To paraphrase Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, “Lord I know we are your chosen people, but once in a while, can’t you have Mel Gibson choose someone else?”

Gibson’s career reads like a Shakespearian Tragedy.  After becoming arguably the biggest star in Hollywood he began displaying his hubris, spewing hatred against different ethnic groups, much of it against the Jews (or as he has called them “oven dodgers”). Gibson’s hatred nearly destroyed his career turning him into at best a b-player.  But announced last week, Gibson successfully wrangled funding for a big Hollywood project withy Warner Brothers.  He will be producing and possibly directing and starring in a movie based on Jewish history, the story of Judah Maccabee.

This is not the first time Gibson has tackled Jewish History, just the first time he’s attempted it in film. In 2004, Gibson was interviewed by Peggy Noonan for Readers Digest.  Noonan asked Gibson if he believed the Holocaust happened. He answered by questioning the number of Jews slaughtered by the Nazi’s and seemed to downplay the Holocaust as a Jewish experience. 

“I mean when the war was over they said it was 12 million. Then it was six. Now it’s four. I mean it’s that kind of numbers game. I mean war is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million people starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century 20 million people died in the Soviet Union. Okay? It’s horrible.” 

These are just a few of many anti-Jewish acts made by Gibson, the most famous of which occurred during a drunk driving arrest in 2006 when he kept screaming “f***ing Jews” and  later stated that “the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world”  

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Vera Farmiga has lit up the screen in supporting roles for the past few years, first drawing viewers’ and critics’ attention by playing a police psychologist caught between Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in 2006’s “The Departed” before landing an Oscar nomination as the mysterious flipside and lover of George Clooney’s commitment-phobic, constantly traveling businessman in 2009’s “Up in the Air.”

But her almost ethereal calm onscreen also hides a deep Christian faith, and that inspired her to go all the way as the director as well as star of the new film “Higher Ground.” While she’s following in the footsteps of icons like Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, and Robert DeNiro to make that creative leap, “Higher Ground” is a quietly personal film – a fictionalized take on the memoir “This Dark World” by Carolyn Bridges, about a woman’s struggle to balance her faith with her awareness of the nascent feminist movement of the early ‘70s – can she insist on having a voice in the small rural church she attends, or does she have to stay silent just because the men traditionally tell the women they need to be silent?

“Higher Ground” was a Sundance favorite in January, landing distribution with Sony Pictures Classics and started playing in New York and LA last week, with cities nationwide to come. Farmiga sat down recently with Big Hollywood to discuss the film and her profoundly personal reasons for directing it. (more…)

The A&E original film “Flight 93” (2006), begins by showing pilots and flight attendants going through their normal, early morning preparations for flight. It shows travelers of all walks of life passing through airport security en route to the planes they would board for flight that day. There are smiles on some faces, scowls and consternation on others. And between the two pilots of flight 93 there is an obvious light-heartedness, all of which communicate that it’s just another day where average Americans step through the routines of life.

But it wasn’t an average day, as we all know, and the movie communicates this by interweaving clips of terrorists as they prepared to board flight 93, as well.

Emotions are stirred as the viewer watches names on plane tickets being checked at the gate. Interspersed with names like Tom Burnett and Todd Beamer are others like Ahmed Al Haznawi and Ziad Jarrah.

Right before flight 93 lifts off, viewers are informed that American Airlines flight 11 has been hijacked. Following takeoff, while flight 93 is still climbing, the viewer hears flight attendant Amy Sweeney (flight 11) on a cell phone describing where the terrorists aboard her plane had been sitting before they attacked. She talks hurriedly, and then is cut off by the impact of her airplane slamming into the World Trade Center.

News coverage of the second tower being hit is then worked into the film, and the tension is palpable.

The movie shows family members at home, who have been watching the news, wondering if their loved ones were on the planes that slammed into the World Trade Center.

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I pray for those who lost so much on September 11, 2001. We are still not able to openly say “Radical Islam is our enemy,” and therefore I fear for our country.  There is this illusion that we are “too big to fail,” and yet we are more vulnerable than we have ever been in our very brief history. I only hope that those who gave “the last full measure of devotion” will not curse us from the grave!  God bless America.

