Golden Globe Noms Shine Light On Worthy Programs
by John P. HanlonThe Golden Globe nominations were released last week. As usual, many of the television categories were dominated with long-running programs. However, a few new shows received welcome nominations, a boost that could lend more credibility to these freshmen programs.
“Glee” was one of the new major nominees for the Globes, earning a nomination in the “Best Television Series: Musical or Comedy” category. As I noted in a review of the program, “Glee” revolves around a high school glee club. Even though the show has stumbled a bit throughout this season, it has still emerged as as a entertaining and worthy hit. I was glad it got some attention from the Globes. The most obvious nomination for the program went to Jane Lynch, whose role as cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester is one of the highlights of the program. Other nominations for the show went to Matthew Morrison, who plays the glee coach, Will Schuester, and Lea Michele, who plays the overzealous singer Rachel. (more…)
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Will Ben Mankiewicz Be Allowed to Destroy Turner Classic Movies?
by John NolteWhat makes Turner Classic Movies uniquely special? In order of importance, here are the three main reasons: 1. TCM is a politics-free zone; 2. The presentation; 3. The films.
You would think the films would rank number one, but that’s simply not the case. Now and again, TCM might screen something not available on Netflix or elsewhere, but for the most part what makes the fifteen year-old network so addictive and such a unique pleasure for movie lovers is the infectious enthusiasm for great (and sometimes not-so-great) cinema, legendary movie stars and Hollywood lore that envelopes every aspect of my #2 — the presentation.
The Mighty Robert Osborne simply is TCM. His class, deep well of knowledge, and abiding passion for all things classic Hollywood is contagious. Even if you happen to own the DVD of that particular film, Osborne makes you want to watch whatever it is on TCM just to enjoy his informative and affectionate bookends.
But nothing is more important to the success of the network than the fact that up till now it has remained a rare refuge from the partisan politics that today seem to have infested everything from our White House Christmas tree to “Sesame Street.” TCM is first, last and always a place for movie lovers of all political stripes. Under the soft plasma glow of TCM we are united members of one political party: Cinema Enthusiasts. (more…)
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Hollywood and I: Both Wrong About Michael Jackson
by Jeffrey Scott ShapiroIt’s important to be honest with yourself – even when it turns out you were wrong. As it turns out, I was apparently wrong about Michael Jackson and I just wish that the rest of the people in Hollywood who keep talking about how wonderful he was would take a moment to consider that maybe they’re wrong, too.
On the eve of Michael Jackson’s death, I penned a column for FOX News in Michael Jackson’s defense arguing that he should be remembered for all his charitable accomplishments as opposed to the unproved accusations against him.
“Sure, Jackson was prosecuted twice, and although this reporter can’t acquit him of any charges, he was never convicted of a single crime,” I wrote. “He certainly didn’t deserve the tabloid innuendos that only fueled a toxic fire that was burning his reputation to a cinder in the court of public opinion.”
I stand by that statement, but there’s a difference between tabloid innuendos and facts, and to my surprise it turns out that although the most damning evidence against Jackson is indisputable, Hollywood and the media have paid little attention to it. (more…)
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Why Does Cameron Infantilize Native Peoples By Portraying Them as Helpless?
by Kurt SchlichterThere’s no hiding that Avatar is a politically correct piece of semi-coherent agit-prop lurking behind a lot of over-praised CGI effects. While the fanboys hype it as the next great leap forward in filmmaking, it actually takes a huge step backward by employing one of the oldest and lamest of clichés – the white guy hero representing Western civilization who comes along and saves the natives while embracing their simple yet wise ways.
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This “noble savage” archetype, embraced by the romantic primativists of the past and today by those who stopped their intellectual development as UC Berkeley sophomores, has been around for centuries. In Avatar, James Cameron substitutes his blue-skinned Na’vi aliens for American Indians and it’s off to the races with Seen That Before taking an early lead and Gimme A Break a close second.
Now, the purpose of this cliché is to critique Western culture by comparing the culture of the children-of-the-Earth, in-touch-with-nature, “authentic” natives with the hero’s repressed, emotionally-stunted, alienated-from-nature, technology-obsessed Western culture. This cliché requires that the natives be portrayed as paragons of moral and physical perfection – and that those of the hero’s culture be shown as just the opposite. (more…)
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REVIEW: ‘The Road’ Casts a Spell, Never Lets Go
by John NolteDo you ever wish you would die?
