I was a bit of a fraidy-cat when I was a kid.  I used to sleepwalk after seeing scary movies, or if that didn’t happen, I would awake-walk into my parents’ room for a hug from Mom.   In order to confront that embarrassing—if amusing—childhood demon, I became a bit of a horror buff.  Hopefully my pain is your gain.

Five Movies to Watch This Halloween

“Return of the Living Dead” (1985)
In this “cult classic,” a group of punk rock-loving teens venture out to pick up a friend from his job at a medical supply shop in Louisville, Kentucky.  When a foreman opens up a military drum that was accidentally sent to the shop—which, oh-by-the-way has an UNDEAD BODY IN IT!!—all zombie-hell breaks loose.

The film is genuinely funny, has a couple of good scares, and a rockin’ soundtrack, but it also injected life into the genre because all the zombies run (fast!) and most of them talk.  Like this one:

Doesn’t she look familiar?  Check out this zombie from “The Walking Dead.”

The B-plot, featuring an Army Colonel on a mysterious, tedious, yet seemingly extremely important mission, is tied up brilliantly in the frightening, apocalyptic conclusion.

But what really puts this film over the top is that it features the best zombie of all time, Tarman.  Gruesome, evil, and with just the right amount of camp, the zombie that first exclaimed “BRRAAAAAIIIIINNNNSS!!” before chowing down on the cerebral cortex of some young punk deserves a place in cinematic lore.

One of the least scary on this list, “Return of the Living Dead” is good for non-horror fans.

“Let the Right One In” (2008)
One of the best vampire films of all time.  It’s a coming-of-age love story—imagine a Swedish pre-teen “Twilight” with a lot less sparkles and a lot more blood-sucking—that has become more relevant today thanks to the left’s obsession with bullying.  Unlike Hollywood celebrities who think whiny PSAs and hate-crime legislation are the ways to snuff out bullies, “Let the Right One In” takes a slightly different approach: fight back with all you have.  I guarantee your jaw hits the floor when the bad guys get their comeuppance.

“Let Me In,” the inappropriately titled American remake, is nearly as good as the original.

“Zombieland” (2009)
Much like how marijuana is a “gateway” drug, “Zombieland” is a gateway horror film.  If you have a significant other who is uneasy with monster movies, show her this to win her over to the genre.  Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin journey across America to an amusement park, hilariously slaughtering the undead in the most creative ways possible.  “Zombieland” is the funniest zombie film I’ve ever seen, and unlike “The Walking Dead,” for example, you become emotionally attached to its unique and sympathetic characters.

It also features one of the greatest cameos ever.

“Dawn of the Dead” (2004)
George Romero’s original is perhaps the ultimate zombie director’s best film, but Zack Snyder’s remake may be the scariest living-dead flick.  Though it’s a massive departure from Romero’s classic—Snyder’s version is lighter on social commentary and heavier on gore—the visionary director of “300” and “Watchmen” (and “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole“) proves there’s clearly more than one way to skin a cat… or reanimate a corpse.

“The Orphanage” (2007)
An ominous, morally sophisticated character study of a woman coping with the sudden disappearance of her young child.  There isn’t much violence beyond a finger being broken in broad daylight (a truly horrifying scene) and there are no cheapo scares, but impeccable direction from first-timer Juan Antonio Bayona, a moving performance from Spanish actress Belén Rueda, and a monstrous boy wearing a gunny-sack mask make “El Orfanato” truly captivating cinema.

***

More Scary Movies of Note

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974)
John Nolte’s favorite horror movie, and for good reason.

“28 Days/Weeks Later” (2002/2007)
“28 Days Later” should score points with conservative moviegoers from the very start, when we learn the fastest zombies on two feet are a product of environmental activism gone horribly wrong.  Unfortunately, “Days” squanders that good will in the third act when the military starts trying to rape the women.  The ship is righted with a briskly paced and beautifully shot sequel.  Both are very frightening.

“The Ring” (2002)
The premise of the film sounds gimmicky: teens watch a videotape with a bunch of (really really) creepy images on it, and then they die seven days later.  Stupid… right?  Nuh uh… Start to finish, this is one of the scariest movies ever made.  A never-better Naomi Watts and gorgeously-eerie cinematography make the momentum build to what you think is a satisfying ending, until… what did that creepy little boy just say!?!

