In what may be a first in Big Hollywood’s history, this open thread is not safe for work.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Six weeks after Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed he had fathered a child out of wedlock, his wife Maria Shriver filed divorce papers Friday to end their marriage of 25 years.

The former television journalist and Kennedy family heir cited irreconcilable differences but offered no additional details about the breakup.

She also did not list a date when the couple separated, although they announced they had done so on May 9.

A week later, the former action star and former governor admitted he fathered a child with a member of his household staff years ago.

Shriver’s filing does not indicate the couple has a prenuptial agreement, which likely means Schwarzenegger’s earnings from his career as a Hollywood megastar will be evenly divided with his estranged wife.

She is seeking spousal support but any amount would be determined later, either through a settlement agreement or by a judge. The former couple’s breakup is expected to be handled mostly behind closed doors.

Several of Schwarzenegger’s biggest hits, including “Predator,” “True Lies” and the blockbuster sequel “Terminator 2″ were made during his marriage to Shriver. (more…)

When Arnold Schwarzenegger burst onto the political scene a couple of decades ago, he was a Republican pol’s dream: an icon of mostly liberal Hollywood willing to admit he had conservative convictions. But in the ensuing years, Schwarzenegger trampled on many of those dreams, staking out positions in elective office on immigration, cap-and-trade, and law and order that flew in the face of conservative ideology.

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And his post-gubernatorial admission of a secret affair with his housekeeper — that resulted in a love child he hid from his wife, Maria Shriver, and their children — all but shatters the family values image he tried to sustain.

The question now on most minds: Can the Terminator find a strategy to return to prominence and utter his most famous acting line, ‘I’ll be back’, once again?

I caught up with one of Hollywood’s most powerful and prominent PR players, Michael Levine, to ask that very question. He thinks the Terminator is, well, terminated.

Levine’s firm has represented a Who’s Who of American culture — from Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson to Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Bill Clinton. In short, America’s rich and powerful turn to him for advice when in crisis.

(more…)

Why, does the incredibly deep-thinking Rosie O’Donnell believe (quasi-)Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger has no right to the Kennedy legacy?  Wait for it… Because of an extramarital affair!

This radio clip comes pre-satirized:

Transcript via Newsbusters:

ROSIE O’DONNELL: There is a legacy of the Shrivers in America, of the Kennedy/Shrivers, right? And it’s not the Schwarzeneggers, and I always felt like, you know – He, this Republican guy, kinda snuck in and…

BOBBY PEARCE (staffer): She married beneath her.

O’DONNELL: …I don’t know, I always felt that’s not my place to say. But I always did feel that, and, I feel like, “You don’t have a right to that legacy”…

PEARCE: And he proved it.

(more…)

One of the touchstone traits of manliness is that the true man is what he seems.  There is no deceit about him: no hidden agendas, no artificial props, no “image” or “cover” designed to suit the public’s imagined wants and hide the actual man’s real character.  It is undeniable that such an uncalculated manliness often offends: in its lack of political correctness and its plainspoken confidence.  “Why does he always think he is so right?  Hasn’t he read the latest opinion poll?”  We used to call this manly virtue integrity: literally, of being whole and undivided, of being the same throughout.  What you see is what you get.  Integrity enables another virtue: frankness or candor, that is, saying what you believe and is on your mind without dissimulation or contrivance.  For this reason one of the Founding Fathers’ most lauded virtues was candor.  After all, these great men proclaimed their Independence by submitting facts to a “candid world.”  This virtue of integrity, which now goes by the opaque moniker “transparency,” was better understood in the age of the Western hero.  The characters played by John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and, for that matter, Ronald Reagan, did not say much.  But what they said they meant, and they would back up what they said with their very lives.

But we do not live in the age of the Western.  Those of us in our thirties and forties grew up in the age of the action hero.  The action hero is the figure who does not do the merely human things well but performs superhuman deeds that defy the imagination.  He does not simply draw a gun faster than another man.  Instead, he races through explosions on a motorcycle and dives out of planes without a parachute and yet invariably emerges from the ruins unscathed.  Of course, the action hero has half a dozen stunt doubles and computer graphics and millions invested in the movie to pull it all off.  But it’s all worth it: for the illusion, for the moment of suspended disbelief.  When you meet the actual man who plays the part, though, you find him pretty underwhelming.  (more…)

From The Associated Press:

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, announced Monday that they are separating.