No. It would be foolish to ask for luxuries during times like these.
Times like these represent a post-apocalyptic world where, for reasons never explained, civilization and most of every living creature has been wiped out; a world where forests and cities and mountains have been replaced by a grey barren landscape littered with dead trees; a world where the earth itself seems to grow impatient with the sound of footsteps, often starting fires and creating earthquakes in order to rid itself of any intrusion; a world where the last remnants of man roam in cannibalistic gangs hunting for food.
At first glance this may not sound like the kind of cinematic experience you’re looking for during the holidays. Not with glib Victorian-era detectives and CGI’d Smurfs to choose from. But director John Hillcoat’s spellbinding, emotionally moving, and frequently terrifying adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Road” is, at least in spirit, richly rewarding and therefore perfect for this time of year. This is the rare film about something that matters.
Man (Viggo Mortensen) and Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) push a shopping cart down an empty road framed by tall, bare trees swaying in a wind that makes an unholy sound. Both are filthy, exhausted, constantly threatened by cannibals, always hungry, and father and son. They head south towards the coast never knowing what’s around the corner. One day it could be marauders, the next a stash of non-perishable food. Why they’re headed in this direction doesn’t matter. What matters is what father teaches son along the way: “Keep the fire.”
That fire is our own humanity. (more…)
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AUDIO: Breitbart Interviews Emmy-Winning Actor Michael Moriarty
by Big Hollywood
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Andrew guest-hosted the Dennis Miller Radio Show this morning and our own Michael Moriarty joined him for a segment to discuss Obama, abortion, Hollywood and a host of other topics.
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Fidel Castro: Hollywood Screenwriter
by Humberto Fontova“Che” film gets thumbs up in Cuba,” ran the headline from CNN’s Havana Bureau last December 8. Benicio Del Toro, who stars as Che, was being feted as the Castro regime’s guest of honor during the Havana Film Festival while presenting the movie he co-produced. “The lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best,” continued the CNN story.
Indeed, but the acclaim came because those “who knew his story best” (Castro and his Stalinist henchmen, the film’s mentors/co-producers) saw that their directives had been followed slavishly, that Che’s (genuine) story was completely absent from the movie.
The screenplay for the Soderbergh/del Toro biopic was based on Che Guevara’s diaries which were published by Cuba’s propaganda ministry with the forward written by Fidel Castro himself. The film includes several Communist Cuban actors and the other Latin American actors spent months in Cuba being prepped for their roles by members of Cuba’s “Che Guevara Institute.” (more…)
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TCM’s Legends Lost: In Memoriam 2009
by Big Hollywood
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As with everything they touch, Turner Classic Movies handles their yearly tribute with extraordinary class and delivers something subtle, lovely and touching; something always so much better than whatever the Oscars cook up that year. (more…)
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Polanski Thanks Supporters With Online Letter
by Big Hollywood
Looks as though fugitive director Roman Polanski has been receiving all kinds of support from those who believe being a “genius director” means never having to say you’re sorry. Not even for drugging and anally raping a thirteen year-old girl and then fleeing from justice:
My dear Bernard-Henri Lévy, what you have said in the Swiss press is true — I have been overwhelmed by the number of messages of support and sympathy I have received in Winterthur prison, and that I continue to receive here, in my chalet in Gstaad, where I am spending the holidays with my wife and my children.
These messages have come from my neighbors, from people all over Switzerland, and from beyond Switzerland — from across the world. I would like every one of them to know how heartening it is, when one is locked up in a cell, to hear this murmur of human voices and of solidarity in the morning mail. In the darkest moments, each of their notes has been a source of comfort and hope, and they continue to be so in my current situation.
Read the full letter here.
Bless the vast majority of HuffPo commenters who are having none of it: (more…)
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Stand Up Notes From Flyover Country: Lady HaHa
by Jeffrey JenaI was doing a little channel surfing a few weeks ago and happened across some sort of music awards show. I believe it was The American Music Awards but judging from the level of the performances it could have been some sort of reality show. What caused me to stop for a moment was seeing who I thought was Madonna doing a little dance number in combat boots.
Madonna is famous for, among other things, reinventing herself. “Reinventing” is show business talk for falling to a new level of depravity. You never see the Hollywood press praising someone for finding faith or cleaning up their act but if they demean Christian values or morality, they get raves. So I was interested to see if this was some sort of political or religious statement or just the latest fashion craze.
