On July 4th, Declaration Entertainment, our grassroots film-financing company dedicated to making movies that champion traditional American values, celebrated our one year anniversary by beginning pre-production on our first feature-film, “The Arroyo”.

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Readers of Big Hollywood have been a giant part of what has allowed Declaration Entertainment to gain momentum this year, and so we put together this behind-the-scenes glimpse at one of our action sequences just for you.

“The Arroyo” centers around the lawlessness on the southern American border and one man’s attempt to defend his land and his family when the government simply won’t live up to its obligation. It is an inherently conservative story about rugged individualism and personal honor, but more than anything it is an entertaining, action packed modern western.

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A really good movie trailer can get its hooks so deep in you that you actually find yourself – a grown adult with actual responsibilities in life – carrying around two months worth of excitement for what promises to be a great two hours.

When that happens, disappointment is almost sure to follow. Hollywood promises are almost always empty promises.

So it is with the kind of frustration born of over a month of lying to ourselves about ‘this time being different’ that we take a look at the feature film “Hanna” on Take a Movie to Work at Declaration Entertainment.

Of course, it’s not all bad. This isn’t a Roland Emmerich movie after all. The first twenty minutes of Hanna are fabulous. The film opens in the bleak, barren wilderness of arctic Finland where a wild-looking young girl – Hanna – stalks a caribou through the frozen woods. The remoteness of the setting is accentuated perfectly by the utter lack of score or dialogue. When Hanna looses her hand-made arrow, the only sounds are hoof beats and panting.

As Hanna cleans her game, a man appears behind her. “You’re dead,” he says, “I’ve killed you.” A moment later, Hanna charges the man in a no-holds-barred fight that might leave either of them dead.

The man is Hanna’s father, Erik Heller – played by the always capable Eric Bana – a former operative for the CIA who has brought his charge to this rural wilderness to raise her, off the grid, and train her to be a self-sufficient, multi-lingual, brutal assassin. While the relationship is built on struggle, the love the two share for each other is palpable.

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Every once in a great while, for reasons largely unknowable by mere mortals but which are certainly more likely related to dumb luck or Mercury being in retrograde than to anything driven by economics, Hollywood gets it right. From the recent “Battle: Los Angeles” to “Iron Man” or the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Hollywood does, occasionally, capture the values and spirit that have made America and the west ascendant and free.

They just can’t be counted on to do it on purpose or with any consistency.

But what happens when our elite betters get their hands on a property, an underlying work, champions western values? A project so infused with pro-military, pro-Republican, and pro-civilization ethics and themes that they simply cannot be denied?

The answer is: They turn it into 1997’s farcical, self-hating flop: “Starship Troopers,” which Bill Whittle discusses on this week’s TAKE A MOVIE TO WORK segment at Declaration Entertainment.

In his 1959 novel, Robert Heinlein celebrates the idea of the Republic – a nation where the citizen holds supreme power. Like our Founding Fathers, who call for a Republican – and not a democratic – government in the Constitution, Heinlein sees direct democracy as an untenable form of government where the mob rules, voting themselves more and more power and resources at the expense of the perpetual “other.” (more…)

The entire leftist, elitist entertainment media agrees: “Battle: Los Angeles,” the new alien invasion flick from director Jonathan Liebesman, is not worth your time.

So clearly, you have got to go see this movie!

On the most recent addition of Take A Movie to Work over at Declaration Entertainment, Bill Whittle discusses the importance of this terrific action movie, which – MOST SHOCKING, EXHILARATING SPOILER ALERT OF ALL TIME – makes American soldiers, the best people our society has to offer, look like THE BEST PEOPLE OUR SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER!

Missing are all of the clichés we have come to expect from movies that depict our fighting men and women. There are no brooding loaners bemoaning the futility of war, no racist loud-mouth adrenaline junkies itching to kill anything they don’t understand, the troops aren’t victims of nefarious political posturing or trying to steal from the third-world…

Even the relationship between Aaron Eckhart’s battle-hardened Staff Sergeant Nash and the fresh-faced, just-out-of-school, naive Lieutenant is respectful and authentic. When the Lieutenant breaks down from his first exposure to the chaos of battle, there is no condescending moment of the wise-old enlisted man rising up to take command. Instead, Eckhart reminds the younger man of his responsibility, pulls him out of his own head, prompts him to make a decision, and then says “Yes sir.”

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What does Al Gore have to do with Robbie the Robot?

Well, we started Declaration Entertainment because we believe that politics is downstream of culture; that like all cultures, we get our values and morality from our mythology – and in 20th and 21st century America, our mythology mostly comes to us through the movies. So we thought we’d start a little video segment called ”Take a Movie to Work,” where we pick apart a movie and find out some of the lessons it is trying to teach us, under the actual plot.

