War on Terror Films: Dear Hollywood, You’re Doing It Wrong

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

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

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

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Tags: "Green Zone", Horse Soldiers, Hurt Locker, Jerry Bruckheimer, Kingdom
Posted Mar 19th 2010 at 5:01 am in Culture, Featured Story, Film, Military, Politics | 32250278 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dgagliasso/2010/03/19/memo-to-hollywood-studios-your-not-making-the-right-kind-of-war-films/War+on+Terror+Films%3A+Dear+Hollywood%2C+You%27re+Doing+It+Wrong2010-03-19+12%3A01%3A12Dan+Gagliasso

The New York Festival Scene: Rendezvous with French Cinema

Here in New York, the taxes are excessive, rent is exorbitant, and our elected leaders are national laughing stocks, but if you love going to the movies, it is one of the best places to live.  We are usually the first and sometimes only city to get most theatrical releases, particularly idiosyncratic documentaries and foreign films.  We also get a chance to see thousands of unsold films playing New York Film Festivals, often in hopes of attracting a distribution deal.  This is the beat I have covered for four years on my blog and will now periodically report on for Big Hollywood, provided I keep it fresh and snappy. 

Of course, festivals vary widely in terms of size and quality, but the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s annual Rendezvous with French Cinema is a fair place to start.  Every time an Eastern European festival opens, it is like an early Christmas for me, because there will always be several films deeply critical of their former Communist overlords.  Yet, it seems even the French are more even-handed than Hollywood when addressing the Cold War on film.  A case in point was Rendezvous’s opening selection, Christian Carion’s Farewell, which was inspired by the real life case of KGB Colonel Vladimir Vetrov (renamed Grigoriev in the film).  

The disillusioned Colonel was charged with reviewing every last piece of Soviet intel, so he understands full well the extent to which western intelligence agencies were compromised.  As a result, he approaches a bewildered French businessman unconnected to the espionage world to pass on his staggering cache of classified information.  (more…)

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Tags: foreign film, Fred Ward, KGB Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, Lincoln Center, New York Film Festival
Posted Mar 18th 2010 at 10:14 am in Culture, Film | 3224425 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jbendel/2010/03/18/the-new-york-festival-scene-rendezvous-with-french-cinema/The+New+York+Festival+Scene%3A+Rendezvous+with+French+Cinema+2010-03-18+17%3A14%3A05Joe+Bendel

Ratings Disappointment: Did Tom Hanks’ ‘War of Terror and Racism’ Comments Damage ‘The Pacific?’

The entertainment media is doing the best they can to spin the paltry ratings for the debut of “The Pacific.” But 3.1 million viewers compared to the 10 million for the premiere of “Band of Brothers” is pretty difficult to spin. Yes, Nielsen has changed the way they count HBO viewers since “Brothers” debuted in 2001. They once counted all HBO channels and now count them individually (are we to believe millions and millions were watching HBO Thriller in 2001? ). Still, according to Reuters, that ten million was considered a slow start for “Brothers” and 3.1 million for “The Pacific” represents a mere 69% increase over normal HBO programming in that same time period. For additional context we’re also told “The Pacific” did manage to beat the debut of “John Adams” by 22%. 

Okay, fine, but let’s look a little closer at the real context, which is always found near the bottom of anything written by the MSM. On Sunday nights, the series “True Blood” averages 5 million viewers. “Blood” might air in a different time-slot than “The Pacific” but how fine do we want to split these hairs? Most telling is that when the History Channel aired a re-broadcast of “Band of Brothers” in 2004, 4.6 million tuned in. This bears repeating…

A rerun of “Brothers” delivered 1.5 million more viewers than the heavily promoted debut of “The Pacific.”

HBO has over 30 million subscribers and it’s just a fact that Sunday night less than 10% bothered to watch ”The Pacific,” even with the dual pedigree of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks combined with a very, very heavy promotional blitz and a lingering universal affection for “Band of Brothers.”

