John Nolte is Editor-In-Chief of Big Hollywood.
John Nolte
Did President Obama Learn Nothing from Ving Rhames?
by John Nolte
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One of the classiest moments in the history of show biz starts at right around the three-minute mark.
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EXCLUSIVE: Gene Hackman Talks Iraq, Gitmo, and Celebs Who Talk Politics
by John NolteQuietly, with dignity and without fanfare, The Mighty Gene Hackman retired from acting in 2004 to live with his wife in New Mexico and tap out the occasional novel, his latest being “Escape From Andersonville,” a piece of historical fiction he co-wrote with Daniel Lenihan.
Though there were no announcements I’m aware of, almost immediately I knew he had retired … because almost immediately there was a disturbance in the force. Sometime during the early eighties, Hackman replaced John Wayne as my favorite working actor and rarely did a year pass without a new Gene Hackman movie – and sometimes there were as many as two or three. So when the movies stopped coming, something just felt off. (more…)
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The Polanski Culture: Hollywood’s Push to Normalize Sex With Children
by John NolteThe vocal, sanctimonious Free-Polanski uproar is merely a symptom of an entertainment culture infected with a moral cancer – a culture that regularly practices up on the screen what we’ve heard them preach this last week on behalf of a confessed child rapist.
Last year Miramax released “Doubt,” a high-profile piece of Oscar-bait starring Academy Award winners’ Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Streep plays a puritanical nun on a moral crusade to expose a Priest (Hoffman) who she believes is sexually abusing a 12 year-old boy. Both characters are portrayed as unsympathetic (especially Streep’s) but in just a couple scenes the boy’s working-class mother (Mrs. Miller, played by Viola Davis) is established as the moral center of the film – the only one truly interested in the welfare of her child. When Mrs. Miller’s informed that her son’s being molested, the Moral Center Of The Film responds that her 12 year-old boy is gay, a social outcast, and beaten regularly by his homophobic father … so maybe the best option for him is a sexual relationship with a forty-something child predator.
Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, and written and directed by Oscar-winner Alan Ball, last year’s “Towelhead” is a film Roman Polanski might have seen many, many times while wearing a rain coat. The protagonist is 13 year-old Jasira (played by the then barely eighteen Summer Bishil) and the story surrounds her sexual abuse at the hands of a number of men, including Eckhart’s Gulf War Vet. Rather than the repeated abuse damaging the young girl, the filmmaker portrays the rapes and molestations as a healthy and sexually liberating experience. More than once the audience is “treated” to lingering shots of Jasira’s bare legs as she discovers the joys of the orgasm while masturbating to photographs of naked women.
Kate Winslet won last year’s Best Actress Oscar for her role in “The Reader,” in which she plays a “sympathetic” Nazi guilty of mass murder who seduces and then engages in a steamy sexual affair with a 15 year-old boy. The sex scenes between this mature woman and a child lean heavily on the erotic, as opposed to the creepy. (The “sympathetic Nazi” issue we’ll save for another post.) (more…)
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(UPDATED) School Kids Sing Praises of Health Care Reform on CNN
by John NolteBig Hollywood should have started a pool where we could all drop a buck and guess the date and time a national news network would highlight a bunch of school kids singing for Dear Leader’s flagging bid to take over our nation’s health care. This is what the Left does, after all. Correcting bad behavior that furthers their cause is out of the question. So instead, they get us used to their bad behavior by performing it over and over again as if to say, “Would I be doing this so brazenly if it was wrong?”
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Predictably, CNN comes to the rescue, absolving all those awful school teachers who abused their captive audience with some of the creepiest child behavior since “Pet Sematary.” And I say “CNN” because Wolf –I lost on Jeopardy, baby– Blitzer just isn’t smart enough to figure all of this out on his own. (more…)
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The Oprahfication of David Letterman
by John NolteSure, holding it all in might have taken 15 years off of our lives but at least when men were stoic they died with their dignity intact. Watching the once mighty David Letterman confess, apologize and then re-apologize like some narcissistic nobody who suddenly finds Oprah’s attention and camera on him is just another exhibit in the trial of How Far Men Have Fallen.
