together with his girlfriend and they are in couples counseling.
Bonsall appeared in three seasons of "Family Ties," the NBC sitcom that helped launch Michael J. Fox's career in the 1980s. He later appeared in episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the 1993 film "Father Hood."
Lawyers for R&B singer Bobby Brown asked a California judge Friday to throw out his divorce from Whitney Houston and reopen the question of custody over the couple's 14 year-old daughter. "He did not have his day in court," Brown's attorney Stacy Phillips told the Orange County Superior Court.
British actress Keira Knightley has had enough of the media's fixation with her looks, weight and figure, and urged people to focus on her films instead. In Venice to promote her latest movie "Atonement," the 22-year-old star of the hit "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise had to field questions about her curves during a news conference this week.