Yesterday, the creators of the hit show House announced that at the end of this, its eighth season, Dr. House and his cast of characters would fade into the distance.  “The decision to end the show now, or ever, is a painful one, as it risks putting asunder hundreds of close friendships that have developed over the last eight years,” said executive producers David Shore, Katie Jacobs and Hugh Laurie, “but also because the show itself has been a source of great pride to everyone involved.  The producers have always imagined House as an enigmatic creature;  he should never be the last one to leave the party.  How much better to disappear before the music stops, while there is still some promise and mystique in the air.”

Now’s as good a time as any for a post-mortem on one of the quirkiest, most interesting character shows of the last decade.  House’s focus on a thoroughly unlikeable character was risky, and it paid off; the creators’ decision to make him a thoroughgoing atheist constantly at conflict with others subtly made the case for the bankruptcy of his ideology.  Or, at the very least, it offered philosophical contrast.

Most famously, House featured a very pro-life episode in 2007, “Fetal Position,” in which an unborn child reached out of the womb and touched House’s hand, mirroring the famous photograph.  That was mirrored by a pro-choice episode that same season that made the case for abortion for a religious rape victim.  That was House’s style.  When I interviewed Shore for my latest book, Primetime Propaganda, here’s what he told me about the abortion episodes: “As you can imagine, we’re in Hollywood, we’ve got our share of rabid left wing Democrats here.  And … our writing staff has the makeup you’d basically expect of a Hollywood writing staff, and I remember when we were doing ‘Fetal Position,’ there is that image of that little finger of the fetus clasping Dr. House’s hand.  And it was a powerful image.  And we recognized at the time that’s going to go up on billboards and websites for pro-life organizations.  But it was true, and it was accurate, and it was real.  And the last thing I want to do is, I happen to be pro-choice, but the last thing I want to do is to give false information or convince people of my argument. I think that’s just not the way to approach things.  It’s a difficult choice, and it is a difficult issue.  And I think treating it as anything different than that is dishonest and ultimately counterproductive.”

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Everyone knows that the typical advertisement on the Super Bowl goes for millions of dollars.  And we all wonder why the ads they produce for that money feature children peeing in pools, monkeys farting, and bungee jumping cars.  Those don’t seem like particularly good uses of company funding.

And they aren’t.  They’re commercials targeted to the younger demographic.  And as the Super Bowl itself shows, the younger demographic isn’t where the cash is.  The advertising agencies had better wake up and smell the coffee: older, more conservative audiences are the ones that should be targeted now.

The networks and the NFL get it: we’re getting old as a country.  Seven of the last eight Super Bowl halftime shows have featured Boomer and Gen X icons: Paul McCartney (2005), the Rolling Stones (2006), Prince (2007), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (2008), Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (2009), The Who (2010), and Madonna (2012)?  Perhaps the under-40 crowd remembers Madonna, but if they do, it’s in a very vague half-sleep state.

And yet America’s commercial advertisers seem to think that the most valuable audience is the 18-49 crowd.  For years, American advertising has been run on the notion that young audiences are more valuable than older audiences; that if you grab a youngster’s brand loyalty early, you’ll grab ‘em for life; and that older audiences are set in their ways.  That’s how so much liberal television has been sneaked past advertising honchos – young people tend to be liberal, and so the honchos figure that liberal television will appeal to the most lucrative demographic.  Even if more older people watch than younger people, the advertisers figure, they need to greenlight young-skewing programs to hit the target demo.

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[T]his is how it works in the world of late night.  The last election cycle saw the late night hosts go into overdrive for the Obama election campaign.  Between January 1, 2008 and July 31, 2008, the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that Jay Leno​, Conan O’Brien, and David Letterman​ made a grand total of 169 jokes about Obama, compared with 428 about Bush and 328 about McCain.  Comedy Central comedians were more even – Colbert made 129 jokes about McCain to 91 for Obama, and Stewart made more jokes about Obama than McCain, although the vast majority of jokes about Obama were fawning compliments and the vast majority about McCain were brutal slams.

