John Sayles may be this country’s most idiosyncratic independent writer-director, though his personal films and novels often look suspiciously Sol Alinsky-ish. Many of Sayles’ films are of a left leaning historical nature and have ranged from early 20th century miner’s strikes (‘Matewan’) to the complexities of geographic racial identity (‘Lone Star’).

So it was with caution that I approached his new independent film ‘Amigo,’ very loosely based around 1901 events during the Philippine Insurrection in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. The Philippine Insurrection was a kind of American Victorian Vietnam where issues of friendlies mixed in among foe, bolo knife ambushes and waterboarding interrogations (yes, it’s been around that long) reared their uncomfortable heads.

‘Civilize ‘em with a Krag,” the standard American military rifle of the period, was a lyric to a song popular with American troops of the time, and ugly racial epithets like “GuGu” were a common reference to the native Filipinos.

‘Amigo’ is not a bad film, and surprisingly nowhere near as Anti-American as one would expect.

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Two of the best military documentaries since Jake Rademacher’s Brothers at War premiered at the G. I. Film festival last weekend to incredible audience enthusiasm.  David Scantling’s Patrol Base Jaker and Mitty Giffis Mirrer’s Gold Star Children captured viewers with two completely divergent looks at the War on Terror.  Patrol Base Jaker won the G. I. Film Festival’s coveted Best Documentary Feature Award telling the behind the scenes story of a successful counter insurgency mission that many in the liberal press don’t want to acknowledge.

This is NOT a propaganda piece – Jaker shows just how difficult the job of counterinsurgency is, and how successful and rewarding it can be. The 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment’s Regimental Combat Team 3, the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 8 and the unit’s highly motivated civil affairs teams took over Patrol Base Jaker in the almost deserted Taliban controlled town of Nawa-l-Brakzayi in Helmand Province. The British unit that was relieved had been so under manned that they had to over depend on air support that sometimes killed and wounded local civilians.

Enter Jaker’s commanding officer Colonel William McCollough, a scholar-warrior of the best type who commands through example, intelligence and understanding. McCollough’s officers, NCO’s and enlisted personnel not only push back the Taliban from Nawa but implement a large number of successful civil affairs missions, ranging from rebuilding and resupplying local schools, clearing irrigation ditches and providing wheat seed to replace the poppies that help fund the Taliban. They also reinvigorate the abandoned market place, gradually getting the locals to bringing back almost 80 merchants and do their best to help reform the corrupt local governmental hierarchy and police. This is a film about gaining trust, one uneasy step at a time. (more…)

In its five-year history the G. I. Film Festival does its best to feature a big Hollywood premiere appropriate to their mandate of films that portray military men and women in a positive light. Not easy when Hollywood mostly churns out anti-military propaganda that caters to know-nothings in the industry, who don’t want to upset the Los Angeles-New York-D.C. ultra liberal “artist” status quo.

Ironclad, this year’s big Hollywood-style film, was a stroke of genius that carries an Alamo-like message of fighting for the common man’s freedom. This beautifully shot and acted $20 million feature with spectacular sword-crashing is set against the background of the bloody aftermath of the signing of England’s much earlier version of our U.S. Constitution – the Magna Carta. The film more than delivers the goods to both historical-epic buffs and Conan the Barbarian action fans.

Festival co-founder Brandon Millett recognized the similarities between the story and our own defense of individual freedom. “We are delighted this epic masterpiece will premiere before our Armed Forces at the G.I. Film Festival.”

Despite a reasonable, but not large budget, and thanks to English director Jonathan English and American producer Rick Benattar’s talents, the film looks more like a $75 million epic. Ironclad features the destruction of a full-sized Welsh castle and in-your-face, true-to-life, bone crunching medieval action.

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After three days at the G.I. Film Festival I can tell you that each new group of filmmaker friends I’ve made are a mix of military and military-friendly folks from across, not only our country, but also the whole globe. I normally wouldn’t give rap music or a rap artist much thought or recognition, but Danish rap sensation and soldier M.I.L.O. (pronounced MEE-LOW) certainly changed my mind. He’s a 25-year old star in his own country, but two-and-a-half years he ago volunteered for service with a Danish Royal Guard’s armored infantry battalion in Afghanistan. This sharp and funny Danish trooper did his duty as a member of a recon squad in a hotly contested and desolate countryside, giving up his successful rap career to serve his country. Denmark has almost 800 men serving as part of the NATO forces mainly in Helmand Province where they have clashed numerous times with battle hardened Taliban fighters.

