The New York Post:

A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all.

“The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with invited guests.

The book reveals how any official announcement of the glittering affair — coming at a time when Tea Party activists and voters furious over the lagging economy, 10-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and Obama’s health-care plan were staging protests — quickly vanished down the rabbit hole.

That was in October of 2009, five months prior to the film’s release in March of the following year. And yet, with over a hundred million on the line, the publicity-savvy Disney all but ignored an event that would’ve generated a ton of publicity towards the film and most certainly increased the all-important “awareness” studios crave most in the months leading up to the release of a tentpole such as this one.

The answer might lie in Disney’s history of putting partisan politics above shareholder profits. For instance, the studio spent $40 million on the 2006 miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” broadcast it only once to great ratings success, but has since refused to rerun it or even release the DVD. Why? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton are upset that the film exposed mistakes made during the Clinton Administration when it came to stopping Osama bin Laden.

But, you know, Hollywood’s money-driven, not political. It has to be true. The entertainment media told me so.

According to Real Clear Politics, Obama’s approval rating in late October of 2009 was above 51%. More importantly, the President wasn’t upside down with his disapproval higher than approval. So what harm could playing up a White House event do to the film? Of course, I ask that question as though we live in a sane world where Hollywood would ever care about offending half its customers. But even if we lived in a sane world, the question would still apply. No conservative I know would begrudge the studio putting on a party for the children of military personnel.

Obama or no Obama, Disney releasing and promoting publicity shots of a costumed Tim Burton and Johnny Depp delighting the children of our men and women in the military would’ve generated a ton of goodwill towards everyone involved and the film itself. However…

According to news reports and Google, Disney did next to nothing to play this event up.

Why?

Occam’s Razor. I think Disney’s a studio run by left-wing partisans who memory-holed the party for the same reasons I suspect the MSM did — to protect Obama from a public relations hit, especially one during the crucial days leading up to a crucial ObamaCare vote.

They’re all in bed together, and it is not a pretty sight.

—–

But tonight through Thursday, anyone who is curious about what life is like in that insanely repressive regime can find a rare – literally one-of-a-kind – opportunity to see what goes on inside the borders of that nation, as LA’s Downtown Independent movie theater finishes a one-week-only run of “The Red Chapel,” a film that does not appear to be available on video in the United States. And better yet, the filmmakers behind this incredible film manage to do their expose in a way that blends the harrowing sadness of its citizens’ lives with staggeringly funny moments of outright satirical sabotage against the regime.

The fascinating and richly entertaining results parallel the work of “Borat” and “Bruno” mastermind Sacha Baron Cohen, but here the stakes are literally life and death if the filmmakers get caught. And the filmmakers pull off their achievement with taste rather than tastelessness, and do so in the service of a profound and daring mission: to shame the regime before the eyes of the free world.

In my nearly two years of reviewing films for Big Hollywood, I have never felt more compelled to encourage all those who love freedom to see a movie as much as I have this one. And due to the near-guerrilla nature of this film and the fact that the Downtown Independent is a nonprofit with almost no marketing budget, this film was hopelessly under-attended this weekend.

“The Red Chapel” is a 2009 Danish documentary in which a Danish native (a Caucasian man named Mads Brugger) roped in two South Korean-born men (Simon Jul Jorgensen and Jacob Nossell) who were adopted and raised by Danish families and are now popular Danish comedians, to pretend to be an arts trio called the Red Chapel. Even that name has a secret meaning, as it was the code name for Soviet actors who spied on the Nazis prior or during WWII by pretending to perform as a cultural exchange and reporting on German secrets from each of their tour stops.

Mads wants to sneak cameras into North Korea and show Pyongyang and anything else he can shoot to reveal on an unprecedented scale the pure evil of what he terms “the most evil dictatorship ever created.” At the same time, once they get accepted by the North Korean government, the performers reveal that their “show” is in fact a purposeful disaster.