The Bloomberg terms for this year’s 9/11 Memorial are not only wrong, they are spiritually, metaphysically and, even in Karl Marx’s terms, dialectically “unbalanced”. Bloomberg is courting an even worse disaster than 9/11.

To bear false witness against God, of all defendants, to blame Him for 9/11, branding Him and his representatives as persona non grata without a full trial is literally demanding God’s complete abandonment of New York City.

Is preventing clergy from participating in the 9/11 Memorial excluding God Himself?

Yes.

Why?

Try excluding a single State’s representative, Senator and/or House member, from a Congressional Ceremony Honoring Abraham Lincoln.

Try it, and may God have mercy on you.

The Almighty, if you haven’t noticed, runs a Democracy as well or better than Washington does.

God has also been known to take sides in American Wars.

Particularly the domestic wars of her Revolution and the nightmares of 1860-65.

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THR:

Mel Gibson’s decision to make a biopic of the Jewish religious icon Judah Maccabee is the latest twist in the star’s long, tortured history with the Jewish community.

In a May 2003 interview with National Catholic Reporter Jesuit Fr. William J. Fulco, who translated the script into Aramaic and Latin, assured the nervous Jewish community, “In no way do I experience it as offensive to Jews or anyone else.”

But as Gibson began to screen the film to selected Catholic and Jewish leaders, accusations of anti-Semitism sounded louder and louder in the media. Unhappy with the film’s tone towards the Jewish people and their culpability in the crucifixion of Jesus, leaders such as New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

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Associated Press:

The real life adventures of former al-Qaida-linked militant Nasir Abas have become a new comic book in Indonesia, chronicling his transformation from foe to invaluable ally in the fight against terrorism.

The story of the soft-spoken, seemingly mild-mannered 42-year-old — recognized by strangers on the streets and even asked for the occasional autograph — is well-known in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

He went from helping train Muslim extremists who carried out some of Southeast Asia’s deadliest attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings, to informing police about the inner-workings of the Jemaah Islamiyah network.

He’s also joined a government program to convince convicted terrorists that killing unarmed civilians in the name of their faith is wrong.

“I want children to learn from my experience,” Abas said of the colorful 137-page comic “I Found the Meaning of Jihad,” which appears in bookstores Friday and will be handed out at some schools and libraries.

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The BBC’s entire approach to this subject is wildly dishonest. There are no problems between Muslims and non-Muslims in America. We got along just fine pre-9/11, got along just fine the day after 9/11, and get along just fine today.

The BBC:

Influential American broadcaster Katie Couric has suggested a way to change attitudes to Muslims in the US.

Pointing to the success in the 1980s and 90s of TV sitcom The Cosby Show in improving relations between African-Americans and whites, she argues that a Muslim version of the show may counter some Americans’ negative perceptions of the community.

But just across the border, in Canada, this “Muslim Cosby Show” already exists. Little Mosque on the Prairie, made in Toronto, is recording its sixth and final series. 

However…

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USA Today:

This is a new low for Andy Dick.

The often legally troubled comic started an all-out war with Howard Stern this week, launching into an antisemitic rant while a guest on the “Greg Fitzsimmons Show” Tuesday. A shocked Stern fired back hard on his Sirius satellite radio show.

So what exactly did Dick say? You won’t believe what came out of his mouth.

On Fitzsimmons’ show, Dick spewed that the radio legend was a “shallow, money-grubbing Jew” with a “big fat hook nose.”

Where’s all this coming from? That’s exactly what Stern asked on his show, sounding disappointed and angry when he replayed the shocking interview on his own show.

“Wow. Woweee,” he said. “This is bad, bad for society.”

The radio host played more of Dick’s interview, during which Dick went off on Stern for not going to bat for him when his own Sirius show was canceled years back.

“Legally troubled” is an interesting way to describe a man currently being prosecuted for felony sexual abuse. 

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From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK — A frequent contributor to a jihadist website has threatened David Letterman, urging Muslim followers to “cut the tongue” of the late-night host because of a joke the comic made on his CBS show.