Perhaps that was the real purpose of Obama’s routine appearances on late night television as president of the United States, an unprecedented breach of traditional decorum: he wanted to make it routine for all candidates to appear on the shows run by his allies.  By appearing himself, Obama essentially dared anyone who opposes him to take the seat opposite the Jon Stewarts and Jimmy Fallons of the world – and, as they have to, Republicans have taken the bait.  That’s why we’ve seen Rick Perry reading a top ten list on Letterman about his debate foibles.  That’s why Bachmann was on Fallon.  That’s why McCain deigned to appear with Stewart, even knowing what was coming.

Dennis Miller​ was both brave and correct when he bashed Jay Leno​ for kissing Obama’s royal arse last week.  He actually recommended that Leno hire Obama after Obama loses his re-election effort: “I could see you guys doing comedy bits on here where you come out as Carnut the Magnificent and you have the turban on and the mechanic overalls and he reads ‘You are correct, sir!’ off a teleprompter.”

More likely, Obama will end up hiring all of these comedians as his court jesters sometime in the near future.  Their ratings are dropping, and their biases are now obvious.  And we already know the relationships are good: the Comedy Central writers are Obama’s brain trust of hilarity, writing jokes for his speeches and giving him tips on how to win over an audience.

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So, because you all enjoyed that list so much, and because I apparently have a death wish, it’s time for another: The Top 10 Most Overrated Actors/Actresses of All Time.

Unlike last time, I will claim that these are objective facts, not subjective opinions, so that all my critics may have full liberty to attack me (To those same critics who claimed last time that I phrased my opinions in an “objective” manner, this is called being facetious. That means I’m kidding. Also, seriously? That was your criticism?).

Here are my criteria: are they considered great actors/actresses? If not, they can’t make the list (sorry, Rob Schneider). Are they actually great actors? If so, they can’t make the list (sorry, Laurence Olivier). Only those who are considered great actors but are not, in fact, great actors can make this list. Even then, I’m not claiming that these are bad actors unless I explicitly say that I am.

So, here we go. In the words of Han Solo, I’ve got a bad feeling about this …

10. George Clooney: Not a great actor. Not a good actor. Not really an actor. If you’ve ever seen a movie with Clooney where you didn’t say to yourself, “Hey, I’m watching George Clooney” every thirty seconds or so, you haven’t seen a George Clooney movie. You’re mixing him up with Kate Winslet. He’s a D actor. Dull in “Michael Clayton.” Dreary in “Up In The Air.” Dreadful in “Syriana.” Dismal in “Batman and Robin.” He’s not a low-rent Cary Grant. He’s an affordable-housing Robert Wagner.

9. Dustin Hoffman: He turned in some tremendous performances in his early days (most notably “Papillon,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and “Tootsie”), then became a caricature of himself. He has not done anything worthwhile since “Tootsie,” in fact. Even in his better performances, he is a bit too mannered for my taste, perhaps an effect of his method acting. Laurence Olivier thought the same thing. When they were working on “Marathon Man” together, Hoffman showed up on set after having not slept for several days in order to get “in character.” Olivier took one look at him and said, “Dear boy, it’s called acting.” (more…)

Remember when Hank Williams Jr. was a horrible human being because he analogized Obama’s golf game with John Boehner to a golf game between Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?  Of course you do; it resulted in his ‘Monday Night Football’ opener being pulled by ESPN.

That, of course, was their right, although they didn’t use similar discretion when some of their local radio hosts allowed Mike Tyson to fantasize about Sarah Palin being raped.

Where’s the reaction to Susan Sarandon calling the pope a Nazi? Perhaps you didn’t hear about that one, because she’s a Hollywood celebrity rather than a conservative country singer – and because Hollywood celebrities are usually granted full leeway to say idiotic things. In fact, Benedict served in the Hitler Youth unwillingly and was never a Nazi Party member. He deserted before the end of World War II and turned himself over to the Americans.

Now, I disagree with the Pope on a wide variety of issues: he received anti-Semitic priest Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk in 2007, he made a rather rotten speech at Auschwitz in May 2006, he was slow to respond to a British-born bishop who denied the Holocaust, and his perspective on the Middle East conflict is problematic.

Nonetheless, he has stood tall against terror on many occasions, and he has criticized in strong terms both moral relativism and radical Islam.

So what prompted the Nazi reference by Sarandon?