Compounding his mistake from last week, we got this last night:
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Of course Letterman didn’t think about how the media would hound every female who ever worked with him as he bared his precious soul for ten minutes last week. How could he when he was thinking only of himself? Anyone who spends ten minutes confessing their sexual indiscretions on national television obviously hasn’t yet figured out that everything isn’t all about him. If he had, he would’ve issued a short statement, taken the incoming fire without comment, and quietly and privately begged forgiveness from those he hurt. (more…)
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Socialism and Christian-Bashing Crash at Box Office
by John Nolte
Tough times for leftie Hollywood. Nothing’s gone right this week. None of this is their fault, of course. In order to understand that it might not be a good idea to rally around a child rapist, bash religion in a religious country or trash capitalism in a capitalist country you have to live in the real world…
Michael Moore’s CAPITALISM tanks!
Ricky Gervais has launched his second consecutive box office bomb as The Invention of Lying (Warner Bros) only mustered $2.2M or so to start the 3-day. The comedy should finish #5 with approximately $6.5M for the weekend. … (more…)
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When You’ve Lost Eugene Robinson: ‘Hollywood’s Shame’
by John NolteThe Polanski divide isn’t a left/right issue, it’s a culture issue, and while there are many good and moral people working in the entertainment industry, there’s also a dark underbelly of money, power, sex and fame among the most powerful. They’re terrified to judge Polanski because they don’t want to open that door. If “judgment” is allowed in the room, it could turn on them.
The worst sin imaginable among the Harvey Weinsteins who run this town and the Whoopi Goldbergs desperate to hold on to their celebrity, obviously isn’t the sodomizing a thirteen year-old child. The worst sin is making a moral judgment against another — unless that “other” is someone who makes them ashamed through the upholding of a personal moral standard, like a Christian.
But the whole thing is burning down around them and they don’t even see it. The world now senses something dark and ugly at work among those who control the world’s most powerful propaganda tool, and the last two decades of being written off as a bunch of fuzzy headed, out-of-touch liberals are about to be remembered as the good old days. (more…)
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dun DUN: Rene Balcer Murdered ‘Law & Order’
by John NolteWhen “Law & Order” first hit the airwaves in September of 1990, I was an immediate fan. The concept, the ignoring of the personal lives of the lead characters, the wonderful acting and especially the endless plot twists hooked me a few seasons before the public would catch on and make the show a regular ratings hit. The first four seasons are among four of the best ever produced for dramatic television, thanks mainly to Michael Moriarty’s exceptional work as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, a resourceful, Robert F. Kennedy-style hard-nosed prosecutor determined to see justice done (though the whole cast was top-notch).
After 88 episodes Moriarty left, Sam Waterston (one of my favorite actors) took his place, and while the show was never quite the same, it remained regular viewing until around 2002.
The program’s eventual deterioration was a case study in the boiling frog theory. The quality of the production and acting remained, but the politics slowly shifted to the far left almost without my noticing. And it wasn’t the actual politics that first became apparent; it was the negative effect of those politics on the quality of the storytelling. (more…)
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Whoopi ‘Not Rape-Rape’ Goldberg: Child Advocate
by John Nolte
Toys-R-Us: ”I’m Whoopi Goldberg and I love kids.”
The View: “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. … It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.”
Are those who declare themselves “child advocates” required to go through some sort of accreditation or licensing program in California? Because if they are, maybe Whoopi missed the part about actually “advocating” for children, as opposed to, say…. millionaire, celebrity child-rapists.
Here’s the definition of “advocate”: to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument;
I must lack the sophistication necessary to understand how this works, but it doesn’t sound like “child advocacy” to me when someone argues on national television that drugging and sodomizing a thirteen year-old girl against her will doesn’t meet the definition of rape. Or could it be that Whoopi’s definition of advocacy is to “speak in favor of” splitting hairs for those who do irreparable damage to children? (more…)
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Polanski Vs. Kazan: A Tale of Two Oscars
by John NolteSome are under the mistaken impression that Hollywood’s rallying behind behind Polanski because he’s a a fellow artist. That has nothing to do with it. Polanski made a few classic films but his resume pales in comparison to the great Elia Kazan — a man who, until his death in 2003, remained something of a pariah in Hollywood even though sixty years had passed since he named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
In Hollywood there’s something worse than being a communist (or a child rapist) and that’s being an anti-communist. Kazan, a former member of the Communist Party of America, died a die-hard liberal but once he came to understand the crimes against humanity committed under Stalin he left the communist party and eventually went before HUAC where he named Stalinists, not innocent liberals. He also never apologized: (more…)
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CBS Early Show: ‘Friends Defend Polanski’
by John Nolte
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Wow. That is quite a moment in the “60 Minutes” interview when director Roman Polanski says of the 13 year-old girl he drugged, raped and sodomized:
“She wasn’t unschooled in sexual matters. She was consenting and willing…”
First off, the victim disagrees. Secondly, if she was so willing, why the Quaalude?