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M.I.L.O. received permission from his colonel to film a music video style documentary with director Julius Telmer. The film Farvel til ’09 (Goodbye ’09) was conceived as a farewell to his family if he didn’t make it back from combat. Fortunately, he did. “It’s a very strange thing to be a rapper and a soldier. I may be the first.” He told me without any fanfare. Take a look at this affecting saga of one young man’s journey from center stage to battlefield.
“My father, he doesn’t like to see himself cry, but when I came home safe he amazed himself when he watched the film.” M.I.L.O. says thoughtfully.

After spending just a few minutes during a Congressional reception with this friendly soldier/rapper it’s evident that he loves America and American history. His knowledge of the history of the American military is broad and detailed. Earlier that day he gave several other filmmakers a detailed walk and talk around the World War II Memorial. “My father used to bring me to battlefields all over Europe. It made me want to know more about the American soldiers and the others who fought and died there.”

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Ed. Note: Just a note of thanks from everyone in the BIG family to Dan for his superb coverage of this invaluable festival.

In five short years G. I. Film Festival co-founder Brandon Millett, with his wife and fellow founder Major Laura Law-Millett have made Hollywood stand up and start to take notice of positive portrayals of America’s military men and women. “Gary Sinise was our first major Hollywood figure to support the festival. He was fresh off a plane from Iraq when he attended the first festival and I’ll never forget how gracious he was with all of our guests.”
Millett tells me appreciatively. “He was a big part of our success. Since then we’ve not only attracted top actors from Hollywood but directors, producers and studio executives. Two years ago we were contacted by both MGM and HBO to partner on several film screenings.”

Besides Gary Sinise’s annual appearance, he will host the Festival’s Congressional Reception, actors William Devane, Lou Diamond Phillips and Gigi Ernetta will also be in attendance.  Jonathan English, the English director of Ironclad, this year’s featured $25 million military epic, will take part in a Q & A during Friday’s day long Film Maker Boot Camp hosted by Festival Chairman Steve Bannon. The film also stars outstanding characters actors Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox and Derek Jacobi along with James Purefoy and Kate Mara. Ironclad is a historical action piece that takes place in the bloody aftermath of the signing of England’s ground breaking Magna Carta, that first granted rights to common Englishman. Think an English version of the Alamo.

Brandon Millett can’t say enough about former Naval officer Steve Bannon’s considerable help with the G. I. Film Festival over the last four years. “Because of Steve Bannon’s military background as well as being an award winning filmmaker and an expert in film finance and distribution, he really understands the quality and character of our men and women in uniform.”

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In the aftermath of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group’s successful raid to take out Osama Bin Laden last week, I feel privileged to be covering the only film festival in the world to feature films about the military. The Washington D.C. based G. I. Film Festival runs from today through Sunday, May 16 at both the U.S. Navy Memorial at 701 Pennsylvania Ave and the nearby Canadian Embassy. In five short years this outstanding collection of films about the American military experience has became the quality venue for films portraying our troops in a positive light. The festival features everything from combat intense dramas, to personal stories of military families, feature documentaries and shorts to historical epics. This year’s Wounded Warrior night film is the exciting medieval themed epic Ironclad about the brutal aftermath of the signing of the Magna Carta. Through the generosity of corporate sponsors, wounded service men from Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital will be hosted by the festival for that evening.

Various Hollywood professionals who support the military like actors Robert Duvall Jeremy Renner, Kelsey Grammer, Rick Schroeder, Glenn Close and JAG’s Karri Turner, as well as directors and producers like Ron Maxwell and Lou Reda, are often in attendance. CSI: New York and Forrest Gump’s Lieutenant Dan,  Academy Award-nominated Gary Sinise, will host a reception for Congressional members who have served, or who are currently serving in the U.S. Military. With veterans on both he and his wife’s side of their families, Sinise has been an active supporter of the festival since its inception, as he has of so many other pro-military causes. This year actor William Devane will premiere the drama Flag of My Father at the festival’s Hollywood Patriots Night and a salute to International Warriors will host military films from several other countries.