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The spirit of the First Amendment is being violated every day in Hollywood.  Liberal faux-cognoscenti discriminate against conservatives, forcing them into the proverbial closet.  They do it socially by refusing to invite them to the parties where business happens; they do it professionally by refusing to work with them; they do it unconsciously by shying away from anyone with a differing opinion, assuming that conservatives are incapable of empathetic writing, producing, or acting. 

So where are all those liberals who opposed McCarthyism now, when the evidence of such discrimination is out in the open?  Where are they, condemning those like Vin Di Bona (America’s Funniest Home Videos), who celebrates discrimination, or Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II, IV, and VI), who hopes discrimination takes place?  Where are they, following up on comments by David Shore (House) that conservatives have it rough in Hollywood, or responding to Leonard Goldberg’s (Blue Bloods, Charlie’s Angels) accusations of anti-conservative blacklisting in the industry?

Nowhere to be found.

And where is the Dean of First Amendment rights in Hollywood?

Missing.

I’ve put in two calls to Norman Lear (All in the Family), perhaps the most-respected show creator in Hollywood history.  Neither has been returned.  The Hollywood Reporter has called him.  No response.  This despite the fact that an organization he co-founded – the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, is being torn apart as a result of the comments made by Di Bona, and despite the fact that the same Caucus now refuses to pass an anti-discrimination resolution.

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This week has been a shocking one for Hollywood. Shortly after releasing my syndicated column last week, I handed The Hollywood Reporter a bevy of tapes showing tremendous liberal bias in the entertainment industry — and a tape of one top Hollywood creator, Vin Di Bona (“America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “MacGyver”), celebrating anti-conservative discrimination in Hollywood. Matt Drudge linked the piece, sending my book, “Primetime Propaganda,” to the top of the Amazon.com best-seller charts.

I began receiving emails from underground conservatives in Hollywood thanking me for revealing what everyone in town knows but few could confirm: that liberal Hollywood kills careers of those with whom it disagrees. I even got a few calls from liberals congratulating me on my attempts to open up the industry to different political viewpoints.

But traditional Hollywood remained silent. They were unruffled by the revelation that many in their industry hire and fire out of ideological bigotry. They didn’t even see it as controversial.

Then Lionel Chetwynd stepped up.

For those who don’t know Lionel, a multiple Emmy-award nominee for his television writing and the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.” Lionel is also a member of an elite honor society called the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors. The Caucus was co-created by television icon Norman Lear in 1977 in order to promote “creative freedom” and “quality and diversity of all television.”

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So, the cat’s out of the bag: “Primetime Propaganda” has hit the market, accompanied by exclusive tape of Hollywood insiders admitting to anti-conservative bias in the industry, openly talking about using their shows to propagandize for political purposes, and bashing right-leaning Americans. 

The media has jumped all over the story.  Or rather, they’ve jumped all over the wrong story.  When in doubt, attack the messenger. 

Rather than focusing on the tape we started to release yesterday through Big Hollywood, Townhall, HotAir, and other websites, the left has focused almost exclusively on a one-and-a-half page section of “Primetime Propaganda”: the Sesame Street section.  They’re claiming that I call Big Bird a pinko (nope), that I say that Sesame Street is a socialist haven (wrong) and that I am deeply upset by Sesame Street’s use of liberal pop culture icons like Katy Perry and Neil Patrick Harris (not so much). 

They should probably just read the book.  In the book, I do detail Sesame Street’s historic liberal tilt – the former VP of Children’s Television Workshop, Mike Dann, told me that the show was “underwritten and created primarily for black children, Spanish-speaking children.  It was not made for the sophisticated or the middle class … there’s no written material in a black household.  But there is television.”  This sounds like typical soft bigotry of low expectations material.  

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God knows I’ve criticized Rachel Maddow before.  She’s trite, pretentious, and smug, a female version of Jon Stewart without any of the charm.  Like Obama, the left loves her largely because of her constant aura of pedantry – do you ever get the feeling that leftists still long for the guidance of the college professors who called them brave for toking up and sexually experimenting? – her supposed brilliance, and her sonorous baritone.

Only one problem: last week she proved that not only was she a raging blacklister, she proved that she was an ignoramus.

