Roseanne Barr has filed the official paperwork necessary to run for the Green Party nomination for president of the United States.

No joke.

And here we thought Donald Trump endorsing Mitt Romney was the big celebrity political news of the day.

“I am running for Green Party nominee for POTUS,” the comedian said Thursday on Twitter. “I am an official candidate. I am4 the Greening of America&the world. Green=peace/justice.”

Barr filed her paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Jan. 25, creating a four-way race for the Green nomination, which will be decided at the Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention in July.

“I will run until the convention in July in Baltimore-I fully expect Jill Stein 2b the nominee& I will support her, but til then-I’ll serve,” Barr said amid a slew of other tweets, some of them raunchy, most having to do with her campaign.

Her platform as expressed Thursday on the microblogging site included a promise to institute “#Europeanstyle” single-payer healthcare within the first 100 days of her term, and to forgive all credit card and mortgage debt “by kicking out the FED-those to whom all this fake debt is owed.”

My guess is that a large percentage of the Blu-ray bump in sales came from cheap, catalogue titles, not new titles. That’s bad news because there are only so many catalogue titles to release, and technology-wise, home video has hit a wall. People aren’t interested in 3D at home and picture and sound quality can’t improve past Blu-ray. So what’s the next format to entice people to purchase titles yet again?

This fantasy that Ultraviolet is the next step in this evolution is just that. UV might be a nice additional feature, but it’s hard to imagine customers purchasing a title AGAIN for portability reasons alone.

USA Today:

Sales of movies on Blu-ray discs and films delivered digitally and on demand rose in 2011, but not enough to make up the gap in falling DVD sales.

Consumers spent $18 billion buying and renting discs and on digital movies in 2011, a 2% decrease from 2010, the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) will report Tuesday.

Sales of Blu-ray discs topped $2 billion for the first time, up 19% from 2010. But DVD sales dropped 20% to $6.8 billion.

Still, home video executives were satisfied with the results considering the economic challenges of the past year and an underwhelming box office slate of films hitting retail.

New releases coming to home video in 2011 had total box-office revenue about 9% below those in 2010, said Warner Home Video President Ron Sanders, who is also president of the DEG.

Total movie sales dropped 12% to $9.5 billion, from 2010. Total movie rentals remained steady at $7.5 billion, down less than 1%. Digital sales, including streaming movies, rose 50% to $3.4 billion.  …

“We see UltraViolet as kind of icing on the cake,” says Fox Home Entertainment President Mike Dunn. “Once that ecosystem is in place, you have the opportunity … to go from a niche market to mass market.”

Adds Mike Vorhaus of Frank N. Magid Associates, “One of the top features digital consumers value is transportability across devices.”

Full story here.

In worse news, Hollywood’s 16% drop in 2011 attendance is likely to translate to lower DVD and Blu-ray sales once the rest of 2011’s titles hit store shelves over the next few months.

Chief Kyle tells his story in what must be dubbed a “no bull” manner. He has little time for political correctness or even political incorrectness. He’s certainly not a writer. But that is what makes what is written so good and his story so compelling. Chief Kyle ignores irony and trying to push either a political agenda or an emotional one. He simply writes his story. The emotions and everything else come naturally through. You can feel Chief Kyle sitting in a chair allowing us the privilege of hearing his story, his story of bravery. Bravery is too clichéd a word, though. What Chief Kyle experienced is beyond bravery. His pureness in his patriotism, his Christianity, his need for battle, his love for family breathes a freshness into the words on each page. Chief Kyle gives himself to us for 379 pages despite already giving us so much.

“American Sniper” does not follow a regular narrative. There are no larger story arcs: no beginning, middle or end. “American Sniper” is a man’s story, and that man’s life continues, so it doesn’t follow a typical storytelling narrative. Chief Kyle tells us about everything from meeting his wife and BUD/S training to knocking out a rather famous former Navy SEAL who wouldn’t keep his conspiracy theories to himself. He also takes us deep into his deployments to Iraq. He guides us through his major kills as a sniper and the major firefights his platoon found themselves in (believe me, there are plenty).

The book also provides us with occasional thoughts from Mrs. Kyle. She provides her experiences during the Chief’s deployments and the difficulty of raising a family with a Navy SEAL father and husband. In fact, the contrast of the peace of family and the hectic danger of war become contrasting themes in the book. Chief Kyle is open and honest about his back-to-back deployments straining his marriage and how his decision to eventually leave the Navy was a conflicted one, but saved both his marriage and possibly his own life.