Last year at I wrote a piece for Big Hollywood highly critical of box-office and morale-killing Hollywood military films like The Green Zone that have dominated movie screens. Well, the G.I. Film Festival has been out front in the battle for positive depictions of the military since it started back in 2007. Festival creators, husband and wife Brandon Millett and Major Laura Law-Millett, first created the festival to combat the continuing inaccurate and negative stereotypes that Hollywood has so often fostered about the United States Armed Forces. In an interview with the Washington Post during the launch of the first G.I. Film Festival, Major Law offered up that, “In movie after movie all you see then was soldiers raping and killing. We want to show something more positive.”

Her husband Brandon emphasized that, “We wanted to do something to focus public attention on the courage and selflessness of the American soldiers.”

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No actor has ever represented the drama, power and dignity of ancient times on the big screen like Academy Award-winner Charlton Heston. Now one his two greatest films of Biblical times, Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) has gone through a complete restoration for a Blu-ray set release released today by Paramount Home Entertainment. Also in time for Easter, Warner Bros. is releasing William Wyler’s classic Ben Hur (1959), which won Heston his Academy Award for best actor, in a new special anniversary edition Blu-ray and DVD collection.

Father and son on the “Ten Commandments” set

Heston’s son, director and writer Fraser Heston, was actively involved in both new Blue-ray presentations. “ These aren’t like those quickly done transfers that are usually kind of harsh and glaring. The Ten Commandments is a complete shot by shot restoration.”

Fraser Heston remembers that his father wisely held that, “Both films had really great stories that are very compelling. Dad used to say that The Ten Commandments was actually a small story against a big background about a man who didn’t think he was worthy. The whole ‘Why me God?’ question.”

Both films were huge box office successes that played for months on end in major cities and were re-released several times to renewed success. In the late 1960s, ABC paid dearly to make The Ten Commandments that network’s Easter Sunday night special that continued playing annually for years.

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When The History Channel rejected Emmy Award-winner Joel (24) Surnow’s $30 million mini-series The Kennedys, it was another message to millions of viewers that have rightly started to ask, “So where’s the history?” History spokespeople claimed that the miniseries did not meet their high standards of historical accuracy. A ridiculous claim from a network that has extolled the virtues of lying, far-left pseudo-historian Howard Zinn and hyped an unintentionally hysterical “history” series on aliens building the pyramids and Bigfoot expeditions.

Last year History featured the terribly produced, politically correct The Story of US that featured such well-known “historians” as Donald Trump, Melissa Etheridge, Margaret Cho and Sheryl Crow. The whole idea of History demanding exacting historical accuracy in such dramatizations as The Kennedys wouldn’t be so laughable if the reorganized network took such care in its now rare historical documentaries.

The British produced Story of Us’ recreations of iconic American events like Custer’s Last Stand, the Alamo, and Lexington and Concord were not only poorly realized, but so inaccurate as to be almost unrecognizable. Back when the old The History Channel did recreations of historical events, many companies like Greystone, Digital Ranch and Native Son, went out of their way to create top quality, authentic visuals with far less money than the amounts spent by the London based company who threw together The Story of US.

In researching some 90 dramatic film and television representations of George Armstrong Custer for my up coming book The Celluloid Custer, I can assure you that few come close to the real Custer, though his true warrior’s charisma was vividly captured by swashbuckling Errol Flynn in They Died With Their Boots On back in 1941. But Custer is out of favor with the left-leaning media, despite the fact that New York Times best-selling writers like Evan Connell and James Donovan have accurately repatriated Custer’s reputation. And so the inaccurate ravings of Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (1969) on the famous Indian fighter still live on. A naïve peace and love hippy-dippy type might retort,“Oh, but Custer fought Indians, he must have been evil!”  All I can say to that is go read a fact-based history book, maybe even one with footnotes, instead of Howard Zinn’s “I get to lie because I want my kind of social justice to win out” propaganda.

Dramatizations of true events have to take some liberties, it’s just one of those messy facts of storytelling on film. Discussing the Oscar nominated The King’s Speech in the Los Angeles Times, British historian David Freeman acknowledged that dramatists all the way back to Shakespeare have had to occasionally tweak or telescope historical events in order to tell a good story and entertain. With History’s abandonment of The Kennedys, it’s about something else, about whose historical/political ox is getting gored.