—–

It all went down on last Thursday night’s show.  Maddow decided to “debunk” Mike Huckabee’s “Learn Our History” program, a rethinking of the American journey from the conservative point of view.  Specifically, Maddow had a problem with Huckabee’s “new and improved past, a revised American history carefully constructed to make you feel more comfortable than you might otherwise feel about our national history.”  She then picked out one specific example – the left’s favorite example: “You may remember the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Part of that was Senator Joe McCarthy red-baiting the living heck out of the entertainment industry … In 1947, Ronald Reagan testified before that committee as a friendly witness, as the president of the Screen Actors Guild.  And in 2011, Mike Huckabee reimagines all of this as six words in his animated hagiography of Ronald Reagan for kids: … ‘He worked against Communism in Hollywood.’”  She then proceeded to attempt to blacklist the company that did the animation for the Learn Our History series, explaining, “If you know who brought this amazing animated sauce to life, please get in touch with us.  We would like to know.”

Whoa there, missy.  Let’s start from the beginning here: in ripping Huckabee, Maddow ignores the fact that Huckabee’s history is actually right, and hers is dramatically wrong.  First off, Senator Joe McCarthy had nothing to do with HUAC – a fact she should have realized since he was a Senator while HUAC was a House committee (in doing so, by the way, she missed out on nailing Richard Nixon, a fact that will surely have her bitching out her producers).

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Very quietly, in late March, CBS gave away the greatest secret in television.  As AdWeek reported, CBS Corp. Chief Research Officer David Poltrack announced that “age and sex don’t matter when it comes to TV ad effectiveness.” 

Alone, this doesn’t sound like anything groundbreaking.  After all, most of us figure that ads generally appeal to all of us on an equal basis.  But in truth, the admission is absolutely stunning.  As I explain in my upcoming book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV (Broadside Books, May 31), for over forty years, the television industry has operated from the assumption that young urban viewers are worth more than older rural viewers – and advertisers have bought into that assumption.  Because young urban viewers tend to be more liberal than older rural viewers, the logic goes, television must program liberal in order to appeal to the most valuable consumers.  Hence television executives’ knee-jerk reaction to all conservative critiques to television’s leftism – “hey, don’t blame us, we’re just reacting to the market.” 

Except they’re full of it.  Hollywood has known for a solid forty years that the “young viewers are valuable” assumption is absolute nonsense, and has bought into the system in order to ensure that liberal programming makes it on the air.  They’ve used this assumption as a reason to bar conservatives from the television industry.  As we’ll prove when the book comes out – and as television’s biggest names freely admitted to me on tape – this was a scam from the very beginning, pushed by motivated liberals in order to grab control of your living room. 

And they succeeded.  

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Part one can be read here.

 10. Titanic:  If you’re a teenage girl, I understand – Leo is soooo dreamy (retch).  But if not, you have no excuse.  Utterly ludicrous interpretation of a tragic event.  Exploitative in the extreme.  Yes, during the sinking of the Titanic, I’m sure that people went hunting each other with pistols.  The dialogue is some of the worst ever penned.  And she throws the diamond into the sea at the end?  My God, old woman, there are millions starving and you throw a priceless jewel into the ocean?  Selfish hag. 

9. Some Like It Hot:  Not a terrible movie, just not a great one.  Still unsure why this is considered one of the great comedies of all time.  I love Billy Wilder, but this isn’t his best comedy, or even among his top ten movies (see The Apartment, The Fortune Cookie, Stalag 17, the underrated Ace in the Hole, Witness for the Prosecution, Ball of Fire, Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, Sunset Blvd. and Ninotchka all rank above it).  And what the hell does the last line even mean?  

8. Chinatown: A good movie, but is it really the best script of all time? 

7. 2001: A Space Odyssey: 45 minutes of greatness, almost two hours of poop, including half an hour of monkeys hitting each other with sticks.  Oh yeah, and there’s a monolith.  

6. The Usual Suspects:  When I finished this movie, I wanted to punch somebody.  Here’s the deal with twist endings: you have to give the audience clues, and the twist must not invalidate the entire movie.  The Usual Suspects broke both these rules.  First, the clues were not available the entire movie – only when they show you the board, the mug, etc. do you realize he’s been making up the story.  That’s called cheating.  Second, the twist invalidates the entire movie – what’s true and what’s false?  Which parts, if any, are real?  If I’ve just been watching a two hour shaggy dog story, what’s the point?  Movies with great twists: Planet of the Apes, The Sting, The Prestige, Eastern Promises.  Movies with overrated twists: The Sixth Sense, Fight Club. 

