‘Taking Woodstock’: Mythologizing the Worst Generation

In the late 1960s there were young people in college and starting families, young people far from home fighting and dying for the sovereignty of our allies in Vietnam, young people just starting to see results from their brave and noble fight for Civil Rights, and then there were the dirty, filthy hippies – the most spoiled, narcissistic, ungrateful species in the history of mankind – whose legacy of drug addiction, STDs, the misery of single motherhood and 2 million left dead on the Killing Fields of Cambodia, still reverberates forty years on.

Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,” a halfway competent but ultimately erratic, unfocused story of how “three days of peace and music” came to the small town of White Lake, New York and changed for the better the lives of those who embraced “the spirit,” not only celebrates the drug abuse and loveless sex that defined the “Woodstock Generation,” but goes beyond caricatures and into outright anti-Semitism to condemn those who didn’t.

Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), a young Jewish man in his early twenties, once again abandons his work as a struggling Greenwich Village artist to help his elderly parents (two Jewish stereotypes played by Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) through another summer season in the Catskills. Their “resort,” a filthy, dilapidated motel, is about to be foreclosed on and probably should be, but Elliott convinces an exasperated banker to give him one more season. But foreclosure is inevitable and Elliot knows it, and while his friends go to San Francisco with flowers in their hair, his dreams take a back seat to this annual guilt trip sponsored by his overbearing mother. (more…)

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Tags: 'Taking Woodstock', Ang Lee, anti-semitism, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber
Posted Aug 28th 2009 at 4:47 pm in Featured Story, Reviews | 213582208 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/08/28/taking-woodstock-mythologizing-the-worst-generation/%27Taking+Woodstock%27%3A+Mythologizing+the+Worst+Generation2009-08-28+23%3A47%3A08John+Nolte

Ari and Rahm: No Business Like Show Business

The Brothers Emanuel: Ari (L) – Rahm (R)

July 31st, 2006 – Hollywood, California:

At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements. People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line. There are times in history when standing up against bigotry and racism is more important than money.

That is a portion of a Huffington Post entry authored by a prominent Hollywood talent agent. It was written exactly two years ago this week after the arrest of actor Mel Gibson. During the stop, an angry and intoxicated Gibson made physical threats and was reported to say, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” and asked the arresting officer, “Are you a Jew?” (more…)

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Tags: "Skip" Gates, anti-semitism, Ari Emanuel, mel gibson, Rahm Emanuel
Posted Jul 30th 2009 at 1:03 pm in Celebrity News, Politics | 19409042 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cstigall/2009/07/30/theres-no-business-like-show-business/Ari+and+Rahm%3A+No+Business+Like+Show+Business2009-07-30+20%3A03%3A23Chris+Stigall

Colleen Bobs Her Hair and The Stars and Stripes

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch. What little things we are to have caused all that trouble.”

In 1923, Colleen Moore’s starring vehicle, Flaming Youth was an international box office hit that ushered in the era of the Flapper. The Jazz crazy kids wore their galoshes unbuckled causing the rubber tongue to flap. Thus: Flappers.

 
Colleen Moore, studio portrait in the Stars and Stripes.

I’m waiting for that particular fashion statement to reappear.

Colleen Moore, born Kathleen Morrison, (1900-1988) and her husband John McCormick embarked on a grand tour of Europe to promote Flaming Youth, Colleen’s career, and enjoy a belated honeymoon.

Colleen’s look, specifically her Bobbed haircut, was a global fashion rage. Contrary to popular opinion it was Moore who pioneered the severe cut—not Louise Brooks. It is sad and certainly a skewed vision of film history that the current Louise Brooks cult has spread like a virus, whereas Moore, a far more important figure in motion pictures, is virtually forgotten.  George Cukor, a director who knew something about Hollywood stardom, was utterly baffled by the post-modern Brooks fever. When queried about the star of Pandora’s Box, Cukor forcefully exclaimed: “Louise Brooks? She was nothing!” (more…)

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Tags: anti-semitism, Charles Ray, Colleen Moore, flappers, George Cukor
Posted Apr 14th 2009 at 6:39 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment | 1045223 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/04/14/colleen-bobs-her-hair-and-the-stars-and-stripes/Colleen+Bobs+Her+Hair+and+The+Stars+and+Stripes2009-04-14+13%3A39%3A33Robert+J.+Avrech

‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’: Lessons Too Important to Ignore

The film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is just out on DVD this week, and I confess I was eagerly anticipating its release, having missed its run in theaters. I rented it and watched it Wednesday evening.

Based on the children’s novel of the same name by John Boyne, it tells the story of eight-year-old Bruno, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi. Dad is transferred from his post in Berlin to head a work (read: final solution) camp, and the family is uprooted to the countryside. Bored out of his skull after a few weeks of little to do and no one to play with but his older sister, Bruno defies his mother’s orders to stay in the front yard and sneaks out back to explore. He comes upon the camp, which he thinks is a farm (Bruno is sheltered from the realities of his father’s work) and meets Shmuel, a boy his age on the other side of the fence, wearing what Bruno thinks are “striped pajamas.” Despite being separated by electrified barbed wire, the two boys strike up a friendship that holds fast despite the obvious adversity and future problems that arise. (more…)

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Tags: anti-semitism, Auschwitz, Barack Obama, Geert Wilders, Holocaust
Posted Mar 13th 2009 at 2:51 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 7903423 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2009/03/13/the-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-teaches-lessons-too-important-to-ignore/%27The+Boy+in+the+Striped+Pajamas%27%3A+Lessons+Too+Important+to+Ignore2009-03-13+21%3A51%3A02Pam+Meister

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…)

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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

Israel: A Lamb Among Wolves

When I was very young, people were accustomed to saying that the only two certainties were death and taxes. Over the years, there’s a third item that could be added to the list: Every American president will try and fail to bring peace to the Middle East. Obama is merely the latest to put it at the top of his to-do list. My guess is that four or eight years down the road, long after he has managed to cure the leper and raise the dead, it will still be at the top of his list.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I see no reason not to be. While the folks in Gaza didn’t have two great choices during their last election, much like the electorate here in the U.S., they opted for the greater of two evils, much like the electorate here in the U.S.. They voted for Hamas, a terrorist group sworn to wipe Israel off the map — the actual map, that is, not merely the fantasy maps they use in their schoolbooks. (more…)

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Tags: anti-semitism, gaza, Obama, pat buchanan, peace in the middle east
Posted Jan 30th 2009 at 9:40 am in News, Politics | 3564255 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/01/30/israel-a-lamb-among-wolves/Israel%3A+A+Lamb+Among+Wolves2009-01-30+17%3A40%3A55Burt+Prelutsky