“Day of the Dead” (1985)
The third film from the “Godfather of all Zombies” may be a left-wing screed against the military (though a very well done one), but the semi-socialized zombie Bub—who listens to headphones, salutes, and shoots guns—makes “Day” a must-see.  Watch this one after “Return” and let us know whether you think Bub or Tarman is history’s top zombie.

“Gigli“ (2003)
Not a traditional horror film, but this Bennifer vehicle is every bit as ghastly as anything on this list.  There are movies that are so bad that they’re good, there are movies that are so bad that there is no amount of entertainment to be gleaned from them, and then there’s “Gigli.”  Scary.

***

One More to Watch… Any Time

In terms of horror/scary/Halloween movies, “The Exorcist” (1973) is in a class by itself.  Not only is it the scariest movie of all time, it’s a clear articulation of what it means to be a Catholic and the power of faith in God.

More than anything, the story is about Father Damien Karras, a Priest struggling with his own faith, who is called to perform an exorcism on a young girl whose body and mind have been inhabited by a demon.  The demon picked this innocent child to make us despair, and it’s only by overcoming his doubts and putting his full trust in God that Damien is able to triumph over pure evil.

As Christians, all of us question our beliefs periodically, and this portrayal of a priest challenges professors and other left-wing intellectuals who largely consider religious people blind dogmatists.  In fact, I’d argue atheists tend to be much more dogmatic than Christians and Jews because they are more frequently than not unwavering in their denial of God.

“The Exorcist” is vulgar, disgusting, and unrelentingly terrifying, and it’s also one of the greatest stories of faith and sacrifice ever portrayed on film.

That’s why any day of the year is an excellent day for an exorcism.

Happy Halloween!

But this isn’t Sony Picture’s only effort to subvert common decency that’s making headlines this week.  Their new film “30 Minutes or Less” is brewing up some controversy of its own.  From the Associated Press (emphasis mine):

PITTSBURGH (AP) – The family of an Erie pizza delivery driver killed eight years ago won’t be among those in line when the comedy “30 Minutes Or Less” opens nationwide Friday.

Brian Wells died when a time bomb collar he was forced to wear exploded after he robbed a bank. The movie plot features a pizza driver forced to rob a bank while wearing a time bomb vest. A spokesman for Sony’s Columbia TriStar Motion Picture group says the filmmakers and stars knew nothing about the Wells case, though he acknowledges the screenwriters were vaguely familiar with it.

The screenwriters haven’t responded to requests for comment through their agent.

Jean Heid of Erie is Wells’ sister. She says the movie isn’t funny—whether or not it’s based on her brother’s death.

Now that you know that the screenwriters (IMDB lists them Michael Dilibert and Matthew Sullivan) of this goofball buddy comedy starring Danny McBride (but I repeat myself) were inspired by pain and suffering inflicted on one man and his loved ones, watch the preview (above) again.  Go ahead.

Pretty messed up, right?

(Aside, to the screenwriters: Aziz Ansari doesn’t need to say that what looks like a middle school or high school is “filled with young children.”  “Children” covers it.  “Young” is already implied.  Annoying…)

As it happens, Wells may have been involved in planning the robbery, though he also may have been under the impression the bomb was fake–he wasn’t alive to assist in the investigation.  Still the most offensive item to come out of this story isn’t even the plot of the film itself; it’s this line highlighted above:

Sony’s Columbia TriStar Motion Picture group says the filmmakers and stars knew nothing about the Wells case, though he acknowledges the screenwriters were vaguely familiar with it.

Wait a minute… how come I knew about the headline-grabbing story of the pizza man who was blown up by a time bomb but not a single one of the “filmmakers and stars” of “30 Minutes of Less”?  And what does it mean that the screenwriters “were vaguely familiar with it”?  And they never mentioned this little coincidence in a single pitch meeting or in any liner notes that went with the script?

Now even star Ansari is denying the movie about a pizza delivery man who wears a time bomb and robs a bank has anything to do with the real life incident where a pizza delivery man wore a time bomb and robbed a bank.  “I think if you watch the movie, you know it’s not based on [Wells],” he said.

Fat chance.