The Site Monitoring Service, a private intelligence organization that watches online activity, said Wednesday that the threat was posted a day earlier on the shumukh al-Islam forum, a popular Internet destination for radical Muslims.

Jihadist didn’t like his joke…

The contributor, who identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi, was reacting to what he said Letterman did after the U.S. military announced on June 5 that a drone strike in Pakistan had killed al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kashmiri.

Al-Basrawi wrote that Letterman had made reference to both Osama bin Laden and Kashmiri and said that Letterman had “put his hand on his neck and demonstrated the way of slaughter.”

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Ed. Note: This is the second of three excerpts. Part one is here. Part three posts tomorrow. ”The Final Hour” is available at Amazon.

Chapter Two

The Yard King 

What just happened?

In the terror of the moment, I couldn’t make sense of it.  Then I could.

One of the Nazi musclemen—one of the thugs who’d been with me by the free weights—was standing before me where the wolf-faced man had been.  His fist was raised, a stone was gripped in it.  He had stepped up behind the Islamist assassin and clubbed him in the back of the neck.

The next instant, the two men holding me were ripped away, as if they’d been caught up in a tornado or something.  Some Swastika-tatooed musclemen had grabbed them too, dragged them off me.  As the men fought back, more of the Islamists were running to the scene to join the fight and more of the Nazis too.  Another second and hate-filled men were battling other hate-filled men back and forth across the grass. There was the crack of fists on bone.  Blood flying through the air.  Grunted curses and ugly names.  Men down on the ground rolling over and over one another, trying to gouge one another’s eyes or clutch one another’s throats.

It all happened in a second.  I stood dazed at the center of the chaos.

I thought:  This is hell.  It must look just like this in hell.

Now the guards in their blue shirts seemed suddenly to reappear out of nowhere.  They rushed into the melee of gray uniforms, wrapping arms around prisoners’ throats to pull them apart, hammering at their heads with the edges of their walkie-talkies, kicking at them as they rolled around in the dirt and on the asphalt.

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In many ways “Friends with Benefits” is akin to a reboot of “No Strings Attached,” which came out just a few months ago, and that’s good news for conservative moviegoers.  Like “No Stings,” “FWB,” which stars the magnetic Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, ultimately arrives at the conclusion that sexual relationships are apt to get very complicated very quickly and have the tendency to materialize into love.  Or tears.

—–

However, this rule doesn’t really apply when it comes to gay men.  A greater percentage of male/male relationships (compared to male/female or female/female) can be purely sexual without any “strings attached,” and, to the filmmakers’ credit, that nuance is not lost in “Friends with Benefits.”  Woody Harrelson, who is very funny as an over-the-top gay character, offers this wisdom.  But the ideas that “monogamy is against our nature” and casual sex comes with negligible emotional and physical baggage–particularly when there’s a woman in the equation–has been roundly rebuked in recent years and Hollywood romantic comedies deserve a lot of the credit.

There are even a few jokes that specifically target liberals: Kunis refers to hybrid cars and local/organic/sustainable food as “bullshit” on separate occasions and Harrelson says that “no one wants to fuck Obama” because his ears are too big.  For years romantic comedies have been a haven for conservative moviegoers because they tend to glorify monogamy as opposed to loveless sex.  But now they’re also subjecting liberals to the types of barbs right-of-center folk have endured for decades!? Could Hollywood finally be turning a corner?  With the advent of new media, conservatives finally have had a megaphone to complain about these digs that typically only go in one direction (ours).  Maybe it’s having an effect! (more…)

So Ricky Gervais did a photo shoot and asked a bunch of questions over at HuffPo.  Here’s my take on one particular image and then, since he asks a few questions that are somewhat provocative, I’ll take a stab at answering them.

The photo of him posing as a Christ-figure is worth addressing because it is most likely to generate controversy for obvious reasons.  My first reaction was, frankly, disappointment.  That’s the best he can do?  I happen to think Mr. Gervais is hilarious, and his funniest material is usually the most provocative, but this one just fell flat.

After all, how many times are we going to be subjected to some knock-off of the Christ pose, which is obviously intended to inflame Christians?  In short, it’s been done to death.  Christians are an easy target and it doesn’t take much imagination, or cajones, to take pot shots at them.  In America, it’s perfectly fine to hate on the Christians.