So what changed? (more…)

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Tags: Band of Brothers, hbo, L.A.Times, Nielsen, The Pacific
Posted Mar 17th 2010 at 11:47 am in Culture, Entertainment, Military, News, Politics, Television | 321866241 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/03/17/did-tom-hanks-war-of-terror-and-racism-comments-hurt-the-pacific/Ratings+Disappointment%3A+Did+Tom+Hanks%27+%27War+of+Terror+and+Racism%27+Comments+Damage+%27The+Pacific%3F%272010-03-17+18%3A47%3A31John+Nolte

Jay Leno’s Back on Top & Critics Remain as Irrelevant as Ever

How do critics stay employed? Next to Weathermen and Wall Street Analysts, only critics are more incompetent forecasters. In fact, it would seem that critics are so bad at analysis, that if the critics loathe a movie, play, or television show, there is a fairly good chance it will be a blockbuster.

I often wonder how these people keep their jobs. Perhaps the editors share their disdain, and they like to keep them around so the rest of the staff will know which productions to avoid. Because it seems that most newspaper writers are left-wing drones who hate anything that might be entertaining, even in the slightest way. In certain circles, what you like to watch is less important than what you don’t watch. The most popular stance you can take with these elites is to claim that you NEVER watch television and rely on NPR for all your news.

A recent example of this was seen with the debut of Jay Leno back into the Tonight Show desk. Critics panned his opening monologue. But his ratings were huge. And the audience came back the next night, fueled in part by his selection of Sarah Palin as a guest.  Now after two weeks, it seems that Jay is back to the number one slot that David Letterman held during the reign of Conan. (more…)

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Tags: Conan, leno, Ltterman, Nielsen, ratings
Posted Mar 17th 2010 at 11:38 am in Culture, News, Television | 32165094 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/tslagle/2010/03/17/critics-choice/Jay+Leno%27s+Back+on+Top+%26+Critics+Remain+as+Irrelevant+as+Ever2010-03-17+18%3A38%3A01Tim+Slagle

My Weekly Date with a Liberal – ‘The Mile High Club’

UPDATE: Error reading fixed. You should be able to read the post now.

On December 17, 1903 in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina….in the United States…Two great American brothers did the impossible: an expression that if considered at any length, truly makes no sense at all, for if they actually did it, then clearly it’s possible. In reality it’s impossible to do the impossible. 

I’ll be right back. 

On December 17, 1903 in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina….in the United States…Two great American brothers did the possible, albeit, the improbable.  On that glorious and mystical morning, the conditions were perfect save for the freezing headwinds gusting up to 27 mph, slapping both the brothers in their collective face like a cold black glove from the cruel dominatrix Nature herself. But they would not be deterred. They would press on…because the wheels of Innovation do not stop for a little ice on the tracks nor does Greatness reveal itself only in the most moderate of conditions. Not to mention, and let me preface this with I can’t speak for Orville and Wilbur, but some people like a good slap in the face from a cold black glove, I being one of them. 

Bear with me.  (more…)

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Tags: American Airlines, Mile High Club, My Weekly Date with a Liberal, Tea Party, The Wright Brothers
Posted Mar 17th 2010 at 5:03 am in Culture, Featured Story, Political Humor, Politics | 32127045 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdavid/2010/03/17/my-weekly-date-with-a-liberal-the-mile-high-club/My+Weekly+Date+with+a+Liberal+%E2%80%93+%27The+Mile+High+Club%272010-03-17+12%3A03%3A29Jon+David

REVIEW: ‘Stoning of Soraya M.’ Deserved Some Academy Attention

A film that won the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture and was the toast of the right-leaning blogosphere (including your very own Big Hollywood) would sound like it must have reached the broadest-based audience a film could hope for.  Yet, it was essentially shut-out during the rest of the recent award season and was sadly neglected by the critical community.  That is because Cyrus Nowrasteh’s The Stoning of Soraya M. boldly addresses a controversial topic: the appalling lack of rights granted to women in the Islamist world. 

