There’s nothing better than being able to do the right thing and the politically savvy thing while simultaneously paying back a long-time abuser in spades.

And that’s just what the Republicans in Congress did to Hollywood when it abandoned the rush to pass SOPA and regulate the Internet for the benefit of Tinseltown. Astonishingly, considering its usual inability to perform competently at even the most basic level, the GOP not only managed to embrace good policy but drove a wedge into the Democratic coalition that may well have dramatic consequences down the road. And, best of all, it provided a bit of long overdue payback to the smug oligarchs of LA’s West Side who have spent the last couple decades treating Republicans like something you’d hasten to flush.

Hey, suckers, how do ya like us now?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is only the latest attempt by Hollywood to breathe some life back into its dying business model. Enraged that online “pirates” are passing around bootleg copies of movies, shows, books, music, and all other manner of intellectual property, the industry did what it has done for years: ran to Congress for ever more burdensome and onerous laws designed to hold back the inevitable consequences of progress. 

But this time, it went too far. Perhaps it was Hollywood’s arrogance. Perhaps it was the provisions allowing Hollywood to use the United States government to shut down any website it pleased on the mere accusation of “piracy” without any due process, a power lefty–fascist bureaucrats would be only too eager to accept.

Not surprisingly, the people who make their living on the web were less than thrilled about giving Uncle Sam and the media conglomerates an off-switch.

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I loved going to the movies.  I always have, but I’m not so sure I do anymore.

We all know Hollywood is spinning around the bowl, waiting for the final flush. Attendance at theaters is not just flat-lining, it’s in free fall. There are a lot of reasons, some of which Hollywood really cannot do much about. Video games occupy young eyeballs. Technology now delivers a tsunami of entertainment options to our TVs, computers and iThings. But there are ways that Hollywood can respond. It can make movies that don’t suck, but that’s another subject for another time. And it can make the theaters into something new and different – that is, it can make them into places we want to be.

I (and folks like me) should be a target demographic for the green eyeshade guys who supposedly run Hollywood.  While, even if all the conditions were perfect, I wouldn’t go as much as I used to, I used to go a couple times a week before I was married, and even after I’d go weekly. I’ll spend my few free bucks (including the fortune for babysitters) if there’s something I want to see (doubtful, and again another issue for another time) and if going to the theater itself is something other than a nightmarish death march.

Which brings me to my trip to the El Segundo, California, ArcLight Cinemas on a recent Friday night to see “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”…

The ArcLight, and other “premium” theaters, represents the industry’s attempt to address some of the more common complaints about theaters from people like me – decrepit facilities, careless projection, and snack options that range from bland to hideous.  As a drunken college student, I didn’t mind going to some hellhole theater on dollar night to see awesome fare like “The Exterminator II” and “Pieces”– hey, aesthetics aren’t Consideration No. 1 when your flick’s tagline is “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!” But today, I want a little more than sticky floors and discreet ticket takers who overlook the beer cans I had obviously secreted in my pockets. (more…)

The Oscar nominations are out, almost by surprise.  There was a time when Oscar nominations were news, when people cared.  Did you care?

Maybe, but it’s hard to see why.

There was a time when the Academy Awards were an institution, where the nation devoured the nominations and joined together around their TV sets to watch the show itself.  It was fun – the whole family watched.  But that time is rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror of American culture.

It’s more than the fact that there are, literally, other things to watch while in the past the other two networks bowed to the inevitable and counter-programmed with “Mannix” reruns.  But the ratings are now in freefall.  We don’t care about Oscar because Oscar stopped caring about us.

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For lefty movie reviewers already bitter that Margaret Thatcher even existed – and especially bitter because her three terms as Britain’s prime minister utterly repudiated their most sacred beliefs – the new Thatcher biography The Iron Lady offers them a chance for some quality ankle biting.  Of course, this living legend will survive both the film and the wailing of these liberal pipsqueaks.  The problem is that we still can’t be sure whether we ought to see it or not.

