The big question is whether FOX will finally actually air a two hour show, or will they continue their habit of advertising such but then just showing one hour shows, back to back. I know, it seems trivial, but in reality it’s more of a cliffhanger than anything left in the actual show… WILL Jack live? mwahahahaha….
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Watching “24″ this week, I realized that our number one threat is multi-national corporations with battalions of hired killers on the payroll. Similarly, “Michael Clayton,” “The International,” the new “State of Play” and many others have taught me that big companies assassinate their rivals, whistleblowers, policemen and random passersby with astonishing regularity.
I wish. But then, I’m a trial lawyer and I could use a new house.
Sadly, the real world is much more esoteric than the portrait Hollywood paints, and the real threat is not quite so picturesque. Instead of corporate death squads composed of hardboiled mercenaries with high tech assault rifles, the real killers are boring jihadi doofuses with dusty AKs, booby-trapped Fiats and the occasional boxcutter.
Let’s stop and check the numbers. Real terrorists, counting the victims of 9/11 and American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan: Over 7900 murdered. Victims of corporate murder: Zero. Nada. Zip. I would add in the number of Iraqis and Afghanis murdered by these folks, except that toll is beyond counting. And to many liberals, their lives don’t seem to count anyway. (more…)
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As the forces of evil gather around the world in cabals of socialism, collectivism, and despotism, all thrilling at the enthrallment of our own President, we few gather here to watch a show that, tame as it may be, feels like the last place in America where some basic common sense is allowed to save lives. Obama may want to give cover for the next attack by discrediting the methods the Bush administration used to keep us safe, but in between lame “green” ads about global whatever-they-call-it-now, Jack Bauer just keeps laying down the law. And being absolutely ridiculous the whole time.
Tonight’s drinking game: Jack Head Twitches!
Make sure to use the new live-blog software.
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I’m not of the opinion that a person has to be perfect in order to point out the failings of others, but liberals take it to such an extreme that you have to wonder if they have any self-awareness at all.
I mean, when someone like George Soros, who collaborated with the Nazis, compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, am I the only one who wondered if he meant it as a compliment?
Or take Janeane Garofalo, who says stupid things with such regularity you might take her for a sulky teenager even though she’s 44 years old. Because she is an ignoramus and has the self-righteous attitude of an adolescent brat, she was a perfect fit for Air America, where she and Al Franken competed to see which of them could attract fewer listeners.
For those of you who have managed to go through life without ever having heard the nasty sound bites for which she’s best known, your good luck is about to run out. (more…)
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So, like you, I enjoy the series “24,” which follows a man trying to save the United States from its enemies, using any means possible. And within one complete day, he succeeds.
Of course, in real life this is impossible – it’s what we call fantasy.
But, not anymore. Today if such actions occurred it real life, it would simply be called criminal.
Because it has… and it was.
Earlier today President Obama said charges might be brought against those evil Bush lawyers behind the just-released memos justifying the harsh interrogation techniques used against folks who wanted to blow up our country. Or more specifically, blow up Los Angeles. (more…)
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Trying a new Live Blog format tonight. Tell us what you think!
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A few days ago I wrote an article to post at Big Hollywood, which was motivated in part by my reaction to watching the video of Jamean Garofalo, who recently appeared as a guest on Meek Olberdogg’s ‘Putdown’ Show. Clearly, she struck a nerve in me. Making outrageous statements, she accused thousands of men and women, who participated in the recent Tea Party events, as being racist. Quote: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.” Even for Ms. Garofalo this had to be a new low. To steal a ripe response from Mr. One Pissed Off Dude himself, Gary Graham, let me just say, “FTS.”
Still at another place and time we had Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) who in keeping with the nasty spirit of Garofalo blasted the Tea Party events in her own unique, elitist way. Quote: “It’s despicable that right-wing Republicans would attempt to cheapen a significant, honorable moment of American history with a shameful political stunt.” What’s “despicable” and “shameful” to me is the contempt Rep. Schakowsky seems to hold for average American citizens who chose to get out there on April 15th and exercise their rights under the First Amendment. It has become blatantly obvious by those on the left, First Amendment rights only apply to them and to their agenda. I guess the rest of us should just stay home and eat cake. Once again, FTS. (more…)
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I caught a media screening of the new Russell Crowe flick, State of Play, in Chicago this week. It did not disappoint. The film’s trailers promise a taut, political thriller with a number of dramatic plot twists–and the movie delivers a pretty solid pay-off. I’ll admit in advance that I was predisposed to enjoy this film, so take my analysis with a few grains of salt:
1. I love this genre, and since many of these types of movies end up being terribly disappointing, a fairly well-executed thriller with a decent plot is more than enough to satisfy this customer. (more…)
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To the Comments!
