Michael Moore’s Audacious Lies

If the evil men do lives after them, the legacy of dishonesty, demagoguery and hypocrisy that Michael Moore has been enabled to legitimize in film and the body politic will endure for a long time after he quits making documentaries as he says he may. That hopefully means his disingenuous indictment of capitalism now making him millions in theaters will be the last time he’ll project his puerile class warfare demons onto a movie screen and insult our intelligence by calling it a documentary.

Don’t get me wrong. Moore came up with a clever shtick that can be amusing, but he doesn’t make real documentaries. He makes sophomoric  agitprop that violates the Oscar’s rule against fiction in that form which other documentary makers must apparently follow — a double standard point I’ve made to the Academy awarders twice. Only the first of those letters is listed below because of space limitations, but a key point made in that second note is that there should be a separate category for Moore’s type of fabricated political schlock if such stuff is going to be receiving awards .  Sans that, “anything goes with documentary film … there are no standards … it’s all a game,” as University of Texas film professor and indie producer John Pierson put it. (more…)

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Tags: "Manufacturing Dissent", "Roger and Me", "Shooting Michael Moore", Academy, Bowling for Columbine
Posted Oct 20th 2009 at 1:13 pm in Film, Politics | 24694297 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dgifford/2009/10/20/michael-moores-audacious-lies/Michael+Moore%27s+Audacious+Lies2009-10-20+20%3A13%3A25Dan+Gifford

Story and the Power of Conservative Themes in Film

Boy, did I ever kick a hornet’s nest with my tongue-in-cheek Archie Bunker-on-steroids BH post, “My Secret Life as a Conservative Republican.” Lefties called it Reaffirmation With Senator Smalley, which I expected. But Righties nearly wet their pants in fear, which I did not expect in the least. Where’s the pioneering spirit, self-confidence and gutter-level humor that founded this country?

People, this is OUR Fortress Hollywood! This is OUR sanctuary! Since when the hell do we care about what demagogues like Keith Olbermann think or say? Or any other mental tinfoil hat Lefties like Garofalo for that matter? It’s like Churchill worrying about Hitler calling him a fat cigar-chomping drunk! Who won that fight, and why? And who was in the right, despite all the insipid name-calling?

Time to grow a pair, people. It’s also time to raise the stakes. Now, I’ve heard from some contributors here at BH that it is really bad in Hollywood in places. That people might even lose their jobs if they spoke up like I do here. If true, that’s McCarthyism at its worst. Fortunately, that’s not my experience. I still have great relationships with people in the biz who could care less about politics. All they care about is finding great scripts or literary works to adapt, and telling great stories on film.

And that is where the battle really needs to be fought: on their playing ground. An insurgency of ideas, if you will. Example. Just under the Big Hollywood sign today, I saw the banner “TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Thrives on Strong Moral Foundation.” That PJM-linked article describes how The Closer, a show that portrays the border, the illegals situation, and even the cops themselves in very gritty and realistic fashion, is the top-rated scripted show on ad-supported cable since its inception. (more…)

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Tags: Academy, Afghanistan, al qaeda, American Gangster, AMPAS
Posted Jul 21st 2009 at 10:22 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Politics, Religion | 184986103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/07/21/taking-the-fight-to-the-left/Story+and+the+Power+of+Conservative+Themes+in+Film2009-07-21+17%3A22%3A45John+T.+Simpson

Why is Hollywood Silent on Roxana Saberi?

I see a great story in Roxana Saberi. Don’t you? A can’t fail, high-concept, four-quadrant script with a unique storyline. In fact, I’d expect a bidding war no less severe and cutthroat for the rights to Roxana’s story as that for Lone Survivor. You know. A MARIE in Iran meets MISSING kinda thing.

A young and beautiful former Miss North Dakota and reporter for the BBC and NPR, among others, falsely arrested by misogynist Iran and tagged with a series of escalating charges, from buying wine to reporting with expired credentials to espionage, charges even Roxana’s lawyer has not officially seen to date, but upon which Ms. Saberi was just sentenced to eight years in the Iranian Hell of Evin prison in a one-day kangaroo court trial. Coercion was also involved, including a threat to kill her.

Any questions as to who and what we’re really dealing with here now? (more…)

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Tags: Academy, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, bening, Congress
Posted Apr 25th 2009 at 1:23 pm in Media Criticism, Politics | 1096867 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/25/why-is-hollywood-silent-on-roxana-saberi/Why+is+Hollywood+Silent+on+Roxana+Saberi%3F2009-04-25+20%3A23%3A20John+T.+Simpson

Hollywood as Willie Horton and Team Oscar’s Iran Blog

Some interesting news on Team Oscar in Iran. It seems both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (he of the murdered blogger and post-Obama video Death to America rallies) and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are actually using Team Oscar’s visit to Iran as hard-line ideological weapons against their “soft” political opponents in upcoming elections.

In the Iranian Daily Kayhan, Ali Khamenei’s own personal Islamist rag, the Supreme Asswipe in his March 2nd Op-ed titled “What Are the Producers of Anti-Iranian Films Doing Here?” called Team Oscar, “the planners and heads of a new Hollywood project against Iranian national security.” (more…)

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Tags: Academy, AMPAS, bening, Ganis, hollywood
Posted Apr 1st 2009 at 11:57 am in Celebrity News, Media Criticism, Politics | 938029 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/01/hollywood-as-willie-horton-plus-team-oscars-iran-blog/Hollywood+as+Willie+Horton+and+Team+Oscar%27s+Iran+Blog2009-04-01+18%3A57%3A56John+T.+Simpson