We’ve all learned from Watergate, Zippergate, and Weinergate that the cover-up is often worse than the crime.  Yes, all signs point to “30 Minutes or Less” being a cruel, exploitation of a tragedy (and, based on the preview, marginally funny at best); still, it should be beneath a motion picture distributor like Sony to lie about the origins of a major release.

But considering their other plans reported this week, we know that’s probably far from the case.

—–

However, this rule doesn’t really apply when it comes to gay men.  A greater percentage of male/male relationships (compared to male/female or female/female) can be purely sexual without any “strings attached,” and, to the filmmakers’ credit, that nuance is not lost in “Friends with Benefits.”  Woody Harrelson, who is very funny as an over-the-top gay character, offers this wisdom.  But the ideas that “monogamy is against our nature” and casual sex comes with negligible emotional and physical baggage–particularly when there’s a woman in the equation–has been roundly rebuked in recent years and Hollywood romantic comedies deserve a lot of the credit.

There are even a few jokes that specifically target liberals: Kunis refers to hybrid cars and local/organic/sustainable food as “bullshit” on separate occasions and Harrelson says that “no one wants to fuck Obama” because his ears are too big.  For years romantic comedies have been a haven for conservative moviegoers because they tend to glorify monogamy as opposed to loveless sex.  But now they’re also subjecting liberals to the types of barbs right-of-center folk have endured for decades!? Could Hollywood finally be turning a corner?  With the advent of new media, conservatives finally have had a megaphone to complain about these digs that typically only go in one direction (ours).  Maybe it’s having an effect!

Yet, “FWB” is merely a partial victory, and that should come as no surprise given the fact that the movie was written and directed by Will Gluck.  Up until this point, Gluck’s biggest accomplishment has been “Easy-A,” the most anti-Christian movie I’ve seen in recent memory.  Pathological anti-religious h8, affected dialogue heavy on attitude but light on depth, and an extremely high opinion of itself made “Easy-A” my most painful movie-going experience of 2010. (On the bright side, it inspired one of my favorite John Nolte blog posts of the year, “All Christians are Bad, All Gays are Good, and John Hughes Really Is Dead”).

Gluck managed to slip in one solid anti-God sucker punch this time around, which came fumbling out of left-field in the second act. This is rough transcript of a date scene with Mila Kunis’s character, Jaime, and Parker, a handsome child oncologist:

Jaime: It’s amazing that you cure kids with cancer.

Parker: Well… me and God.

[Long awkward pause…]

Jaime: You’re kidding, right?

Parker: Yes.  [Chuckles.] But could you imagine if I actually thought that?

Jaime: I’ve dated a lot of assholes who would say something like that.

Parker: I work with a lot of those assholes.

[Both laugh.]

So, if you believe God plays any role in curing disease, you must be an asshole…  Right… This dialogue did not play well with the audience at the sold-out Hollywood screening I attended, but I happened to be sitting with an Atheist friend of mine who was grinning ear to ear.

A pattern I’ve noticed with romantic comedies is that the advertising does not always reflect the values of the movie.  With “No Strings Attached,” the iconic moment of the teaser trailer is Natalie Portman jumping onto Ashton Kutcher’s back and yelling, “Why can’t we just have sex!?!”  An interesting quote to highlight considering the movie itself was all but a 90-minute PSA for monogamous relationships.  Same thing goes for the “Friends with Benefits” business team, which marketed the flick by waging a campaign to add a “friends with benefits” relationship status to facebook.  I wonder if the genius who came up with this idea had actually seen the movie, which largely dismisses the notion that “friends with benefits” is even possible. The facebook campaign has thus far failed.

Values aside, “Friends with Benefits” is a good time at the theatre.  Alas, romantic movies with complex characters that capture the subtleties of relationships and life are few and far between, and “FWB” certainly isn’t one of them.  I suppose we can’t expect an “Annie Hall” or a “When Harry Met Sally” every decade, much less every year (and 2009’s “500 Days of Summer” may be as close as Hollywood is going to get anytime soon).  No, we live in the age where all leads are super-hip and witty with perfect jobs and apartments but are just-a-little-bit-fucked-up; we’re in a cinematic era where the supporting cast is primarily made up of goof-balls alternating between chewing-up scenery like a puppy with a fresh bone and offering bumper-sticker wisdom.  And in that sense, “Friends with Benefits” is standard Hollywood fare, but it’s still a lot of fun and it’s hard to ask for more than that from the rom-com genre.