So I watched the performance for a few moments. The woman who was the focus to the number then moved to a piano inside a glass case which later ignited in flames. I started to suspect that this wasn’t Madonna because to the best of my knowledge she doesn’t play the piano and is old enough to remember that the late Michael Jackson set himself on fire awhile back. At the end of the song the woman leaned back with outstretched arms as if to say I have exhausted myself as an artist by dancing and lip syncing for three minutes.
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Miracle Workers: Julie Harris and Patty Duke
by Michael MoriartyThe fearless yearning of the human soul!
That is what I’d like to talk about in this editorial.
Amidst the urgency of combating the Obama Nation’s disgusting ambitions for shrinking the United States of America into a docile and obedient fixture in the profoundly Marxist vision of a New World Order, I have recently rediscovered a veritably cinematic hymn to what drives the human soul.
Julie Harris “Member of the Wedding”
We humans harbor an insatiable desire to know the entire universe. That, at least, is what I’ve concluded while watching the incredibly powerful performances of Julie Harris in Member of the Wedding and Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker.
This experience, as an audience member, of Helen Keller’s ferocious journey from an animal ignorance to human enlightenment captures with blissfully overwhelming density the same feeling I had experienced with my first and now repeated viewings of the film, Member of the Wedding. (more…)
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Memo to Bravo: Don’t Let Crashers Invade Our Living Rooms
by John P. HanlonIn a year when a “balloon boy” became a media sensation, it is bizarre that some networks are thinking about giving more credibility to reality show contestant wannabes. The Salahis, the other high-profile ”celebrity” couple that seemed more interested in gaining publicity and fame than following the law, are getting even more attention because of the party they crashed several weeks ago at the White House. The network Bravo has seemingly furthered their careers by polling people about giving the party crashers their own show. These are the uninvited guests who, after invading the White House party, want to invade your living room.
The Washington Post recently reported on the Bravo poll that gave the Salahis the spotlight once again. The article noted that Bravo ”decided to poll viewers for their thoughts on Michaele and Tareq Salahi. This included asking whether you’d think less of Bravo if it gave the Salahis their own reality series.” The Post article noted that “the poll, which was being conducted by Research Results — a company that says it’s affiliated with NBC Universal” asked repondents if “it would be in poor taste to give them [the Salahis] their own reality show. ” The answer to that question seems obvious. The Salahis got publicity for breaking into a White House party. If that activity helps to earn them a reality show, that will only lead to future White House incursions by publicity-hungry celebrity wannabes. (more…)
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‘Avatar’ and Boycotts: When the Left Does and Doesn’t Champion Free Speech
by Frank DeMartiniOver the last weekend, I had the privilege of seeing “Avatar.” This is a film of epic proportions and although I had some problems with it cinematically, from a technological standpoint, I recommend that everyone should see it. However, do not go and see it if you are expecting a live action film or good acting. It is a combination of live action and animation and it should be viewed as such. Just expect the equivalent of a technologically advanced, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” I was disappointed because I was expecting a fully integrated live action film.
However, there is one thing about the movie that really upsets me. It is blatant anti-military and less blatant anti-American. Without giving away too much of the plot, the bad guys in the movie are the United States Marines. Apparently, in the future, the world has become one big country that seems to be controlled by the United States. The United States Marines are sent to the planet of Pandora to destroy the opposition to the New World Order’s acquisition of its substitute for oil which just happens to be located on Pandora. (more…)
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REVIEW: Star Chemistry Lifts ‘Sherlock Holmes’
by John NolteFor those of you expecting what the trailer promised: a bloated, confusing, noisy, headache-inducing Christmas blockbuster weighed down with CGI and barely made watchable by the presence of He Who Makes Everything Better – star Robert Downey Jr. – you’re in for a surprise. Director Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” might be a tad bloated, somewhat hard to follow, and easily 15 minutes too long, but the director makes this umpteenth cinematic re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s intrepid detective his own and delivers a spirited, entertaining, blissfully mindless couple of hours at the movies.
Ritchie’s slovenly Holmes is a long way from Basil Rathbone’s, the actor who played the resident of 221 B Baker Street in 14 films over half as many years starting in 1939, and he’s even further from Doyle’s. The mannered, sophisticated detective is now a borderline recluse who’s utterly dysfunctional when not preoccupied with a case, a glib ladies man and ready action hero who knows how to use his fists. As his physician-partner in crimesolving, Jude Law grabs his best role in years as Holmes’ closest friend and mother hen.
