There’s nothing pretty about Liam Neeson.

The Irish actor sports a disheveled nose and an accent that sounds like it belongs in a pub where the bar stools date back to the Second World War. And when Neeson puts up his dukes on screen, there’s no “Matrix”-style effects to give him cover. It’s all loping jabs and hay makers.

It’s why audiences are responding to his latest action film, “The Grey.” The film came in first over the just-wrapped weekend, earning $20 million without any big stars beyond Neeson and no existing brand to bank on. Neeson stars as a depressed sharpshooter who must survive the elements, and a hungry pack of nearby wolves, when his plane goes down in freezing terrain.

Compare the box office results for “The Grey” to the opening weekend haul of Taylor Lautner’s “Abduction” from late last year:

“The Grey” – $20 million

“Abduction” – $10.9 million

Lautner’s got Neeson by 40-odd years, and you just know Neeson doesn’t have six-pack abs like Mr. “Twilight.” Audiences didn’t care. They responded to the way Neeson goes about his business on screen. It’s never smooth or calculated, but Neeson’s characters settle scores and survive in a way that hearkens back to how male movie stars used to behave on screen.

He’s a man’s man, and that makes him a rarity in today’s Hollywood.

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“It’s almost as laughable as accusing Fox News as being … news!”

The Fox News segment Kermit and Miss Piggy are responding to (in the video below) can be watched here, and you can see it’s a rather innocuous and perfectly valid discussion about the culture. As a response, and nearly a week after the segment aired, the Fox-hating entertainment media (which is all of them) viralized the clip, blew the controversy up into something it really wasn’t, and did so because they find it impossible to turn down an opportunity to prove they’re one of the minions in the club.

What effectively happened, though, is a week-old Fox Business segment was consequently amplified into the news narrative, which turned the new Muppet film into a political and partisan football. Only our wildly out-of-touch entertainment media minions would think this is a good thing, and as a consequence, a well-reviewed film that opened above expectations entered the divisive culture and political wars and didn’t do anywhere near as well at the box office as some had expected and hoped.

That, however, wasn’t the fault of the Muppets.That was the immature, clubby entertainment media. The video below, though, puts the Muppets themselves into this controversy, which will only further alienate a very large segment of their audience:

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Suzanne Collins’ series “The Hunger Games,” which will soon see the release of a major film adaptation, is captivating the minds of teenagers and adults around the world. Collins’ unique style has made for an excellent series, appropriate and entertaining for all ages. But after reading and loving all three books, I have to wonder, are the books simply creative fiction, or are they a prediction for the future?

“The Hunger Games” trilogy is based in a country named Panem, which is located on the ruins of North America. Within the country of Panem there are two types of societies, the tyrannical Capitol and the twelve districts.

The Capitol of Panem is the perfect exhibition of power and sheltered opulence. The citizens are rich, well fed, and stocked with everything nice. But while the Capitol is throwing their big parties and buying expensive goods, the districts surrounding them are working hard to fulfill the Capitol’s every need, leaving them with next to nothing.

The twelve districts of Panem are full of misery, poverty, and food shortages. Each of the districts has an assigned duty by the Capitol, from agriculture to coal mining; they work hard and suffer to provide their designated good. The citizens of the districts live within the tyrannical laws of the Capitol, and if they ever decide to break the law, they are sure to pay. The Capitol strives every day to remind the people of the districts that their reign is supreme, and one of their favorite torture devices is the annual Hunger Games.

Every year the Capitol goes around to each of the districts to select two teenagers to fight ’til the death. With 24 in the beginning, only one will win–well, usually, that is.

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The year 2000 was my first living full-time in Los Angeles, having arrived from Atlanta on December 30, 1999, Y2K hysteria be damned. I got a job working as a projectionist at a theatre while also working as a reader for a small production company, and I immediately noticed something about a large number of people in Hollywood: they hate movies.

I have varied tastes, having argued the merits of gross-out comedy vs. Oscar bait type of movies. Everyone I met in the movie business claimed “Election” was their favorite movie of 1999, and the only person I met who had actually seen “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” was Rob Schneider’s agent. And he was lukewarm about it.

Total worldwide box office take for “Election” = $16M ($14.8M Domestic).

Total worldwide box office take for “Deuce Bigalow” = $92M ($65M Domestic).

Not bashing either movie; I love them both. But you can see a discrepancy.

Anyway, the nominees for Best Picture:

“Gladiator” – Saw this at the pre-ArcLight Cinerama Dome and was blown away. Still have to watch it on TNT at least one of the thirty-eight times a month they play it.