Relying on fart noises from whoopie cushions, off-key singing, terrible acting of children’s fables like “The Princess and the Pea,” their goal is to humiliate the government officials who allowed them to enter, while acting like they have good intentions but simply lack talent. One of the comics, Jacob happens to be a “spastic” (his term, though his condition appears to be akin to Cerebral Palsy) and can not be understood by anyone but his friends.

The fact that he’s disabled helps them get into the country, as the North Korean government is eager to use him as propaganda showing they don’t hate disabled people. Mads’ narration notes that it’s long been rumored that the nation’s disabled babies get aborted or murdered right after birth, or sent to camps to die of neglect. The filmmakers’ advantage with having Jacob along is that he can say what’s really on his mind without the North Korean “minders” and spies understanding him, so he can say that their buildings look awful or food tastes like crap without getting busted, leaving the audience of the film to laugh later now that it’s translated on screen for us. (It’s like “Borat” with an anti-Soviet agenda).

They come up with shocking disturbing footage of daily life, and show how their spy/’minder’ breaks down wailing when asked how she feels about the founder of North Korea, Kim Jong Il’s father. While Mads’ narration explains that they know she’s saying she’s crying out of love for the man’s presence, but in reality is crying because she has to let out her true emotions sometime or go mad.

They also show how little kids are brainwashed in the schools, how the filmmakers are subtly spied on throughout their visit, and how Jacob gets more and more marginalized in his own show because the NK’s actually are deeply prejudiced against the disabled. And yet there is humor and hope and defiance running throughout, a strain of power that pays off triumphantly in the end.

Thankfully, this daring trio of filmmakers made it out alive and were able to share their vision with the rest of the world. Sadly, American filmgoers have received almost no opportunity to see the results.

If you’re really someone who cares about film but also cares about freedom and showing the truth and encouraging more such efforts like “The Red Chapel,” and you live in the Los Angeles area, it is very important to go support this film and the Downtown Independent theatre. Let your vote be heard at the box office and perhaps they can experience a turnaround that can bring the film back or garner it exposure elsewhere across the nation.

“The Red Chapel” plays tonight (Mar. at 7 p.m., Wed. at 4:30 p.m. and Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Downtown Independent Theater, 251 S. Main St. in Los Angeles. Admission is $10.

—–

The problem with most “experimental” music is that there’s a fair degree of laziness in the experiments.  Most bands attempting to create novel sonic concoctions end up in two camps:  those playing with new technology without having first come up with a coherent idea (i.e., one drum loop repeated for ten minutes with all sorts of craaaaazy twists of the reverb knob) and those who think that recording typical acoustic singer/songwriter dreck with a broken microphone pointed into a corner is “experimental.”  The former ends up with nothing but noise; the latter ends up with an extensive collection of name tags and hair nets.  Even from its inception, Animal Collective’s work was very noisy, often consisting of chaotic acoustic guitar riffs and off-key chanting.  Though for those who were patient, there were affecting melodies and a kind of primal musicality buried under these noise experiments. 

With Merriweather Post Pavilion, AC has brought perfect harmony to their tension between noise and music.   Opening track “In the Flowers” starts off muted and mysterious, with singer Avey Tare watching a woman dancing in a field, high and free of inhibition.  He is singing about his wife—missing her as he constantly travels, wanting nothing more than to ditch his own skin to be with her.  The sounds of crickets creep into the mix as he wistfully murmurs, “If I could just leave my body for a night,” and the song explodes into a galloping beat.  You hear the cricket song placed at the top of the mix—blaring, beautiful, and dangerous—as though experiencing it through the mind of a lightning bug flying through a swarm of its blazing peers.  It’s an exhilarating, perfectly paced opener, a fitting introduction to the hazy, dense, and layered instrumentation you have the pleasure of hearing for the next 45 minutes.