The United Nations estimates as many as 5,000 Islamic women fall victim to so-called “honor killings” every year.  Whether reported or not, each instance is an appalling crime, utterly incompatible with any concept of honor.  It is the true nature of such honor killings Nowrasteh and his co-screenwriter (and wife) Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh graphically dramatize in the viscerally intense The Stoning of Soraya M., which richly deserves to be revisited now that it has been released on DVD. 

Freidoune Sahebjam was a French-Iranian journalist who exposed many of the Islamic Revolutionary regime’s human rights abuses.  When passing through a provincial town, a chance encounter with Zahra, a sophisticated older woman of the Shah’s secular era, leads to the biggest story of his career.  Just the day before, her niece Soraya was gruesomely executed for the crime of inconveniencing her husband.  As Sahebjam interviews Zahra, she bears witness to the terrible injustice that befell Soraya.  (more…)

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Tags: Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, cyrus nowrasteh, David Diaan, Freidoune Sahebjam, NAACP’s Image Award
Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 10:51 am in Culture, Film, Politics, Religion, Reviews | 31976665 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jbendel/2010/03/16/dvd-revisit-the-stoning-of-soraya-m/REVIEW%3A+%27Stoning+of+Soraya+M.%27+Deserved+Some+Academy+Attention2010-03-16+17%3A51%3A11Joe+Bendel

Big Hollywood Visits Hillsdale College: The Films of 1939, Part III

[Ed. Note: Here are Part I and Part II of this series.]

I’ve seen John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln at least a dozen times, but screening it here at Hillsdale College made me see the film in an entirely new light.

In one of the most lyrical passages of the movie, Young Abe, played by the young Henry Fonda, studies a book of law and comes to a revelation:

“By jing, that’s all there is to it. Right and wrong.”

But his revelation is only complete when Ann Rutledge, Pauline Moore, appears on the scene.

John Ford was deeply rooted in Catholicism and Ann’s appearance has an almost divine quality.

(more…)

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Tags: Beretta shotguns, Dan Ford, Darryl Zanuck, Films of 1939, henry fonda
Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 6:57 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Film | 31999013 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2010/03/16/big-hollywood-visits-hillsdale-college-the-films-of-1939-part-iii/Big+Hollywood+Visits+Hillsdale+College%3A+The+Films+of+1939%2C+Part+III2010-03-16+13%3A57%3A01Robert+J.+Avrech

REVIEW: ‘Breaking Bad’ — The Best Crime Series on TV Returns

When AMC decided to produce original programming, their first series, Mad Men, was a critical home run. It was a show set in a classic time, and AMC, which used to stand for American Movie Classics was a perfectly fine place to run it. But their second show had the strange title Breaking Bad. It was a “dramedy” set in present day, in the dusty town of Kingman, Arizona. I remember thinking at the time, so much for the classic feel. I was wrong.

—–

Breaking Bad is the best crime show currently airing on television. It starts with an original premise. Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, is a low paid high school chemistry teacher in a dead end job. He has a handicapped son (RJ Mitte) and a wife (Anna Gunn) who doesn’t work. They’re barely making ends meet. And then he gets a bomb dropped on him. He’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter’s given less than a year to live.

Looking at his options and his debts, Walter realizes that he will leave his wife and son with nothing. His wife will have to go back to work, which she hasn’t done in years. His son, who has cerebral palsy, will not have much help in life. He’s in high school, but there is no money to send him off to college. (more…)

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Tags: aaron paul, amc, breaking bad, brian cranston, crime
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 9:49 am in Culture, Reviews, Television | 31964677 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jhudnall/2010/03/15/review-breaking-bad-the-best-crime-series-on-tv-returns/REVIEW%3A+%27Breaking+Bad%27+--+The+Best+Crime+Series+on+TV+Returns2010-03-15+16%3A49%3A41James+Hudnall

James Cameron Rewriting WWII & Undermining Christianity: Unwitting Fool or Willing Dupe?