The arrival of a serious film about a serious conservative presents liberal reviewers with a quandary. When the film trashes the conservative, that’s great – the slander in and of itself is good for at least a star on its own, and if the boom mikes aren’t looming in the frame and the actors don’t forget their lines you’re guaranteed at least a three star review if only in the name of socialist solidarity.

But if the movie, as some say happened here, refuses to take a position on its subject, then there’s a problem for the liberal reviewer. As we shall see, they tend to handle it by simply inserting their own limousine liberal insights into the review. Somewhere, sometime, someone must have lied to them and told them that the world gives a damn about the political views of guys whose job it is to discourse upon movies that feature singing chipmunks, space robots and/or Ashton Kutcher.

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Four high-profile shows have just had their season finales – well, three did while the other (AMC’s “The Walking Dead“) instead invented the concept of a “mid-season finale,” a phenomenon that is even less necessary than the Jon Huntsman campaign. If that’s possible.

The Walking Dead, HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” Showtime’s “Homeland” and Fox’s “Terra Nova” could not be more different in concept, tone or execution, but what they have in common illustrates the biggest threat to Hollywood – and the solution to Hollywood’s problems.

The industry faces unprecedented technological challenges and dwindling audiences, but those alone won’t close down the Glitter Factory. Hackneyed plots, unquestioned political premises and disrespect for the audience will.  But great storytelling, fine acting and technical work – those can save it.

This is written as a fan, as someone who wants these shows to succeed, who wants the hundreds of people who are employed by them to keep working. Please note that spoilers will run free and without restraint throughout, flowing unhindered like stupid ideas from Ron Paul’s Fed-hole.

“Boardwalk Empire” is a near-great show, adult fare not only on account of the complex themes of loyalty and greed that it explores but also in the sense that it packs more female nudity per episode than a drunken Disney teen star’s hacked cellphone camera.  (more…)

You’re not a conservative if Kim Kardashian making millions for being a half-witted, no-talent reality TV star bothers you. In fact, if you feel “there oughta be a law” somehow regulating, limiting or otherwise controlling in any manner at all how much dough she rakes in from the drooling morons who choose to fling it at her, you are part of the problem.

This woman took very, very little in the way of ability and somehow provided a service – of a kind that frankly baffles me – that millions of people nevertheless want to spend their money on. Regardless, it’s none of your or my business, and it’s especially none of the government’s business.

But now, here comes “Occupy Hollywood,” a hilarious exercise in poetic justice in which the left proposes to chase its own tail by attacking the same cretinous celebrities who have been the first to parrot every commie slogan the bongo-playing degenerates of Occupy Wall Street have misspelled on their placards.

Jo Piazza, the author of some remainder bin perennial titled Celebrity, Inc.: How Famous People Make Money, is leading the bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you-athon with an article in The Huffington Post called “Occupy Hollywood: Why It’s Time To Call Out High-Earning Celebrities.”

For some reason, she thinks what movie stars make is some sort of problem:

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There’s a major split on the conservative scene that threatens to tear us apart, and we need to confront the issue head-on. No, it isn’t the Romney vs. a Conservative fight – let’s face it, we’re all going to vote for whoever wins the nomination. Hell, I’d vote for my terrier before I let this crew get another four years.  And my terrier is a terrier.

No, the great conflict I speak of is the schism between those of us who believe ‘The Walking Dead’ is great television and those of us who haven’t felt this level of disappointment in something they desperately wanted to support since John McCain got the nomination.

The premiere of the second season has scored boffo ratings, and Big Hollywood’s own Christian Toto has recently eloquently stated the pro-’Walking Dead’ case here. Many people love the show.  Can all these people be wrong?  Yes, and it gives me no pleasure to say so.

The fact is that ‘TWD’ is annoying, liberalish, and frustrating. It was last year as well, as I pointed out at length here at Big Hollywood (‘The Walking Dead: Populated With Racist Southerners, Dumb Characters‘). Testifying to the level of interest was the fact that it received over 400 comments, mostly questioning my taste, intellect and parental marital status.