Every listener will find favorites from each of the eleven anthemic tracks on the album, each one a cornucopia of surprising and awe-inspiring sounds and melodies.  The one I connect with most is the first single “My Girls,” [There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.] wherein the band’s other singer, Panda Bear, joyfully cries out lyrics that hit close to home during the current recession:

I don’t need
To seem like I care about material things
Like social status
I just want
Four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

The sublime harmony, cascading synth arpeggios, and swinging dance beat suggest the loosing of a heavy burden, trading self-interest for a noble life of hard work and familial love.  It’s just one of many songs that affirm the greatness of wholesome devotion:  “Bluish” revels in how special it is to have exclusive, monogamous sex; “Daily Routine” finds beauty in pushing around one’s daughter in a stroller; “Guys Eyes” treads where only puritanical Christians would, admitting that you just might be letting down your wife/girlfriend by jerking off to porn instead of making love to her.  These lyrics are the work of real men facing their age and responsibilities with maturity and eagerness, not poseur bohemians convinced of their own greatness.

By no means am I suggesting that AC is a conservative band; recently they’ve been shilling for PETA, and they’ve always been forthcoming about their drug use.  But between overproduced, lifeless pop and country artists, incestuously derivative emo rock, and indie bands for which I have no more synonyms for “self-important douchenozzles,” Animal Collective displays the kind of excellence gained through hard work and modesty that we should all support.

What’s even more astounding is how consistent and prolific AC has been.  Last December’s EP Fall Be Kind saw them expanding their canon even further with such revelatory songs as “Graze” and “What Would I Want? Sky,” featuring samples from ‘70s pan flute virtuosos and the Grateful Dead.  Also worth checking out from 2009 were their astounding remixes of Ratatat, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Phoenix.

Vanity Fair:

Despite setting a domestic box-office record of $10.6 billion in 2009, Hollywood is on edge. The oceans of easy, eager money that once flooded the industry from foreign investors, hedge funds, and private-equity pools have all but dried up. And with actual attendance still off sharply from its 2002 high and DVD revenues in retreat, fewer and fewer movies are getting made. Worse still, from a talent point of view, where once studios were happy to reward stars with lavish back-end deals siphoning money straight from the studio’s share of the box-office gross, they are now reining in such deals, forcing many stars to collect only when all of the film’s costs have been recouped. In Hollywood, then, as in most of the country, people just aren’t getting paid what they used to. But for a select group the money is still rolling in.

First, a definition: this list of Hollywood elite is limited to creative figures—producers, directors, stars—in film. (We include no moguls, agents, or people who work primarily in television.) Calculating their earning power is an inexact science, but we interviewed scores of people with access to actual numbers and deal terms: agents, lawyers, studio executives, and, occasionally, the stars themselves. Worldwide box-office figures were taken from Box Office Mojo and Box Office Guru. Revenue numbers for DVDs—for the first three quarters of 2009—were supplied by Adams Media Research; we came up with our own revenue estimates for DVDs released in the fourth quarter by applying a conservative multiplier to a movie’s domestic box-office. …

1 Michael Bay
Estimated 2009 earnings: $125 million

2 Steven Spielberg
Estimated 2009 earnings: $85 million

3 Roland Emmerich
Estimated 2009 earnings: $70 million

4 James Cameron
Estimated 2009 earnings: $50 million

5 Todd Phillips
Estimated 2009 earnings: $44 million

6 Daniel Radcliffe
Estimated 2009 earnings: $41 million

7 Ben Stiller
Estimated 2009 earnings: $40 million

8 Tom Hanks
Estimated 2009 earnings: $36 million

9 J. J. Abrams
Estimated 2009 earnings: $36 million

10 Jerry Bruckheimer
Estimated 2009 earnings: $35.5 million 

Full list and a lot more detail here.

Obviously my career choice makes viewing the ultimate Hollywood award orgy necessary, otherwise I would return to what is my default emotion for most things: utter indifference. But how sad that it’s come to this. Going back to Johnny Carson’s hosting straight through to Billy Crystal’s, the Oscars were once one of the top three high points of the television viewing season, right after “Battle of the Network Stars” and “Dick Clark’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes.”