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times, and I’m probably in on the scam with you – or I am a fool.

James Cameron’s next project may well be a film about Hiroshima.  Sure, after the powerful show of solidarity he gave to our troops in the largely Oscar-free Avatar, you are probably thinking, “Hey, this will be a fair-minded project that shows that dropping the A-Bomb on Japan was a tough but necessary decision which ended up saving hundreds of thousands of American lives – and probably millions of Japanese.”

Pellegrino and Cameron

Surprise!  Instead, it promises to not only be another round of America-bashing but, moreover, one based on the work of a gentleman with a demonstrated track record of fraud and distortion.  Cameron’s long-time pal, Dr. Charles Pellegrino, wrote The Last Train from Hiroshima, the book that Cameron wants to turn into a movie.  It’s a shattering tale of horror told in part from the point of view of an American flyer who deeply regrets his participation.  There’s just one little problem with this important new addition to the historical canon – it seems to have been largely made up by the good doctor.  But, of course, Cameron would not be the King of the World if he let a little thing like rampant fraud get in the way of some gratuitous America-bashing.

So who is Charles Pellegrino - and I use the title “Doctor” here loosely, since this clown’s academic credentials are on par with Dr. Dre’s?   Well, for one thing he does not appear to be a PhD holder from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, as he has claimed.  At least, that was the finding of a reporter from The Telegraph.  Those wacky Brit newspapers and their reporters – going out and actually investigating and reporting instead of acting as unofficial stenographers for their favorite leftist subjects can turn up the darndest things!   (more…)

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Tags: AP, avatar, big hollywood, Charles Pellegrino, creationism
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Culture, Featured Story, Film, Politics | 318510152 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2010/03/15/james-cameron-rewriting-wwii-undermining-christianity-willing-dupe-or-unwitting-fool/James+Cameron+Rewriting+WWII+%26+Undermining+Christianity%3A+Unwitting+Fool+or+Willing+Dupe%3F2010-03-15+13%3A03%3A48Kurt+Schlichter

CD REVIEW: Johnny Cash — American VI: Ain’t No Grave

Nobody has enjoyed a late career renaissance like Johnny Cash. The series of collaborations he made with Slayer producer Rick Rubin reignited critical interest in his work at a time when Cash believed he was destined to become a touring nostalgia act. The first of these, American Recordings is a fantastic album- raw, dark, stark, stripped down to the Man in Black’s baritone voice and primitive guitar playing. Cash had never sounded young, and he’d always been good with death, but I was shocked by the simplicity of the first lines, the frank, naked, blasé expression of brutality: 

Delia, O Delia
Delia all my life
If I hadn’t have shot poor Delia
I’d have had her for my wife  

Whenever I play American Recordings I find this opening as startling as when I first heard it well over a decade ago. Cash could get close to the darkness without screeching or posing. He was already there. He just started singing in that rumbling baritone and you believed. It’s so powerful that you forget he could also be funny- and indeed, the last track on American Recordings was a joke song, The Man Who Couldn’t Cry.  

Later I discovered that Delia was an old song, that Cash was covering himself. The American series always relied less on Cash’s abilities as a songwriter and more on his skills as an interpreter, even if he was reinterpreting an earlier version of Johnny Cash. Some of the songs covered were selected by Cash, others by Rubin. It was easy to tell which was which: Cash’s sensibilities were steeped in the broad country, gospel and folk tradition, while Rubin favored a narrower palate of heavy metal and alt rock. The miraculous thing was that it worked, most of the time. Cash could invest the adolescent self-loathing of Trent Reznor’s Hurt with the same authority and sincerity as an ancient standard like That Lucky Old Sun, a mournful lament for the difficult life of a working man. The songs on these records sat comfortably alongside each other because Cash’s experience, persona and interpretive gift enabled him to uncover the shared themes of God, pain, redemption, love, violence and longing in the unlikeliest bedfellows.  (more…)