People love zombie stories – I love zombie stories – and no one wants ‘TWD’ to fail. But the problem is that in the second season it seems to be going down the same dead end road as in the first season – except faster. (more…)

It’s always a bad sign when my Hot Wife switches to Spanish, which she did after watching about 20 minutes of the premiere of Terra Nova.  She dubbed it Terra Mierda.  I won’t translate it for you gringos; just understand that it does not mean “World of Quality Entertainment.”

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Now, understand that it gives me no pleasure to report that Terra Nova is off to a crappy start.  None.  Anyone living in California knows lots of people who work in the Industry, from crew to talent, who rely on production to feed their families.  We want shows to be great, to be hits, to run for years.  And none of them got up and said “I want to take an interesting idea and turn it into a hackneyed, tedious death march.” Well, maybe the writers and producers did – the vicissitudes of chance do not account for how they managed to hit every tiresome cliché and make every bad choice available every time.

The conceit of Terra Nova is that a bunch of people from 2189 are sent back in time from a polluted, fascist Earth 85 million years to restart human civilization.  They face all sorts of ferocious dinosaurs, which is cool, and that have all sorts of bitchin’ guns, which is also cool.  Steven Spielberg is involved with it, and once upon a time he made movies I actually liked.  Fox is spending a fortune on it.  It should be kinda interesting and kinda fun.

But no.

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Alec, you need to stop treating American soldiers like they were members of your own family.  They deserve better than that.

Not content with achieving Father of the Year Emeritus status for his unique, outside-the-box parenting skills, Alec Baldwin spent yesterday evening on Twitter to once again offer his nuanced, carefully researched insights into a variety of important topics.  In doing so, he offered a powerful challenge to such innovators as Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and even Hanoi Jane for the coveted title of “Hollywood’s Biggest Idiot.”

In the past, I’ve even taken to these pages to defend Alec as a performer.  But as amusing as he is on screen, the fact is that he is a moral illiterate who refuses to let his manifest ignorance hinder his desire to have himself taken seriously as something more than an actor. 

Alec wants to be just like Ronald Reagan, except he’s handicapped by some challenges the Gipper didn’t face – like being a leftist, a jerk and a fool.

The bloviating buffoon apparently got agitated because Georgia decided to execute a cop killer who had spent 22 years failing to convince any jury or judge that the overwhelming evidence against him was inadequate.  Ironically, the police officer Troy Davis finished off with a bullet to the head was an Army veteran – and judging from Alec’s attitude toward our warriors as manifested in his subsequent tweets, he probably thought that fact supported sparing the killer of Officer Mark MacPhail, Sr.

Here’s a selection of some of his inane tweets from his Twitter timeline.  Let’s see who fails to live up to Alec’s exacting standards!

Well, Michelle Malkin certainly does:

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The artistic community is always ready to stand against censorship – and we know that because it constantly tells us so.  If you want to drape an American flag across a walkway to make a statement by letting goateed hipster art aficionados traipse across it, you’re a bold visionary.  If you want to write a novel about shooting a Republican president, you’re courageously speaking truth to power.  If you want to smear pachyderm dung on a painting of the Virgin Mary, you’re bravely facing down the forces of religious bigotry.

Hell, you not only have a right to do it, but you have a right to have it federally funded through the NEA by the very taxpayers whose collective mind you intend to blow by getting so darn real.   It’s right there in the Constitution, amid the emanations and adjacent to the penumbras.  Oh, but if you accurately depict the acts leading up to the murder of nearly 3000 Americans, you’ve got to be stopped.  After all, the artistic elite can’t let you upset the Krugman-esque party line that 9/11 was really about Bu$Hitler and Company’s wars for oil or something.

The artistic community is anti-censorship right up until the second it decides it wants something censored.  Then it piles on.

A little background.