But the book never makes these contrasting themes the focal point. This is Chief Kyle’s story. He’s a Navy SEAL, a father, a husband and he has the most confirmed kills of any military sniper. However, what really matters to him are his brothers in arms. Chief Kyle constantly talks of his affection for those who serve, especially his brother SEALs. He says he served America during his deployments, not Iraq. But this, alas, is also not the focal point of the book. “American Sniper” isn’t about Chief Kyle’s viewpoints on the Iraq war or anything else. In fact, he’s too much of a non BS-er to get involved with the foibles of politics, which is a good thing for the reader.

“American Sniper” provides us with a firsthand look at the Iraq war and war and warriors in general. Chief Kyle speaks bluntly and openly. The book takes us deep into enemy territory where we can observe the actions of him and his platoon mates. He never offers apologies and he shouldn’t have to. Everything he does is for the good of the country, and we are all the better for it.

“American Sniper” is a great way to kick off your 2012 reading year. Its blunt style gives it both personality and insight and, most importantly, a great technique to tell the story. Chief Kyle is a real life hero. He’s the guy they make movies about, though he seems to deny this repeatedly. He constantly pushes the adoration towards his fellow SEALs and service men, and his genuine modesty only make him more noble. Pick up “American Sniper” if you want a tough-as-nails account of the war on terror or a tough-as-nails account of a true warrior, because this is both.

Today, our spoiled child is in trouble and with only the best of intentions I’m going to see if I can’t take the sting out of the boo-boo with the best advice I can offer.

1. Hollywood Needs Movie Stars, Not Brands

You can trace most of Hollywood’s problems back to the death of the movie star. At first, the industry was thrilled with this development. No movie star meant no big payday, no ego, and none of the baggage too many stahs carry with them. The industry also found that, at least for a while, they could get away with this. Audiences were still packing theatres to see pre-packaged brands developed from high concepts, comic books, novels, and television shows. Sequels, remakes, and prequels were still sure-fire. Who needs to pay Tom Cruise $30 million to run around with CGI’d dinosaurs when just as many people will pay to see Jeff Goldblum do the same?

This was all well and good until the “brands” ran out. Now Hollywood is down to “The Green Lantern” and board games like “Battleship.”

Movie stars, on the other hand, are the most reliable brands out there. People come to see them and if you have enough of them and if you keep developing them, the inventory is limitless. From the 1920s straight through to right around 1990, if you built it with movie stars, audiences would come. Hollywood didn’t need to rely on “brands” because they built pictures around their stars.

Today we’re down to Sandra Bullock, Will Smith, and Denzel Washington — the only three people I know who can still draw a crowd based solely on their name.

Tobey Maguire, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom — this endless parade of girls playing women and metrosexuals playing men no one outside of the 90210 zip code would recognize on a bet — are not draws. The concept might be a draw or the brand they’re bringing to life or the romantic comedy with a title based on the latest hipster-speak (“He’s Just Not That In To You”), but the actors aren’t.

Hollywood must start developing stars, and the first place to start is by studying up on what exactly constitutes a star. And by “star,” I don’t mean someone bubbled in Hollywood or the sycophant entertainment media considers a star — I mean someone THE CUSTOMERS consider a star.

We The People love Sandra, Will, and Denzel for a reason. She’s gorgeous, smart, womanly, classy and approachable, and the fellas are masculine, confident, classy, and non-neurotics who take charge. They also make films that deliver. Not all the time. But most of the time we the customers know that if they’re in it, there’s a better chance than not of bang for the buck.

What they are not and what no movie star has ever been is a child playing a grownup (the exception, of course, is comedians like Adam Sandler or Lou Costello). The Orlando Blooms will never be movie stars. Neither will the Michelle Williamses. And don’t get me started on Shia Le-what’s-his-name.

Look at your history, both recent and long past. Hollywood may have changed over the last few decades, but the people — the customers — have not. The human animal simply doesn’t evolve that quickly. Furthermore, stars shouldn’t represent who we are; we don’t want to see ourselves on the screen. Stars should represent who we want to be. Men want to be John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Women want to Ava Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck.

Masculine men.

Womanly women.

Need I mention Sandra and Denzel again?

