‘The Wizard of Oz’: Seventy Years Later — Still Inspiring, Still Relevant

“That’s the best song ever written,” Judy Garland said of “Over the Rainbow” in an interview with Barbara Walters on March 6, 1967, almost three decades after she captured countless hearts as “Dorothy” in “The Wizard of Oz,” featuring that magical song. 

So, too, “The Wizard of Oz”—released 70 years ago today—is, perhaps, the best film ever made.  

Or, at least, the most quintessentially American—in terms of our struggles, hopes, aspirations, dreams, and, ultimately, unshakable confidence, that “somewhere over the rainbow… dreams… really do come true.”

MGM had purchased this highly popular and imaginative children’s book written by L. Frank Baum, and published in 1900, for $75,000, specifically for Judy.  During development, the silver shoes became ruby, thus undercutting Baum’s apparent allegory to “bimetallism”—currency backed by silver, replacing “the gold standard” and favoring rural farmers; in contrast to the worthless “greenbacks” some say Emerald City represents.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: 70th Anniversary, Ahmadinejad, Holocaust, iran, judy garland
Posted Sep 29th 2009 at 2:40 pm in Classic Hollywood, Film, Politics | 23721827 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mckendall/2009/09/29/the-wizard-of-oz-seventy-years-later-still-inspiring-still-relevant/%27The+Wizard+of+Oz%27%3A+Seventy+Years+Later+--+Still+Inspiring%2C+Still+Relevant2009-09-29+21%3A40%3A22Mary+Claire+Kendall

American Basiji

Since Iran’s Green Revolution began on June 12th we have all learned the meaning of the term Basiji, whom Matthias Kuntzel of The New Republic called “Ahmadinejad’s Demons.” Since Supreme Leader In Name Only Ali Khamenei’s son now runs the Basiji, I consider it more of an Ahmie and Khamie thing, like the election itself. We’ve seen what they’ve done: murderous beatings, motorcycle drive-by clubbings, even the shooting of innocents like Neda Soltan and Kaveh Alipour.

That violence is always blamed on those protesters by Ahamadinejad and other hardliners, as well as FARS and other state-run mouthpieces, all of whom are doing their damndest to demonize the Green protesters as enemies of the state, foreign agents, even domestic terrorists. Glad we don’t have that kind of stuff in America, huh? Ya, as if! What country are YOU living in?

What, in essence, are the Basiji? Are they not an ideologically and violently overzealous arm of the fascist Iranian thugocracy? Well, if terrorizing innocent citizens over ideology with full political backing is the key issue here, then what do you call the three menacing baton-swinging racist epithet-spewing New Black Panther Party poll watchers in Philadelphia, paid in full by Democrats, who uttered such overzealous statements as “you will soon be ruled by the black man, cracker”? (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, Ali Khamenei, America, basij, Basiji
Posted Aug 13th 2009 at 10:53 am in Law, Uncategorized | 20298646 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/08/13/american-basiji/American+Basiji2009-08-13+17%3A53%3A17John+T.+Simpson

A-holes and Insects – or Mother Nature Doesn’t Care If You’re a Good Liberal

Decades before George Clooney began using “Darfur” to swat away the unfashionable nuisance of “Iraq,” the hollow eyes and distended stomachs of starving Biafran children gave America’s impressionable “me generation” a reality check during commercial breaks.  Parents shook their heads and wrote checks.  “We have so much,” went the refrain.  “The world is so unfair.”

My pretty fourth-grade teacher, who taught us everything from math and history to a dash of entomology (study of insects), didn’t think so.  One day, unprompted, she told her class of 10-year-olds that she wasn’t really concerned about the Biafran babies because mass starvation was just nature’s way of controlling overpopulation.  (My parents were mortified.)

Margaret Sanger

Hard to fathom how, less than three decades after the Holocaust, any educated person could harbor such cold acceptance of the cruel suffering of fellow human beings - much less voice it (and to children, no less).  But whoever said the human race is on a one-way path to progress?

It’s widely assumed that, in every moment we’re alive, we’ve reached a new pinnacle – of modernity, experience, knowledge, enlightenment – that we always move forward, never back.  But what if we don’t?  What if we’re fated to make the same mistakes (disguised with innocuous new names) over and over again? (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, ants, Betty Friedan, Biafra, Census Bureau
Posted Jul 10th 2009 at 5:02 am in Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 164862210 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/07/10/a-holes-and-insects-or-mother-nature-doesnt-care-how-liberal-you-are/A-holes+and+Insects+-+or+Mother+Nature+Doesn%27t+Care+If+You%27re+a+Good+Liberal2009-07-10+12%3A02%3A16Charles+Winecoff

‘U.N. Me’ Sneak Peek: Iran Diplomat

I’m putting the finishing touches on my feature film coming out later this year called “U.N. Me”  (unmemovie.com), a satirical documentary on the profound failures of the United Nations. Here’s the third of three clips that very much represent the flavor of my upcoming film. Hope you enjoy … ”Iran Diplomat.”