(more…)

So now that Arnold Schwarzenegger is no longer governor, I’d love to see him back on the big screen taking down bad guys.

In fact, I even have a script for him. The working title is “HARD VENGEANCE.” But I’m also toying with “BRUTAL JUSTICE,” “JUSTIFIED VENGEANCE,” VENGEFUL JUSTICE,” And my fave, “HARD VENGEFUL JUSTICE, INC.”

But I also like “THE LAST STRAW.”

But I think people might think it’s about hay.

Here’s the story: Arnold’s character is a hardworking joe (named Fred), whose son is in college having the time of this life. During a party at a frat house, Fred’s son gets into a fight with gang members, who stab Fred’s son to death.

The thugs are captured. To Fred’s dismay, a plea bargain is made to prevent his son’s killers from getting life – after the thugs taunt his family with accusations of guilt, and blaming their actions, mockingly, on gangsta rap.

But Fred gets on with his life.

Then, everything changes.

Yes, it turns out one of the killers had connections. His father was friends with the governor, a well-known celeb. In the final days of his term, the unthinkable happens: the governor commutes the killer’s sentence.

Fred is devastated. His family, distraught.

What does he do? Well in the spirit of all great Arnold flicks like Raw Deal, Commando and Junior, he takes matters into his own hands. (more…)

“And then some bulls*** happens.”

That’s how the initial treatment of Aliens (then called Alien II) tapered off after a mere twenty pages. Producers David Giler and Walter Hill had done little more than describe the basic setup: “Ripley and soldiers” versus the eponymous creatures. The rest, they decided, was for the guy who wrote The Terminator to flesh out.

Getting fired from Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, a schlocky job-for-hire, convinced James Cameron there was only one way he could make his Hollywood dreams come true. “I knew I was never going to be offered another movie,” he later explained about that time, “unless I came up with something myself. I had to write a film that made sense for me as a director. I thought it had to have effects that would justify my existence on the project, and I also had to not price myself out of the kind of budget that studios were likely to trust me with.”

So a guy who already specialized in sci-fi special effects and production art decided to add screenwriter to his list of talents. Using his fiery fever-nightmare about a killer robot as his jumping off point, and calling on many of the seminal sci-fi influences of his youth, he proceeded to write The Terminator. Each effect and action scene was thoroughly dissected on paper: Could I do this on a micro-budget? What special effect tricks could pull it off? Just like his early demo-film Xenogenesis, this would be a movie designed not just to entertain, but to show Hollywood what he could do. (more…)

What would I want in the perfect action film?

Let’s see.  There has to be first and foremost a seriously bad-ass villain who seems to hold all the cards.  Bigger, stronger, heavily armed, inimically cunning, and totally remorseless.

Then toss into the mix the unlikely hero who against all odds must somehow find a way to defeat the afore mentioned baddie.  My ideal hero is a scrapper.  A street-smart yet vulnerable guy who knows that his task is impossible but will try like hell to get ‘er done anyway—even if it costs him his life.

As I am a biped (actually a ‘triped’) I would also ask that an attractive heroine be thrown in…but not just any eye-candy floozy.  She looks good in jeans but can also fire a weapon, toss a grenade, laugh, cry, and ultimately serve as the hero’s well-spring from whom he draws one last ounce of inner strength when his own will falters.  And she must have room to grow as the true protagonist of the story. (more…)

There’s much to like about “The Expendables,” especially the simple straight-forward plot, all the B-movie mayhem you could possibly ask for, and two unapologetic hours of masculinity – which may be two hours more than we’ve seen in all of the last decade put together.  These boys smoke cigars, drink beer while piloting airplanes, and return us to those glorious pre-Oprah days when stoicism was still a virtue and real men didn’t gush about their inner-emotional lives like 13 year-old girls drunk on Dr. Pepper at a slumber party.  There are also things to dislike, especially that evil shaky-cam which has done more to ruin a good time at the movies than liberal speechifying.   John Sturges knew what a tri-pod was. Does anyone really think they can improve on Sturges? 