And besides, when it comes to romantic comedies, standard Hollywood fare also implies values to which Big Hollywood readers can generally relate, so why miss out on a rare film made with conservative sensibilities in mind? Especially one starring Mila Kunis.

—–

“Captain America: The First Avenger” is set in the latter half of World War II.  The action begins with a scrawny Steve Rogers (a digitally depreciated Chris Evans) doing everything he can to enlist in the U.S. Army.  Rogers has all kinds of heart, but he’s gaunt and is thus 4-F.  The plot turns when an impassioned speech to a friend (“There are men laying down their lives.  I have no right to do any less than them.”) catches the ear of Dr. Abraham Erskine (a very Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci).  Erskine is a German scientist who is working with the U.S. Army to develop a Super Solider Serum–the ultimate performance enhancing drug–and is on the lookout for a test subject.  The serum amplifies what’s inside of you, so someone of Rogers’ size and character makes him the perfect candidate for this breakthrough procedure.  Erskine and engineer Howard Stark (father of Tony) put Rogers in what looks like a retro-50s refrigerator, crank up the dials until all the power in the building short-circuits, and out comes this guy:

So what does the Army do with the most-badass solider ever to exist on earth?  They use him as a propaganda tool, of course!  Rogers goes state to state shilling war bonds in elaborate stage productions as the character Captain America.  At first, Captain America is played for laughs; the stage shows are absurd and Rogers is no more than a jingo indoctrinating the public.  The show is an acid-trip of brightly colored American flags that are starkly contrasted with an otherwise dimly-lit movie.  Not content to profiteer for the war industry, Rogers ultimate breaks away and goes off to fight his future nemesis, Johann Schmidt, aka Red Skull (played with typically villainy awesomeness by Hugo Weaving).

There are a handful of legitimately patriotic moments that were a treat to watch.  One such scene is when the under-sized yet hopeful Rogers longingly watches a recruiting video with a perfect balance of pride and jealousy; the scene will make not a few of you want to enlist on the spot.  Another moment that should give conservative viewers the warm-and-fuzzies is when one character exclaims that the success of the procedure that turned a normal young man into a Super Solider is the “first step on the path to peace.”  Imagine if that was said every-time the real military developed a new type of bomb or unmanned drone?

But, predictably, these moments are offset by a smattering of mini-sucker punches.  Clichéd racist, sexist, and stupid American soldiers abound and are constantly being outsmarted or needing their asses saved by Captain America and his personal motley crew of multi-colored troops (including a French drunk guy) you’d think he plucked out of a United Colors of Benetton ad (joke hat tip: Mr. Breitbart).  When the War is won, we see a celebration scene in the streets of the United… Kingdom.  Rogers’ love interest is sexy-feminist (not an oxymoron after-all) Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), who is an American in the comics but is British in the film.

A credits sequence that’s pure Americana leaves you with a good taste in your mouth, but I can’t help but wonder if the same one will appear in the cut of the film that is seen overseas.

The movie is typical of Hollywood in the 2011: What it lacks in deep, compelling storytelling, it makes up for with excellent production quality.  There were many appealing performances (along with a handful of caricatures), and the film has a nostalgic look that captures the era with just the right amount of modern flair.  Evans is solid as our hero; strong, charismatic, yet vulnerable, and I didn’t catch him Blue Steeling even once.  A scene where Captain America chases a car… by foot… is pure fun and the movie’s payoff sets up “The Avengers” (due out next summer) quite nicely.  Stick around until the very end for a teaser for “The Avengers,” and do take note of how Captain America’s suit has all of a sudden gone from the dull coloration that inspired our ire a few months ago to a brighter, more authentic blue.

Still, in the well-paced two hours, I can’t think of one bold decision when it comes to the plotting or the characters.

It’s also worth drawing attention to a bizarre story-line that Captain America isn’t fighting the Nazis as much as he’s fighting Schmidt/Red Skull’s extra-nasty fringe sect.  It seems unnecessary to have nuance when it comes to the Nazis in this case, considering the bad guys are supposed to be pure evil.  The Nazis were the ones that carried out the Holocaust and sought to dominate the world, and that’s who Captain America fought in the comics!  Lou Loumenick over at the New York Post thinks Paramount may have made this call so as not to piss off any German movie-goers.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity to complain about how patently distracting and unnecessary this 3D experiment has been.  (Social liberals like to argue that one day we’ll look back on this time and think we all supported same-sex marriage; I think we’ll look back on it and remember hating 3D movies.)