Set in London in the late 1800s, the game afoot does not involve Holmes most famous nemesis Professor Moriarty this time, but instead Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), a presumably hanged ritual killer and user of the dark arts who might have risen from the dead with a master plan for world domination. Through an influential Gentleman’s Club of fellow occultists, Blackwood all but controls Scotland Yard which leaves only Holmes, Watson and Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) — a scheming American woman from Holmes’ past with dueling loyalties and a mind just as sharp as her romantic rival’s — to stop him. (more…)
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Burt’s Eye View: The New and Improved Iron Curtain
by Burt PrelutskyBack in 1946, Winston Churchill, in a speech delivered at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, referred to an Iron Curtain that had descended across the Continent, behind which all the capitols of the ancient states, from Berlin to Belgrade, from Budapest to Sofia, were under the boot of the Soviet Union.
Today, freedom-loving people are faced with a second such curtain. It doesn’t exist in Eastern Europe this time, but along the Potomac. On one side, there are despots like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Sunstein, Emanuel, Axelrod, Specter and Conyers. On the other side are those of us who are sick and tired of having ex-community organizers and their left-wing henchmen doing their best to enslave us. They treat the Constitution like toilet paper; they bribe millions of us, including illegal aliens, with cash and free health benefits, while simultaneously bankrupting the rest of us, along with our kids and their kids.
They have saddled us with so much debt, unemployment and inevitable inflation, one can only assume it’s their plan that we’ll be too wretched to notice that they’re also taking away our rights and freedom. This is the doing of the same people who pretended that the Patriot Act, which did nothing more than try to prevent Islamic terrorists from plotting a sequel to 9/11, was the height of fascistic tyranny.
I guarantee that if our leading leftists were characters in a movie, a lot more people would be able to recognize their villainy. That’s because they would all look like albinos and talk with funny accents. (more…)
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1984: The Year Capitalism Saved Christmas
by Mike LaChanceIf you’re a first generation watcher of MTV, you must remember the year 1984 and Band Aid. Bob Geldof and other musicians from Duran Duran, Genesis, Culture Club, The Police and U2 teamed up to make a record which would raise money to buy food for starving people in Africa.
How? Through record sales. In other words: Capitalism.
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They didn’t demand that any government should pay the tab for the recording, production or distribution of their product. They relied on the free market system to solve the problem.
There was no politically correct objection to the song’s refrain which clearly references “Christmas” by saying “feed the world, let them know it’s Christmas time again.” (more…)
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For Conservative Movie Lovers: Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ Part 4
by Leo GrinIn an industry notorious for wasteful pretentiousness — directors shooting a hundred takes, crews taking all day to light a single shot, gazillions spent on the latest effects — Hal Needham was a rebel. Directing? “There is no magic to it, you know. All you have to do is look through the camera and see if it’s got the lens on it that you want. . . I don’t really think it’s that tough.” Cinematography? “We’re not doing Gone with the Wind or Fiddler on the Roof. It’s action/comedy. . .don’t give me none of this artsy-fartsy stuff, just shoot the film.” Expensive locations? “I like to get outside whenever I can. I think it gives a film energy to be outside. . . and beauty.”
And so Smokey and the Bandit was made fast and loose, outside, on a low budget. In Reynolds’ words, they worked “lightning quick,” with first-time director Needham “reigning over crew and camera with instincts that made him, in my humble opinion, the best action director in the business.” The entire film was shot on location in the South. “We moved all over Georgia. . . It was a screwy chase picture, but Hal’s fun, outlaw, hell-bent-sensibility made it sparkle.” (more…)
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INTERVIEW: ‘Prancer’ Director John Hancock
by Carl KozlowskiWhen Oscar-nominated director John Hancock made the film “Prancer” in the winter of 1988, he didn’t realize that his tale of a small-town girl (Rebecca Harrell) who believes that one of Santa’s magical reindeer has landed in her hardscrabble Indiana town would stand the test of time. He had made one outright classic with 1973’s “Bang the Drum Slowly,” in which he gave Robert DeNiro his first major starring role (the film also stars Big Hollywood’s own Michael Moriarty) and which Roger Ebert considers the best baseball film ever made, followed it up with the cult-favorite horror film “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” and had an underrated gem with Nick Nolte called “Weeds” get lost in the shuffle of its distributor’s bankruptcy in 1987, but neither had broken through to become a television or video staple.