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This year was actually a good year for movies, as I’ve written repeatedly.  The King’s Speech was great; so was Toy Story 3; Inception may go down as one of the most creative films of all time.  The Fighter was excellent as well. 

Then there were the overrated films.  Black Swan was atrociously awful, another Aronofsky masterpiece of self-aggrandizing bullcrap.  The Kids Are All Right was a TV movie masquerading as a prestige film because it was about lesbians.  True Grit was a remake.  

Which got me to thinking: what are the most overrated films of all time?  There are plenty of them, of course – we can all remember hearing from everybody about some terrific movie that defied the laws of physics by both sucking and blowing simultaneously.  For some of us, it was My Dinner With Andre.  For others, it was The Pianist.  For still others, it was anything with Diane Keaton other than Godfather I and II (me!).  As a movie addict, I can name dozens of overrated movies off the top of my head.  So I’ve decided to compile my top 20 overrated films of all time.  Remember, unless I say that I think they’re terrible, they’re overrated, not terrible (that point got me into trouble last time with my overrated directors list when people overlooked the distinction). 

Without further ado, here we go: 

20. Blade Runner:  I’ve watched it three times, hoping to understand the hubbub.  The concept is interesting, as all Philip Dick concepts are.  The pacing, however, is glacial, and the plot is amorphous.  I don’t hate this movie, I just don’t love it the way some film geeks do.  Minority Report is a better movie, and an underrated one (aside from copious amounts of snot). 

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The relationship between the federal government and Hollywood is corrupt and dirty.  In essence, Hollywood liberals go easy on liberal politicians – in fact, their entertainment routinely stumps for liberal causes — and in return, the politicians give handouts to Hollywood.  Government has been particularly beneficent to the television industry – from the days of Paley, Goldenson, and Sarnoff onward, warm relations between the industry and those who regulate it have been the norm.  

During the 1990s, the Democratic Party raised $8 million per campaign cycle from the Hollywood contingent.  By the way, that’s three campaign cycles every year.  Some of the biggest Hollywood donors included David Geffen, at $200,000 per year; Jeffrey Katzenberg, who clocked in at $125,000 per year; ABC Family network head Haim Saban, who coughed up $250,000 per year.  Organizationally, Disney led the way with $1 million per year, and AOL Time Warner followed suit with $500,000 per year.  According to one estimate, Hollywood gave the Democratic Party “contributions roughly equivalent to what Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries.”  In return, Hollywood got what it wanted: favors.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act got rid of restrictions on cable pricing without doing anything about local government-created monopolies, leading to skyrocketing cable prices and profits. Meanwhile, President Clinton instituted a “research and development tax credit,” according to film scholar Ben Dickenson, worth $1.7 billion to the industry.  

Such warmth continues today.  As of June 2010, 73 percent of entertainment industry donations during the 2010 election cycle had gone to Democrats. Comcast – a supposedly conservative company — had given approximately $1.3 million to Democrats and $756,000 to Republicans, a 64-to- 35 percent advantage to the Democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) grabbed $329,800 in Hollywood donations. Not surprisingly, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Commerce and Energy Committee, which has jurisdiction over communications issues, gathered $82,500 from the industry. 

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I can’t honestly say this was the worst Oscar telecast in history.  I was only born in 1984, and only started watching the Oscars in 1991.  But I can say with certainty that this was the worst Oscar telecast since then.  Let’s break it down piece by piece. 

The Hosts:  You had to feel for Anne Hathaway, who was obviously trying her best to get through this third-grade Olympics presentation with a modicum of class.  Her cutesy charm wore as the night went on, and no number of outfit switches could disguise her discomfort with her position onstage.  Hathaway, more than anyone else in the building, knew she didn’t belong up there.  Too bad she didn’t figure that out before accepting the host role. 

As the evening dragged itself on like a wounded baby seal clubbed repeatedly with Keira Knightley’s jaw, James Franco became more and more fascinating.  Was he high?  Was he drunk?  Was this another piece of odd performance art by an elitist “artiste” who bears a stronger resemblance to Ashton Kutcher than to a real actor?  