(more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "U.N. Me", Ahmadinejad, Iran Diplomat
Posted Jul 1st 2009 at 6:41 am in Political Humor, Video | 133618One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ahorowitz/2009/07/01/2-iran-diplomat-ami-horowitz/%27U.N.+Me%27+Sneak+Peek%3A+Iran+Diplomat+2009-07-01+13%3A41%3A45Ami+Horowitz

Principles? Leftists Don’t Need No Stinking Principles

I often find myself thinking that if liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. 

For instance, consider the uproar from the left when Don Imus opened his silly yap about the black women on the Rutgers basketball team.  Now compare that to their response when David Letterman made his smarmy cracks about Sarah Palin and the governor’s 14-year-old daughter.  The liberals immediately sprang to his defense, pointing out that Letterman is nothing more than a TV personality and is therefore free to make offensive jokes without fear of censure.  So what do they think Don Imus is?  The secretary of state? 

Or consider how choleric those on the left become any time that Dick Cheney defends the former administration.  Well, if Obama and his cronies didn’t constantly attack Bush and Cheney and their policies, the chances are the ex-vice president wouldn’t feel compelled to set the record straight. Furthermore, Jimmy Carter never stopped bashing George Bush during the eight years he was the president, and yet nobody on the left ever suggested he shut up.  On the contrary, he was hailed at the 2004 Democratic convention, and even had the honor of being seated next to the patron saint of left-wingers, Michael Moore.  Speaking of Carter, how is it that he, who is always volunteering to monitor elections anywhere on earth, including the Westminster Dog Show, wasn’t in Iran, making sure that Ahmadinejad got 110% of the vote?  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "China", Ahmadinejad, David Letterman, Don Imus, george bush
Posted Jun 27th 2009 at 3:03 pm in Featured Story, Politics | 16615423 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/06/27/liberals-don%e2%80%99t-need-no-stinking-principles/Principles%3F+Leftists+Don%27t+Need+No+Stinking+Principles2009-06-27+22%3A03%3A42Burt+Prelutsky

The Stoning Of Team Hollywood

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Academy of Motion Picture arts and Sciences, Ahmadinejad, Al Franken, Alireza Davudnejad, Ambush Bay
Posted Jun 19th 2009 at 5:45 pm in Entertainment, News, Politics | 1641062 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/06/19/the-stoning-of-team-hollywood/The+Stoning+Of+Team+Hollywood2009-06-20+00%3A45%3A26John+T.+Simpson

A Limited Recount in Tehran

Q. How many young Iranian voters does it take to oust Ahmadinejad?

A. More than they have, apparently!

Remember student council elections in high school? You took it so seriously… As if you just elected the right person you’d get rock music over the PA in the morning and no final exams. When I look at things like the beauty contest election in Iran for President, an office with about the same amount of power as class president, I wonder how afraid the puppeteers on the council of twelve high muckity-mucks must be that they won’t allow someone who they had to approve to run for office actually win.

In a statement the Guardian Council said they might be willing to have a limited recount of some ballot boxes. Remind you of anything? That is exactly what the Al Goristas wanted to do in Florida a few years back. Fortunately for us (you too, Progressives), we let the lawyers handle it while we had a cookout and a few beers and when it was over we traded snide comments rather than bullets in the streets. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "unauthorized gathering", Ahmadinejad, Al Gore, Elections, Guardian Council
Posted Jun 18th 2009 at 6:04 pm in News, Political Humor | 1644823 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjena/2009/06/18/a-limited-recount-in-tehran/A+Limited+Recount+in+Tehran2009-06-19+01%3A04%3A05Jeffrey+Jena

Obama’s ‘New Tone’: A Victory of Astounding Trivia

So much was said of Obama during the election, and for all of the promises of healing America’s divide, reaching across the aisle with a new kind of politics, creating new jobs and improving on “the failed policies of the last 8 years” I don’t see anything getting better.

The shame for Bush’s whatever-he-did-every-day was palpable by the left. Ask your favorite lefty what Bush did right and they’ll likely only talk about his help with the Africa AIDS epidemic, and even then it was probably just to look good to all of those voters who are Africans with AIDS. They were ashamed of his Texas-ness, his swagger and for the first time we declared that “go-it-alone” wasn’t an American quality. Somehow, Kim Jong-il would be better under Obama. We would talk together, and he would listen. But Kim Jong-Ronery has upped his missile launches since Bush left office. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, bush, cheney, Kim Jong-Il, Obama
Posted Jun 10th 2009 at 1:24 pm in Politics, Religion | 154950No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dtennapel/2009/06/10/healing-our-global-reputation/Obama%27s+%27New+Tone%27%3A+A+Victory+of+Astounding+Trivia2009-06-10+20%3A24%3A50Doug+TenNapel

Wanted: A Vaccine for Liberalism

Whenever I have suggested that left-wingers aren’t normal human beings, and have wondered if perhaps they’re some weird interplanetary life form like the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the liberals accuse me of indulging in ad hominem attacks, and I suppose I am.  But I am honestly bewildered.  It just doesn’t seem plausible that Americans could find good things to say about tyrants like Castro, Chavez and Ahmadinejad, while at the same time reviling the likes of Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and General Petraeus.