Polanski may be a monster, but he’s Hollywood’s Monster, and they are the rich and powerful elite in this town and that matters. And what does it say about Polanski’s defenders in both the entertainment industry and media that they consider his living luxuriously in Europe as ”a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions“? (more…)
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Round Up of Hollywood’s Polanski Supporters
by John NolteThis is how degenerate Hollywood’s become: Today it’s more damaging to your career to buck the “cool kids” and speak out against the child rapist than it is to be the child rapist.
The round up below took twenty-minutes to put together. Who knows who or what else is out there. And don’t forget it’s early. Hollywood’s Rally ‘Round the Child-Sodomizer is only 36 hours old.
“We’re calling on every film-maker we can to help fix this terrible situation,” Weinstein said. Sources close to The Weinstein Company said the mogul would reach out to Hollywood to lobby against any move to bring Polanski to the US, where he could face up to 50 years in jail.
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Hollywood Unites to Defend Polanski
by John NoltePleading guilty to unlawful sex with an underage girl — the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year-old — isn’t stopping Hollywood from ginning up an indignation campaign over the possibility of fugitive director Roman Polanski being held accountable for his crimes. Yes, these are the values of those who control the most powerful propaganda device ever created. Which begs a question: If his unspeakable deed doesn’t meet the standard, what exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin?
My favorite part of the below story is Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times questioning the ethics of the LA district attorney for extraditing Polanski “at a time of severe statewide budget cuts.”
Now the Left worries about government spending! This reckless, out of control, bringing-child-rapists-to-justice spending must stop!
Maybe I’m just a simplistic right-winger but everything stops for me upon learning a child was raped. That doesn’t mean we don’t eventually examine judicial misconduct or government spending, but only after we throw away the key. (more…)
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Polanski May Finally Face U.S. Justice
by John NolteNothing mitigates director Roman Polanski’s unspeakable crime. Certainly Polanski has dealt with personal tragedy on a scale few of us can understand, but that’s not a license to drug, rape and sodomize a 13 year-old girl. Nor is perceived misconduct on the part of trial judge, nor is the forgiveness of the victim (who reached an out-of-court settlement with Polanski).
And this may come as a surprise to some in Hollywood, but helming a few cinematic masterpieces doesn’t turn someone who anally raped a child into some kind of tragic hero… In all the revisionist history, the simple fact that Polanski plead guilty to “unlawful sex with an underage girl” is seldom mentioned at the top of the special brand of rationalizations extended to our celebrity class.
Well, finally, after 32 years, justice may be done. At the request of the U.S., the Swiss nabbed the 76 year-old fugitive and may extradite: (more…)
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UPDATE: NEA Scrubs ‘Health Care Resource’ From Website
by John NolteYesterday, Scott Johnson at Powerline reported that the NEA homepage ”Health Care Resource” link took you to the Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center (AHIRC), whose own homepage urged artists to ”get involved in the health care debate,” contact Congress and “demand affordable-guaranteed insurance.”
I grabbed some screen shots, did some digging and discovered that the AHIRC was created by The Actors Fund with a grant from the NEA and is a 501(c)(3), which means, according to the IRS, they…
…may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.
Well, what a difference a day makes. Not only has the NEA completely removed the link to what was essentially a lobbying demand for health care reform, but the AHIRC did a little scrubbing of their own to nudge the rhetoric closer to 501(c)(3)-ey territory… (more…)
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Elite Celebs Shill For MoveOn.Org, ObamaCare
by John Nolte–
The question none of these elites will ever answer is whether or not they’re willing to give up the Cadillac health benefits they currently enjoy through “evil” insurance companies, and accept the government-run ObamaCare they’re so eager to condemn the rest of us to. (more…)
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NEA ‘Health Care Resource’ Links to 501(c)(3) Organization Demanding ‘affordable guarantee-issue insurance’
by John NolteScott Johnson at Powerline was alerted to this this morning. We’ll tell the story in pictures.