Leaning back on his heels, his beady eyes darting side to side with creepy glee, Franco bore a striking resemblance to Muammar Qaddafi.  To be fair, he wasn’t given decent material to work with, but he butchered the material he did have to work with.  Each time the camera trained on him, his oddly self-satisfied smirk plastered across his mug, I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically.  Eventually he had to break character, didn’t he?  

Or was he the character?  Is Franco that colorless, that arrogant, that weird?  The mystery continues. 

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This week, the Screen Actors Guild emailed all of its members, asking them to support the union protests in Wisconsin threatening to shut down large segments of the state’s public services.  SAG explained to its constituents, “Please know that your Guild is taking action to support our fellow union members in Wisconsin.  We are reaching out to our members in and around Wisconsin and our legislative committee members to travel to Madison this week so that working families there know that we stand with them.” 

It is beyond ridiculous for SAG to pretend to be a working class union.  It is not.  It is a small cadre of people who work for incredibly high pay, and who shut everyone else out of the business.  SAG doesn’t even release its employment figures or its healthcare figures.  It’s great to be a member of SAG, if you can get work.  But it’s difficult to become a member of SAG, and it’s more difficult to stay a member of SAG, since you aren’t allowed to work as a performer for any producer who doesn’t have a blanket agreement with SAG.  This is one reason why productions are moving overseas, to countries where SAG doesn’t dominate the negotiations.

This isn’t unusual in Hollywood.  The Writers Guild works the same way.  As of 2007, just 52 percent of West Coast Writers Guild of America members are employed.  The average working WGA member takes home about $200,000 per year.  The rest of the writers in Hollywood wait tables or take non-union jobs to make ends meet. 

This isn’t to argue that unions or guilds aren’t necessary in Hollywood.  In some cases, they are (for example, I supported the WGA strike over pay for online content).  But for them to pose as representatives of the people is simply absurd, especially when they use their members’ cash for causes like this. 

Then there’s the problem of private vs. public unions.  You would imagine that SAG and the WGA would support Scott Walker’s attempt to break the public unions – after all, they’re taxpayers in their own right, and when they collectively bargain, they do so with private employers, not with the government.  Where public unions attempt to bilk taxpayers of their cash by striking without regard to the fact that they create zero profits, private unions supposedly strike in order to centralize a larger chunk of the profits they create.  Private unions and public unions are as different as night and day.

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On January 18, MTV premiered “Skins,” an egregiously semi-pornographic television show featuring underage kids engaging in drug deals, sex, and sex talk of every sort, while consistently outsmarting their enraged and clueless parents. The reaction on the right has been predictable: Parents Television Council led the charge for advertisers to pull their dollars from “Skins,” and has thus far succeeded with General Motors, Taco Bell, and Wrigley, among others.

Equally predictable was the reaction from the Hollywood left, which deployed the usual responses from its dog-eared culture war playbook.

First, the Hollywood contingent claimed that “Skins” merely reflects reality, and that the conservative reaction merely demonstrates ignorance of how reality is changing. As MTV explained, “Skins is a show that addresses real-world issues confronting teens in a frank way.” Liberal columnists likewise celebrated the show’s purported “realism.” Sofia Black-D’Elia, 18, who stars as a lesbian cheerleader, stated, “It’s what teens are doing.”

Of course, promiscuous sex and drugs are not what most American teens are doing. Despite Hollywood’s best effort, most teenagers remain too awkward, gawky, shy, or (yes) principled to indulge in this kind of behavior. According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2006-2008, only 42 percent of never-married females and 43 percent of males aged 15-19 have had sex. Even those who have don’t do it regularly. Just 12 percent of females and 10 percent of males had had sex four or more times in the month before the interview.

Drug use among teens is even lower. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, just 10 percent of teens aged 12 to 17 used illicit drugs in the last month of 2009, including a mere 7.3 percent for marijuana. (more…)

As I’ve written before, 2010 was actually a good year for movies.  The King’s Speech, The Fighter, Inception, Toy Story 3, Tangled, and How to Train Your Dragon were all great entertainment.  We’ve seen terrific starring roles from actors ranging from the heretofore unwatchable James Franco to the ever impressive Christian Bale, from the magnificent Colin Firth to the chameleonic Geoffrey Rush.  We’ve seen some actresses in supporting roles who have outshone their second-tier parts: Melissa Leo and Amy Adams in The Fighter, Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech.

