UPDATE: After Chris Matthews backed out, the creators of the show decided they would take this scene in a different direction that doesn’t feature known pundits.  Sorkin and his team expressed interest in having Breitbart on in a future episode, should the show go to series.

***

There has been some speculation over the last 24 hours that Andrew Breitbart will be making an appearance as himself in Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming HBO project “More As This Story Develops,” and that is indeed the case.  “More,” which will star Jeff Daniels, is a dramatic pilot based on the world of cable news.  Originally, Breitbart was to be in a debate scene opposite MSNBC anchor Chris Matthew, but MSNBC has squelched Matthew’s participation.  New York Magazine reports (emphasis mine):

Vulture hears that plans for Matthews to shoot a roundtable debate scene in Develops alongside conservative muckracker/ Weiner-eater Andrew Breitbart have had to be scrapped because, according to a production insider, Matthews’s bosses at MSNBC nixed the idea.

It’s not like MSNBC has a blanket no-scripted-programming order for their anchors: Matthews played an MSNBC reporter two years ago in the Russell Crowe pic State of Play. And a guest spot on Sorkin’s show would likely be good for publicity; assuming it goes to series, Develops will likely boast an audience filled with the sort of left-leaning smarties targeted by the news-and-opinion network. So what was the problem? Our spy speculates that even though Sorkin’s ideology meshes with MSNBC’s, the network’s brass may have taken issue with the way More portrays the world of cable news and its corporate culture.[...]  (UPDATE: Our source has further elaborated to us that MSNBC also didn’t like the fact that parts of the show seemed to be skewering left-leaning media.)

NY Mag describes the lead character, an anchor to be played by Daniels, as “a passionate, liberal Keith Olbermann–esque character.” (more…)

So with the news that Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is underperforming and leaving theaters rather than expanding, it’s unclear whether producer John Aglialoro will be able to produce the planned sequels for the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s most famous and controversial work. Name recognition from one of the bestselling books of the past century, still a chart-topper due its appeal to libertarians and limited-government advocates, wasn’t a strong enough draw to earn back even half of its $20 million production budget so far, and this raises a lot of questions for those who rooted for the film. What does this mean for conservatives and fans of Rand?

Obviously, it means everything we’ve ever believed is absolutely wrong.

The free market just doesn’t work. Every conservative really is a secret dog-whistle racist. America is no more exceptional than North Korea. The earth really is barreling towards cataclysmic destruction because of you air conditioner. True equality and justice comes from redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Wait–

*brakes screech*

*spit take*

*jaw drops*

*pants fall*¹

Redistribution of wealth? Lucky for Aglialoro and his partner at Atlas Films, Harmon Kaslow, they’re located smack dab in the middle of millionaire country; and Los Angeles’s rich filmmakers all agree that redistribution of wealth is the right path for America! So, here is my plea to some of Tinseltown’s most beloved left-wing filmmakers. We’ve seen the light, and now we need your help. (more…)

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Yeah, okay NBC, except that in the movie the Michael Douglas character didn’t get all sanctimonious about serious issues and then trot off to do an appearance on Oprah.

Anyway, let’s add complete lack of imagination to Obama’s growing pile of failures. After all, who plagiarizes the worst part of a movie?

Jonathan Strong at the Daily Caller:

(more…)

Imagine my surprise upon hearing that AOL/Huffpo’s editorial policy is the following: 

Andrew Brietbart’s ad hominem attack on Van Jones in The Daily Caller — right down to calling him a “commie punk” and “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak” — violates the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched. As a result, we will no longer feature his posts on the front page.

He is welcome to continue publishing his work on HuffPost provided it adheres to our editorial guidelines, as the two posts he published on HuffPost did — guidelines that include a strict prohibition on ad hominem attacks. Our decision today recognizes that placing posts on the front page is an editorial call that elevates some posts over others, and is an indication of how seriously we take these judgment calls.

Good enough. As a website editor myself, I appreciate the idea of wanting to elevate the debate. Admittedly, I do find it more than a little creepy and totalitarian for AOL to include in that “ad hominem standard” what someone says or does elsewhere. But when you’ve been studying the Left for as long as I have, you come to expect the default setting of them wanting to control what people say. (See: Jon Stewart.) What I don’t understand, however, is what Arianna Huffington and AOL are going to do now. I can’t imagine AOL intends to take the actionable position of singling out Andrew Breitbart — discriminating against him because he’s Andrew Breitbart or conservative or something.