NEA homepage:
Closer look:
Select “Health Insurance” and you’re sent directly here: (more…)
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Propaganda, Health Care and ACORN: Full Context of NEA Conference Call Reveals Disturbing Pattern
by John NolteAt first glance, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) conference call of August 10th, 2009 sounds innocent enough because it’s supposedly been organized by Michael Skolnik, political director for Russell Simmons and someone not officially associated with any government agency. Skolnik appears to be acting independently as a concerned citizen and to have taken it upon himself to gather together a group of artists and art organizations hoping to move them towards “national service.” And how nice of the White House, the federal government and the NEA to make the time to participate in the call and aid this group of American artists motivated to help their country and community.
But this is only how things appear.
All evidence points to the fact that the conference call was a ruse, a front for a White House using Skolnik as a kind of beard in order to put an innocent spin on their abuse of the NEA and two non-partisan volunteer organizations (United We Serve – an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service – a federal agency, and the White House’ Office of Public Engagement).
The goal: To motivate a group of hand-picked pro-Obama artists (grant recipients or those wanting grants) to push the President’s flagging agenda, especially health care — and to funnel this promotion through the ACORN related- Serve.gov website.
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Documentation gathered by Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche and the Washington Times, coupled with a newly revealed audio recording of the full conference call, points to eight troubling facts that put the full context of the call in a very disturbing light. (more…)
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Mainstream Media Fears Where Stories They Ignore May Lead
by John NolteForget bias. Bias is officially the good ole’ days. Bias is the warm memory of Mary Ellen Hickenlooper in the back seat of the family station wagon on a cloudless Fourth of July night. Oh, how we long for the Days of Bias when the world was young and full of rainbows and peppermint trees.
Damn that Charlie Gibson. After the 2008 election, I pinky-sweared to myself that I would never be amazed by the mainstream’s media’s behavior again. And I made it through so much — through Van Jones, ACORN, the Tea Parties and all the NEA revelations. Not being caught off guard by any of these non-stories was a victory, like winning a Decathlon … and then Charlie Gibson opens his mouth and it’s like celebrating the win only to have some judge tap you on the shoulder and point to the swimming portion.
Yesterday the anchor of a major network (ABC) consciously chose to try and look like an imbecile rather than have to answer why he wasn’t covering what so far ranks as the biggest story/scandal of the year. And I say “try and look like an imbecile” because the ruse didn’t work. You, me and anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows he wasn’t telling the truth about not knowing anything about the ACORN scandal. The Manhattan/Cocktail Party Bubble is immune to many things – humility, tolerance – but we’re supposed to believe a network news anchor went two or three days without hearing ACORN was fired by the U.S. Census Bureau? (more…)
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If Jay Leno Wants Better Reviews He Can Start By Removing the Lapel Flag
by John NolteCritics love David Letterman. They love him because he’s mean and liberal and does everything they demand: further the leftist agenda through the brutal use of humiliation to target any public figure (or their child) who might derail Leftist causes.
And contrary to conventional wisdom, Letterman’s not edgy. In fact, he’s just the opposite. Doing exactly what those who can criticize you want you to do is not edgy. Kissing the big Manhattan/Los Angeles bi-coastal ass of the elite is not edgy. He’s their jester; their puppet; their bitch. Worse, he’s about as funny as watching your old, half-deaf Uncle intimidate, humiliate and demean your Aunt and then smile at the rest of the family as though he’s just reaffirmed his manhood. Letterman reminds me of the Jason Robards character in “Parenthood” in more ways than you can imagine. In other words, he’s a jerk, but in a sad end-of-his-life kind of way.
Oh, and how the elite critics resented nice ole’ Jay Leno for cleaning Letterman’s ratings’ clock all those years. And now that Jay’s back eating up primetime, they couldn’t wait to jump all over him with sniffing disapproval fed through a filter of wrist-flicking dismissal.
After exactly one show the knives came out: (more…)
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Patrick Swayze Died Today
by John NolteTerrible news. Fox News just reported that actor Patrick Swayze lost his fight with pancreatic cancer today at the age of 57.
Swayze arrived on the scene in a big way in 1983, with a starring role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders.” Distinguishing yourself among the likes of Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Matt Dillon in that film was no small feat. And while all would go on to enjoy very successful careers, none would star in “Road House” and “Red Dawn.”
My definition of a great actor is one who convinces in the role; one who doesn’t take you out of the story with all the tics and technique. By that standard Swayze never disappointed. A trained dancer, his physical abilities sold the action, his sincerity brought heart to the romance and a complete lack of pretension made him accessible — made him something that is all but extinct today: a real-live movie star.
