Semper Films: The Top Ten Marine Corps Movies

The men and women who earn the right to wear eagle, globe and anchor of the United States Marine Corps are a special breed.   To those outside the Corps, they talk funny.  They look funny.  They are extremely impressed with themselves – and they have every right to be. 

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies: (more…)

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Tags: 55 Days at Peking, a few good men, aaron sorkin, Adam Baldwin, Al Mathews
Posted Nov 10th 2009 at 9:41 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Military | 260006166 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/11/10/semper-films-the-top-ten-marine-corps-movies/Semper+Films%3A+The+Top+Ten+Marine+Corps+Movies2009-11-10+17%3A41%3A33Kurt+Schlichter

Megan Fox: Another Nail in the ‘Movie Star’ Coffin

There have been liberal movies stars for as long as there have been movie stars. The list of left-of-center Golden Age-era giants is a mile long. My admiration for an actor has ZERO to do with personal politics, but as Skip Press pointed out in his terrific piece last week, class is a big factor. Many of the greats didn’t share my beliefs, but few ever went out of their way to hurl insults at me and mine, either. Undoubtedly, someone could Google up a statement that contradicts me, but I would argue in return that human beings slip, even big-screen immortals. What can’t be argued is that once upon a time movie stars walked the earth who defined themselves, not with elitist, flame-throwing political rhetoric, but with dignity and class.

 
Sinatra and Ava for Democrat Adlai Stevenson

Where classic Hollywood mostly held their activism to advocating for their causes, too many of today’s classless breed defines their activism through the hurling of invective at the other side - at 50% of the customers. They do it up on the screen and they do it while hiding behind a Hollywood media-machine owned and operated by sycophants who mostly agree. There’s nothing wrong with passion, humor, disagreement and debate, that’s what Big Hollywood is all about, but ad hominem that dehumanizes is the tactic of a new generation eager to fit in with the A-list.   (more…)

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Tags: ava gardner, hollywood, megan fox, Paul Newman, Politics
Posted Jun 8th 2009 at 3:52 pm in Celebrity News, Politics | 1548266 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/06/08/megan-fox-another-nail-in-the-movie-star-coffin/Megan+Fox%3A+Another+Nail+in+the+%27Movie+Star%27+Coffin2009-06-08+22%3A52%3A44John+Nolte

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner Shoot Out the Night

Ava Gardner, publicity photo for The Killers

The love affair—and I’m using that term loosely—between Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra was doomed from the start. Both stars were emotionally immature with little impulse control. Both were alcoholics, and both had a history of affairs with equally unstable partners.

And so The Voice and The Shape plunged into a tsunami of a relationship and a six-year marriage (1951 – 1957) punctuated by unbridled passion, threats of suicide, and metronomic doses of violence.

In Autumn of 1949 Gardner and Sinatra, not yet lovers, were both guests at the Palm Springs home of producer Darryl F. Zanuck. The liquor flowed, and the two stars locked in on each other like lethal missiles.

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Tags: ava gardner, firearms, Frank Sinatra, hollywood, Love Affairs
Posted Apr 27th 2009 at 12:32 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment | 1174502 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/04/27/frank-sinatra-and-ava-gardner-shoot-out-the-night/Frank+Sinatra+and+Ava+Gardner+Shoot+Out+the+Night2009-04-27+19%3A32%3A42Robert+J.+Avrech

TCM Pick O’ The Day: Sunday, January 25th

5am PST – Show Boat (1951) – Riverboat entertainers find love, laughs and hardships as they sail along “Old Man River.” Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown Dir: George Sidney C-108 mins, TV-G

“Show Boat” is all about Ava Gardner, who was so much more than just a pretty face. Here, as the victim of racial prejudice, or films such as “On the Beach” and “Night of the Iguana,” she was able to put across a tragic-laced melancholy that transcended her beauty and added an entire dimension to a character without a word of exposition.  The above clip is a perfect example. Ava’s singing voice may be dubbed but she sells the moment like few others could. I gotta love one man till I die… (more…)

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Tags: ava gardner, dubbed voice, show boat
Posted Jan 24th 2009 at 1:15 pm in Today's Pick | 2982517 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/01/24/tcm-pick-o-the-day-sunday-january-25th/TCM+Pick+O%27+The+Day%3A+Sunday%2C+January+25th2009-01-24+21%3A15%3A17John+Nolte