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Recently New York Times blogger and humanities professor Stanley Fish referenced my Big Hollywood review of the Coen Brothers’ remake of John Wayne and Henry Hathaway’s True Grit. Though I have reviewed a film or two for various publications I’ve never thought of myself as a film critic. So Professor Fish referring to me as such was certainly interesting, if not flattering.  Agree with my review or not, I am glad a western is making money, but Professor Fish had more heady matters on his mind.

Fish’s main point is that in the new True Grit, purposely there is no relationship between physical heroism and virtue. To the professor physical heroism is displayed by almost everyone in the new film, “‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and the universe seems at best indifferent, if not hostile.” He sees young Mattie Ross as far more heroic for her acceptance of the world as random and brutal, Jeff Bridges Cogburn’s heroism is merely an after thought. The professor didn’t in the least misunderstand my desire to instead see the kind of heroics John Wayne displayed in the original film when he takes on the outlaw gang single-handedly with his “Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!” charge to glory.

Justifiable violent responses to real life threats are often not random. America has always had common men heroes and well trained professionals who can reach down deep into themselves and find the kind of inner courage needed to risk life and limb to save the life of another or stand up to the evil and power hungry. The elitist left who for the time being control most of the public debate on popular culture would have us believe that all is relative. Despite the current “no tolerance” foolishness in American schools, sometimes you have to hit back, and hard, or else the bully will take far more then just your lunch. You’re own personal dignity is indeed something worth fighting for. (more…)

You just have to glance at my Big Hollywood contributor’s photo to realize that I love a good western – the cowboy hat with the tux kind of give it away. So it was with much anticipation that I awaited the release of the Coen Brothers remake of the classic western True Grit which helped John Wayne win his well deserved Best Actor Academy Award in 1969. I’ll admit to a certain amount of prejudice here. When John Wayne puts the reins to his horse in his teeth, levers that big looped Winchester carbine, pulls his Colt’s revolver and hollars “Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch!” Well, it’s one of my favorite scenes in any film ever made, beautifully summing up Wayne’s legendary status as the most American of icons. Unfortunately, despite the considerable talents of Jeff Bridges, the Coen Brothers and others the new film literally throws that great cinematic moment away.

For those too young to have seen the original, True Grit, based on the excellent Charles Portis novel tells the story of precocious young Mattie Ross who hires a boozy, tough-minded U.S. marshal to bring in her father‘s killer from 1880s Indian territory, a large chunk of what is now Oklahoma. Her stubborn caveat is that she gets to come along. Indian territory (that’s what they called it – not Native American Territory) was a no man’s land where the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole settlements sometimes gave uneasy safe haven to American outlaws on the run from Hanging Judge Parker’s U.S. Marshals in neighboring Arkansas.

John Wayne was and is this country’s most popular screen legend, still in the top ten in the Harris Poll every year. Yet he was often an unsung actor, though one who could fill the screen and entertain like few of his profession before or after him. It’s not that the 2010 True Grit is a bad film, it’s not, but it’s not a great film either. The Coen Brothers version just make you realize how much more entertaining the Wayne and Henry Hathaway directed True Grit really still is.  In their effort to give us a more down and dirty version of the Old West, though the Wayne film is hardly sanitized, they’ve made this new version dull and uninspiring. Co-writer and co-director Ethan Coen said that they wanted to do the film from fourteen year old Mattie’s perspective and make it tougher and more violent. In the process they merely aped the original and duplicated most of the best scenes and dialogue, virtually verbatim. (more…)

“When I finished writing Empire of Lies I looked into the mirror and said, ‘Son, you’re never going to win another writer’s award.” Successful novelist, screenwriter and political/cultural pundit Andrew Klavan grins at me over his coffee in a decidedly left-of-center “enemy camp” coffee house. Meeting with Klavan in a place like Studio City’s Aroma Café makes me feel like Patton’s Third Army has just shown up to support my tiny and outnumbered rifle squad.

Empire of Lies is Klavan’s fast-paced, gritty novel that features a conservative Christian protagonist who uncovers an extremist Muslin plot to kill hundreds, but can’t convince a duplicitous media of the terrible truth. Think of it as a kind of North by Northwest meets the War on Terror.  The 2008 political thriller was a daring poke in the eye to the elitist New York and Hollywood left. His flawed heroes are part of what sets his writing apart. They’re made of flesh and blood with their own personal failings. “That’s my nature, I can’t write them any other way.”