Sylverster Stallone’s glorious throwback to the brawny 80s is also about something, and it’s not Bourne-ian self-discovery. It’s about something that actually matters. And in this age of nihilism when believing in anything bigger than self is considered old-fashioned, unsophisticated and naïve, that’s both refreshing and important.  Mickey Rourke, who has a small but showy supporting role as the proprietor of the tattoo parlor that serves as the Expendables’ hangout, explains it with a single word. I won’t spoil anything, but without this scene, this important turning point, “The Expendables” wouldn’t be half the movie it is. 

Stallone plays Barney Ross (probably not his real name), the leader of a band of American mercenaries who, along with Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Yang (Jet Li), Toll (Randy Couture), and Caesar (Terry Crews), is willing to go most anywhere and kill most any bad guy for a price. The story opens with a well-crafted action sequence involving Somalia pirates that not only establishes how deadly competent our guys are, but also that they’re not cold-blooded killers.  These are men with a moral code and one of their own breaking that code will be the root cause of deadly complications and a couple over the top action sequences to come.  (more…)

Love or hate them, the 1980s had an impact on pop culture that the world has never quite shaken. From the advent of music videos to ridiculous hair to flashy films and TV shows, everything seemed bigger, louder and brasher back then.

But no other genre of that time divided people’s loyalties as much as the decade’s testosterone-fueled action films. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris were three of the muscle-bound wisecrackers laying claim to the title of World’s Toughest Man. But none of those guys ever held a candle to the toughest guy of all, Sylvester Stallone.

With the Rocky franchise going full bore and Rambo first making the scene in 1982, it was a great time to be Sly. But then came the ’90s, and moviegoers were offered a menu of sensitive heroes and spectacular special effects taking the place of stars and stuntmen risking their necks onscreen. Stallone himself actually blames the ability of Michael Keaton to put on a suit full of fake muscles and become Batman as the moment that his own juiced-up muscles ceased to be important to audiences.

But if there is one thing Hollywood loves more than a mere winner it is a successful comeback. And in the past three years, Stallone’s been slowly building one, mainly through reprising roles he created and knows best, first in 2006’s “Rocky Balboa” and then “Rambo” in 2008. (more…)

Rumor has it that Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables marks a return to the glory days of 1980s action mayhem and pro-American machismo. Its appearance on the cultural horizon has certainly stirred up memories of my mid-Eighties, Midwestern suburban adolescence.

It also brings to mind an excellent documentary I saw a few years back called Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (2008 — the asterisk leads to a footnote: “*The Side Effects of Being American”). You can check out the spectacularly funny, rousing, and nostalgic first ten minutes (and then the whole movie, if so inclined) at YouTube:

YouTube -- click here to watch full-screen

Stallone, Schwarzenegger, the Hulkster — all are members of a category of celebrity I described in a previous BH article as “silly video-game tough guys.” The walls of countless Reagan-era boys, myself among them, were papered over with posters and photos of these oversized he-men. Throughout our teen years we read their exercise books and magazine interviews, followed their advice, and strove to live up to their examples.

Examples that, as it turned out, were far too good to be true.

The director/narrator of Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, Chris Bell, kindly but thoroughly strips his beloved childhood icons of their mythic qualities, reducing them to a series of ordinary men who used tricks, illusion, and lots and lots of steroids to become larger than life to millions of youngsters. “It is kind of sad in a way,” Bell said in a Sundance interview at the time his movie was released, “how all of our heroes in America are now falling.” (more…)

Pop quiz: what do the following movies have in common?

Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), The Sound of Music (1965), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Ten Commandments (1956), Titanic (1997), Jaws (1975), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Exorcist (1973), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1939), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Ben-Hur (1959), Avatar (2009), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Sting (1973), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), The Graduate (1967), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Fantasia (1941), The Godfather (1972), Forrest Gump (1994), Mary Poppins (1964), The Lion King (1994)

If you said they all made scads of money, bravo — they are the top twenty-five domestic box-office champions of all time (adjusted for inflation, of course).

But consider another similarity: surprisingly few of them relied on established A-list movie stars — the most famous, the highest paid — for their moneymaking prospects. Gone with the Wind had Gable, yes. The Sting had Newman and Redford. The Godfather, Brando.