The line that best encapsulates “Captain America: The First Avenger” came early on in the film when Dr. Erskine asks Steve Rogers, “Do you want to kill Nazis?”  Rogers replies, “I don’t want to kill anyone.  I don’t like bullies.”  I hate bullies, and all of you on the Bigs Team know that we strive to fight them every chance we get, and it was good on Hollywood to give us a hero dedicated to standing up to them.  Yet, standing up to bullies is not specifically American (think the British who fought along side us in World War II or the Iraqis who fight with us now, just to name a couple), and I think Captain America would want to kill Nazis.  It’s a decent line, it’s a decent film, it just doesn’t soar in that magical way we all hope something called “Captain America” will when the lights go down in the theater.

The IMDB description of the film states that Captain America is “a superhero dedicated to defending America’s ideals.”  Dennis Prager is keen to note that American values are best summed up on your coin: e pluribis unum (“out of many, one”), in God we trust, and liberty.  None of these ideals are seriously touched upon in Joe “Jumanji” Johnston’s film.  This Captain America is a hero of unquestioned bravery, but he’s more interested in the general and unspecific “doing the right thing” and having his friends’ backs.  That’s all well and good and makes for a very likeable lead character, but it’s just not uniquely America, and you can bet that’s by design.

And you’d be wrong.  From Newsweek:

The 58-year-old comedian is launching a 16-episode reality series, Roseanne’s Nuts, on Lifetime on Wednesday. It shows her new life on a macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, which she bought in 2007 and moved to fulltime last year. She lives with her boyfriend of eight years, Johnny Argent, and teenaged Buck, with her adult children and grandchildren around, too. They’re all on the show, which Barr said is like “Larry David meets reality.” Meaning, it’s not exactly reality? “It’s based in reality,” she said. “But it’s funny. It’s not the Kardashians.”

It’s long been said that reality is stranger than fiction, but reality television might be stranger still.  Big Hollywood readers probably would agree that Roseanne is just about the last person they would want watch star in a reality show, but if those nauseating “Real Housewives” are any indication, the crazier you are, the better chance you have at pulling in an audience.

There’s nothing in the Newsweek piece–needless to say–to suggest the magazine or Lifetime had any issues with a recent photo shoot of Roseanne’s where she dressed as Hitler and ate burnt “Jew cookies,” but Newsweek did make sure to get Roseanne’s take on Michele Bachmann:

It’s a more balanced life. One in which her Cassandra-like predictions about the erasure of the middle class (“We’re going to go like Mexico—the rich people and the poor people.”); Michele Bachmann (“She makes Sarah Palin look sane. Doesn’t she?”); her sustained Twitter meltdown after the not guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony trial; and the disappearance of the sort of class mobility that allowed her to go from being a poor Jewish kid in Salt Lake City to a ridiculously rich-and-famous comedian (“It’s not going to happen for anyone ever again.”) can be tempered by happier thoughts. For instance, she appreciates the rise of female comedians on television, such as Chelsea Handler, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and the upcoming season’s star Whitney Cummings. “I just like that all these women are coming to TV and they’ll have their say,” Barr said. “I think that’ll be cool.”

Once again, the irony of Roseanne Barr evaluating other people’s sanity is palpable.

Newsweek also tells of Barr’s daring escape from Hollywood to… El Segundo, a beach community about 15 miles away:

After that calamity, the therapized—and Kabbalah-influenced (since she had become close to the much-followed, controversial Rav Philip Berg of the Kabbalah Centre)—Barr decided to escape. Her hide-in-plain-sight refuge was El Segundo, a middle-class California suburb of L.A. near LAX and the beach that’s named after Chevron’s second (or “segundo”) oil refinery. “I thought I could solve my isolation by just not being isolated,” Barr said. “I was like, ‘I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to move to a regular neighborhood. I’m going to drive a regular car. I’m going to shop. I’m going to go to Ralphs.’” And that’s what she did while Buck started going to the local public school.

