Ensemble 'Argo' Cast Getting More Kudos

Ben Affleck's nail-biting '70s Iran hostage tale Argo is a box office hit and gathering steam as it heads into awards season. Ben and his players first received The Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award at The Hollywood Film Awards Gala Ceremony back in October, and now the cast is set to be honored with the Ensemble Performance Award at this year's Palm Springs Film Festival on January 5th.

Related: Hollywood Awards Toast 'Argo' Cast

Watch the video to catch the new, behind-the-scenes Argo featurette which contains new interviews with Ben, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston and more.

Video: The Secrets Behind the Incredible True Tale 'Argo'

In theaters now, Argo finds Ben directing and starring as a CIA "exfiltration" specialist who comes up with an audacious plan to get the six Americans safely out of the country in the midst of the 1979 Iranian revolution and hostage crisis: Devise a fake Hollywood sci-fi movie called Argo as a cover to allow a rescue team to get in behind enemy lines to pull it off. Based on a true story, the plan was so incredible, it could only happen in the movies…

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Chief's Belcher's daughter to receive $1M from NFL

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The estate or guardian of the infant of the Chiefs player who killed her mother before turning a gun on himself will receive more than $1 million under terms of the NFL's collective-bargaining agreement.

Jovan Belcher's 3-month-old daughter, Zoey, stands to receive $108,000 annually over the next four years, $48,000 in the fifth year and then $52,000 each year until age 18. She'll continue to receive that amount until age 23 if she attends college.

The beneficiary of Belcher, who was in his fourth season, also will receive $600,000 in life insurance, plus $200,000 for each credited season. There is also $100,000 in a retirement account that will go to his beneficiary or estate.

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Kasandra Michelle Perkins and daughter Zoey.

Players' beneficiaries are kept confidential.

The current collective bargaining agreement was ratified in August 2011.

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Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community

If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.

Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”

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Top Fla. economic official resigns amid questions

TALLAHASSEE --
Gov. Rick Scott’s chief job creator abruptly resigned Tuesday after less than eight months following disclosures that he collected unemployment benefits while traveling in Europe before he was hired.

Hunting Deutsch quit his $140,000-a-year job as executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, the new agency created by Scott to coordinate Florida’s job-creation efforts and attract new or expanding businesses. Scott now must find his third director of the agency in less than a year.

“I find the current media focus on my personal matters a distraction to the agency and your administration and believe it is best for me to leave,” Deutsch wrote in a resignation letter to Scott dated Tuesday. His last day on the payroll will be Dec. 14.

Deutsch resigned while Scott is on a three-day trade mission to Bogota, Colombia, leading a delegation of nearly 200 people seeking to bolster economic ties between Florida and the Latin American nation.

Reached by the Associated Press, Deutsch refused to answer questions about the benefits.

“Quite frankly, it’s a personal matter,” Deutsch said.

The agency Deutsch ran distributes unemployment benefits to jobless workers in Florida, which unions and other worker advocates say are the stingiest in the country — at $275 a week for a maximum of 23 weeks.

Deutsch collected unemployment benefits for 91 weeks over a two-year period from 2009 to 2011 when he was traveling in Europe with his wife, according to the Florida Current, the online news site of LobbyTools.com, which broke the story Nov. 7.

The 91 weeks in benefits were eight short of the 99 he could have drawn because of emergency federal rules in place at the height of the national recession.

“I’m fortunate enough where I’ve worked for very successful companies for a long period of time and luckily sold all my bank stocks — most of them at the right time, at the right price — and quite frankly, didn’t have to work,” Deutsch told the Current. “So my wife and I took time off and traveled a great bit; we were in Europe several times.”

Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Deutsch did the right thing by resigning.

“I think it was bad form for him to seek unemployment while he was off on a trip to Europe,” Gaetz said. “I think those of us in public life should have a higher standard of performance.”

Scott welcomed Deutsch to “our team” in April, praising his “strong and experienced background” as a senior executive in the banking industry, most recently at BankUnited in Miami, where he was executive vice president of wealth management. Deutsch also spent more than 20 years in a variety of posts at SunTrust Banks in Orlando.

Deutsch is the second executive director of DEO to depart following controversy.

The agency’s first leader, Doug Darling, resigned in January under pressure from Scott’s former chief of staff, Steve MacNamara, four days after Darling sent MacNamara a note complaining about excessive travel by the state film commissioner. Shari Kerrigan had been recruited to her post by MacNamara.

Herald/Times staff writer Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report, which includes information from the Associated Press.