But when we look at the leading actresses of 2010, the dearth of great performances and great parts is stunning.  The Golden Globe nominees for best actress this year were Halle Berry in the anonymous flick Frankie and Alice, playing a crazy person in her usual over-the-top style; Nicole Kidman in the anonymous flick Rabbit Hole, playing a grieving mother in her usual cold and remote style; Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, playing a teenage girl looking for her meth-making dad; Natalie Portman in Black Swan, playing a crazy person with a constipated look plastered on her mug; and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, playing a spoiled girl who gets knocked up, married, and presumably divorced.  Has anyone seen any of these women in any of these films?  And if the disastrous Natalie Portman – Queen Amidala masturbating, anyone? – is the frontrunner for Best Actress at the Oscars, how far have female figures fallen?

Far.  Quick, think of the ten greatest living film actors.  It’s not that tough – we have iconic male film stars all the time.  Now think of the ten greatest living film actresses.  Now take away all women over 50.  Still thinking, aren’t you? (more…)

***UPDATE: Ed. Note: After two years my worst nightmare came true and a post accidentally went up under my name (I have to load them in the system) in error for a long period of time. My apologies to the great Ben Shapiro who is the one and only author of this excellent piece. — JN

I am constantly bemused by the attempt to re-set Superman.  The original comics are classic pieces of Americana.  The original movie with Christopher Reeve was wonderful in almost every way – the first forty minutes of the original Superman is pure magic.  And the movie is true to the comic book sensibility: Superman is conflicted about his identity, and wants to tell Lois the truth, but he’s also supremely powerful and uncompromising about his defense of truth, justice, and the American way. 

One of my favorite moments in the movie comes when Superman utters that famous phrase: 

Superman: I’m here to fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
Lois: You’re going to end up fighting every elected official in this country.
Superman: I’m sure you don’t really mean that, Lois. 

He’s sincere in his belief in America.  

Just as importantly, Superman is sincere in his masculinity.  He doesn’t wax his chest, he doesn’t whine about having to do his job, and he will literally turn the earth backwards in order to save the woman he loves. 

Fast forward thirty years.  Now we’re hearing that DC Comics wants to reshape Superman.  According to the New York Post, the Man of Steel will now be “a conflicted 20-year-old who’s trying to find his way in the world … He wears hoodies, has smoldering eyes and, as a lanky Clark Kent, wears low-cut pants and hipster skinny ties.”  Even more disturbingly, according to CNSNews.com, the new Superman will be an emissary of the international way which presumably will be more in line with multicultural norms and practices. “I was raised in this country. I believe in this country,” Supermetroman will say.  “Does it have its flaws? Yes. Does it have its moments of greatness? Yes. Bottom line is, it’s my home and I’ll always carry those values around with me. But if I do what I can do just for the U.S., it’s going to destabilize the whole world. It could even lead to war.” 

Yeah, that has best-seller written all-over it.  (more…)

“How would you like tickets to be in the studio audience for a live taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?”  Sounds like an offer you might get from your local newspaper or radio station, or maybe while walking down Broadway on a chilly winter’s day. 

It isn’t an offer you’d expect to hear from the Democratic Party, especially after all of the caterwauling from liberals about Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. donation to the Republican Governors Association last month.  It certainly isn’t an offer you’d expect to hear from Comedy Central, which repeatedly strives to portray Jon Stewart as a relatively even-handed political basher who likes poop jokes.  And it most certainly isn’t an offer you’d expect from Stewart’s show itself – Stewart made hay out of the News Corp. donation in typical fashion, explaining “if anything, the Republicans should be paying Fox News millions and millions of dollars.”  But never fear: Democrats and liberals never shy away from hypocrisy when it meets their ends (think of Obama’s wailing about lobbyists, only to appoint them, or complaints about campaign funding, only to eschew public funding).  

On September 7, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out a mass email inviting contributors to “click here to enter for a chance to meet President Obama and tickets to see The Daily show with Jon Stewart live.  We’ll pay for airfare and a hotel.”  And here’s where the click leads. We’ll see whether the DSCC reports the tickets as an in-kind contribution to the party, or whether Comedy Central does – if they don’t, they both might be in violation of federal election law. (more…)