Yet, there is one genuinely intriguing element that might make “Roseanne’s Nuts” worth tracking: Lifetime boasts that it’s the “most trusted” and “most empowering” television network for women, so we know the joke won’t be on Roseanne.  In other words, in order to honor it’s commitment to “empowering” women, Lifetime has undertaken the unenviable task of making Roseanne Barr look good.

And that may well be the nuttiest thing of all.

Credit where it’s due, as usual, to Maher and co. for having her on.  “Real Time” continues to be the only liberal-leaning late-night current events/comedy show eager to engage articulate conservative commentators.

Here are some highlights, starting with Coulter telling MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that his mother, who has a government job, “is a drain on society”:

Next is a long chunk of the round-table discussion where Maher and Coulter’s sardonic repartee takes center-stage.  This is an act they could take on the road (UPDATE: Apparently they have):

And finally, Coulter smacks down Maher saying she only talks to rubes when she’s on his show:

Very witty, as usual.

According to Wikipedia, Jon Stewart currently has about 15 writers working for him to produce the 22-minute “Daily Show” four nights per week.  Watching these clips makes you wonder what Ann Coulter could do with her own show and a team of conservative comedy writers.

She’s written eight(!!!) best-sellers; there is an audience already built in. And if you think Coulter is too controversial or too much of a rabble-rouser to carry her own show, Bill Maher himself likened GOP thinking to the Casey Anthony jury that very show. How’s that for rabble-rousing?

The fact that an Ann Coulter show has never been tried is all you need to know about liberal-bias in Hollywood.

[I]n finding artistic and commercial renewal across the pond, Mr. Allen often has flattered European vanities by ogling the sights of their storied capitals with his camera. Unfortunately, in “Midnight,” he also has pandered to European stereotypes of the Ugly American.

[...]

The cross-cultural comedy concerns a burned out Hollywood screenwriter named Gil (Owen Wilson) who hopes a trip to France will inspire him to finish his novel. Gil fantasizes about Paris in the 1920s, a time when artistic giants such as Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and F. Scott Fitzgerald roamed its streets.

One mysterious car ride later, Gil finds himself magically transported back to the Lost Generation golden age of his daydreams.

“Midnight in Paris” taps into a timeless American attraction to the City of Light as a cultural beacon, a place even ordinary artists can visit and emerge reborn. Throughout the film, Mr. Allen treats the city’s creative minds, native and transient alike, as intellectual titans.

Yet, in paying tribute to the artistic and historical glories of Paris, Mr. Allen gratuitously sneers at his own country. Mr. Wilson’s character is engaged to a shallow, materialistic American played by Rachel McAdams, a shrew whose parents are even more distasteful to Mr. Allen.

They belong to the tea party, for crying out loud.

Full article here.

We don’t see Meryl Streep (as Thatcher) for over half of this minute-long clip, but when we do, we learn that Streep’s Thatcher will be funny and good-natured but capable of having the upper hand in a confrontation with men who are trying to coach (manipulate?) her.  Based on this teaser, we can assume Streep will be portraying the former U.K. Prime Minister as an amiable leader, but potentially an intellectual light-weight.

Streep does a bit of her signature over-acting here, even employing the canine head tilt that reminds me of Michael Myers in “Halloween,” but she certainly looks the part.

Nonetheless, the trailer is intriguing.  Now if only the fact that the script smells like a hit job didn’t ruin it.

The write-up from YouTube got me thinkin’…

The Iron Lady: Tells the story of a woman who smashed through the barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male-dominated world. The story concerns power and the price that is paid for power, and is a surprising and insightful portrait of an extraordinary and complex woman.

Can you think of an American politician who might one day fit this description...? Can you…?

Hollywood hates right-wing women and this film will be in theaters during some primo campaigning months.  A slam on a Conservative female former head of state could have the makings of a soft-money campaign contribution to the Democrats in an effort to defeat a candidate Sarah Palin.

Of course, I’m operating with limited information here–just a draft of the script, this teaser-trailer, and a paranoia born of a lifetime of Hollywood sucker-punches–but it’s easy to picture a similar conversation happening between a rising Palin and a couple of condescending male would-be advisers.

Using a Thatcher bio-pic to smear one of the 20th century’s international heroes–who just so happens to be a conservative woman–and tell a cautionary tale to undercut a potential Republican Presidential hopeful–who just so happens to be a conservative woman… it would be devious and brilliant in a way only Hollywood can be.