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Tags: American VI: Ain't No Grave, I See a Darkness, johnny cash, Man in Black, Reznor’s Hurt
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 7:05 am in Culture, Featured Story, Music, Reviews | 31763050 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dkalder/2010/03/14/cd-review-johnny-cash-american-vi-aint-no-grave/CD+REVIEW%3A+Johnny+Cash+--+American+VI%3A+Ain%27t+No+Grave2010-03-14+15%3A05%3A13Daniel+Kalder

The Millenials: From The Greatest Generation to The MTV Generation

All right! We blew it! My Generation, The Millennial Generation, totally fell for the oldest trick in the book and now we look like hopeless idiots in front of the whole world. What was our mistake? Youth. The veracity of naivete that only comes with inexperience, adolescence and a total lack of responsibility.

Characterized by our Pop Culture and Mass Media, we may participate in an election, try to be advocates for hope and change, but as long as “The Bachelor” and “Jersey Shore” succeed in the ratings, The Millennial Generation will be seen as having the same morals, values and ethics as the people who are on these reality shows.

We should know better. At least, with all the education we have had, you would think we might have picked up a thing or two in history class. But no, we are making the same mistake just as naturally and easily as the generation before us, the generation before them, and generations to come.

Despite all our potential and the efforts of our subculture, we allow propaganda to move us when it is there to seduce us; zeitgeist, to inspire us when it is there to distract us. (more…)

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Tags: "Jersey Shore", Mass Media, pop culture, The Bachelor, The Millennial Genneration
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 1:03 pm in Culture, Featured Story, Television | 31835089 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kcox/2010/03/12/the-millenials-from-the-greatest-generation-to-the-mtv-generation/The+Millenials%3A+From+The+Greatest+Generation+to+The+MTV+Generation2010-03-12+21%3A03%3A43Kimberly+Cox

‘Soraya M.’: Shaping Hollywood with Our Wallets

Last week, I finally saw “The Stoning of Soraya M.” at a special screening.  The film tells the haunting and disturbing tale of an innocent Iranian woman murdered in cold blood in a tyrannical society. It has been reviewed numerous times here at Big Hollywood, and I will spare you another, other than to say it is a deeply moving and effective drama. 

While the story itself is quite unnerving and will sit with you for days, what is most upsetting about the film is that it did not hit the mainstream in the way that it deserved. This is unfortunate because the story of Soraya should be heard all over the world.  

So often we hear of the injustices that occur in our world today, shake our heads and move on to our daily tasks not wholly understanding what we have just talked about.  This film doesn’t allow us to do that.  Instead, the film places a vivd and graphic picture of the suffering and torture that is occurring in our world at this very moment. This film is not about promoting political ideologies, or pushing religious dogma, but rather is about bringing awareness to a topic that is almost altogether ignored by our society, and does so with the highest of artistic integrity.   (more…)

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Tags: box office, cyrus nowrasteh, injustice, storytelling, support
Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 6:43 am in Culture, Film, Politics, Religion | 31631462 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smitchell/2010/03/10/soraya-m-shaping-hollywood-with-our-wallets/%27Soraya+M.%27%3A+Shaping+Hollywood+with+Our+Wallets2010-03-10+14%3A43%3A52Seth+Mitchell

Big Hollywood Visits Hillsdale College: The Films of 1939, Part II

The imposing but elegant Central Hall houses the administrative offices of Hillsdale College. I know it looks like classic MGM, but it’s actually Second Empire architectural style.

UPDATE: The location of the Winston Churchill statue has been corrected.

No tattoos. No body piercings.

That’s the first thing that hits me about the students here at Hillsdale College.

This is an environment that is free from self-mutilations, an affliction that seems rampant among America’s young.

Hillsdale prides itself as a place “where an education in the permanent things is a matter of precedent, plan and procedure.”

The educational mission at Hillsdale rests upon two foundational principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The college does not accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations. All funding come from donors and tuition.