Maybe I’m the one who’s changed. Maybe the ceremony was always filled with a striking lack of class – with sanctimonious preening and political abuse hurled at me and mine. Regardless, over time those nine hours have simply gotten more and more torturous to sit through. You’re either on edge waiting to be insulted or on edge hoping one of the few movie stars you still hold some affection for doesn’t disappoint in some way.

There are better ways to spend a Sunday evening. One of them will most certainly be the Big Hollywood Oscar Live-Blog. No more yelling at your television. Join us! Commiserate! Put your complaints on record! What are friends for?

Now that the nominees have been announced, predictions will flood these here Inter-web-tubes. I’m too modest to predict, so think of the following as deep, insightful, wise and gentle thoughts:

Best Picture: There’s absolutely no doubt that “Up” is far and away the best picture of the year. There isn’t even a close second place. The Pixar masterpiece is almost certain to win for best animated film so the real race looks to be between James Cameron’s “Avatar” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Hurt Locker.”

Should “Avatar” win, it won’t be long before all that groovy technology becomes the cinematic standard and the Cameron blockbuster is remembered as the “Around the World In 80 Days” of Best Picture Winners. “The Hurt Locker,” on the other hand, is the movie no one’s seen. The cloistered and hopelessly inbred film community loves it but no amount of (excessive) cheerleading on their part could bring it to even the $13 million mark.

“Crazy Heart,” “500 Days of Summer,” and “The Road” are all superior films but weren’t even nominated.  

Best Director: This is going to surprise some. Obviously, I was no fan of the film for a number of reasons, including its trashing of our military and a rudderless story that eventually devolved into a series of fairly repetitive set-pieces, but no one can argue that Kathryn Bigelow’s direction of “The Hurt Locker” was anything less than masterful. Because “Up” director Pete Docter was robbed of this nomination, this one’s all Bigelow. Even if Docter hadn’t been robbed, seeing Bigelow get the long overdue recognition she deserves as one of the best in her profession would still sit just fine with me.

Best Actor: Viggo Mortensen (“The Road”) and Sam Rockwell (“Moon”) should both be on this list but either way Jeff Bridges won’t be denied.

“Crazy Heart” just went wide. Go see it!

Best Actress: This looks to be a death-match between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock.

Not having seen Streep in “Julia and Julia” makes it difficult to comment. Okay, that’s a lie. Unless she had her acting meter re-calibrated recently, my guess is that like everything else she’s done for the last 15 years, Streep’s performance is self-consciously showy in that late-Al Pacino kind of way. I never fail to catch her acting and look forward to the day the dingo steals her phony accent.

Bullock was pure movie star in “Blind Side.” Without her carrying what was essentially a television-level script on her able shoulders, you’ve got no movie. She burst off that screen, lifted every scene she was in and did what’s becoming more and more impossible for actors these days: pulled off a believable accent.

And who doesn’t love Sandra Bullock? She’s the rare actress these days — a goddess who’s managed to earn and maintain an enormous reservoir of audience goodwill. Bullock not only deserves to win on the merits of her performance, but all of America will be rooting for her. That should count for something. 

Best Supporting Actor: There is no way Christopher Waltz doesn’t win. His performance as Nazi Colonel Hans Landa in “Inglourious Basterds” has already rightfully taken its place in cinema lore.

Best Supporting Actress: The smart money says Mo’Nique is as much of a shoo-in as Waltz and it’s hard to disagree. The other four performances were fine but there’s no arguing that Mo’Nique not only landed the kind of role that sticks in your mind, she knocked it out of the park.

Screenplay: Both “The Hangover and “500 Days of Summer” wuz robbed. Give the Academy points, though, for not nominating “Avatar.” Not that it wouldn’t have been memorable to watch Michael Blake rightfully attempt to accept the statue in the event of a win.