If Mr. Gervais had real cajones, he would have created an image that is offensive to Jews.  Even though anti-Semitism runs deep and wide in this country, and often goes unrecognized and unreported, it’s still not so easy to openly hate on the Jews.   There are enough organizations and individuals that will defend us against anything remotely offensive, but the social price is high enough that Mr. Gervais is too smart to risk his career.

Nor is he likely to provide an image offensive to militant Muslims.  As John Nolte pointed out, they will literally take your head off if they don’t get the joke.  Not only is Mr. Gervais likely fond of his head, Muslims are presently in the company of the P.C. Police.  He’d likely to go P.C. jail for taking a swipe in that territory.

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Why Christian symbols? We’re awfully easy pickings. If you’re a rich Hollywood star, offending us takes about as much courage as bringing a case of beer to a frat party.

Why not Islamic images? Where’s that comedic edge and ballsy envelope pushing we’re always being told about when it comes to our Artistic Class? Christians are tired of this self-important posing. Islamists will take your head off. I would think that Islamist intolerance (and racism and sexism and homophobia and fundamentalism) would be a bigger target than than Christian eye rolls.

Well, if nohing else, at least Gervais was good enough to bring the pretension:

 I thought the caption … could be “Stand up for what you believe”.

Doesn’t he mean for “what you don’t believe”?

Actually, he doesn’t. That’s why I call him Gervais an “evangelical atheist.” He’s one of those obnoxious non-believers always pushing his non-belief on you. He’s like a Mooonie without the charm, flowers or airport.

Back to the pretension:

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“The incubation period of the opera (Nixon In China) was rife with serious second-thoughts, by no less than Adams (the composer) himself, who initially resisted the proposal made by Peter Sellars (the director), a progressively radical director whose idea the composer found too risky.” – An excerpt from “Opera Review: John Adams’ ‘Nixon in China’” by Sam Juliano.

Hmmm … the course of Marxist genius never runs smoothly.

If you don’t believe me, read the life of Bertolt Brecht.

However, Peter Sellars’ Marxism, as Wikipedia prefers to translate it, is to be a “progressively radical” artist of some sort.

With President Obama in the White House, it can now be known as “radically Progressive”: the Progressive Clinton as versus the radically Progressive Obama.

Radicalism, a la Van Jones, even as seen through the eyes of the Huffington Post, is the inevitability of the “Progressive” New World Order, whether you like it or not.

There is, however, one impressively dialectical twist in this drama: women such as Alice Goodman, the librettist.

Her Marxist heresy, because of the ministerial collar, is what is sometimes referred to by the KGB  hardliners as the Western Sentimentality of “useful idiots” and the decadent schmaltz seems to have escaped even the intriguingly odd but hawk-eyed Peter Sellars.

Reverend Goodman is still a “Progressive” of the Progressively Baptist Bill Clinton sort. She is actually an ordained Anglican priest; and is now a chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge.

The initial Wizard of Nixon In China happened to be the director, Peter Sellars.

The real Wizard, however, is Alice Goodman.

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Here’s “The Tailor,” an adorable short from the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, written, directed and edited by Gordon Grinberg.

1. The film is based on an old and well known Jewish joke. So old is the joke that I actually heard this back in high school when I was a student at the Brooklyn Talmudic Academy.

2. A certain segment of orthodox Jewish men wear black suits and black hats only. Think of it as a regulation uniform. Why? The most common explanation is that black signifies mourning and the Jewish people are still mourning the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Also—and this is just my personal opinion—black is, y’know, slimming. (more…)

Coming soon to a television near you? Good Christian Belles, which was originally titled Good Christian Bitches. Although not guaranteed a slot on the ABC lineup, the original title caused an uproar, which may account for the title change. Regardless, the content of the pilot script (which I have read) should be enough to make those of us who are tired of liberal Hollywood using Christianity as a punching bag to stay away from a show that reminds one of Desperate Housewives with a religious, er, twist.