(more…)

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Tags: Goodbye Mr. Chips, Hillsdale College, Robert Donat, Sam Wood
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 3:51 pm in Classic Hollywood, Culture | 31783822 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2010/03/09/big-hollywood-visits-hillsdale-college-the-films-of-1939-part-ii/Big+Hollywood+Visits+Hillsdale+College%3A+The+Films+of+1939%2C+Part+II2010-03-09+23%3A51%3A36Robert+J.+Avrech

Blu-ray Review: Powerful & Compelling ‘Soraya M.’ Arrives on DVD

The 2010 Oscar ceremonies have come and gone without a word spoken about “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The searing drama, based on true events, follows the torture of an innocent Iranian woman charged with adultery. It’s the kind of message movie Hollywood doesn’t much care for, stories showcasing horrors that can’t be directly blamed on western culture.

But the drama, released today on DVD and Blu-ray, deserved a smattering of Oscar buzz all the same. What other movies bring the issue of Sharia law to light in such fashion? More importantly, why didn‘t Shohreh Aghdashloo’s blistering performance earn her a place in the Best Actress category?

“Stoning,” directed and co-written by “The Path to 9/11” screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, takes us to a remote Iranian village under the thumb of Sharia law. Young, attractive Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is raising four children with little help from her husband, Ali (Navid Negahban). When Ali decides he’d rather be married to a 14-year-old Iranian girl, he tries to pressure Soraya into granting him a divorce. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, iran, Mozhan Marnò, Navid Negahban, oscars
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 5:03 am in Culture, Featured Story, Film, Religion, Reviews | 31675471 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cftoto/2010/03/09/blu-ray-review-the-stoning-of-soraya-m/Blu-ray+Review%3A+Powerful+%26+Compelling+%27Soraya+M.%27+Arrives+on+DVD2010-03-09+13%3A03%3A43Christian+Toto

Big Hollywood Visits Hillsdale College: The Films of 1939

I’m in Michigan, on assignment for Big Hollywood, to cover a four-day film festival presented by The Center for Constructive Alternatives at Hillsdale College.

For the next few days I will screen some landmark films from, arguably, Hollywood’s greatest year, and attend lectures by distinguished film scholars.

First impressions: Hillsdale is sort of like a set for a Frank Capra film.

Hillsdale College Campus.

About an hour from Detroit, Hillsdale is in the middle of flat farmland where white-tailed deer graze in golden fields.

Most of the buildings are informed by peaked roofs and references to classical Greek and Colonial architecture. The school is situated on 200 acres, has  100 full time faculty members and approximately 1,300 students.

Refusing all Federal dollars, Hillsdale is one of the few Conservative American colleges—Claremont and Grove City are two others that spring to mind—thus the school is truly independent, not shackled by government grants or political headwinds. (more…)

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Tags: Hillsdale College, Hollywood 1939, john ford, Mr. Chips”, Ninotchka
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 1:35 pm in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Featured Story, Film | 31661053 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2010/03/08/big-hollywood-visits-hillsdale-college-the-films-of-1939/Big+Hollywood+Visits+Hillsdale+College%3A+The+Films+of+19392010-03-08+21%3A35%3A27Robert+J.+Avrech

Academy Awards: Hollywood Chooses Class Over the Culture War

As the 82nd annual Academy Awards rolled into their third hour, I started joking on our live blog about how the winners and presenters were so well behaved they were leaving me nothing to write about. In fact, it’s just the opposite. How many Hollywood Behaved Badly pieces can one man write in a lifetime? Well, it’s probably my destiny to find out, but what a pleasant surprise not to have to write one this morning.

Last night, no one said anything insulting or divisive. Not a word. Not a sound. Not a peep. The whole of the Kodak Theatre offered a brief but completely unexpected respite in their ongoing Culture War against traditional America and chose instead to behave like, well, movie stars.