Left-wingers side with the so-called Palestinians and insist that their country was stolen from them by the Jews, but when you ask them just exactly where the country was located, what their flag looked like and who their president was, they huff and they puff and they denounce you as a tool of the Jewish lobby. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, Barbara Boxer, Castro, chavez, CIA
Posted May 21st 2009 at 9:42 am in Politics | 137590One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/05/21/wanted-a-vaccine-for-liberalism/Wanted%3A+A+Vaccine+for+Liberalism2009-05-21+16%3A42%3A45Burt+Prelutsky

One Critic’s Review of ‘Roxana: A True Story’

Now that ‘Roxana: A True Story’ has come to a most satisfying and happy conclusion for Roxana Saberi, her parents, myself and millions of others around the globe (a conclusion not always assured, and which looked very grim in some scenes), it is now time for Your Most Humble and Obedient Critic to give you the full skinny on ‘Roxana: A True Story.’

Or, by its Hollywood acronym, RATS. Funny. I actually found that startling contraction fitting, not for Roxana (not hardly), but for all of the major black hats and clueless morons who populated this nerve-wracking Thugocracy Studios production, which had civilized people everywhere both riveted and outraged in its most grueling and suspenseful moments.

Not to mention for Roxana and her parents. But before we get to heroes and villains, let us look at the story to date with all its dramatic twists and underpinnings, many with significant international implications. Just like a good Hitchcock drama should. And I caught ‘em all!

By pure happenstance, Your Most Humble Critic and Boy Reporter was already hot on the job covering Iran (unlike some people) and hammering AMPAS for their tea and finger-cookie soirees with these guys, when I saw what Iran was pulling with Roxana and called it for what it was: a hostage crisis. And on the same day HRW called it the same in a press release on March 13th, which I didn’t find out until the 19th thanks to our on-the-ball Vein Stream Media. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: -1, abc, Academy of Motion Picture arts and Sciences, Ahmadinejad, al qaeda
Posted May 13th 2009 at 8:13 am in Entertainment, Politics | 132142One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/05/13/one-critics-review-of-roxana-a-true-story/One+Critic%27s+Review+of+%27Roxana%3A+A+True+Story%272009-05-13+15%3A13%3A00John+T.+Simpson

A Matter of Opinion

According to my wife, I have a tendency to state my opinion as fact.  She suggests that I begin my sentences by saying “It’s only my opinion, but…” and go on from there.  It’s my opinion, however, that people already understand that it’s my opinion and that they share it if they’re smart, or don’t, if they’re not.  Furthermore, I don’t see my main function as a communicator to convince liberals, who are notoriously as blind as bats, to see the light, but to provide my fellow conservatives with ammunition to use against left-wingers and, whenever possible, to amuse. 

Gloria Steinem

In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…” 

When Gloria Steinem, who had been lionized by the ladies of NOW for her rather dumb remark about women needing men like fish needed bicycles, finally got married at the age of 66, I thought people should have sent her greeting cards complimenting her on having belatedly grown gills.  (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: Ahmadinejad, bow, Castro, chavez, French
Posted May 6th 2009 at 6:35 am in Politics | 126982No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/05/06/a-matter-of-opinion/A+Matter+of+Opinion2009-05-06+13%3A35%3A20Burt+Prelutsky

Confessions of a Recovering Anti-Semite

Whenever someone asks me if I’m religious, I always say I’m Jewish by osmosis.  Back in Manhattan, my mother was known to order in Chinese food seven nights a week - even for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.  For an Anglo-centric WASP worshipper who idolized Jackie O, she was very Mama Rose.

But there was always that awkward moment when she had to give the Chinese restaurant our name over the phone: “Winecoff.  W-I-N-E-C-O-F-F.  And it’s not Jewish.”

Orson Welles “The Stranger”

People usually just assumed we were Jewish.  Sometimes they even refused to believe it when we said we weren’t – “Oh, come on.  You’re kidding, right?” – which made me mad.  But this was New York City, and we were surrounded, outnumbered.

We were supposed to be Episcopalian – or as my mom occasionally put it, Protestant.  I had no idea what that meant.  We never “protested” anything.  We never took communion at the landmark church we went to now and then.  My mother, who was really more of a frustrated pagan, thought the symbolic eating the body/drinking the blood of Christ was akin to cannibalism. (more…)

Email this to a friend | Print | Share on Facebook | Tweet this |

Tags: "fitna", 9/11, Ahmadinejad, Alain Resnais, Anne Frank
Posted Feb 20th 2009 at 1:37 pm in News, Politics | 4822264 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/02/20/confessions-of-a-recovering-anti-semite/Confessions+of+a+Recovering+Anti-Semite2009-02-20+21%3A37%3A15Charles+Winecoff