Currently, Hollywood is spending millions upon millions to buy the rights necessary to make films based on board games. What’s next, snack foods? “Wheat Thins 2: The Crumble.”

Put those millions instead into a farm system based on the old studio system. Groom talent. Teach people with natural screen charisma to act. Most of all, teach them how to behave in public with class. And then when they’re ready, get that publicity machine humming.

This system worked perfectly for over a half-century.

There are some very smart people making movies today, but not a one is smarter than the men who built this industry from nothing and created the kind of art and artists that will live as long as humanity itself.

2. Stars Must Stop Insulting the Customers

Class. That’s what the customers are looking for in their stars, class. George Clooney could be a star and was on his way, but then he started insulting the 60-plus percent of customers who dared disagree with his obnoxious politics. Julia Roberts was the biggest star in the world until she did the same. Harrison Ford blew his image in too many ways to count, Russell Crowe can’t stop being a jerk, and Mel Gibson couldn’t control his ugly demons. Tom Hanks was universally beloved as a well-known Democrat by all of us. Not so much, though, after he called WWII a war of terror and racism.

Politically and morally, most of your customers are right-of-center. But the good news is that we don’t care how our stars vote or even if they advocate for this cause or that politician. But when you insult us and trash who we are, our faith and country — that’s crossing a line that’s awfully difficult to return from. Goodwill doesn’t just matter when it comes to the face of your industry; it is everything.

Let me ask you Hollywood leftists this: would you buy Charmin if Mr. Whipple called you an anti-American, crybaby, Marxist hippie loser? Of course not. And yet, your spokespeople do this to over 60% of your customers at least three times a week.

3. Liberal Films Are Fine, Partisan Films Must Stop

What were you thinking making films opposing a War on Terror we were still fighting and still could’ve lost?

Hollywood didn’t even do that during Vietnam.

Do you have any idea how selfish, narcissistic, and treasonous that was? Do you have any idea how your propaganda encouraged the enemy, which means that more of our troops and innocent Iraqis and Afghans died as a result?

You have blood on your hands. Making those films was an act of evil, and if you don’t think openly fighting on the side of terrorists has hurt you at the box office, you’re out of your mind.

Last number I saw, Hollywood’s approval rating is lower than George W. Bush’s when he left office, 33%. And you deserve it.

Your industry is packed with immature, ungrateful, moral illiterates, and I suggest you get them under control, because they tarnish the industry as a whole.

Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you could stop championing and defending that hellbound fugitive who drugged and anally raped a thirteen year-old girl.

The good news is that there’s nothing at all wrong with making political films. Just don’t make partisan films. All your liberal films have failed over the past 15 years because they’ve been heavy-handed and preachy. So…

Study! Learn! Hollywood has a rich history of political offerings that not only made money but also made a difference. Put your art first, your theme second, and your politics last.

4. Keep Politics Out of Children’s Movies

You loaded up “The Muppets,” “Cars 2,” and “Happy Feet 2″ with political sucker punching and left a ton of money on the table as soon as word got out.

These are our children. Hands off.

5. Stop Marketing Exclusively to Teens

“The Help” made nearly $170M because it was an outstanding film, and it made a ton of profit because the draw was the story not some overpriced star surrounded by $150 million in special effects. “The King’s Speech” made $140 million for the exact same reasons.

When you’re making movies for adults, stop with the indie, nihilistic  junk no one wants to see. We don’t want to feel bad. We want to be inspired, we want to be told to aspire, we want to see what life should be like instead of what it is.

“Rachel Getting Married and Being a Dark, Selfish, Drug-Addicted Slut” is not an adult movie. It’s a lazy, artless movie for immature, slackers who believe in nothing. Fortunately for the future but unfortunately for Hollywood, there aren’t enough of those people to create box office hits.

Adults do want to go to the movies. We just want to see grownup movies.

6. Go Back To Storytelling Basics, Crack the Code of the Classics

By “classics,” I don’t just mean the four-star Oscar winners, but also films that — critical acclaim or not — have stood the test of time. There’s a reason people still watch “Casablanca” and, yes, “Road House.” There’s a reason we all have “The Wizard of Oz” and “Rambo” in our home video collections.

What makes them so popular? What makes them timeless? What makes them beloved by each generation? I’ll give you the first two answers:

1. Stars.

2. Universal themes.

7. Learn From the NFL

That National Football League does everything you used to do so well. The NFL is Hollywood just a few decades ago.