But herein lies AOL’s problem…

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Editor’s note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there’s been an Internet. Therefore it’s no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.

When BH editor John Nolte asked me if I wanted to take a peek at the pilot script for Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming HBO series about the drama behind the scenes on a cable news network, I said “Yes!” without hesitation. Word on the street was that the main character was based on MSNBC’s recently dethroned Keith Olbermann, and I was curious: Would “Olbermann” be raked over the coals or treated as a media icon?

I’ll get to the answer in a few.

The show, which is as yet unnamed, takes place behind the scenes of News Night with Will McCallister, a show broadcast by the fictitious United Broadcasting Systems. Will McCallister is the pseudo-Olbermann clone who knows a lot about sports, can’t be bothered to remember the names of his staffers, and can’t seem to hold on to an executive producer (E.P.) for longer than 14 weeks. In fact, in the show’s opener, Will is given the unhappy news that his current E.P. Don has elected to join Will’s protégé, who has just been given his own show, and Don is taking most of the production staff with him.

Amongst the few junior staffers who are still on Will’s team are Maggie, Steve and Neal. Maggie and Steve are involved romantically, even though such fraternization amongst co-workers is discouraged, and the relationship is not going well.

Even worse is the news that Will’s boss Charlie Skinner, who is the president of the cable news division, has gone behind Will’s back and replaced Don with Mackenzie MacHale, a top-notch producer whose own chance at on-air stardom at a rival network fizzled and who is now in need of a job.

(more…)

Though the 83rd Academy Awards was rarely entertaining (okay… it was about as much fun as a chemistry midterm), it was, for the most part, apolitical.  There were a couple of exceptions, however, the most notable was perhaps cinematography winner Wally Pfister who gave special thanks to his union crew on “Inception.”

“Inception” Cinematographer Wally Pfister with Christopher Nolan

From ABC News:

Backstage he went further, expressing shock at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, which would limit union’s collective bargaining powers…

“I think that what is going on in Wisconsin is kind of madness right now,” Pfister says. “I have been a union member for 30 years and what the union has given to me is security for my family. They have given me health care in a country that doesn’t provide health care and I think unions are a very important part of the middle class in America all we are trying to do is get a decent wage and have medical care.”

Yes, nothing like an Academy Award winner who can afford to send his three children to whatever school he wants coming to the aide of the unions that have destroyed the public schools.

Regardless of your perception of unions, comparing Hollywood unions to the Wisconsin teachers union is hardly apples to apples.  Hollywood unions bargain with corporations that have money they have earned by making movies like “Memento,” “Batman Begins,” “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight,” and “Inception” (just to name a few Pfister has worked on personally), and unions collectively bargain to get a greater share of the revenue.  Governments, on the other hand, don’t earn anything; they extract taxes from citizens, many of whom have fallen on tough financial times.  Pfister’s union crew bargains with the capitalists that have a stake in the outcome of the negotiation, a vested interest in reaching a reasonable agreement with the unions – their bottom line depends on it.  Governments, on the other hand, have no such bottom line to worry about (see: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).  In Wisconsin, the unions are trying to strong-arm politicians (many of whom are bankrolled by the unions come campaign time) in order to pad their pension fund with tax dollars, all at the direct expense of the state’s fiscal health.

Hollywood unions bargain with corporations for the corporations’ money; in Wisconsin, they’re bargaining with union-backed politicians for the taxpayers’ money.  It’s one thing to add to the Warner Brothers’ tab; it’s quite another to add to the citizens’.

(more…)

There’s no point in my reviewing David Fincher’s “Social Network” a second time, even though in preparation for this countdown I did watch the cinematic story behind the creation of Facebook again. Nothing changed my overall opinion of the film and though I’m not a big fan of the titles ranked five through ten on this countdown, anything that made the top five I do consider genuinely impressive, something I enjoyed and will again, and that certainly includes “The Social Network.”   

I will say, though, that after watching every film nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, that Aaron Sorkin certainly deserved his nomination. Obviously, I have an awfully low opinion of Sorkin as a human being, but the brilliance of the “Social Network” script can’t be denied. The dialogue is sharp and keeps the story moving, the characters are well defined, but most impressive is a structure that effortlessly leaps from one lawsuit deposition to another to a series of linear flashbacks. The flow of information is non-stop and yet thanks to some extremely well written exposition and a seamless structure, the audience is still able to keep track. That is no small achievement. And while the overall feel of the film might be stand-offish and emotionally detached (by design, I’m sure), it is a thoroughly engrossing story from opening scene to close, even if you’ve already seen it once before.