1. Up
2. Gran Torino
3. Crazy Heart
4. The Road
5. Che
6. Tie – Watchmen / Taken
7. 500 Days of Summer
8. The Hangover
9. Stoning of Soraya M.
10. Inglourious Basterds 

—–

Worst 10 Films of 2009: Pure punishment.

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
6. G.I. Joe: The Rise In My Stomach
7. Harry Potter and the Dullest Entry In The Dullest Franchise Ever
8. I Love You, Beth Cooper
9. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
10. Year One 

—–

Top 5 Pleasant Surprises of 2009: Who knew they would be so much fun?

1. Funny People
2. Tie – Wolverine/ The Final Destination
3. Moon
4. The Proposal
5. Tie – 17 Again/Fast and Furious 

—–

Top 10 Overrated by Critics and/or Audiences in 2009: What am I missing here…?

1. Avatar
2. Star Trek
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Precious: Based on A Novel By Someone Who Really Hates Precious
5. District 9 

—–

Top 5 Disappointments of 2009: Damn you Hollywood.

1. Terminator: Salvation
2. Public Enemies
3. The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3
4. Tie – Drag Me to Hell / Extract
5. Bruno

And here are my Top 15 Films of the Decade.

What happened? When did I become such a cynic? How can it be that my immediate reaction is skepticism to people, organizations and/or movements that outwardly seem to be selflessly asking for my support to help the less fortunate. Who are these people and what are they really after is my first thought these days. Why? How did I get here? 

Could it be I don’t trust readily because in my country a young woman, Carrie Prejean, was publicly humiliated and branded a hate monger because she dared to answer a question honestly that was asked by that bigoted buffoon, Perez Hilton, who would a short time later call a recording artist a “faggot.” All year we watched as Sarah Palin and her entire family, including her disabled infant son, were excoriated because she had the audacity to accept her party’s request to run for vice president. In her case, no lie was too small to repeat. Remember how another woman, Hillary Clinton, was called a racist when it became expedient to get rid of her? Where were/are the feminists?

We have the story about a couple of young filmmakers who exposed ACORN, which used to be an advocate for poor families and today is little more then a front for voter fraud and intimidation. In the past these young reporters would have been called whistleblowers and applauded for their efforts, today they find themselves being investigated and they fear for their safety. We have the SEIU sending out union thugs to beat up civilians and they’re getting away with it! We have the National Endowment for the Arts enlisting artists on a national scale to promote a political party’s agenda. We used to call that propaganda for the state and we studied about its effectiveness in Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China and other fascist, dictatorial and totalitarian countries. I can’t even believe climategate. These are but a few examples, there are hundreds more. Where’s the outrage about this from my fellow artists? Where are our heroes? I don’t care what party they belong to — where is the stand up, outspoken outrage from our representatives at what is taking place in this country on their watch?

There is no pretense anymore about the total and complete mass media bias. The journalists and news producers of this country, through their own repeated actions, have exposed themselves. Their only recourse now is to stop wasting time defending and pretending and to get on with their agenda ASAP. They have resorted to outright lies and distortion/spin or they ignore stories altogether with no apologies. When that doesn’t work and when it comes back to bite them in the ass, they attack the journalist, the news organization and/or the person responsible for the exposé in a way that would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

Is that it? Was it all a lie that liberals cared about people and conservatives cared about money? Yes, it is a lie. I never changed. I absolutely care about people and that’s why I have changed the way I believe it’s best to help those who need help. “Give a man a fish and he will not be hungry for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will not be hungry for a lifetime.” is a Chinese proverb that is timeless because it is…wait for it…TRUE!