The plot revolves around the recently widowed (and beautiful) Amanda Vaughn, whose husband Bill died in a car crash. Just about everything the couple owns has been seized by federal marshals because the recently deceased Bill was indicted in a Ponzi scheme, leaving his wife and teenaged children (Will and Sara) with little choice but to pack up what’s left and leave California for Amanda’s native Texas – Dallas, to be precise – and move in with Amanda’s mother Gigi until Amanda can find a job and support herself and the kids.

Amanda not only has to cope with the shame surrounding Bill’s death and helping her children transition, but moving back to her hometown. As daughter Sara discovers one of Amanda’s old high school yearbooks at Gigi’s (who does not want her grandchildren to call her Grandma), it prompts a discussion of Amanda’s past as a popular cheerleader who wasn’t above being a manipulative bitch to get what she wanted. Not proud of her past, Amanda is determined to make a fresh start. Too bad some of the girls she grew up with aren’t willing to let bygones be bygones.

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By now, everyone whose zip code is not in Middle Earth or Narnia knows that NBC took some liberties with the Pledge of Allegiance.  During NBC’s coverage of The U.S. Open golf tournament.  They produced and played a patriotic montage of school children reciting the pledge.  The words “Under God” were edited out both times the clip was aired.  They apologized for this after being deluged by phone calls, emails, and criticism from reasonable, “Fair and Balanced” news agencies.  What has gotten lost in the haze of outrage by the viewers is that this is the second time this spring that NBC has pulled this stunt. 

On May 12th, NBC aired one of the season’s final episodes of their hit show, “The Office”.  In the episode “Dwight K. Schrute (Acting) Manger” is temporarily promoted to the post of “Regional Manager”.  As part of his new regime, Dwight forced his underlings to start the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  As the employees are reciting the pledge, the camera tightly focuses on the character Oscar Martinez.  As the rest of the office recites the words, “Under God,” Oscar stands mute; a silent protest to the offending words.  

Oscar is never portrayed as a buffoon in the mold of Tim Taylor of “Home Improvement” fame or Doug Heffernan from the “King of Queens”.  Oscar is often the most intelligent and rational person in the office. To have the omission come from the smartest guy in the room means a whole lot more than if it came from his fellow cast member “Kevin Malone.”  In the case of Kevin’s character, he is intellectually closer to Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” than he is Einstein. 

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There is nothing that says “expert on Middle Eastern conflict resolution” more than playing an alien on television. So, the consummate expert has penned a missive to Americans for Peace Now on how he sees an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Spock has spoken.

Leonard Nimoy has called for a two state solution for which, in deference, several notables (amongst them Israelis), have called.  Nimoy does make a telling statement about the whole idea of two separate states.

“In fact, there is an end in sight. It’s known as the two-state solution – a secure, democratic Israel as the Jewish State alongside an independent Palestinian state.”

He does deserve some credit for seeing Israel as a Jewish state but, if you notice, there is only one democratic state mentioned here. It isn’t expected that another Muslim Arab state will be democratic. As a matter of fact, as always, Israel is expected to remain multicultural andrespect the rights of all its inhabitants, yet the proposed Arab state would, like all the other Arab states, not be open to Jews. Not that many Jews would like to live in an Arab state, considering the centuries of slaughter and pillage that have been the lot of Dhimmi Jews in Arab lands.

This is pretty par for the course, but what is even more egregious is his call for the division of Jerusalem.

“Their plan includes a Palestinian state alongside Israel with agreed-upon land swaps. The Palestinian-populated areas of Jerusalem would become the capital of Palestine; the Jewish-populated areas the capital of Israel.”

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Russell Crowe reportedly deleted some of the offending tweets and later apologized. Because  the Oscar-winner didn’t direct “The Passion of the Christ” we’ve likely heard the end of this. 

US Weekly:

Russell Crowe’s message is clear: circumcision is the enemy.

“Circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature?” the Oscar winner tweeted Thursday. “Is it real that God requires a donation of foreskin? Babies are perfect.”

After several of his followers tweeted messages of support, the 47-year-old actor reached out to his Jewish friends (including director Eli Roth, 39) to encourage them to reject their long tradition of ceremonial circumcision.

“I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats, but stop cutting your babies,” he wrote.

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