No idiocy directed our way in the form of poorly disguised jokes or irony, no hey-hey goodbye shots at Bush, no gushy shout-outs to Obama. With ObamaCare on the precipice there wasn’t even a lone moralizing salvo fired on its behalf or a cheap shot launched towards the Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, or Fox News. It was like someone gave a magic wand to those of us who want to like Hollywood again, and it worked. Because this is how it’s supposed to be. (more…)

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Tags: academy awards, avatar, Hurt Locker, james cameron, Jeff Bridges
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 9:57 am in Culture, Featured Story, Film, News | 317062173 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/03/08/academy-awards-hollywood-chooses-class-over-the-culture-war/Academy+Awards%3A+Hollywood+Chooses+Class+Over+the+Culture+War2010-03-08+17%3A57%3A19John+Nolte

Kevin Smith: When the Behavior Police Attack

A few weeks ago writer/director Kevin Smith was thrown off of a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat to fit into a single seat easily. He was on his way home from Northern California and had paid for two seats on his outbound flight but according to reports there weren’t two seats available on the return. This brings up a lot of questions, like why is Kevin Smith flying coach on Southwest. Doesn’t he have someone to book his flights for him?

I am ignorant of a lot of things but I try to hide that when I can. My dad told me that a lot of people might think you’re stupid but only you can open your mouth and show them they are right. Ms. Laura Washington, who writes for the Chicago Sun Times, a daily tabloid, might want to write that down. In a recent attack piece on writer/director Kevin Smith she starts by confessing that she has never heard of Mr. Smith. Now, that would be alright if she were a seventy year-old nun from Evanston but this woman is a writer for a major daily newspaper in a major American city! She should have asked her equally angry progressive colleague at the Sun Times, Roger Ebert.  We all laugh when Jay Leno or Sean Hannity do man-on-the-street interviews and someone doesn’t know Joe Biden or Lady Gaga, but how can a reporter on a major daily newspaper not know a major Hollywood figure? (more…)

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Tags: chicago sun-times, fat, Health Nazis, Kevin Smith, Laura Washington
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 6:51 am in Celebrity News, Culture, Media Criticism, Politics | 31525463 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjena/2010/03/08/kevin-smith-when-the-behavior-police-attack/Kevin+Smith%3A+When+the+Behavior+Police+Attack2010-03-08+14%3A51%3A41Jeffrey+Jena

GUNS

“Fuzzy Gun” by James Jackson

“Guns are tools.  They are no better or worse than the person holding them.” W.P. Wessel 

I have a gun.  It has never shot anyone.  Not even people I’m mad at.  It just lies there, like it’s sleeping. 

I bought it in 1986 when Richard Ramirez was on a killing spree in Los Angeles and I had a new baby.  You know, the guy who used his victim’s blood to paint pentagrams on their walls? They said he liked yellow houses.  I lived in a yellow house in Laurel Canyon.  It was hidden in the trees far away from other houses so no one would even hear us scream. 

So, I bought a gun to protect my daughter. 

Some people think owning a gun is bad. 

I sure wish I would have had a gun the night I got held up by the six foot tall man in the parking lot of the Variety Arts Center.  I was 21 years old.  All I had to protect myself was my scream.  The man was holding a gun to my head and trying to push me into a dark alley.  Fortunately, my blood curdling scream scared him away.  A friend ran out of the V.A.C. to help me and said he thought he’d heard a siren. I filed a police report and used the experience as material for my next Johnny Carson appearance.  (more…)

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Tags: guns, johnny carson, snl, Variety Arts Center, W.P. Wessel
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 5:03 am in Celebrity News, Culture, Featured Story, Political Humor | 315498106 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/vjackson/2010/03/08/guns/GUNS2010-03-08+13%3A03%3A50Victoria+Jackson

Reboot: B.S.

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Tags: race, sex
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 10:23 am in Art, Culture, Politics | 3118509 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aalvillar/2010/03/07/reboot-b-s/Reboot%3A+B.S.2010-03-07+18%3A23%3A59Alvaro+Alvillar