Steve Reich is a Pulitzer-winning composer who lived a few blocks away from the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11, 2001.  He was out of town at the time, but his family was home.  They barely escaped, but the experience was so emotionally traumatic that it was only as the 10th anniversary of this monstrous crime approached that he was able to finally express his feelings through his art.  You would think the artistic community would praise him – well, you would think that if you had not been paying attention and still believe that it possessed the capacity for shame at its own rank hypocrisy.

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In light of the devastation to our civilization directly resulting from the collectivist policies of our ruling elite, there’s probably never been a better time to look at one of Hollywood’s best-loved genres – the end-of-the-world movie.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what films qualify for this category – one list of doomsday movies includes dozens of very different films, with plots ranging from the world blowing up to society suddenly changing dramatically into something unfamiliar, dystopian, and creepy.  A documentary about the last two-and-a-half years would qualify as the latter.

From the Cold War nuke paranoia of Fail Safe (1964) to the “Oh s***, it’s a comet” catastrophes envisioned by flicks like Deep Impact (1998), they run the gamut.  Sometimes society is teetering – think California – and sometimes it has fallen completely into the abyss – think Detroit.

But at their best, these movies show us something about ourselves and about enduring truths, challenging our intellects and asking vital questions about the nature of man.  But mostly they’re just cool and fun to watch.

And sometimes they are Zardoz (1974).  This is an utterly insane 70’s freakshow starring Sean Connery that can best be described as what it must be like to party with Anthony Weiner and Eric Massa in Thailand with an endless supply of bad Woodstock acid and a substantial NEA performance art grant.  Gotta respect any movie that offers the straight-faced line, “The gun is good, the penis is evil.”   (more…)

FADE IN:

INT.   HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

“Hurt Locker” scribe MARK BOAL slams his mighty fist down hard on the conference room table, making the HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES surrounding him jump in their leather seats.

MARK BOAL

Now listen up.  I don’t care about your liberal preconceptions and your smug certainty that you’re somehow better than those men and women out there in Afghanistan and Iraq just because you work in the movie industry and they actually work!

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

But, but…

MARK BOAL (pointing an accusing finger)

Put a sock in it, meat puppet!  You want to use those American heroes as a backdrop for some politician’s reelection campaign?  Well, you can take my Oscar and stick it in your Fonda-hole!  I’m not having any part of it!

Ed. Note:  We now pause for a photo of sensitive, introspective hipster Boal:

Big Hollywood has been all over the story of screenwriter Mark Boal’s collaboration with the Obama campaign’s usurpation of the work of our SEALs and other covert warriors in hunting down Osama bin Laden.  It’s outrageous – you know you’ve crossed a line in the sand of decency when even Jurassic liberal-saur Maureen Dowd seems creeped out by your shameless SEALS-ploitation.

As Big Hollywood has pointed out before, Boal is Hollywood’s go-to guy for sending the leftist message du jour about our troops.  When President Bush was in office and the party line was that fighting terrorists was a bad thing, Boal was there with In the Valley of Elah (2007).  That one painted our soldiers as hideous psychopaths driven crazy by the war, so nuts and evil they murdered one of their own because of, well, Bush or something.

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As if the capitulation of the Republicans in Washington was not depressing enough, it too often seems like we can’t even find a decent movie to look forward to seeing.  Of course, most of us are not in Hollywood’s target demographic – we’re older, have jobs, and aren’t dead-eyed, drooling morons who yearn to clap our flippers like trained seals at the hackneyed antics of third rate “stars” splashed across out-of-focus screens while seated in moist, sticky chairs that we paid close to $15 each to occupy.  

But I still love movies, and I still have hope that Hollywood is going to accidentally let slip though its paws at least a couple films this year that don’t insult my intelligence, that don’t hector me with pinko propaganda, and that don’t derive from some obscure comic book beloved by a cult of social misfit fanboys whose idea of a romantic evening is a hi-speed Internet connection, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, and an old tube sock.  