As for most of the rest, they either featured no A-listers at all, or used them before they became bonafide movie stars. In fact, many of those pictures can take credit for sending now-famous actors into the celestial Hollywood firmament in the first place. Gone with the Wind made Vivian Leigh known to the world. The Ten Commandments did it for Charlton Heston. The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman. The Godfather, Al Pacino. Star Wars, Harrison Ford. Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews. (more…)

It’s hard to say this, but say it I must: one of the reasons that so many current conservative films don’t get distribution or gain success is that they stink.  You heard that right.  Many of them simply suck.

Yes, political bias is the main reason conservative films don’t get distribution; there are a ton of crappy liberal films that get distribution.  But that doesn’t change the fact that some of the most highly publicized conservative modern entrees into the field of film have been total artistic and popular bombs.

Filmmaker Michael Pack

When a conservative film gets made that is actually high quality, it’s a surprise.  So when I saw new documentary, The Last 600 Meters, I was shocked.  It’s gripping, engrossing, enthralling.  It’s a movie every American should see.

The Last 600 Meters tells the story of the two deadliest battles of the Iraq war — the Battles of Fallujah and Najaf — from the perspective of the soldiers who fought in them.  We see through their eyes – the footage and stills were taken during the actual battle.  We meet the strong, resilient, sensitive and brave men and women of the armed services who do the fighting and the killing and the dying that we won’t do. (more…)

Before all of you Californians get upset, be sure to ask yourself… Is there anything being said in this video that’s untrue? Besides, Arnold is the one telling it like it is, so you’re beef is with the big Austrian… Not with me.

“If California goes, so does the rest of the country.” – Dear God, I hope not. (more…)

Today I got to meet the grown son of the man who gave me my first entertainment job in 1991. He said he was a big fan of Earthworm Jim and I told him there would be a very good chance my most famous character wouldn’t have existed without his dad.

Twenty years ago a retired lady bumped into me while I was in line to see “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” when she said, “Oh, you like to draw? You should come to the San Diego Comic Con. Here’s two free passes.” She came to my booth today and I gave her a big hug.

I had over ten young industry professionals who work in comics, animation and video games and tell me that they decided to learn to draw because they liked my work. An incredible 25-year-old Russian kid said that he was raised on a pirate version of my game, “The Neverhood,” I did with Dreamworks in the mid ’90s. I looked at his comic pages and he could draw better than I could. I drew a character for him and he gave up a tear. (more…)

LOS ANGELES – Millions of fans from around the globe gathered along Sunset Boulevard to pay final respects to California today, as a slow moving funeral procession transported the eccentric superstar state’s remains to its final resting place in a Winchell’s Donuts dumpster in Van Nuys. The self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop Culture’ died last week at 160, in what coroners ruled an accidental case of financial autoerotic asphyxiation. The death sent shock waves across the world and sparked an outpouring of grief by rabid fans.

“I don’t care what the tabloids and the Wall Street Journal say,” said a weeping Illinois. “I still love you, Cali!”

The 640-mile long funeral parade route was lined with flowers, candles, teddy bears, and IOUs from millions of mourners and debtors who made the somber journey to watch the passing of the state that had once ruled the box office and industrial charts. Among them were current chart-toppers who cited California as a key influence.

“If it wasn’t for California, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Arizona of Westside 3, the popular Sunbelt trio who recently benefited from the late state’s generous gift of fleeing taxpayers and businesses. As a tribute to their mentor, Arizona vowed the group would start spending money “like crack-addled hip hop stars.” (more…)

The “Terminator” films are about the takeover of the world by machines, and unfortunately the series has itself manifested that phenomenon, being increasingly taken over by special effects and action sequences at the expense of identifiable human concerns.

Terminator Salvation, the fourth film in the apocalyptic action series, is heavy on action and sensational visual effects, but weak on the things that originally made this series so popular. It will please audience members who don’t expect too much from it.

Terminator Salvation is the first in the series without Arnold Schwarzenegger as a primary character, and the series has moved increasingly away from the personal, intimate approach of the first installment (in which the fate of Sarah Connor was at the center of the story and her relationship with Kyle Reese is at the forefront). (more…)