Time is what creates the classic film, not critics or box office, and time has made clear that Swayze made a mark on cinema few might have expected twenty years ago. “Road House,” “Point Break,” “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost” live endlessly on cable television and DVD players everywhere. They are a immortal part of our culture and … they are Patrick Swayze movies. (more…)
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T’was Accountability That Led the Mainstream Media to Suicide
by John NolteIn recent days and weeks three major news stories have broke here online, at Fox News or the Washington Times; everywhere but the mainstream media. Worse still, as the stories unfolded, the media willfully ignored them until, much to their embarrassment, they were forced to give grudging coverage only after official action — in the form of a resignation (Van Jones), reassignment (the NEA) or dismissal (ACORN) — occurred that could no longer be ignored.
Mainstream news outlets have been caught off guard before, but they used to play catch up. Today they play “hide the ball.” For as long as I’ve been politically aware the media’s been biased, but willfully ignoring a major national news story at great cost to their credibility and relevance is a new low. So what changed?
Ironically enough, scrutiny and accountability is the cause of much of the media’s increasingly disgraceful behavior. (more…)
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Honoring September 11th: He Kept Us Safe
by John NolteMy sense that the September 11th attacks would transcend partisan politics lasted less than a few days. That may sound cynical, but after counting myself as one of them for over a decade, I know how the Left thinks and I knew what was coming.
Within days of the attacks, it began. Without a word, those who had endlessly looped the video of the beating of Rodney King stopped airing footage of Americans jumping to their deaths from the burning World Trade Center. Not long after, those who would later sear the images of a few misfits at Abu Ghraib into the hearts and minds of the enemy, began the inevitable murmurs of “being responsible” when it came to airing footage of passenger planes exploding into the towers.
Soon, and predictably, the footage all but disappeared.
Step one at chipping away at our resolve was complete, and all in the name of a few sophisticates doing what was best for us.
What followed was also expected. (more…)
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A Head Rolls at the NEA: Communications Director Asked to Resign — UPDATE: ‘Reassigned’ Not ‘Resigned’
by John NolteUPDATE: Wash. Times is reporting Sergant has not resigned from the NEA, but was reassigned. He “is no longer Director of Communications.” END UPDATE.
From the Washington Times:
Yosi Sergant has been asked to resign from his post as Communications Director for the National Endowment for the Arts[.]
Big Hollywood’s Partrick Courrielche broke the story of these – to say the least – controversial NEA conference calls on August 25th, calls obviously designed to promote President Obama’s domestic agenda, especially health care.
The Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted NEA Communications Director Sergant and asked him about the calls. He denied the NEA was responsible for sending out the conference call email invitations: (more…)
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‘Rock the Vote’ ObamaCare Push An Epic Fail?
by John NolteTuesday, while talking about Patrick Courrielche’s NEA piece, Rush Limbaugh said, “…there was a story right before I left that [Obama’s] youthful supporters just aren’t anywhere here. They’re not showing up. Where are they? Where are they out there for the Obama agenda? It’s all having to be organized ’cause there’s no real, genuine passion for the agenda.”
If the lack of energy on MTV’s Rock the Vote (RTV) health-care site is any indication, as usual, Rush appears to be right. When it comes to celebrity activism to rally the youth troops, RTV is ground zero (which is why they’re a key component in the NEA conference calls Courrielche’s been writing about), and they’ve dedicated the last few weeks to push ObamaCare with everything they got, including t-shirt propaganda contests, a “Yes We Care” pledge, and A-list celebrity videos starring Perez Hilton—
Perez Hilton?
Other than this commercial (which aired nationally last night) with a couple guys in their mid-thirties who star in a nine-year old sitcom, the best they could find was Perez Hilton? They couldn’t find anyone at the bottom of the barrel; they had to turn it over? (more…)
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Venice Film Festival: A Movie Star Reception For Hugo Chavez
by John NolteAs tens of thousands took to the streets of Venezuela to protest the Chavez government’s growing authoritarianism, as the Chavez government announced the closing of over two dozen radio stations “biased” against the government, why is it not surprising that the international film community greeted the thug with what the AP describes as a “movie star reception?”
Yes, it looks as though unless Ahmadinejad, the ghost of Joseph Stalin or the surviving members of the Weather Underground show up to steal his thunder, Hugo Chavez (whose Indian name is “He Who Rides Little Girl Bike“) is the toast of the 2009 Venice Film Festival.
The hoopla surrounds Oliver Stone’s latest documentary “South of the Border,” which the the L.A. Times describes as a “counterpoint to the prevailing U.S. image of Chávez … as a bellicose dictator-cum-comic opera figure.”