I do not, however, believe Sorkin deserves to win. The ‘Toy Story 3″ screenplay is far more impressive, a hands-down masterpiece of storytelling filled with more imagination than any film in recent memory. “Magic” feels like too small a word to describe the final and best chapter in Pixar’s beloved toy series, but it’s the only word that does the story justice. Sorkin’s going to win the Oscar and no one can say that his work wasn’t Oscar-worthy, but it was not the most Oscar-worthy amongst those nominated this year.

From my original review:

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Aaron Sorkin is up for an Academy Award this year for his “Social Network” script, a film many on the left have criticized for its demeaning portrayal of women. Here at Big Hollywood, we’ve also documented at length Sorkin’s raging obsession with Sarah Palin, a dark anger with a life all its own that likely goes well beyond partisanship and says something about Sorkin himself. After all, he never criticized the former governor based on any kind of substance, never says here’s where she’s wrong on this issue or that — which would be perfectly fine. Instead, we’re aways treated to this nasty but revealing streak of name calling and personal attacks. What drives this? What drives a man who has everything to demean women in such a public way, both onscreen and off?

Well, we’re not psychiatrists and coming to any kind of conclusion regarding whatever Sorkin’s troubling personal issues are would only be speculation. So we thought, why not ask you? When the American people chime in, they usually get it right, so please do take our poll and help us to understand where this bizarre behavior might come from.

Take the poll below the fold:

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After last night’s Super Bowl I watched “The Social Network” again, this time with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s obsessively dark rage towards Governor Sarah Palin in mind. The first time I saw director David Fincher’s cold but compelling story involving all the emotional and legal entanglements behind the founding of Facebook, I wasn’t aware of Sorkin’s platinum membership in the HeManConservativeWomanRager’s Club. I knew he was a jerk, everyone knows that, but this strange, twisted need of his to publicly demean and humiliate Governor Palin hadn’t yet revealed itself and with that in mind, it added a whole new subtext to a story that even some liberal critics found unsettling for its almost universally degrading portrayal of women.

The furor has has since died down, but immediately after the Oscar-nominated film was released more than one critic pointed out that the female characters in “The Social Network” are mostly beautiful sluts, beautiful crazies or barely-clothed set dressing always getting high or drunk and more than willing to give it up on their knees in a men’s bathroom.  There’s also the main character, Facebook Co-counder Mark Zuckerberg, who’s portrayed as a insecure man seething with hostility towards women, especially after he’s dumped by his girlfriend in the opening scene. Sorkin would have us believe that what drove Zuckerberg to create Facebook was a desire to prove himself to that very same girl, while in reality Zuckerberg claims he was with the same girlfriend he has now during that time — an Asian girl named Priscilla Chan (and it’s a couple of Asian girls who take the worst beatings in Sorkin’s film).

 Defending his work, Sorkin wrote the following:

I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people. These aren’t the cuddly nerds we made movies about in the 80’s. They’re very angry that the cheerleader still wants to go out with the quarterback instead of the men (boys) who are running the universe right now. The women they surround themselves with aren’t women who challenge them (and frankly, no woman who could challenge them would be interested in being anywhere near them.)

You can read a devastating response to that here.

But in other words, Sorkin punts and blames all of Harvard for what many perceived as the film’s disturbing misogyny (but I thought Harvard was a progressive school?). You see, it’s not Sorkin who has hostility issues towards women, he was simply portraying reality, portraying how intellectuals are bitterly angry that all the pretty girls still want nothing to do with them even though they perceive themselves as Masters of the Universe. Insert: record scratch.

In light of Sorkin’s seethingly vitriolic personal attacks on Governor Palin, does that sound a little close to home?

(more…)

Father of the Year?

“And I want to thank all the female nominees tonight for helping demonstrate to my young daughter that elite is not a bad word, it’s an aspirational one. Honey, look around, smart girls have more fun, and you’re one of them.”

Because we all know how grounded and at peace with himself the elitist Aaron Sorkin is.

Yep, if we were handing out life advice to impressionable young children, you can bet Mr. Sorkin would at the top of the list. No demons or bitterness or mercenary impulses there. Just the kind of sunshine and gumdrop elitism that turns you into the kind of person who, during misogynist rants undoubtedly crafted while wearing elitist eyeglasses that have been conspicuously absent during awards season (self-conscious much?), wishes hunters would accidentally shoot one another. (more…)

[Editor's Note: This list is arranged in no particular order. Read Part I here.]