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I wanted to pop in here to let “Big Hollywood” readers know about the just-published spy thriller I wrote with my friend Keith Korman. What is it like? Well, think of an episode of “24″ written by Proust. OK, maybe not quite. But it is a thriller with a point of view. We try to keep the plot moving, while satirizing the chattering class and skewering the imbecilities of America’s political/media culture. The basic plot is that a Mahattan-based, dissolute left-wing journalist (Peter Johnson), who writes for a journal edited by a predatory and impossibly shameless editrix (Josephine von Hildebrand), is sent on a rogue mission to assassinate Iran’s top nuclear scientist by an all-but-forgotten CIA spymaster (Stewart Banquo, of the title). Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Larry King all make cameo appearances, among many others. The book’s approach is that the best way to fight back against the mainstream-media/conventional-wisdom complex is to laugh at it.
CHAPTER ONE
The Drunk
He sat in a ramshackle office chair staring at the little red light in the video camera and let the little red video light stare right back. Sounds trickled into his head from the earpiece, the familiar theme music of the cable news show six thousand miles away and then that raspy voice from the guy who never missed the chance to ask a creampuff question:
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Ok, here are the good people: Jack, Tony, Chloe, Mr. Chloe. Maybe the former Chief of Staff… probably Skinny Red-Headed Rogue Agent With Crush On Jack And A Taste For The Rough Stuff.
Here are the bad people: President’s Daughter, Janice (!), Jon Voight. Pretty much everybody else is in the way.
Try to follow in comments…
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[There are spoilers in this post.]
24 isn’t the first thing most people would think of when looking for a pop-culture representation of papal guidance, but if you’ve been watching 24 this season, you’ve seen a taste of what Pope John Paul II meant by “the genius of the feminine.” You’ve seen the complementarity of men and women at work.
During Monday night’s show, that Port Authority officer was not that innocent, having agreed to help a supposed electronics-smuggling ring (tempted by the extra money it would bring his family, with twins on the way). Seeing his regret once he knew the stakes–that he was aiding another terrorist attack on the United States–Jack Bauer couldn’t let him die if it was within his power to keep him alive. (more…)
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Of course we’re only churning around in the Gulf Stream wake of Dave Barry’s “24″ blog here, but those people are so…I don’t know…so Dave Barry. They have all the Dave Barry books, and know all the inside Dave Barry “24″ jokes. Plus, they get the benefit of an actual, professional humorist updating the live blog, and some genius guy who updates them inside the comments. Basically, they’re spoiled, and we’re just not going to hang around a bunch of spoiled, self-satisfied people on the East Coast gathered around the hems of Dave Barry’s tropical shirts. That makes no sense. Hmm, what is there to not like about Dave Barry. Oh, he has one of those never aging Ken-Burns-type boyish faces that people out here pay a lot of money for, and that’s just not fair.
****SPOILER*** When last we left the cast of comedians known as The Former CTU Players, they were acting as though life in America could actually go on after the President had been b****-slapped in the White House and then essentially surrendered on live TV. Old Man Buchanan, who spent this season with a semi-fashionable mullet grown out after he lost his wife to hiatus, threw himself after the kind of medal you get when you jump on a grenade, and Jack still seems angry about that, because it was his jump to make, dammit. Everybody’s dying, it sucks. Bill, First Son, Crazy Hot First Fiancee’, Little Tom Cruise, Psycho African Terrorists and the Women Who Love Them, Senator Head and so. many. more. All we have left is Aaron and Tony to come back and kick some ass. Oh and now the Chloe Family is on a mission to help Jack more than ever. The FBI/Jack love triangle has grown dull. Thankfully, Michelle has appeared on LOST this season to drive other people crazy with her acting, so there’s no way she can be written back in to save Tony’s soul or something before the end.