“Erin Brockovich” – One of my favorite genres: Movies that suck on paper but are actually really good. I never expected the movie to be as funny as it is. Albert Finney wuz robbed. (more…)

“Today is the day that everything changes one way or another.”

That sentiment leads escaped convict Nick (Sam Worthington) onto the ledge of the 21st floor of a New York hotel in the new thriller, “Man on a Ledge.” The former inmate is trying to prove his innocence in front of the police and a national media watching his every move. The concept sounds like “The Fugitive” on a skyscraper. but the film is so mundane and lifeless Dr. Richard Kimble himself might have asked for an autopsy.

Acclaimed television creator/writer David Milch’s latest HBO offering, “Luck” should be an easy favorite.

It’s about horse racing and the characters the sport attracts. It’s filmed largely at California’s Santa Anita race track and tells the story of racing from so many potentially fascinating points of view: gamblers, owners, jockeys and trainers. It stars a cast that on paper can’t lose, including Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina and real-life Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Gary Stevens. The co-executive producer is Michael Mann, who understands light and sound and color as well as anyone in Hollywood.

But that’s on paper. As bettors know, the horse with the winningest record, the best times, the richest purses and the bloodline for the distance doesn’t always win. There’s no such thing as a sure thing.

Stumbling out of the gate, “Luck” turns out to be a one-trick pony. It hurts to write that, because this show has the pedigree of a champion.

“Luck” begins with a peek behind the daily workings at a busy track. There’s the Peruvian trainer Turo Escalante (John Ortiz) described in press materials as “brilliant but disreputable.” And there’s the hard-luck grinder Walter Smith (Nolte), a good horseman and a good man who deserves the big win.

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In preface to this critique, it’s important to say that there is no such thing as a perfect Christian; Jesus Christ, the God Christians follow, was the only perfect human being, which is why true Christians believe faith should be placed in Him alone.

With that said, it was after the Jesus Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, during the 1980’s that many non-denominational churches sprouted up all over America, some of them overseen by self-appointed pastors and leaders who were unaccountable to anyone but themselves. As a result, in the Christian community, young adults, desirous to serve God, were drawn into congregations with showbiz-style charismatic leaders who exploited the enthusiasm and commitment of individuals who, at that time, were too immature to differentiate the counterfeit from the divine.

Kids “raised” in many of these churches responded harshly to hype and unbiblical legalism and emerged from the experience tattooed, smoking, drinking, and toting around babies born out of wedlock. Lost between redemption and confusion were grossly cynical parents who realized they wasted precious years serving man and not God and a generation of kids who sang with Psalty, then grew up eager to partake of forbidden fruit.

Similar scenarios were common in churches across America and could explain the disturbing phenomenon presently on display where the worldly success Christian pop stars achieve is often accompanied by a public fall from grace. Two of the most obvious examples of church kid tragedy include the sorry lives of Jessica and Ashlee Simpson and train-wreck-waiting-to-happen Katy Perry. (more…)

Marvel Studios started as a novel concept. Headed by Kevin Feige, the group was asked to take control of Marvel’s own comic-to-big-screen incarnations and make them more faithful to their source material, as well as develop continuity between their projects.

It’s the kind of criss-cross universe comparable to that of their comics that made geeks salivate at the mouth. They even started off pretty well. “Iron Man” had an inspired bit of casting in Robert Downey Jr. and ended up making $318.4 million domestically. They even threw in a cameo of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury! Genius, I say.

Next came the more mediocre “The Incredible Hulk” which barely managed to top its Eric Bana-starring previous incarnation at the box office. But the films successfully began Marvel’s path to the upcoming “Avengers.” There were even rumors that “Hulk” star Edward Norton was so passionate about the character that he took on uncredited roles as both a producer and a screenwriter. He certainly wanted in on “Avengers.”

The company looked like it was different from the ignorant studios that seem to own Hollywood. They were giving fans what they wanted by hiring quality filmmakers and showing a dedication to the quality of their own projects–a live-action Pixar, if you will.

But the studio truly hadn’t been put to the test yet. Their next film was “Iron Man 2,” and it was a clunker if there ever was one. I mean, how do you mess up a film when you have Downey Jr., Jackson, Sam Rockwell and Mickey frickin’ Rourke!? Well, they managed to do it, alright. Audiences expecting the same smarts and energy as the first installment experienced shoddy storytelling, a plot that was not clearly fleshed out, and montages such as Tony Stark shooting lasers around a room and suddenly discovering a new atom… seriously?