6.  “Being exploited is different from being empowered ” – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Often too-easily dismissed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, Fast Time was a tremendously influential and important mirror on young America in the early 1980s.  The fact that it is gut-bustlingly funny – Sean Penn’s turn as surfer/stoner Jeff Spicoli remains his only role where he doesn’t annoy me – seems to overshadow the serious undercurrents, as does the ample nudity culminating in the unforgettable swimming pool scene starring the glorious Phoebe Cates.

—–

However, there is a very, very dark undercurrent to this movie that provides a serious lesson to young people.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s Stacy is a pretty but not-so-bright 15/16 year old who does not understand the difference between love and sex.  In a world of absolutely no parents (not a single one is ever seen), she tries to find love (or at least attention) by basically trying to have tacky sex with every guy she meets – and it’s heartbreaking.  She’s not “empowered” – she’s used.  The ugly scene where she loses her virginity to a guy in his 20s in a Little League dug-out staring at graffiti reading “Surf Nazis Must Die” is a better repudiation of the “hook-up” culture than a hundred lectures.

After scaring off the one guy who actually likes her for herself by trying to bed him too, she seeks comfort underneath his skanky pal.  A grim, humiliating encounter in a pool house leaves her pregnant and she immediately seeks an abortion.  Regardless of one’s stand on the life issue, one cannot be anything other than horrified at how the fact she sees herself as literally nothing but a mere receptacle leads her to feel nothing at all about her decision. (more…)

While you’re reading all those HuffPo articles filled with hand-wringing sanctimony about the current state of Republican political discourse, keep in mind that according to New York Magazine, the founder of the Huffington Post filmed a role in a sci-fi fantasy film where the two heroes of the film attempt to rid the world of evil by assassinating President George W. Bush:

The two soldiers’ relationship blossoms, and Butch begins to get to know his lover’s family. But after he inadvertently draws attention to their ancestral home, disaster strikes. This tragedy radicalizes the pair and they become convinced that the only way to rid the world of evil is to kill the architect of the invasion, the then-president of the United States, George W. Bush. And so, during one of the president’s secret sorties to Iraq, they attempt to assassinate him.

The sources for this information are those who have read the script, and the creators behind the film are no less than the directors of the “Matrix” trilogy, pictured above with their STAR….

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We conservatives spend a lot of time criticizing Hollywood’s failings, calling out its errors and pointing to its hypocrisies – and this is entirely appropriate since so much of the crap spewing out of the Tinseltown cookie cutter is borderline commie nitwittery masquerading as profundity.  But if nothing good ever came out of Hollywood – if everything it produced hewed to the same lame party-line pinkoism rejected everywhere except in Westside L.A., university faculty lounges, and Washington, D.C. – we all would have stopped paying attention long ago.

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And many conservatives have.  Many of us have thrown our hands in the air and opted out of popular culture completely, exhausted from enduring liberal sucker punches buried within crummy flicks about magic robots battling Dick Cheney vampire clones that we pay $12.50 to see in theaters maintained at the hygiene level of your average bus station men’s room.  You can hardly blame them for giving up.

But as tempting as it is to withdraw from the battlefield, to dig in and hope it somehow changes, surrender was never an option.  This is our culture, not theirs.  And they don’t get to control it. 

The fact is that among the detritus of American popular culture, there are voices of sanity.  Sure, they are nearly drowned out by over-praised hacks like Aaron Sorkin and over-indulged clowns like Oliver Stone.  Yet, occasionally, Hollywood has allowed positive, conservative messages to slip through. (more…)

“Ten years from now the combustion engine will be a thing of the past.”

Why it’s a left-wing film

Before we get to it, let’s point out one of the sweet ironies of “The American President.” What an amazing experience it is to watch a film written by Aaron Sorkin that relies heavily on the theme of condemning personal character attacks in the world of politics. You know, the very same Aaron Sorkin responsible for some of the most sexist and vicious personal character attacks on Sarah Palin we’ve seen in a while. Not only has the “West Wing” creator publicly ridiculed the Governor’s hair, makeup, intelligence, and hobbies, he’s gone so far as to label her as “deranged.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. According to Wikipedia, Sorkin admits to writing the warm, witty and charming “American President” screenplay “while often high on crack cocaine.” However, according to Sorkin, he’s now sober and was therefore sober when he viciously trashed Palin in the most personal ways imaginable. The only conclusion one is left to make then, is that Sorkin’s such a degenerate of a human being that the crack pipe had nowhere to go with his personality other than up.