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Stars Return to Middle-earth for 'The Hobbit'

Are you ready to return to Middle-earth? Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is coming to theaters and IMAX everywhere in 3D on December 14, and the extensive cast of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Wizards features a pleasant mixture of new and returning faces to new, first installment of the growing, six-movie franchise.

Video: An Unexpected Journey to the NZ 'Hobbit' Premiere

"It's been 10 years since Lord of the Rings and we had no interest in making a sequel," says Peter Jackson about the new movie, which serves as a prequel to Rings. "But fortunately J.R.R. Tolkien had written this incredibly charming children's fairytale. … It's a much more charming, humorous story, and that was really the attraction for us -- the fact that we were able to go back and be the same storytellers, the same filmmakers, going back into Middle-earth again, but following a different story with a different group of characters largely. And a different tone – a lot more humor."

The long-awaited big-screen adaptation follows the adventures of the diminutive Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (played by Martin Freeman) as he journeys with a group of 13 Dwarves to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. On the way, they must battle treacherous Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and sly Sorcerers. And when Bilbo gains possession of Gollum's (the returning Andy Serkis) "preciousss" ring, the fate of Middle-earth hangs in the balance.

"We've seen Bilbo already with the brilliant Ian Holm, and [in this movie] you start with the younger Bilbo. Suddenly it's the beginning of his journey, and it's the classic sequel," explains Martin Freeman, who adds that the newcomers to the franchise were welcomed with open arms by the family-like cast and crew: "We were made to feel like we had every right to be there, and we were well looked after."

Richard Armitage, who plays exiled Dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield, says, "I do think Peter has done something really interesting by kind of connecting the blood flow from the Rings trilogy into The Hobbit, very much in the prologue and all of the other characters that sort of link the two films together, and that has given it some sort of oxygen that fans will really enjoy."

Video: Precious Gollum Moments in New 'Hobbit' Trailer

Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Elijah Wood never imagined that they would return to Middle-earth to put on Hobbit feet and pointy Elven ears, and Elijah says, "The whole notion of coming back, it was a gift. It isn't something that any of us really expected. … It was an amazing experience."

And how different is Gollum this time around? "Well, he's 60 years younger, so he's only 540, and I think pretty sexy," jokes Serkis, who also served on The Hobbit as second-unit director: "It was doubly thrilling," he said of the unexpected offer from Jackson, joking of the opportunity, "He's known I've wanted to direct for a long time, and so it was really like being given a Maserati when you haven't passed your driving test. … It was a fantastic experience and hugely challenging."

The epic film also features returning The Lord of the Rings cast members Ian McKellen, Ian Holm and Christopher Lee alongside new faces Manu Bennett, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Barry Humphries, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, James Nesbitt, Dean O'Gorman, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott and Aidan Turner.

Pics: 'The Hobbit' Photo Exclusive

So why will The Lord of the Rings fans love The Hobbit? "Because they'll be totally surprised by it," says Weaving, who especially loves the scene in which the Dwarves sing. "It was transporting … and moving." Cate agrees, "I found it really rich and surprising," pointing out that she's "really cool this month" to her three boys!

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Rapper likens self to one of world's greatest composers

Big-talking rapper Ryan Leslie -- who set fire to the front page of The Post for reporting on a $1 million jury verdict against him -- is now likening himself to one of history's greatest composers.

Leslie told Vibe magazine that he plans to title his next album "Black Mozart," and will record some of it in the capital of classical music, Vienna.

Last week, a Manhattan federal court jury rapped Leslie for reneging on a $1 million reward he offered for a laptop and hard drive that were stolen while he was on tour in Germany in 2010.

Auto-repair shop owner Armin Augstein found the gear while walking his dog, but Leslie ignored Augstein's efforts to claim the reward.

bruce.golding@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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President Obama keeps Debbie Wasserman Schultz as Democratic Party chair

WASHINGTON --
President Barack Obama on Monday asked Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida – who led the Democratic Party in a triumphant election year but also was criticized for a platform snafu during the party’s convention – to serve another term as the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

“I’ve asked Debbie Wasserman Schultz to continue her excellent work as chair of the DNC. Thanks for all you do, Debbie,” the president tweeted.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the Broward County Democrat tweeted in response. “I am honored to serve.”

The Democratic National Committee is all but certain to ratify Obama’s decision at its winter meeting in January. Party chairs usually are elected for four-year terms. Wasserman Schultz would head the party during the 2014 election cycle, a tough task since a second-term president’s party historically suffers losses in midterm elections.