And I love trailers too.  I hate commercials in front of movies, but there can never be too many trailers.  Each new trailer is like a bright new dawn or a just-poured pint of draft Dos Equis lager – full of hope and promise.  Sure, most of the time that hope and promise fades when Kevin James waddles on-screen to make a fart joke, but still….there are moments where something awesome blows your mind.  

Those rare, fleeting moments where a trailer teases you with the promise of a great story, an exciting adventure, a hilarious romp…where you think “Wow, that looks cool!”…where you just know that as funny as the jokes the trailer reveals are, the ones that await in the movie itself will be even funnier…they make sitting through the crap worth it.  That’s what makes me love trailers – trailers have the power to remind us that movies don’t have to suck.  

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You’ve certainly heard of the new film Super 8.  Not the self-serving Anthony Weiner autobiography– the new summer flick about a small town in 1979 invaded by a strange alien creature that was written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg.  With that pedigree in mind, I took off work early to take the little monsters to see it in the hopes that it would do what the trailers seemed to promise – capture the feeling of those uniquely American summer movies of the 70’s and 80’s like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and The Goonies that mixed action, laughs, and special effects together in a way we see all too rarely in the Michael Bay world of today.

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Yeah, it kind of did that, I suppose.  Except I was too busy wondering why the central premise somehow had to be that American military personnel are sadistic, bloodthirsty, cold-blooded murderers.  Then I remembered that this is Hollywood.

Now, to talk about Super 8, I will have to reveal what some might call “spoilers.”  Except, they aren’t really “spoilers” because to be that the plot points I reveal would have to be unexpected and surprising.  Sadly, Super 8 adopts the same tiresome clichés that have been wrecking Hollywood films for the last 40 years.  The only surprise was the total lack of any surprise.

What do we have? Crazy, evil military officer as the baddie?  Check!  Kid with daddy issues?  Check!  Climax where the hero rescues the girl from monster’s lair?  Check!  Monster that is the real victim even though he’s freaking killing US military people and eating civilians left and right?  Check?

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There’s a theory that in order to ensure you never get hassled again, you walk up to the biggest guy in the room and knock him on his butt.  If you win, no one will ever mess with you because you knocked the biggest guy in the room on his butt.  And even if he gets up and pounds you into the ground, people will still avoid messing with you because you were crazy enough to try to knock the biggest guy in the room on his butt.

In the battle for the soul of our country, popular culture is the biggest guy in the room.  And it’s time that conservatives took a swing.  The Powerline Prize contest is a potential haymaker in one of the most important battles of our campaign.

Here’s how it describes itself:

The Power Line Prize of $100,000 will be awarded to whoever can most effectively and creatively dramatize the significance of the federal debt crisis. Prizes will also be awarded to the runner-up and two third-place finishers. Anyone can enter the contest—individuals, companies (e.g., advertising agencies) or any other entity, as long as the contest rules are followed. Any creative product is eligible: videos, songs, paintings, screenplays, Power Point presentations, essays, performance art, or anything else, as long as the product is unique to the contest and has not previously been published or otherwise entered the public domain. Entries may address the federal debt crisis in its entirety, or a specific aspect of the debt crisis, such as: the impact of the debt crisis on the young; the role played by the “stimulus” (Where did the money go? Why didn’t it stimulate?); how entitlements drive the debt crisis; the current federal deficit; how the debt crisis impacts the economy; or any other aspect of the debt crisis. The contest is non-partisan. Its purpose is to inform the public about the federal debt crisis.

Conservatives often dismiss the world of art as a milieu of posing half-wits seeking government subsidies for the unsellable, ridiculous and boring crap they churn out for the benefit of goateed posers and other suckers.  This is because an enormous amount of what is today labeled as “art” is manufactured by   posing half-wits seeking government subsidies for the unsellable, ridiculous and boring crap they churn out for the benefit of goateed posers and other suckers.