In fact, due to legal hassles, “Jessica” wasn’t available on video until many years later, and “Weeds” has never made it to DVD because the negatives suffered the rare indignity of being completely lost by its producer. Meanwhile, “Prancer” – in which John brought a healthy dose of reality rather than schmaltz in portraying the girl’s struggling parents – has held up so strongly that it was recently named #19 on BH Editor-in-Chief John Nolte’s list of the 25 greatest Christmas movies of all time, with Nolte calling it a “lovely, low-key, tender family film with a rich spiritual theme.”
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25 Greatest Christmas Films: #1 — ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)
by John NolteThere aren’t many films that transcend their art and time and generations. A box-office disappointment when released, It’s A Wonderful Life was so forgotten its copyright lapsed causing it to be looped endlessly on small independent television stations everywhere desperate for free programming. Inevitably this forgotten classic was rediscovered by a new generation. A generation under siege by a film industry that now scoffs at such simplistic ideas as reminding us of the rich benefits that can be reaped by our own simple human decency.
Fifteen-years ago it was all the rage to worship It’s A Wonderful Life, and then the inevitable backlash began by the contrary-is-cool crowd and those offended by spiritualism and sentiment. Whatever. All I know is that after dozens of viewings each new one is like the first and without fail the story stays with me for days.
And who are we to argue with time? Like Beethoven and Sinatra, the story of a good man blinded by disappointment, driven to suicide, and saved by God’s grace will live for as long as there’s a civilization. Because the message is about the simplest and yet most important of things — it’s about why when things are at their worst that’s the most important time to step outside the hurly burly of life’s setbacks and inventory our blessings.
It’s A Wonderful Life is about perspective. (more…)
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L.A. Times Art Critic Defends White House Commie-Chic Xmas
by Big HollywoodOver at the L.A. Times today, art critic Christopher Knight went after Big Government for reporting on the White House Christmas trees ornaments and the man, Simon Doonan, tapped to oversee the decorations for the White House. Knight’s objection to Big Government’s coverage of the administration’s decision to inject left-wing politics into the White House Christmas tree begins and ends with the fact that Andy Warhol was the artist behind the particular image of the murderous Communist dictator Mao Zedong featured on one of the ornaments we brought to your attention. Knight’s article is excerpted below followed by Breitbart’s take downs and Knight’s response. Jump in the comments here or head over to the L.A. Times article and join the fray.
“A Warhol Christmas at the White House”
By Christopher Knight, L.A. Times
When it comes to art, the right-wing anti-Obama crowd hasn’t had a very good year. Repeated efforts to gin up outrage in a manufactured culture war have either fallen flat or proved downright embarrassing. (You can see some of them here, here and here.)
The latest fiasco is the Great Christmas Ornament Scandal.
On Tuesday, Andrew Breitbart’sBig Government blog got its knickers in a twist over one of the Obama White House’s myriad Christmas trees. (Big Government is a sibling to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blog, which cranked up a paranoid fantasy about the National Endowment for the Arts a few months back.) The blaring “EXCLUSIVE” led with a blurry photo of a decoupage Christmas ornament adorned with the face of Chinese Communist dictator, Mao Zedong.
“Of course, Mao has his place in the White House,” Big Government wailed about the GCOS, taking the Obama-as-socialist meme out for a yuletide spin.
Except, it wasn’t exactly Mao. It was Andy Warhol’s “Mao.”
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Waiting for Sim: Christmas Eves With the Definitive Scrooge
by Michael MandavilleWhen growing up in Los Angeles, a singular delight was getting the TV Guide in the Sunday paper and scouring it, pen in hand. My movie search. In the sixties, Los Angeles had the greatest number of TV channels in any city: 2-4-5-7-9-11-13. In trips to San Diego, the Mid-West or anywhere else, you’d be lucky to get two, maybe three channels. And not very good ones.
Some years ago, my daughter asked: “…so in the olden times, Dad, when did you see movies?” Hmmmm. Olden times. As if the wheel, the pen, writing, music, and entertainment were invented with her generation. I explained that there were two places to see movies. Theaters and Television. That was it. No DVD, VHS, iPod, or Hulu.com. My TV Guide search was essential to find the right movies and straighten out my schedule for the week by circling and grading the films. After all, if a movie came on at 11 p.m., you’d be up for two hours to “The End.”
But each week, when I got the TV Guide in my young hands, it was like opening a present. Before the internet, I explained to my daughter, we had this ancient forum called a “library” where you could get books on movies and famous actors.
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