Let’s hope I’m giving the Hollywood left too much credit and we’re in for a respectful portrayal of Prime Minister Thatcher without any subtext whatsoever, but forgive me for not holding my breath.

What did California law enforcement expect when they enlisted celebrities to help warn the public of the impending closure of a major freeway?

Probably not this.

Kim Kardashian, one of several celebrities with Twitter followings in the millions, was asked by the L.A.P.D to warn her followers of the impending highway closure.

Kardashian complied, tweeting on Friday: “Remember this weekend the 405 Fwy is gonna be closed between the San Fernando Valley and the West Side!!”

Just one problem. The closure is in two weeks.

So the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star tried to correct her mistake, tweeting: “Remember next weekend the 405 Fwy is gonna be closed between the San Fernando Valley and the West Side!!”

Wrong again.

Kardashian erased both initial Twitter messages and finally got it right: “Stay away from the 405 Fwy the weekend of July 16 & 17, it will be closed btwn the 10 Fwy and 101 Fwy North & South!”

Oh. My. Gawd.

My data isn’t fresh on this, but there was a time not long ago where the stretch of 405 freeway between the 10 and 101 was the single most trafficked road in the United States.  Shutting that down for a couple of days is like blocking off L.A.’s pulmonary artery; it just can’t function without it.  So, if the city is going to try to temporarily block it off, they can’t afford any mistakes.

One of the main theses of Big Hollywood is that more often than not, pop culture trumps politics; in other words, Hollywood has as much, if not more influence over the way we live our lives than those who are literally in power.  One of the best illustrations of this is twitter, where most of our country’s greatest thinkers are followed by a few thousand people while reality television stars and pop singers are followed by millions.  Kardashian, for example, who was catapulted to fame when a bootleg sex tape she made with rapper Ray-J was leaked to the public, is followed by over eight million people. By virtue of that fact, the LA City government entrusted her to disseminate vital information to help keep one of the country’s largest municipalities moving at it’s already lumbering pace.  Naturally, she wasn’t up to the task.

But I don’t blame Kim Kardashian; she makes a living having her butt x-rayed. I blame all of us who have been suckered into the cult of celebrity and vote for the people who run this city so horribly.  The taxes are too high, our schools are unusable, and even the public restroom toilet seats have gang inscriptions carved into them.  And don’t try and drive anywhere in L.A., either, because if you don’t pop a tire on one of the countless potholes, I can only conceptualize an L.A. traffic jam as the preview for Hell.  The city is run by a goof-ball Mayor who changed his name from Tony Villar to Antonio Villaraigosa (no doubt to pander to the Latin community) and failed the Bar Exam all four times he took it.  When he’s not on top of a Telemundo reporter (no wonder he’s happy to turn the key of the city over to an amateur porn star) he’s court-side at a Laker game or violating a local variance.  This is the guy we democratically elected to be in charge, so we deserve whatever we get from him.

We now have a city that has been left to the most incompetent people in the country (reality television stars) by the second most incompetent people in the country (left-wing politicians).

Needless to say, it’s a bit of hyperbole to blame this twitter mishap on our failure of a Mayor; he may not have had much to do with any of this.  But someone was elected to run this city–it ain’t one of the Kardashians–and the buck stops with him.

I love Los Angeles for a number of reasons, but the combination of Hollywood nonsense and a left-wing government can be a heavy burden to bear.  If you want to understand why our John Nolte left L.A., look no further than Kim Kardashian’s twitter feed.

Comedians are free to joke about what they want, but does anyone else find it creepy that David Letterman, of all people, is making sexual jokes about a sitting congresswoman?  After all, it was just two years ago that we learned Letterman had been bedding members of his staff in a secret bedroom above the Ed Sullivan Theater.  I’m not really sure why anyone would find this x-ray line funny in the first place (though I get what he intended), but even if they did, doesn’t the fact that it emanated from Letterman’s pervy mouth turn the “ewww” factor up just a little too high?

Letterman has the aura of a misogynist FM radio shock jock–the type of guy you wouldn’t want near your kids–and nothing illustrates this more clearly than a depraved joke about a female public servant who happens to be highly educated and a mother of twenty-eight (including twenty-three foster kids).

And not to sound like a broken record, but how many sexual jokes has Letterman made about Democrats in recent memory?