Wasserman Schultz, 46, of Weston, won her fifth term in Congress last month when she easily defeated two challengers. She won the district, which includes Miami-Dade and Broward counties, with 63 percent of the 216,000 votes cast.

In her national role, Wasserman Schultz is credited with helping to steer the Democratic National Committee to a successful election. Democrats did even better than pollsters and analysts had predicted, with net gains of two Senate seats and at least seven seats in the House of Representatives. Obama won a popular-vote majority and a big electoral-vote majority over Republican Mitt Romney.

“She’s done a good job. You can’t argue with the results of the election,” said Kathy Sullivan, Democratic national committeewoman from New Hampshire and a former chairwoman of the state party.

Wasserman Schultz supported Hillary Clinton over Obama in the 2008 Democratic nominating contest, and she’s credited with helping to push the Clintons to campaign vigorously for the party this fall.

Though party officials regard her highly, Wasserman Schultz came under some fire earlier this year at the Democratic National Convention. The gathering in Charlotte, N.C. – carefully calibrated to give Obama a rousing sendoff for the general election campaign – erupted in chaos when the platform failed to mention God or to say that Jerusalem is Israel’s rightful capital.

Wasserman Schultz called the omissions “essentially a technical oversight.” The language was changed after the issues were made public, but the revisions came only after a confused scene on the convention floor. Convention Chairman Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, called for voice votes, but the verdict was unclear. He finally said the changes had been approved, as many on the floor booed.

The controversy died quickly, and Wasserman Schultz was widely praised within the party Monday.

“You don’t mess with success,” said Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “There’s a very small group of people involved with and enthralled by the party platform, but it often doesn’t affect the vote.”

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ET Confirms Jamie Foxx in 'Spider-Man' Sequel

Jamie Foxx has some electrifying news for ET: He will definitely be starring in the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man!

Related: Did 'Spidey' Director Just Reveal New Villains?

"Electro is a great character," Jamie tells ET's Nancy O'Dell when she asks him if he's confirmed to be in the next installment of the blockbuster franchise "I met with the director, Mark Webb, I met with Andrew Garfield, and we talked. … I think Electro will be an exciting character to play because he's a … genius electrician-type person, and he gets the short end of the stick from the whole world, and the next thing you know he turns it on."

Rumors had been swirling for quite some time that Jamie would be taking on the role of Spidey's nemesis, and he fueled the fire the day after Halloween when he tweeted that he dressed up as the character.

Plus, Webb alluded to the super-villain being a part of the next movie while promoting the upcoming release of The Amazing Spider-Man on Blu-ray and listing his favorite villains: "I like Green Goblin. I like Electro a lot. I think Electro is pretty fantastic."

Earlier today it was announced today that Chronicle and Lincoln star Dane Dehaan will join the super sequel as Harry Osborn, with Webb tweeting, "Meet Harry Osborn. So excited to have him on board. @danedehaan."

Of course, Spidey fans know that Harry Osborn is the son of Norman Osborn, who becomes The Green Goblin, and Harry himself eventually becomes the super-villain Hobgoblin. So who are the official baddies of the next Spider-Man film? No actual names have been announced, but the information is all there for those who want to connect the dots.

Video: 'Spider-Man' Sequel Secrets Hidden in Blu-ray?

Also starring Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx and Shailene Woodley, the new film in the Spider-Man saga is set for release in 3D on May 2, 2014. Production will begin in early 2013.

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Pink B'klyn brownstone gets repainted

Now the Park Slope “pinkstone” is like every other Brooklyn brownstone.

The new owners of the once notorious Pepto-Bismol-pink house at 233 Garfield Place recently slapped brown primer over the façade of the four-story home, ridding neighbors and preservationists of what they long considered an eyesore in the landmark district.

“Every neighbor we’ve encountered is happy to see the pink finally gone,” said Jeanne Accetta, who recently bought the home with her husband, Joseph for $2.075 million.

Accetta said the new brown facade is just primer paint and that the couple is working with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to pick a shade of brown paint that best blends in with the rest of the neighborhood.

The house had been pink since the 1960s and the gaudy look was grandfathered in years before the block was designated part of the special district, which requires approval for any changes to facades.

The couple is also seeking commission approval for other improvements, including the removal of some upper-level rear windows and the addition of a backyard deck.

The previous owner, Bernard Henry, a retired 95-year-old tailor, had previously claimed that he accidentally painted the home that distinctive shade of pink only after buying the wrong color paint. He lived there for five decades.

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