Klavan’s erudite style and gutsy prose in books and screenplays like True Crimes, Don’t Say a Word, The Animal Hour, Corruption, Dynamite Road and the recently released Identity Man have earned him dazzling reviews, incredible sales, prestigious writing awards and international acclaim. His popular and no-holds-barred young adult series The Homelander, deals with the exploits of a teenager who wakes up to find himself in a radical Muslim United States and fights back.     

“As a writer you’re artist and business man. You are your business, but you have to speak the truth, too.  In the past I’d get two-hundred reviews on any of my other books, all great. Empire of Lies got one major review, which accused me of being a right-wing crackpot. Can I prove that happened because the central character is a conservative Christian and the bad guys are the media and Islamic jihadists?  No, but it all seems pretty strange.” 

Last year Klavan caused more than a few Hollywood lefties to choke on their morning croissants when he published a Los Angeles Times opinion piece dealing with the liberal blacklisting of film industry conservatives. Several so-called Hollywood journalists attacked Klavan demanding proof with a snooty attitude of, “We all know that conservative writers and filmmakers are just not as creative as liberals.”  (more…)

The other weekend in San Antonio over 600 people gathered for the 50th anniversary re-premiere and celebration of one of the great American-themed epics of the early 1960s, John Wayne’s The Alamo. People came from far and wide to watch a director’s cut of the film on the River Center Imax screen and attend a dinner, concert and museum exhibit at the real Alamo featuring costumes, props and art work from this 1960 classic.

Seeing The Alamo on a big screen where it was meant to be experienced really emphasizes the powerful imagery that has helped this film endure for fifty years. Wayne’s Alamo defenders are as one biographer described, “…an undisciplined group of rugged individualist from Tennessee and Texas who love freedom and resent authority.” Sounds like a bunch of lovable Tea Party members to me. That innately American sense of unbridled freedom celebrated in The Alamo is one of the reasons the film still resonates so well with so many people here and even abroad.

Made during the heyday of widescreen roadshow epics like El Cid and Lawrence of Arabia, Wayne’s film has always been a highly popular DVD title for the financially ailing MGM/UA. The biggest movie star ever, Wayne directed, produced and starred in this uniquely American story.  Nominated for seven Academy Awards, contrary to unsubstantiated claims of box-office failure the film was actually one of the top ten domestic grosser of 1960-61, but The Alamo’s then huge $12,000,000 budget initially cut into its profit margin and could have bankrupted Wayne. The film set box-office records in London, Paris, Rome and Japan eventually earning a then $28,000,000 world-wide during its initial 1960-61 release.

Unfortunately Wayne sold United Artists his participation in the future profits of the film.  He so believed in the power of the Alamo story that he had mortgaged his own home, other real estate and even his family cars and reluctantly agreed to star in the epic in order to bring it to the screen his way. At the time Wayne told the press, “I’ve gambled everything I own in this picture – all my money… and my soul.” (more…)

Last week after a packed book signing and lecture at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, best-selling political thriller author Vince Flynn (American Assassin, Pursuit of Honor) generously took a few minutes to fill me in on his thoughts about dealing with Hollywood and what looks like his finally soon to go into production first film project. 

“Most of Hollywood thinks it has a ‘moral’ mandate to defend the leftist status quo.”  Flynn tells me with conviction.  “Their leftist bias won’t allow them to do anything other then make crappy anti-American war movies where America is the bad guy.”  Movies nobody goes to see.  I get the strong impression that what he’d really like to say is, “When are these snobby elitists going to get their heads out of their asses.”

Flynn published his first book Term Limits fifteen years ago, and it was a runaway hit.  So why hasn’t even one of his twelve hugely popular novels made it the screen?   He remembers with not a little irony, “After Memorial Day was published (dealing with a possible nuclear attack by terrorists on American soil) Sherry Lansing, the head of Paramount called me and said, ‘I read your book and I hated it.  It’s more Bush then Bush.’  My response was ‘Can we at least get on the same page that terrorists blowing up Washington D.C. or New York City would really be a bad thing?’”  Lansing meekly agreed.