What about the dark, alcoholic Tony Stark fans love from the comics? Why were actors like Rockwell and Rourke literally wasted, only performing in scenes necessary to move the plot forward but not to flesh out character? I mean, no one’s going to disagree that they are both excellent character actors.

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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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James Badge Dale isn’t a household name. But he should be.

Over the past ten years, the young actor has played supporting roles in several major films and starred in one of the most acclaimed mini-series of the past decade. One of his first juicy roles occurred in 2003 when he played Chase Edmunds, a CTU agent working under the tutelage of Jack Bauer on “24.”

In 2010, Dale played a lead in the HBO mini-series, “The Pacific.” Since then, he has acted in “The Conspirator,” headlined a television program called “Rubicon” and starred alongside Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan in the critically-acclaimed film “Shame.”

His latest project, “The Grey,” finds Dale facing his own mortality alongside Oscar-nominee Liam Neeson. I recently had a chance to talk to Dale about his emotional scene in the new thriller, his work on “The Pacific” and the Oscar nomination that never arrived for Fassbender.

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The price those the left label as apostates pay is always a high one. Their very identity is questioned, and these attacks are always ignored by the same MSM that labels facts, such as the record number of food stamp recipients under President FailureTeleprompter, as racist. Moreover, heaven help a comedian who aims a little satire at the gay community, but once again, openly sexist, racially-charged attacks against leftist apostates are always met with the media’s approval in the form of complicit silence.

Crystal Wright is an accomplished commentator and writer who holds a  Masters from Georgetown. But she just happens to be black and female and Republican, so therefore …. this gets fired out to nearly a quarter of a million people:

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Ms. Wright wrote about what happened at Freedoms Journal:

What’s curious is no other race, White, Hispanic or Asian, gives over 90% of their vote to one party but blacks. In exchange for this block vote, Democrats, including President Obama, our first black president, take the black vote for granted each election cycle because they don’t have to work for it.

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What will it take to finally bring humankind together, to unite us all in respect and appreciation and a sense of shared purpose? How about a pack of vicious wolves intent on tearing us to bloody shreds? Judging by “The Grey,” director Joe Carnahan’s new deep-freeze thriller, that might do it.

The best thing about this movie is its shivery hypothermic vérité, a credit to the skill of cinematographer Masanobu Takanayagi, working under what must have been very trying conditions.

The story is set in the snow-blown wastes of Arctic Alaska, and the brutally frigid environment, with its attendant sub-zero temperatures, is vividly depicted—the actors, haloed in clouds of breath condensation, really appear to be freezing. (The picture was actually shot in northern Canada—not a tropical getaway in any event.)

The main characters are part of a group of oilfield roughnecks who were en route from their remote worksite for two weeks of R&R elsewhere when their shuttle plane took a dive into the icy tundra, leaving them suddenly either stranded or dead. Only eight men have survived. Fortunately, one of them is Liam Neeson, whose warm, hefty presence would be reassuring in any predicament. His fellow survivors are a traditionally mixed bunch: a couple of nice guys (Dermot Mulroney and Dallas Roberts), one wiseass (Frank Grillo), and one gentle fellow (Nonso Anozie) who clearly shouldn’t be making any long-range life plans.

Read the full review at Reason.com

Tonight marks the end of a tumultuous five-season run for the NBC action-comedy/spy-drama series Chuck, from creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak.

The story of “Chuck” revolves around computer service technician Chuck Bartowski, played by Zachary Levi, who inadvertently becomes a CIA/NSA asset when his former Stanford roommate turned CIA operative downloads the only copy of a secret government database, the Intersect, directly into Chuck’s brain. The government assigns two agents to protect and work with Chuck, CIA Agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and NSA Major John Casey (Big Hollywood’s own Adam Baldwin).

The supporting cast includes Chuck’s best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez), sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster), brother-in-law Devon (Ryan McPartlin) and fellow computer technicians and lackeys Jeff and Lester (played to comedic brilliance by Scott Krinsky and Vik Sahay). Guest stars over the years have included Chevy Chase, Scott Bakula, Linda Hamilton, Timothy Dalton and Carrie-Anne Moss.

The cast worked incredibly well together which, when combined with good writing and interesting storylines, produced a series that was extremely entertaining and kept me watching from the first episode. For whatever reason, the show was never able to draw in a large audience and slipped in the ratings in each subsequent season.