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There is a procedure in law called summary judgment where you can win your case without even going to trial because the basic facts are simply undisputed.  Ben Shapiro’s new book,  Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is one of the best motions for summary judgment I’ve ever read.  There can be no dispute over the facts because Ben presents them through the words of the leading lights of Hollywood liberaldom themselves – how he got the interviews he recounts here is simply beyond me (I count over 20 pages of footnotes).  But what is clear is that the television industry is liberal-left through and through, and that it pushes its dogma upon its audience while closing ranks to ensure conservatives never get a chance to enter what Ben demonstrates is an insular, incestuous community of like-minded Democrats cocooned away from reality in an echo chamber of Obama-worshipping limo-libhood. 

The half-hearted denials of some in the industry are belied by their own actions and their own words – and, surprisingly, by the refreshingly candid admissions of some liberals in television who not only admit its intolerance and stridency but even claim to regret it.  Case closed.

Full disclosure – Ben’s a friend and my frequent “Hour of Hate” partner on Larry O’Conner’s legendary Stage Right Show.  He’s also the rarest of things – a proud Harvard Law School graduate who is fiercely conservative and who loves television (By the way, Ben’s much-mocked predilection for wearing Harvard Law hats and other apparel makes a hilarious appearance in the book).  But Ben’s no snob – he not only freely admits how much he likes television but insists that much of it is well-acted, well-directed and well-produced, its insidious pinko undercurrents notwithstanding.  Moreover, Ben is a creature of Hollywood – he has family in the industry, friends in the industry, and he even flirted with entering into it himself, until he ran smack into the seemingly impenetrable wall that is the conservative blacklist.

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There are apparently people out there who not only find Lady GaGa’s music appealing but, further, find her a powerful and insightful musical voice for a new generation.  These people are idiots, and the fact that most of these morons can vote goes a long way to explaining why so many Democrats keep getting reelected.

It’s not just that her music is bad – though it is, an intermittently catchy collection of overproduced beats laid over nonsense lyrics that would embarrass a slow-witted high school sophomore.  It’s not just that her singing is reminiscent of the hum of a dental drill, a monotonous, atonal mind-chisel that – when combined with her inane lyrics – reminds one of the chanting of some unholy love child of Rain Man and Tiny Tim.  

And it’s not just that she’s pretentious, presenting herself as the sorta-androgynous spoke-being for a coterie of alleged nonconformists whose nonconformity is expressed via rigid conformity to GaGa’s vision of pseudo-transgressive fashions and brain-dead self-affirming slogans.

No, the biggest problem with Lady GaGa isn’t that she’s another lame pop star.  It’s that she’s so damn boring.

As an act of personal sacrifice, I listened to the sneak release of her latest song, an atrocity called “Judas.”  If you want to share my pain, be my guest, but don’t say you weren’t warned.  The Huffington Post, your number one source for all things that suck, is right on top of the earthshaking cultural event that is “Judas”:

The song and video are told from Mary Magdelene’s perspective, with lyrics such as, “When he comes to me, I am ready/ I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs/ Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain/ Even after three times, he betrays me/ I’ll bring him down, a king with no crown…”

Wow.  Heavy.  I guess I’m supposed to be one of those bourgeois squares whose mind is going to be blown by GagGa’s willingness to take on those terrifying Christians.  I’m here to report, however, that the only thing that blows is the song.

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The critical moments of a movie are the first moments, the first few minutes where it either grabs you or loses you for good.  That’s what we mean when we talk about the movie experience, the wonder and delight of the shapes flickering across the screen that overcome you, and you think, “Oh yeah, this is going to work.” 

Contrast that to the soul-crushing dismay when you realize that what you hoped would be a great couple of hours is instead going to be a dreary death-march of clichés, lazy writing and bad music broken only occasionally when you glance longingly at your watch and wish you could have your $11.50 and two hours back. 