I’m still unclear how one is supposed to represent a bellicose dictator-cum-comic opera figure as something other than a bellicose dictator-cum-comic opera figure, but rest assure Oliver — Can I play soccer with Uncle Hugo?– Stone gave it the old college try; the same Oliver Stone who portrayed the Abraham Lincoln of the Middle East and his Vice President as warped and sinister. (more…)
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Michael Moore: Obama’s Rise to Power Helps Fight Against Capitalism
by John Nolte
Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” premieres at the Venice Film Festival today. Reuters has most of the details, the usual-usual from the 55-year old mega-millionaire. But buried below the usual-usual is the real story — a point of agreement with we right-wingers:
Amid the gloom, Moore detects the beginnings of a popular movement against unbridled capitalism, and believes President Barack Obama’s rise to power may bolster it.
Well, let’s hope Ted Kennedy’s enjoying his day on the slopes because Mr. Moore and I just found some common ground.
Here are the other bullet points. To save you time, the following words are not used together in describing the film: ”personal” and “responsibility” — “taxes” and “too high” — “Michael Moore” and “gave all his wealth to the federal government.” (more…)
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‘Gamer’ Review: Hollywood, Step Away From the Shaky-Cam
by John NolteYou’re not using the Almighty’s name in vain when you mean it. So everybody all together now: God Damn the Shaky-Cam.
Was it Spielberg with “Saving Private Ryan” who started the shaky-cam phenomenon or was it “NYPD Blue?” Whatever. My suggestion is that we build a time machine to locate and eradicate the host virus. Not through violence, through a plea to their humanity (unless it’s Paul Greengrass — we’ll ring his doorbell and run) and DVD examples of what their monster will become. Then we’ll go back to 1941 where you can drop me off in front of Barbara Stanwyck’s house.
Maybe, possibly, inside the jittery mess that is “Gamer,” there sits an ‘80’s style actioner — an unpretentious time killer with an interesting premise, lots of action and a little gratuitous nudity to get you through a slimmer than slim story. There’s just no way to tell because you can’t see anything, and the epileptic camera is only part of the problem. The cinematography’s completely washed out and every time you get any kind of fix on what’s happening a wavy, electronic-transmission effect is added for no reason other than to add it. (more…)
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Natalie Portman’s Castle and Why the Movie Star is Dead
by John NolteOne day … ONE day after gushing over how exciting the recession is now that those forced to work jobs they hate or who have lost them entirely can focus on their passions, Natalie Portman bought herself a $3 million castle-like estate.
Natalie, whoever’s advising you … fire them. If no one’s advising you, find someone who doesn’t carry a small dog in their purse or dates someone who does. Look to the real world for help. Look to someone who’s spent a few years in a land where the zip codes don’t start with “9-0.” Someone who cares enough about you and your career to say (without any “Honey, babys”):
“Nat, past the gates of your community and away from the hills of Hollywood losing your job doesn’t fuel passion, it fuels despair, and working a job you hate is almost as bad because of the big black permanent ball of dread it plants in your gut. I know you dig Barack, I did too before he targeted my children and health care, but you can’t flak for his recession. That’s what the mainstream media is for. You have to empathize with your audience, build goodwill. Besides, you’re closing on that castle tomorrow, so today wouldn’t be a good time to get all gushy over how exciting Barack’s recession is. And if you do, I quit.” (more…)
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‘Extract’ Review: Good Performances Aren’t Enough
by John NolteWriter/director Mike Judge’s “Extract” is being promoted as: “The creator of OFFICE SPACE heads back to work,” but this isn’t exactly true in the purest “Office Space” sense. Our protagonist Joel (Jason Bateman) does spend time at the company he owns, a flavor extract plant, but for the most part those goings on are a subplot to what is essentially a relationship comedy — and only a mildly amusing one at that.
Joel’s problem is that he can never get home from work before his wife Susie (Kristen Wiig) puts on the sweatpants at the strike of 8pm … and once the sweatpants are on there will be no sex for the Extract King. What makes him late is the personnel and personality nonsense at the office; what slows him down is Nathan (a terrific David Koecher), one of those boorish nightmares of a neighbor whose lack of self-awareness eventually forces you to be rude to them. So Joel is frustrated — very frustrated, and taking advice from the exact wrong person: His buddy Dean (Ben Affleck), a long-haired bartender who has only one answer to every imaginable problem: Narcotics. (more…)
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