The NFL creates stars, demands and shows class, isn’t afraid of patriotism, and puts on hundreds of spectacular shows over the course of a season. The result is that their night to shine (the Super Bowl) buries Hollywood’s night to shine (the Oscars) in the ratings.

This is not an accident.

Even those of us who don’t care for the game of football (that would be me) respect the NFL greatly and feel an enormous amount of goodwill towards it.

Not everyone loves football, but we all like the NFL.

Everyone loves movies, but most everyone has contempt for Hollywood.

8. Learn How to Market Fresh Ideas

“Hugo” and “The Adventures of Tintin” going down in box office flames is inexcusable. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are two of the most important and respected directors in the history of the motion picture, and yet I have to read that both of these Christmas entries bombed because “nobody knew how to market them.”

Even more troubling is the collective shrug over this reality. I haven’t heard one person in the sycophantic entertainment media or the industry itself show a shred of concern over the fact that Hollywood was unable to market two films by two of our greatest directors because they weren’t handed pre-sold brands.

9. Stop Making Excuses for a Failing Home Video Market

Both the collapse of the home video market and the 25% decrease in what’s known as “the multiple” proves that you can only fool fewer and fewer people all of the time.

Again, the sycophantic entertainment media is doing you no favors in perpetuating the myth that piracy, Netflix, and Redbox are to blame. No one’s saying those things don’t contribute to the problem, but your main problem is that too many movies today just aren’t very good.

The multiple is down for the same reason home video sales are down: no one wants to see a bad movie more than once.

10. The Lousy Theatre Experience

Talkers, cell phones, ticket and concession prices.

You’ve got to fix this.

Right now, unless you’re the one doing the obnoxious talking, going to the theatre is a stressful and miserable experience.

Moreover, you’re charging us too much for tickets, and the theatres are absolutely gouging us for food and drink..

Presentation and follow-through is everything, and yet you let these incompetent theatre owners ruin the presentation part of a product you spent years and millions to develop and deliver.

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The other thing you can do, Hollywood, is simply continue to ignore American audiences. We’re leaving you a little by little every year now, and this year you hit a 16-year attendance low. So maybe the answer is to just keep making your money overseas and work a little harder to sell your souls to the communist Chinese.

But that’s going to leave a huge market open here in the states, and someday, someone’s going to fill that market with the movies we want to see. There’s already a cottage industry out there learning their trade and cracking that code.

It doesn’t have to come to that, though. And you know as well as I do that, with rare exceptions, if a film flops in America, it flops overseas.

We love you, Hollywood — not who you are now, but who you once were and who you could still be. But if 2011 has taught you anything, it’s that we’re not going to wait forever.

2012 may well be a better year (I hope it is), but that won’t change the fact that the trend is not your friend and that you could be doing a whole lot better.

A solid summer lineup helped studios catch up to 2010, but ticket sales flattened again in the fall and have remained sluggish right into what was expected to be a terrific holiday season.

The result: projected domestic revenues for the year of $10.15 billion, down 4 percent from 2010’s, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Taking higher ticket prices into account, movie attendance is off even more, with an estimated 1.275 billion tickets sold, a 4.8 percent decline and the smallest movie audience since 1995, when admissions totaled 1.26 billion.

“There were a lot of high-profile movies that just ended up being a little less than were hoped for,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, whose sequel “ Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” has been part of an under-achieving lineup of family films for the holidays. “The fall was pretty dismal. There just weren’t any real breakaway, wide-appeal films.” …

Hollywood is left right where it was 12 months ago, finishing the year quietly and looking ahead to a promising lineup to turn its fortunes around next year.

Even more so than 2011’s schedule once looked, the 2012 film list looks colossal. Among the highlights: the superhero tales “The Dark Knight Rises,” ”The Amazing Spider-Man” and “The Avengers“; the latest in the animated franchises “Ice Age” and “Madagascar,” along with “Brave,” the new adventure from animation master Pixar; Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ “Men in Black 3“; Daniel Craig’s new James Bond thriller “Skyfall”; Johnny Depp’s vampire story “Dark Shadows”; Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus,” a cousin to his sci-fi classic “Alien“; and Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first in a two-part prequel to his “Lord of the Rings” films.

That’s just a small sampling of 2012’s big-screen titles, which also include 3-D reissues of “Titanic,” ”Finding Nemo,” ”Beauty and the Beast” and “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.”