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You know a great opening when you see it; if fact, you feel it.  My definition of “opening” is rather loose.  An opening can go up to, or past the credits, or it may just be the credit sequence itself.  Some openings are rather long, 10-15 minutes.  Some are just a couple of minutes.  There is no one formula for a great opening – the ten listed here as my personal favorites are as different from each other as Democratic Party governance is from competent leadership.  But there are some common threads.  A great opening tells you something about the story you will see.  It might be in words of formal narration, or a sequence that takes you into the story, or in some cases it’s just a few images.  There may be prominent music, or little or none.  But when the opening is over, you are ready – you understand enough to begin the journey.  And, more importantly, you are eager to go. 

It’s easy – and serves an important purpose – to point out where Hollywood fails.  But it’s a special pleasure to point out where it got it just perfect.  Here are my Top 10 favorite movie openings: 

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Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal must be thrilled about this whole Libya thing, since he seems to be making a cottage industry out of articles, books and movies about American soldiers and how they are a bunch of incorrigible psychos whose desire to murder everyone they see is constrained only by their limited intellect.  Who knows what doors the latest “kinetic military action” might open for him in Tinseltown.

His current anti-soldier hit piece, The Kill Team, is about a group of disgraceful scumbags in Afghanistan who decided to murder several civilians.  With it, Boal seems to be following his tried and true formula – write something for publication in a past-its-prime magazine that makes American troops look like cro-magnons then work to turn it into a movie.  He took a Playboy article on Americans murdering each other and soon we had In the Valley of Elah.  You may have seen it – though the odds are stacked against it.  It was ignored by popular demand.

Another article, this one on bomb disposal experts, became The Hurt Locker, which took some of the bravest and most dedicated people in our armed forces and made them out as undisciplined, drunken, unprofessional clowns.  In fact, Boal got sued by one of the guys he allegedly wrote about.  To be fair, it did win an Academy Award . . . from the same band of geniuses who passed over Saving Private Ryan in favor of Shakespeare In Love and once picked as “Best Song” the unforgettable hit “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”  So, there’s that.

Boal’s technique is to chronicle the most degenerate fringes of the warfighters’ experience and repackage the most sordid episodes as its totality.  One can easily imagine the Rolling Stone editors eager for the chance to please their dwindling audience of aging Garfunkel-digging hippies and Chomsky-devouring clove-smokers with another prejudice-reinforcing piece about how those Middle-American Army guys are barely one step above gorillas.  Rolling Stone even promises a glimpse at the grim photos the mean old Pentagon doesn’t want you to see – as if there was some moral imperative for the military to provide gist for the jihadi propaganda mill.  Hey, that’s Boal and Rolling Stones’ job!

What is particularly cunning in his approach is that there is no excuse for the crimes these savages committed, and Boal uses this fact to deflect any kind of perspective.  Hundreds of thousands of young, heavily-armed and stressed American men and women have served overseas since 9/11.  Several dozen have murdered people.  You won’t find any city in America with a murder rate like that for that demographic. 

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A fight to the death in an urban hell between US Marines and an implacable, evil foe who murders civilians without a second thought – if only Hollywood had the moral courage to tell that story straight, the story of America’s finest who battled to victory over jihadi degenerates in Fallujah and throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.  But Hollywood can’t tell that story, not without exchanging the real menace our men and women are fighting everyday for a horde of CGI space aliens.  Sadly, the industry lacks the moral courage of the men and women it portrays.

Let’s be clear – Battle: Los Angeles is a terrific action film that makes no bones about its pro-American, pro-military agenda.  And that fact has invited carping from the usual suspects, lefty movie critics who work themselves up into a lather over the portrayal of better men than they will ever be.   

And note that when I use the term “men” here, I include the fighting women of the US armed forces – don’t worry, critics:  Heroines like Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester will protect you . . . just move to the rear with the children and try not to get in the way. 

The fact is that science fiction has long been a tool to comment on the present, including the relationship between our warriors and our society.  Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers was a fascinating depiction of military life as well as what the author saw as a degrading, decaying culture.  The Paul Verhoeven film of the same name, though different in tone, had its own insights into military vulture, including coed showers and a machine gun-packing Doogie Howser.

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