Chuck was able to stave off cancellation numerous times thanks to a very vocal and loyal, but unfortunately small, fan base who mounted multiple “Save Chuck” campaigns. If not for a unique sponsorship deal with the Subway restaurant chain, the series would have never even seen a third season. A deal between production company Warner Brothers and NBC for a 13-episode fifth season was only struck to get to the minimum syndication threshold of 88 episodes, which brought the series to a total of 91 episodes.

I recently spoke with Big Hollywood contributor Adam Baldwin about the series, its finale airing at 8 p.m. EST tonight and being a conservative in Hollywood.

How did you get involved with “Chuck?”

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Hard for me to imagine, but I am now 41. Amazing. It seems like yesterday my poofy mullet and parachute pants were all the rage, and Prince had a #1 hit on the radio. Now I’m married to the most beautiful woman, raising six children, and living the American dream. Our country has changed so much since my days of fighting with Carol and Ben on TV. America has always been known as “the land of the free” and “the home of the brave.” It’s the richest, freest nation the world has ever seen. Everyone wants to live here. But as I look around, I’m left with a sinking feeling that America is losing her way. Big time. The soul of our country is sick, and history shows me we are headed for disaster if we don’t change course now.

I’ve been looking around for answers, but all I hear is noise. Everyone is pointing fingers at the Left or the Right, blaming Hollywood or Capitol Hill. Time is flying by too quickly for petty arguments. My children’s future won’t wait. I’ve got to do something now.

Here’s my hunch: Could it be that we have simply forgotten what made us such a great nation in the first place? So many people are waiting around for our leaders to come up with a grand plan to save our nation. But is that really how America got started? What if things actually work the other way around? What if real change doesn’t start at the top but at the bottom? What if the best place to begin transforming our country is not the Oval Office but the dinner table?

For the past year and a half, I’ve been making a film called “Monumental,” and I am thrilled to announce that it’s coming to theaters on March 27. We are creating a live, one-night national event in 500 theaters where audiences can experience a monumental moment together. Then we will release the film in theaters in select cities, while providing helpful new resources to families, churches, and schools who want to go further with what they’ve experienced in the film.  (more…)

Just like four years ago, another group of legendary Obama 1 percent supporters have stepped forward to lend a creative hand to help the President raise money for his 2012 bid for reelection. Last time around it was “Runway to Change.” This time the design-for-Obama group effort has been dubbed “Runway to Win.”

Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor that hosted Obama’s supporters in her New York townhouse and who recently co-hosted a $35,000 per person fundraiser at Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s home, is heading up the venture. In the past, Wintour’s tony political functions were attended by the likes of Alicia Keys and $70,000 dinner power couple Coldplay singer Chris Martin and his actress wife, the “suddenly everywhere” Miramax “muse,” Gwyneth Paltrow.

So with Wintour now raising reelection funds, you can just forget the $5 raffle tickets for a hot dog dinner with Barry and Shelley. Instead, the campaign will be hawking designer duds to people who, last time around, were in such dire straits they hoped the new president would fill their gas tank and pay their mortgage.

For her latest effort, Anna Wintour has recruited Hollywood notables, designers, pop and hip-hop artists, and other all-around really rich people to raise money for Barack 2012 by designing overpriced T-shirts, tank tops, scarves, wristlets, and bags to sell at inflated prices to people who, in the midst of an Obama recession, really can’t afford them.

Thus, “Runway to Win” is yet another example that Barack Obama and his helpful circle of elite Hollywood friends and Seventh Avenue designer devotees are all pretty much insulated from reality, out of touch, and oblivious to the plight of the common man.

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It’s hard to imagine anyone would actually be surprised that Oliver Stone would champion Ron Paul. After all, the two both seem to look at politics through a lens that someone brought back from the Bizzaro World. For those of you who aren’t Superman fans, the Bizzaro world is a place where everything is the opposite as it is on Earth.

Stone revealed his secret admiration for the Republican presidential hopeful in an interview for this month’s edition of RockCellar Magazine, in which Stone confessed:

There’s no way that we can continue this spending spree. In fact, I think in many ways the most interesting candidate – I’d even vote for him if he was running against Obama – is Ron Paul. Because he’s the only one of anybody who’s saying anything intelligent about the future of the world.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the simple fact that both Paul and Stone are isolationists who think the United States is wrong every time it uses military force to stop tyranny, torture or oppression in foreign countries.

In fact, later in the interview Stone said:

Why is it necessary for every candidate — except for Ron Paul — to pay obeisance to this hypocrisy that the U.S. is a good force in the world, and that it is the dominant force, and can be the policeman of the world? Since when? What gave us that right?