The first thing that crosses my mind upon meeting the New York Times best-selling writer is that he just might be the real life inspiration for his fictional CIA black ops specialist Mitch Rapp.  He’s tall, rugged-looking and likes to shoot – evidently pretty well.  If it wasn’t for his friendly and down to earth demeanor you get the idea he could be pretty damn intimidating, too.  He would probably make a really great Agency black ops type, except for the fact that such types need to be under the radar and Flynn’s commanding bearing would attract attention in any crowd.  Unlike more passive writers Flynn can also raconteur up some really great anecdotes.  If Flynn were an actor any studio exec worth his six-figure plus salary would be a fool not to cast him as the provocative and appealing character he has created. (more…)

The George Clooney film The American opened in the number one box office spot this last weekend despite a terrible reception from those who actually sat through the film. According to the reviews Clooney plays an armorer turned assassin, which means he makes untraceable lethal firearms for other such political killers. So he makes his living with a gun in his hands as he has in other such films like Three Kings and The Peacemaker.

I don’t watch Clooney films, not for free, not on TV and not in theaters. My friends know not to ask me to see his films under any circumstances. A position I quickly came to back in 2003 when Hollywood’s supposed “king of cool” took a vicious and idiotic swipe at screen legend Charlton Heston who had just publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Clooney tastelessly joked, “Charlton Heston announced ‘again’ today that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.” The needlessly cruel quip was delivered at a National Board of Review film awards ceremony honoring the loudmouthed actor. When called on about the stupid comment, Clooney dismissed any opportunity to apologize. “I don’t care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him.” (more…)

The cable channel History’s latest historical venture, America; the Story of Us – a twelve-part, cheap-looking, know-nothing celebrity driven monstrosity that insults the most basic of historically informed Americans intelligence, ended it’s broadcast run last week. The opening episode was the highest rated program in the history of the network attracting 5.7 million viewers, with subsequent episodes in the 2.0 to 2.5 million viewers range.

Abraham Lincoln and P.T. Barnum (you know, “You can fool some of the people some of the time…” and “There a sucker born every minute.”) had it right. It was the huge amount of money spent on advertising that bought those ratings. Ratings of course bring in advertising dollars but to put it bluntly, dog feces still smells bad and is hard to shake off of your foot. This series was the historical documentary equivalent a big steaming pile. In fact numerous Los Angeles-based cable documentary producers have quietly expressed their disdain to me at the poor execution, production values and content of The Story of Us.

The Story of Us was produced by Jane Root an English producer and former Discovery Channel President and BBC executive. So a foreign producer not only got the considerable money for this show but also tells us about us from a decidedly British, ill-informed and surface, slop politically correct point of view. At a time when American cable producers are starving for work, History shows their true colors by enriching an English company with a major series on our history. Most of the terribly produced reenactments were actually shot in Great Britain and South Africa, standing in for the good old USA! (more…)

The recent Daily Variety article “Hollywood calls ‘Truce’ on war films” described how the film industry is now sidelining any future war and espionage films because of recent box office disappointment like Green Zone. The $100 million to $130 million budgeted Matt Damon star vehicle brought in a paltry $14.5 million its first week, a major embarrassment to Universal. Virtually every recent Middle-Eastern war film with the exception of The Hurt Locker (which has a few problems of its own) and The Kingdom have trashed United States troops, security and intelligence personnel. The Hurt Locker cost less then $20 million to produce and swept the Academy Awards, so it should eventually make a tidy sum in DVD sales and some foreign sales, though it has yet to break the $15 million mark in domestic box office.

Hasn’t it occurred to the overpaid and over-educated studio execs that the rest of America, minus the liberal bastions of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco, would probably pay to see Americans be the good guys again? Jerry Bruckheimer has a great Afghanistan War project called Horse Soldiers based on Doug Stanton’s incredible non-fiction book about the first teams of US Special Forces who led the Northern Alliance to victory over the Taliban – on horseback. With Bruckheimer behind the project it will have high potential for box office success, if Disney lets it see the light of day.