Jump in the comments and have more fun than Disney World.
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See you in the comments.
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Tonight, you run the show. We’ll kick in comments where necessary, but you get to drive the conversation. Now get in there and do us proud!
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A few weeks ago, I offered my thoughts on the new season of 24, aiming to quell concerns that the show had ‘gone soft’ in the age of Obama. The piece highlighted the contemptible pansiness of a Lefty senator (Kurtwood Smith) who was on the war path against Jack Bauer, seeking to hold him ”accountable” for his countless life-saving acts of patrioterrorism: (more…)
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Here we go. Got my wine, got my pasta, need some cheese…oh wait, here it is!
See you below for the double hour:
FROM THE EDITORS — As featured in today’s marquee: “24″ becoming the first “carbon neutral” television series.
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or want to take a shower. Keep it going if you like. We’re back for more head-twisting thespian action from Kiefer and the gang…..
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I try to separate the art from the artist, I really do, especially among actors. The thing is, if you believe you can sense Garofalo’s hatred and disdain for us in her onscreen performance, you must be deeply sensitive. Whenever I feel myself doing that with an actor, I try to take a step back…. but then she said this the other day:
“The reason a person is a conservative republican is because something is wrong with them. Again, that’s science – that’s neuroscience. You cannot be well adjusted, open-minded, pluralistic, enlightened and be a republican. It’s counter-intuitive. And they revel in their anti-intellectualism. They revel in their cruelty.”
Tolerance. (more…)
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The nation’s most disorganized live-blog follows below starting as 9pm West Coast style.
1. Anyone who goes to college at 16 and graduates Summa Cum Laude is clearly not smart.
2. Even though he is 24-years-old, and that SOUNDS cool, it’s not. Ask yourself, is Jack Bauer a callow youth? Don’t the young hotshots always go down hard when they’re around him?
3. Having happily posed for a picture with him, Kiefer Sutherland is expecting a little LOYALTY, thank you very much. (more…)
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I used to count myself among the biggest fans of 24. A friend recommended 24 during Season 2, and I went back and rented Season 1. It was addictive, fast-paced, genuinely adrenaline-pumping. The first half of Season 2 was almost as good. Season 3 was similarly excellent, and while Season 4 dropped off in quality a bit, it still kept the blood moving. The much-derided Season 5 was more than half decent, despite its Nixonian tinge. Season 6, of course, was a full scale disaster.
Ben Shapiro and Kiefer Sutherland
But I was hopeful that Season 7 would provide redemption. Tony Almeida was back. Sure, it was Joey Tribiani-esque soap opera reappearance, but Tony was Tony and I was happy to see him, even if they wheeled him in Bernie-style. Jack Bauer was back to his old ways, making impossible shots with a handgun while shouting brilliantisms like “Dammit!” and “We’re running out of time!” The Palmer family was gone, once and for all. So was the Bauer family, from James Cromwell’s insipid dad to Elisha Cuthbert’s horrifyingly dull daughter. Jon Voight would pop in. It was a recipe for a good time. (more…)
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In loving memory of Andrew’s youth, here we go…
Ok, so we’re late to the party. What are you going to do, set up a perimeter? This is the show I love, then love to hate, then actually hate, then come back to to see how much Kiefer’s drinking has wrinkled his face, because I also like to drink. Every year, it seems that Jack Bauer, the most bad-ass little man since Wolverine had his chest waxed and grew 8 inches into Hugh Grant, makes choices that put those he loves just slightly ahead of national security. Everyone else who does this pays for it dearly, often with the perp walk….but not Jack… SO FAR this season, Jack was compelled to come back from lovely Africa to face a Senate hearing about his…methods of interrogation. CTU is no more (which is good, as it was the single most penetrable security organization in the United States), but when the FBI comes calling for Jack’s help, it isn’t long before the old gang gets back together.
First we find Tony Almeda, whom we like to call Schlumpy, for his round-shouldered sensitivity. He’s rockin’ a goatee, still has amazing hair, and is apparently one of the bad guys…EXCEPT HE ISN’T ANYMORE! Schlumpy is back with the angels, in the form of modern dance versions of Old Man Buchanan and The Scowl (Chloe). The three of them are trying to save the world from super-secret evil that has infiltrated the U.S. Government, all paid for with African diamonds, which really helps in a recession. It’s a hard job for 3 people…but now they have a 4th, and his name, is Jack Bauer.