Looking ahead, there’s good reason for optimism in Hollywood. Looking back, though, the past year spells caution.

“I’m not prepared to be Chicken Little yet, but if the films coming in 2012 can’t reverse this trend, then I think we need to reevaluate our expectations,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Full story here.

DO 2012’s NEW RELEASES PROMISE A BOX OFFICE COMEBACK?

In the New York Times story I wrote about earlier today, there was this quote:

The good news for Hollywood is that the first quarter of 2012 looks much stronger than the same period this year, when studios had little to generate audience excitement.

Warner has two sequels — “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and “Wrath of the Titans,” while Sony has a prominent remake in “21 Jump Street.” Disney will re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3-D, followed by Fox’s 3-D re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” And Lionsgate will weigh in with its highly anticipated “The Hunger Games.”

So two re-releases, a sequel to a flop (“Journey 2″), and another remake of an ’80s television show rank as reasons for Hollywood to be optimistic?

The link in the title looks at the box office slate for the first three months of 2012. Take a look. Anything excite you?

What most struck me about those thirty or so titles was an almost complete lack of movie stars.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — Like a lot of people, the first time I saw this was when it played late at night on some independent station. This was years before the now-perennial was rediscovered and when I was in my early teens and just starting to discover the world of classic films. Like most of you, I make a point to watch it every year, usually on Christmas day, and like most of you I am gripped through every frame and moved inexpressibly by the closing scene.

And then it stays with me for days.

It’s the close-up when George Bailey realizes that what Clarence is telling him might be the truth; that he was never born. Capra fills the screen with the horror and helplessness on Stewart’s face after he sees what his mother’s become (I screencapped it above), and after that I start to fall apart.

Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?

What a wonderful thing that Frank Capra, Jimmy Stewart, and Donna Reed lived to see their box office disappointment receive the credit it so richly deserves.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

WHO WROTE THE MEANEST REVIEW OF ‘EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE?‘

DIRECTOR ALAN TAYLOR CLAIMS ‘THOR 2‘

WHAT FILMS ARE COMING FROM MARVEL STUDIOS IN 2014?

THEN/NOW: THE CAST OF ‘NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION’

5 SCENES WORTH REMEMBERING FROM OTHERWISE FORGETTABLE 2011 MOVIES

10 UNFAIRLY OVERLOOKED FILMS FROM 2011

THE 15 MOST SHOCKING TV DEATHS OF 2011

11 TV SERIES THAT SHOULD’VE SURVIVED 2011

PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED PHOTOS FROM THE SET OF ‘IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE‘

‘IT’S A BUNDYFUL LIFE’ AND 21 OTHER TV VARIATIONS OF IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

NEW CINEMATIC LAW: ONLY GENIUSES CAN USE 3D

AN AGE-BY-AGE GUIDE FOR INTRODUCING YOUR KIDS TO SPIELBERG MOVIES

A LOOK AT SOME GHOST MOVIES TO SUPPLEMENT THE HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE

GEORGE TAKEI’S GREATEST AND WEIRDEST MOMENTS

A LOOK BACK AT ‘EMMET OTTER’S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS‘

COOL FAN-MADE POSTERS FOR ‘HOME ALONE‘

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF ‘WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY‘

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CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY,  DECEMBER 27

TCM:

12:15 PM  Casablanca (1942)  –  An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up. Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast:  Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid. BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC.

When men were men, women were women, Hollywood believed in liberty, and the main protagonist’s character arc involved the shrugging off of narcissism to fight for something bigger than one’s self — for freedom and/or country.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

Keep in mind, MTV does all of this all under the phony shield of being non-partisan. Obviously they’re worried about recent polls showing Obama in trouble with the young and dumb, so they have decided to ride to the rescue:

The cable network has replaced its campaign slogan of almost 20 years for a new one — “Power of 12″ –  which it hopes will energize today’s disillusioned youth to vote in the upcoming presidential election, the New York Times reports. The “12″ signifies the election year, and the “Power” suggests that young people within the 18-to-29-year-old demo have much influence over the 2012 race — if they take action, that is.

According to the Times, MTV’s research revealed that even though youth showed up in droves to champion President Barack Obama last election, they remained cynical about the electoral process.