Producer Chris Godsick has been trying to get the World War II version of Horse Soldiers about the last combat charge of horseback US Cavalry made for a number of years. Colonel Ed Ramsey who led that heroic charge of the 26th Cavalry against the Japanese is a good friend of Godsick’s and an acquaintance of mine. I’ve actually filmed several hours of in-depth interviews with Colonel Ramsey for a possible documentary, yet we can’t get The History Channel to bite, “We aren’t doing those kind of shows any more.” No kidding, Ice truckers, pawnbrokers and UFOs are The History Channel’s stock-in-trade now. Ramsey is 94, a still sharp and vital 94, but Chris and I both would like for him to see he and his men’s real life courage celebrated on film before he goes off to Fiddlers Green, the cavalrymen’s Valhalla in the sky. (more…)

John Wayne has been on people’s minds lately. Dick Cavett recently wrote a nostalgic New York Times piece about his lone meeting with Hollywood’s “Duke.” He also told of the meeting on the Dennis Miller Show. Meanwhile, liberal author Gary Wills, presumably an expert because of his 1992 book John Wayne’s America; the Politics of Celebrity, was on another radio show loudly exhorting Wayne as a draft dodger during World War II. Oh, the hypocrisy of it all, Wills went on with glee that America’s biggest media patriot had shirked service during one of the nation’s most trying times. Perhaps Cavett and Wills were both reacting to last years Harris Poll where amazingly Wayne was still ranked third amongst America’s favorite male film stars. Wayne is the only deceased actor on the list and the only one to have appeared in the top ten every year since the poll was started in 1994, despite the fact that he died in 1979.

Wayne once said, “It’s kind of sad when normal love of country makes you a super patriot.” That kind of honest sentiment that came across on film has helped the “Duke” maintain such a revered place in so many American hearts and minds.

 The charges of Wayne being a “draft dodger” are not new and with a simple Google search one can find any number of far left types absolutely blowing their “peace and love” credentials over Wayne and his lack of service in World War II. The truth is far more complex and even “hidden in plain sight” than one would think. (more…)

[Ed. Note: This is part two of a two-part series. You can read part one here.]

The Noble Redskin, or Blueskin stereotype that James Cameron’s Avatar shoves down historically ignorant sci-fi geeks throats is one of the most damaging myths in our country’s history today. Cameron’s Na’vi are definitely warrior-like and have geographic based clans, the mountain people, the coastal people etc., but there is no mention of previous inter-tribal warfare and inter-culture wounds to mend. The Na’vi are good, noble and courageous while the humans, American type humans at that, except for the scientists are greedy, selfish and bloodthirsty. Michael  Medved’s excellent recent book The Ten Big Lies About America quotes less then politically correct Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc showing that genocides and land raids amongst regional and ethnic groups have always been the norm for native peoples, regardless of ethnicity.

Historian Elliot West’s award winning 1998 book The Contested Plains also points out that inter-tribal warfare before the white man hit the shores of North America claimed many more native lives then warfare between the tribes and Europeans. I guess Cameron’s Na’vi are just so much more evolved then our own real-life historical Indian tribes. That doesn’t even include the good old cannibalistic Aztecs who managed to make more then a few of the neighboring tribes part of their daily menu. Did you ever wonder how Cortez and his small band of merry Spaniards managed to make allies of almost all of the surrounding tribes? It wound up being pretty damn easy to do when the local bully has been using you and yours as a convenient Burger King for the last few generations. (more…)

With the success of James Cameron’s Avatar, audiences are once again being assaulted by Hollywood’s assumption of self-hate and false politically correct “truths” about who America is today and what we were in our past.  Of course we shouldn’t be surprised, a look at James Cameron’s past films with military characters like Aliens and The Abyss show a similar disdain for the military.  His scientists are always good and noble, but his military types, whether official or the contractor type as in Avatar remain uneducated, redneck killers.  After all this is a film that lying propagandist, so-called “filmmaker” Michael Moore has declared, “a brilliant film for our times.”

I much prefer the balance of say the great 1951 black and white classic The Thing, where James Arness’s murderous, but very smart alien runs amok in an isolated Arctic research station.  That is until captain Ken Toby and his wisecracking Army Air Corps crew and few common sense scientists manage to fry said killer alien’s ass with a makeshift electric chair.

The Thing’s military guys get all the really good lines, too.  In level headed response to the naive head scientist’s crazy insistence that “…our lives do not matter.  Knowledge, that’s the only reason to live, it knows far more then we do.  We can learn from it.  Just think we’ve split the atom.”  Toby’s co-pilot responds wryly, “Yeah, and that sure made the world happy didn’t it.”   But what do I know?   I love westerns and military films; only the rare common sense science fiction film like The Thing or a grand adventure like Star Wars captures my fancy. (more…)