I may be far from perfect, but my mom did not raise me to question one when asked for help, but to try and help, period. Granted, that’s what my mom did. She always gave no matter how much we needed ourselves and she was not alone. Everyone I can remember did the same. But that was a lifetime ago. I was young and it was a time when I took people at their word and I believed journalists reported the news truthfully. That made it easy to believe people and organizations that asked for help as well. Now, I check them out first. Sorry Mom.

–

As with everything they touch, Turner Classic Movies handles their yearly tribute with extraordinary class and delivers something subtle, lovely and touching; something always so much better than whatever the Oscars cook up that year. 

And here’s a wonderful tribute to Jennifer Jones written by the Self-Styled Siren. I couldn’t disagree more with her take on “The Song of Bernadette.”  But the rest is comprehensive, eloquent, informative and dead on about the over-rated “Beat the Devil.”

I’d like to say that I’m really happy for him…. but isn’t that what this is all about? Being happy for “him?”

Wasn’t that what the Olympics were about? Rooting for “him?”

Wasn’t that what the last presidential election was about? Electing “him?”

It’s never about us. Or the U.S.

Because if it was, no Nobel committee would have ever given him that prize. The fact is, you only win that prize if a particular transaction is made -that is, a weakening of America in exchange for worldly acceptance by madmen, maniacs and mass murderers.

But that’s not all.

The prize is not meant to award achievement, but to insult folks the committee finds distasteful – meaning those who refuse to share their assumptions about a deeply flawed – oh let’s face it, evil – America.

Meaning, you and me. And like I always say, when it happens three times, it’s officially a trend. The 2002 prize to Jimmy Carter was meant to humiliate President Bush for the Iraq War build-up. They even admitted that. Then in 2007, they handed the political prop to Al Gore – a message meant to slap Bush for winning the 2000 election, and also America for not embracing global warming ideology.

And that’s what this prize is all about now. It’s not just another slap at Bush (well, it is), but a prop to help beat back the simmering dissent Obama’s progressive agenda has caused, here.

The Nobel committee wants him to succeed, for they’re smitten with this “citizen of the world,” a man who puts the globe before his country.

Forget human rights activism: this is how you win an award, people.

It won’t help us, but It’ll look great on his mantle. Next to the Grammy.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Doug Giles, Sandra Smith, Mary Katherine Hamm, and Dick Valentine from the Electric Six! ]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/10/09/daily-gut-its-all-about-him-not-us/feed/ 423 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/09/18/john-podhoretz-movie-stars-strut-towards-extinction/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/09/18/john-podhoretz-movie-stars-strut-towards-extinction/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:55:45 +0000 Big Hollywood http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=229038 John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard:

“[T]he system around which the motion-picture business has oriented itself almost since its creation in the early years of the last century–the star system, which it largely invented–has finally reached its end.”

“The eight most successful movies over the course of the year’s first eight months have collectively grossed $2.7 billion, up from $2.3 billion for the entirety of 2008. And what is most striking about these eight films is that not a single one of them, not a single one, features an unmistakable star. Three of them are cartoons (Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Monsters vs. Aliens). Three are sequels whose top-line talents are incidental to their success (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sixth Harry Potter, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Two feature relative nobodies (Star Trek and The Hangover). The first traditional star appears in the ninth-place film, which is itself a high-concept sequel in which the star mostly stands around (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian with Ben Stiller). It’s not until tenth place that a classic vehicle hits the list, Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal. And after that you have to jump down to 15th place to find Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons. Will Ferrell’s movie tanked. Julia Roberts laid an egg. Adam Sandler couldn’t sell a ticket. Johnny Depp disappointed. Denzel Washington and John Travolta bombed together. Instead, the movies whose successes depended on their strong leading performances were the ones featuring the 57-year-old Irishman Liam Neeson (Taken, $145 million) and the out-of-work TV comedian Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, $146 million).

“The 2009 box-office numbers offer the most dramatic evidence yet that the system around which the motion-picture business has oriented itself almost since its creation in the early years of the last century–the star system, which it largely invented–has finally reached its end.”

You can read the piece in full here.