“They were so passionate,” said MTV president Stephen K. Friedman. “And then they hit this wall of the economy.” He added of the name-switch: “Voting is one step in the process — just one step. The question for this generation is, they’ve got this power, will they exert it?”

Will the right ever truly comprehend the power of popular culture?

These kinds of articles are a little silly. Every single one of these Limousine Leftists will be in line by 2012, even if Obama does tank the economy, destroy health care, funnel millions of taxpayer dollars to his cronies in a can called green energy, and give a whole lot of guns to Mexican drug-runners. Oh wait–

Leftist Hollywood’s ploy is two-part.

1. High-profile liberals complaining about Obama not being socialist enough and too eager to compromise is all designed to appeal to the independents President FailureTeleprompter desperately needs to win reelection.

2. It’s a way to push Obama even more to the left.

Hollywoodists like Norman Lear are partisan animals who know how this works.

The Independent:

He was young, good looking, and photogenic. He swept to power against heavy odds on the back of a heart-warming, hopey-changey message, completing a rags-to-riches journey that might have come straight out of a blockbuster movie. It isn’t hard to see why Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was the toast of Hollywood.

[...]

Four years later? Not so much. When they enter the polling booths, the stars and the power brokers who run this town will still put their crosses against his name. But the sense of warm, fuzzy optimism that characterised his last election has more or less vanished.

Nowhere was the disillusionment more keenly felt than at the Beverly Wilshire hotel last night, as liberal Hollywood gathered for an exercise in champagne socialism. People for the American Way (PFAW) – perhaps the mostinfluential advocacy organisation in the US – planned to celebrate its 30th birthday in style, with the cost of a table at between £3,200 and £64,000.

The host was Alec Baldwin and the list of patrons, organisers and supporters on the invitation included everyone from J J Abrams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Hamm and Martin Sheen to Barbra Streisand, Kathleen Turner, Larry Flynt and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Among these pillars of the entertainment industry’s liberal establishment, there is palpable frustration with the President; he has failed to deliver on almost all their pet issues, from gay marriage and climate change to human rights and social justice.

In fact, PFAW founder Norman Lear, an influential producer, last week responded with anger in an interview as Obama’s name was mentioned.

“He can’t make up his mind about anything,” Mr Lear said. “He just vacillates. Like Democrats do generally.

Full story here.

Over the past five years, a dozen-plus anti-war films have flopped at a 100% rate (Boal and Bigelow’s Oscar-winning “Hurt Locker” only grossed $17 million domestically — and in my opinion it did not look favorably on our military), and if that doesn’t prove the power New Media has to compete with and even defeat The Hollywood PR Machine, nothing does. Why Sony ever believed they could get away with  releasing into the 2012 election narrative a multi-million dollar feature focusing on one of President Obama’s very few successes is beyond me.

Sony’s plan was an obvious one. Not only would the release of the film in the crucial weeks leading up to the election bring this event back to the forefront of voter’s minds, it would also give Obama’s Media Palace Guards the excuse and cover they desire to resurrect this story just when the President might need it most. This was cynical, sinister, and the worst kind of exploitation of our Military.

I don’t give credit when people do what they should’ve done in the first place, but I am glad Sony came to their senses. However, their excuse for bumping the release date is a laugh-out-loud howler. Apparently they were askeert of Kevin James, you know, because his ”wacky shenanigans” might compete for the same ticket-buyers:

Sony Pictures has set Kathryn Bigelow‘s untitled hunt for Bin Laden drama (unofficially titled Kill Bin Laden) for December 19, 2012.  The studio had originally set the film for October 12, 2012, but moved it to make way for Kevin James‘ wacky shenanigans in Here Comes the Boom.

And if this is indeed the case, it’s almost as entertaining…

According to Box Office Mojo, Kill Bin Laden currently has the December 19, 2012 date all to itself[.]

…because one of the reasons Sony gave for the original release date was that no other Oscar-season dates were open.

I’m not so sure that even five years ago Sony would’ve felt any pressure to do the right thing here, to NOT exploit the valor and bravery of our Military in a multi-million dollar, in-kind campaign commercial to benefit the re-election of a failed president.

God bless New Media.

Finally, with the pressure of the release date off, the pressure is also off Bigelow and Boal to take the election into consideration during the creative process. We might just get a better film out of this.

More on the story here, here and here.

The rest of the entertainment media is downplaying the news, but that’s probably because they’re pouting.