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Both articles linked below make excellent points about how indifferent the public was to this year’s nine Best Picture picks. Other than “The Help,” which was a smash, none came close to reaching $100 million at the domestic box office. So unlike the last two years, where the nominations contained more than a single film people had actually seen, we have eight films practically no one did.

Yes, that’s a problem.

But here’s the bigger problem: 29 films topped the $100 million mark last year, but how many of those are worthy of an Oscar? “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and ”X-Men: First Class”  were certainly good movies, but they’re not Best Picture material.

The problem isn’t so much that the Academy is out of touch (which it is), it’s that the product the industry created was so lousy last year, there really are no crowd-pleasers good enough to add to the list of nominations. And as someone who has seen the middling “Midnight in Paris,” the pretentious and impossibly dull “Tree of Life,” and the just pretty good “War Horse” — none of which is better than “Rise of the Apes,” “X-Men,” or “Resident Evil 4,” for that matter – the Academy is still guilty of stacking the deck with brand-tarnishing mediocrities.

Box Office Mojo:

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Rev. C.L. Bryant isn’t about to apologize for comparing the plight of black conservatives to the “Peculiar Institution” in his new documentary “Runaway Slave.”

“There had to be something shocking enough to bring them around to seeing it,” Bryant says of the film’s intended audience, black liberals unwilling to consider another ideological viewpoint.

“Runaway Slave,” which recently had its sold out world premiere Jan. 13 at the Landmark Regent Theater in Los Angeles, features Bryant’s attempts to free his fellow black Americans from the shackles of liberalism. The film finds Bryant trying to win over stubborn converts, deploring how black conservatives are treated and interviewing prominent black conservatives like Herman Cain and Thomas Sowell.

Bryant is a former man of the left who switched sides in the early 1990s thanks in large part to radio talk show titan Rush Limbaugh.

“I was driving down the street looking for a client and looking for Jim Hightower,” he recalls. Bryant’s car radio happened on Limbaugh’s afternoon broadcast, and he found himself unable to change the dial. “The things he was saying about the Clintons that was totally alien to my ears, but it was captivating. And the reasons he was saying them were more captivating.”

“I discovered there was an entirely different world out there, trying to tell others how precious freedom was,” he says.

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You would think Piers Morgan would follow up with a question about Sean Penn’s admiration and support of Hugo Chavez, but instead, Morgan ignores this glaring opening and uses the opportunity to attack Mitt Romney as a flip-flopper.

Obama’s Palace Guards are … everywhere.

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How old do you think Sean Penn is in drug years?

Via Fox News:

If Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum ends up in the White House, Sean Penn won’t be happy about it.

“I don’t want to see Rick Santorum be president because I would like to see people in trouble in this country getting out of it,” the actor and liberal activist said on CNN  Monday night. “I don’t want to see a narrow-minded leadership encourage a narrow-minded Congress.”

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Sarah Silverman, who helped Barack Obama campaign for the Jewish vote in 2008, has changed her Twitter location to “Palestinian territories,” in a possible attempt to reach out across the Jewish-Arab divide–or, just as likely, in an effort to tweak pro-Israel sensibilities.

Silverman certainly catches her share of flak from the anti-Israel left; she was recently criticized simply because a pro-Israel group happened to buy a bloc of tickets to one of her shows.

But to the extent that she is trying to strike a critical pose–as she did in a recent tweet lampooning Newt Gingrich’s staunch pro-Israel views–there is no better illustration of why Obama risks losing pro-Israel support in the 2012 election.

On the one hand, Obama is attempting to claim he has not just been pro-Israel, but more pro-Israel than any president in American history.

On the other, his penchant for confrontation with the Israeli government, and the anti-Israel passions of his core left-wing supporters, tend to undermine his pitch. Democrats are trying to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel–and it’s not quite working.

Silverman’s posture is an example of that contradiction–not because it’s axiomatically “anti-Israel” to be pro-Palestinian, but because those on the pro-Israel side who support a two-state solution have become increasingly aware that their empathy is not reciprocated. It is hard to imagine a Palestinian actor provocatively setting her location to “State of Israel,” for example.

In 2008, Silverman led “The Great Schlep,” an effort to bring pro-Obama Jews to Florida to convince their allegedly racist grandparents to give the black candidate their swing-state vote. Part of that effort included reassuring Jews about Obama’s support for Israel: “Barack Obama’s foreign policy is much more stabilizing than John McCain’s, and much better for Israel,” Silverman claimed.

It’s harder to make that case today, when Obama–and, now, Silverman–seem to be at pains to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause (and when the Middle East is more unstable today than in 2008). (more…)