Back to business…

“The American President” is a left-wing fairytale in which Global Warming exists, law-abiding citizens owning handguns is the cause of crime, the left-wing media (but I repeat myself) would aid and abet a damaging character attack against a sitting Democratic president during an election year, flag burning is a virtue, Republicans actually do sit around in smoke-filled rooms plotting diabolically, the American sheeple can be manipulated into turning against a widowed president who goes out on a date, and liberalism’s problem is not liberalism — not all the provably failed ideas that make up liberalism, but rather a lack of fight for those ideas. (more…)

Several Thanksgivings ago an uncle of mine, an accomplished full Professor at a leading university, as well as an avid sportsman, made an interesting comment I’ve never forgotten. To paraphrase, Walt Disney’s 1942 classic, Bambi, was the beginning of the movement to end hunting in America.

In watching how Hollywood and the Left have gone forward from there, in some ways, I’ve come to see it as the, however unintended, subtle beginning of various lines of attack on capitalism and Western Civilization itself.

Speaking at an NRA event in May, Sarah Palin made a joke about Bambi’s mother being dinner.

“Some of these animal activists are just…crazy,” she said. “They think we’re killing Bambi’s mother. I love animals, but in Alaska, Bambi’s mother is dinner.”

A website called Vegetarian Star referenced Hollywood in their reporting. Perhaps anti-Palin, anti-hunting screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who freaked out over a recent episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska in which she shot a caribou, is on the editorial board.

After all, they’re all shooting deer in Hollywood.

“I have bad news for those groups,” Palin said, according to the Charlotte Observer. “Bambi’s mother is dinner – even in L.A.”

“Where do those people think their venison comes from? The deer didn’t die of natural causes. It wasn’t road kill.” 

Anthropomorphism, the assigning of human attributes to animals, or non-living things, dates back to the 1700s. Perhaps it’s become so appealing to the Leftists in Hollywood, not simply as a result of the growth in, and entertainment value of, animation, but because it gives expression to so many concepts that serve their political agenda quite well. (more…)

Over the course of the past few decades, entertainment produced in Hollywood, news commentary written by feminized journalists, and propaganda spread by political action groups focused on protecting the environment have dealt a near death blow to masculinity via their all out demonization of guns, hunting, and manliness in general. And over the course of the past few weeks, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has single-handedly used her television show (Sarah Palin’s Alaska) to reverse this trend and restore manliness to its rightful place once again.

She did this first by clubbing a halibut to death after catching it in Alaskan waters, and secondly by shooting and field-dressing a caribou on a more recent episode.

Along the way, Hollywood elites, news outlets, and groups like PETA have literally come unhinged. Aaron Sorkin, who went took pains to stress that he’s involved in “film and television,” went on a profanity laced tirade against Palin for her caribou hunt. Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald bemoaned: “Most disturbing is the way [Palin] seems to enjoy causing suffering to other beings.” And the animal rights’ group Defense Of Animals, issued a statement that said: “Palin’s complete lack of compassion as demonstrated in this snuff video is disgusting.”

These handwringers certainly are an intolerant lot, aren’t they? (more…)

I’d never felt compelled to comment on anything at The Huffington Post before, though they routinely posted items so vitriolic and egregiously idiotic as to tempt me. I’m more of a Corner (at NRO) or a Big Hollywood type of reader. But via Big Hollywood, I came across a piece by Aaron Sorkin denouncing Sarah Palin (as if I even had to complete that sentence).

I took a look through Sorkin’s article, which had all the symptoms of Palin Derangement Syndrome: aggressive name-calling, a hysterical, breathlessly upset tone, and extreme paranoia regarding her ability and willingness to retaliate against anyone who even sneezes in her direction. But one part in particular caught my eye:

“I can make the distinction between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.”

I can’t imagine he got so upset over John Kerry blowing away birds with a shotgun some six years ago, but never mind. I can’t confess surprise that he’d essentially state that he gets happiness out of hunting accidents, because anyone who has seen a few episodes of “The West Wing” would know he thinks of conservatives and those who hold differing world views as effectively subhuman.

What struck me, though, was that he boasted about his inability to discern degrees of right and wrong between shooting a caribou and a dog-fighting operation. On one hand, you have someone legally shooting an animal with a rifle. Even assuming it lived past the gunshot, it’s not going to be around very long, and can be then transmuted into nourishment. On the other hand, you have a guy who illegally ran a sadistic game that meted out immeasurable cruelty to animals, even allegedly participating in the execution of the animals.