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It’s true that what God gives, He also takes away, and Andrew’s legendary 20’s are now long gone. And I mean long. Gone. I know this because last night I was at a secret celebration in a secret location with people whose names rhyme with Karl Grove, George Boros, Bill Mates, Warren Muppet, the Dali Bama, Rush Scrimshaw, Steve Bobs and other Masters-Of-The-Universe, as they welcomed Andrew into their fold.
Now that he’s a media titan, doesn’t it behoove us all to wish him a Happy Birthday – and to really mean it? I’m kidding, of course – Andrew is the greatest, the center of a million friends, and I know you’ll join me in hoping this is the best year of his life. (more…)
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With “Taken” debuting at the box office today, we’re inching closer to the melting of the post-9/11 “Thou Must Whitewash Islam” commandment.
Since 9/11, Hollywood is taken with the politically correct idea that they’re not allowed to portray Muslims as terrorists, or when they do, it’s to glorify the terrorists and justify their behavior–that America deserves it and made them do it. Or–a la “24″–that Muslim terrorists are always working for the American White man. Instead, Hollywood, post-9/11, made terrorists and hijackers, everyone BUT Muslims. There were Black Men with AIDS from Africa (”The Interpreter“), Federal Air Marshals and airline stewardesses, er . . . “flight attendants” (”Flight Plan,” exec produced by my uber-leftist cousin, Charles J.D. Schlissel), White Christians (a number of movies and TV shows) and everyone else you can think of . . . except Muslims, who make up the majority of real-life terrorists plotting against America today. (more…)
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Janeane does it for me. I’ll admit it. She’s spunky but malleable, and I like malleable spunky… so I’m going to tax her less.
Let me be frank, the Hollywood is liberal vibe is a shallow truism. It is shallow because it is fixable. But for now, it is categorically, undeniably true, that the A, B, C, and D list is 80% comprised of people who feel deep in their soul that they haven’t really earned all they have.
And deep in their soul, that does something to people. When you look in the mirror and feel you haven’t earned what you have, you feel guilty, more than that, you feel like a poodle. You feel like a kept poodle, coiffed and coddled and carried, without any satisfaction of having truly earned your success. (more…)
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With a few strokes of the (real-life) president’s pen, Guantanamo Bay was ordered shut within a year, enhanced interrogation tactics were banished as relics of a dark past, and secret CIA prisons began dropping off the map in Eastern Europe. America’s going to play nice from now on. What’s a rogue former CTU agent to do?
As a relative newbie to the realm of “24″ fandom (I’ve only seen season six and all five hours of the current season), it came as a disappointment when a number of right-leaning Jack Bauer fanatics I know expressed concerns that the show’s hero might be “going soft” this season. Could the days of gunshot-induced confessions be over? Might we never witness Jack chomp through a terrorist’s carotid artery again? I suppose the answers to these crucial questions remain to be seen. Thankfully, 19 hours and approximately 1,609 preposterous plot twists have yet to unfold. (more…)
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Jack Bauer’s return for four action packed hours on Sunday and Monday cannot come soon enough. Even with the tease we had late last year of ‘24: Redemption,’ it’s been far too long since we’ve seen our favorite terrorist buster in action.
I know some have grown weary of the the over-the-top story lines, but I was late to the game in watching the show. I missed the first couple of seasons so I still sit at the edge of my seat during every commercial break. I am still able to suspend my disbelief.
The political undertones and controversies surrounding the show never enter my mind — it’s just great TV. ‘24′ is one of the few television shows my wife and I look forward to watching together. The clock can’t tick fast enough for Jack Bauer’s return.
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Looks like Fox’s “24″ may have jumped the ideological shark.
The show, featuring Kiefer Sutherland as the terrorist-hunting Jack Bauer, returns after a long absence Sunday night (8 p.m. EST). “24″ delights right-leaners by showing an American hero battling terrorists without apology.
November’s “24: Redemption,” a Fox TV movie designed to set up the new season, threw a bone to conservative viewers by openly mocking a UN official.
This weekend, though, Jack does some serious navel gazing.
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