Celebs & Money Tips

Think you had an unusual day job to pay the bills while you pursued your passion?

Derek Cianfrance, right, the director of Blue Valentine (opening Dec. 31), made a genital warts commercial.

Let us explain. It took him 12 years and dozens of script rewrites to finally shoot Blue Valentine, an indie drama that packs in unusually frank scenes of a marriage unraveling. During that time, the unemployment checks stopped coming. He and his wife started a family. He had to take a long hard look at his personal finances.

As the world braced for financial disaster, Oscar-nominated director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was saved by fateful timing.

Inarritu, the maker of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel, began to shoot his new movie Biutiful starring Javier Bardem just as a scene-stealing recession strangled the film industry.

"Fortunately, my film was one of the last-limit projects greenlighted," Inarritu told WalletPop in a recent interview. "One month later, this film couldn't happen. It was greenlit in a completely different world. I was lucky I wasn't stopped."

Instead of a "ho-ho-ho," actor Wesley Snipes got a "no, no, no" this holiday season from U.S. District Court Judge William Terrell Hodges. Last week, Snipes filed an emergency petition with the court, asking if he could report to prison after the holidays rather than before, citing the difficulties that reporting on time to serve out his sentence would have on his children.

Judge Hodges denied Snipes' request this week, writing that Snipes had plenty of time to prepare "for the impact that his incarceration will have upon members of his family." Snipes was initially found guilty nearly three years ago and was sentenced to federal prison a few months later. He has been out of prison since, exhausting a number of appeals.

Snipes is slated to begin a three-year sentence for willful failure to file tax returns. Under the terms of his current Order, Snipes must surrender to McKean Federal Prison in Pennsylvania on Thursday, December 9, 2010.

Oprah Winfrey and the audience from her season premiere show are Down Under right now beginning their "Oprah's Australian Adventure." As the Big O wraps up her life as a syndicated-TV demi-goddess, Tourism Australia put together the trip of a lifetime for about 300 loyal viewers who were lucky enough to be present when her final season began.

According to a CNN video report, the group, which flew down in two jets, has already hit Sydney's historic The Rocks neighborhood and Taronga Zoo. Rumors about the rest of their secret itinerary have them heading to the Great Barrier Reef, to Byron Bay for surfing, to New South Wales' Hunter Valley for wine tasting, to the eucalyptus forests of the Blue Mountains, to the state of Victoria, and to the top of Sydney's Harbour Bridge with BridgeClimb. On Tuesday, December 14, they arrive back at Bennelong Point, to the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House -- temporarily called the "Oprah House" -- to shoot two episodes.

Sounds rich! Five years ago, it might have been quite a budget coup to save up for a visit like that. But in the past few years, a few new developments have made Australia a lot more affordable than it used to be.

Oscar winner Javier Bardem keeps his personal finances simple: Decide on a movie. Get paid.

But sometimes the digits on the checks look skimpy. Asked by WalletPop how he weighs a film's merit vs. his salary, the 41-year-old star of the December release Biutiful said, "Usually the movies that you like are the ones that pay you nothing. Let's put it that way. The ones you go crazy about, they don't pay you what you'd like to be paid. But in general, I don't care, because I think that I have a job, I have a living, a good living but not luxurious living. I can feed my people. I can feed myself. I have a good roof. That's all that I can ask."

The holidays are for family. That's what actor Wesley Snipes is arguing to a federal judge. Snipes, who is expected to report to federal prison on December 9, has filed an "Emergency Motion To Stay Self Surrender," asking instead to report on January 6, 2011. Pending the outcome of the petition, Snipes is expected to report to McKean Federal Prison in Pennsylvania to begin serving a three-year sentence for tax evasion.

The heart of Snipes' argument is that, as the father of four young children (son Akhenaten Kihwa-T, daughter Iset Jua-T, son Alaafia Jehu-T and son Alimayu Moa-T Snipes, all under the age of 10), he should be allowed to remain with them for the holidays. He argued in his motion, which was filed with Middle District of Florida Federal District Court Judge William Terrell Hodges, that the "middle of the holiday season" was not an appropriate time to report for prison.

After years of appeals, a federal court judge has an answer for Wesley Snipes: Go to Jail. U.S. District Court William Terrell Hodges denied Snipes' most recent appeal last month, writing in his Order: "The Defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair, and thorough review of his conviction and sentence by the Court of Appeals; and he has had a full, fair, and thorough review of his present claims, during all of which he has remained at liberty. The time has come for the judgment to be enforced."

This month, the Federal Bureau of Prisons officially set a report date for Snipes, ordering him to report to the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Lewis Run, Pa., by noon on December 9. Snipes will then begin serving a three year sentence for tax evasion.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, McKean is a medium security facility housing male inmates and is located in northwest Pennsylvania between Bradford and Kane, Pa., approximately 90 miles south of Buffalo, N.Y.

It appears that Wesley Snipes has finally run out of options. A federal judge turned down Snipes' latest appeal on Friday and ordered the actor to report to prison to serve a three year sentence for failure to file tax returns.

The star of such films as Blade and White Men Can't Jump was convicted in 2008 for failure to file federal income tax returns for the years 1999 to 2004, but was acquitted of the more serious charges of tax fraud and conspiracy. Snipes claimed at trial, among other things, to be a tax denier. Snipes argued that he believed he was not required to pay income taxes after attending a paid seminar at the home of Eddie Kahn, who had previously served jail time in the 1980s for tax evasion and advised him that it was legal to not pay your taxes. Despite his arguments, a jury found him guilty of tax evasion. Immediately following his trial, Snipes vowed to appeal his sentence.

The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton may be long-awaited, but cash-strapped Britain may have a tough time paying for much of a shindig. In late October, the country announced a catalog of budget cuts that will total $131 billion by 2015. Prime Minister David Cameron's cuts are more savage than even the ones that made Margaret Thatcher locally reviled in the 1980s.

Brutalized by the global financial crisis, the United Kingdom is lumbering along in a period dubbed "Austerity Britain." Just a week ago, Whitehall in London was thronged with thousands of students who violently protested some of the most draconian budget cuts the country has ever implemented.

How can a country that is drowning in debt, thin on tax income and heavy on stimulus spending afford to throw the lavish "fairytale wedding" that the Western world seems to demand?