Even a rather dim fellow could see the difference, but that’s assuming he’s not posse (more…)

Via Lisa de Moraes at WaPo, who oddly buried Palin’s quotes at the bottom of a long article under a headline that made no mention that she had responded. Well, that’s why God invented Matt Drudge; to teach us that the MSM usually buries the real story at the bottom of their left-wing messaging. Here’s Governor Palin:

“So a left-wing Hollywood producer thinks there is no ‘distinction’ between harvesting healthy, wild organic protein to feed my family and engaging in dog fighting?” Palin wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. “I didn’t know anyone ate dogs, tanned the hides, and made boots out of them.”

TLC also responded to Sorkin’s misogynist smears about Palin’s hair and makeup::

We contacted TLC (Tiny Little Cupcakes?) to ask if anyone at the network had something to say about Sorkin’s blog post.

“There was no hair and makeup” trailer when shooting the Sarah shoots a caribou episode, a rep for TLC (Too Little Class?) told the TV Column. In fact, the rep said, neither the network nor show producer Mark Burnett hired hair and makeup for Palin during the making of this series. There is one scene in which Palin is seen getting hair and makeup done for a photo shoot while on a book tour, but those services were provided by the book-tour organizer, said the rep, who declined to comment on any other aspect of Sorkin’s blog post.

As I said before, Sorkin’s nothing more than a cultural bigot. He mocks, ridicules, and demeans cultures he doesn’t understand. No different than a bigoted redneck at the Apollo in Harlem. He’s also obviously threatened by Palin’s rugged individualism, toughness, and utter indifference when it comes to wanting Sorkin’s approval or the approval of anyone like him. In other words, she makes him feel inadequate and so words on a HuffPo are his own personal Viagara.

“If your hate lasts more then four hours, please seek psychotherapy…”  (more…)

***UPDATE 5:44pm: This post was edited for clartity.

The first thing I noticed about Aaron Sorkin’s hilariously bitter and angry HuffPo article aimed at Sarah Palin (but you knew that when I said “bitter” and “angry” ) is that in his profile photo Sorkin’s not wearing those asshole glasses he’s so famous for. How could he see the birdie? Another first is that for once Sorkin didn’t pull his usual schtick of reaching back to his ancestors to prop up his own personal bona fides, as though Grandpa Joe’s military service somehow makes this reformed (so he says) drug-addict some sort of super-patriot. However, we must admit that the removal of the glasses combined with the end of those rhetorical feasts on the corpses of his betters were both excellent choices — and we here at Big Hollywood applaud him. And so on to the business at hand…

What is it about Sarah Palin that so gets under Sorkin’s skin? Or is the cultural bigot so desperate for this year’s Best Screenplay award that his first mercenary impulse is to further ingratiate himself with the Hollywood elite by cruelly and publicly lashing out at this mother of five — and in turn all hunters and most of the Middle Americans who know and love them. 

Here’s how Mr. West Wing begins, by quoting a Sarah Palin tweet:

“Unless you’ve never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation.”

You’re right, Sarah, we’ll all just go fuck ourselves now.

A wiser man would’ve stopped there, but Sorkin is not a wise man nor is he a good man nor is he a thinking man. Instead, he goes on to admit he enjoys leather shoes and the taste of meat and the starflowers that pop off in his head as the cocaine hits the pleasure senses of his brain (that last part’s my own interpretation of the subtext), but…

What he hates is that Sarah Palin (and most every other hunter in the world) dares to enjoy the hunt.

I’m able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don’t watch snuff films and you make them. You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though…

Money quote alert…! (more…)

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Watch as West Coast WGA president John Wells silently and awkwardly looks on while “Hangover” director Todd Phillips and “Social Network” scribe and “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin shred the Guild for its overbearing policies and famously stupid rules.

Is it just me or does the uber-liberal Sorkin sound like the capitalist of all capitalists in wanting to strip screen credit away from the script’s originator? And by capitalist of all capitalists, I of course mean hypocrite of all hypocrites.

When you’re a new screenwriter just starting out there’s absolutely nothing more important to kick-starting your career than a bona fide screen credit. The check is great, but an actual credit on a produced movie or television show is the Golden Ticket to your next gig, and Sorkin wants to hog that credit all to himself just because … he’s earned it!? Someone needs to clue the left-winger into the fact that giving someone a writing credit they didn’t earn is no different than giving someone money they didn’t earn, and it all falls under the heading of ”spreading the wealth.”   (more…)