We started with an all-time classic: MGM’s 1956 classic, Forbidden Planet”.  You can watch the video at DeclarationEntertainment.com.

You see, if you think trillions of dollars of deficit spending is not the path to financial stability, if you think East Anglia may not have your best interests at heart when they fabricate global temperature statistics from whole cloth, if you believe that the Commerce Clause does not give the government the right to govern commerce – much less your very thoughts, then chances are you have been informed by the left that you are simply not intelligent enough to understand your own interests.  Fortunately for you, your betters in the government are happy to understand these things for you.

From priests and kings to scholars and journalists, elitists of every stripe have always believed that they knew better how to order society than society – which when free has always been perfectly capable of ordering itself.  Everywhere we look, this meme is reinforced, nowhere more so than in Hollywood.  But that has not always been the case.  There was a time when the movies championed wisdom and individualism above knowledge, good intentions, and collectivism.

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RightNetwork strikes again, this time with an original, entertaining and informative political talk show. “Politics and Poker” combines a round-table discussion with the laid-back atmosphere of a friendly card game, and it’s a combo sure to draw an audience. 

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According to the show’s tagline, “Politics and Poker” will give viewers the opportunity to “get inside the minds of some of today’s most relevant actors, comedians, politicians, and pundits as each week we invite guests to play cards and talk shop. The poker winnings may go to charity, but the banter is a battle for the hearts and minds of America.” 

Each show focuses on a five-man card game, where each player gets to pick the type of poker and the topic of discussion for the round they deal. And it supports charities. The winner of each game wins a thousand dollars for the charity of their choice. See who won when you watch the first episode for yourself.  (more…)

This past week, the Stage Right Show (below the fold) featured a great line-up of guest hosts because I was travelling on a cruise ship and unable to broadcast.  Guest hosts included Adam Baldwin, Mike Rauseo, Billy Hallowell, Ben Shapiro and Eric Porvaznik.  And, the interviews on this week’s highlight show include Bill Whittle, Jeremy Boering, Kevin Jackson, Dana Commandatore, Jason Mattera, John Nolte and Andrew Breitbart. (more…)

It’s that time of year again.  If you’ve got a leftist in your family, you can forget enjoying a familial celebration of the blessings bestowed upon you and your country.  If you’re white, you’re particularly guilty.  If you’re black like Zo, you’ll be referred to as nothing more than a “house negro” as seen in the YouTube comments section. The liberal Thanksgiving motto is as follows: Starve and be un-merry!

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So many of us in the business know people who have been overseas to help entertain the troops, and the luckiest among us have actually had the experience ourselves. I’m proud to have moved from Category A to category B this last week, when I was able to spend five days down at Guantanamo Bay.

There’s a lot to talk about. But the thing that struck me hardest was the fact that even though I expected to be blown away by our men and women in uniform, I really had no idea of just how far my high expectations would be exceeded. The competence and discipline I took for granted going in. It was the soldier’s generosity that kept knocking me on my butt. (more…)

What is going on in America? How is that we have elected our first half black, half white president and race relations seem to be getting worse? Could it be that no matter what we do the color of one’s skin will always be a factor in the way someone judges us?  I was recently judged on Facebook not only by the color of my skin but by the fact that my name has an “Mc” in it by none other than Isaiah Washington. (Yes the same Isaiah Washington that was let go from “Grey’s Anatomy” after making a gay slur on set and offending his cast members. Click the link in case you forgot about this. Isaiah Washington apologizes.

First of all, a little history. I’m a Facebook friend of Isaiah Washington’s and added him because we were in the film “Clockers” together. I had a very small part but seeing him work I knew how dedicated and talented he was and wanted to keep up with his career. I think he has quite a few fan/friends like myself. But I’m also deeply concerned about the direction race relations are going in our country and when he posted this article on on his page I clicked through and read it with great interest.

After reading Mr. Washington’s link I posted a reply link to Bill Whittle’s  PJTV segment “The Great Liberal Narrative. The Truth about the Tyranny of Political Correctness,” and then added this note for Mr. Washington: (more…)

I know the video isn’t as “funny” (i.e.: immature) as many of my previous installments, but when you get incredible dames like Ann Coulter to take part, it pays to not tarnish their good names with my shennanigans.

In all seriousness, I’d encourage all of you to take an active role.  Create a video response or leave a comment. We’re all in this together people… Gosh, even I thought that sounded cheesy. (more…)

I consider myself to be a man with my priorities in order.  That’s why I’m so satisfied with the mainstream media’s ability to cover all of the right affairs.  Let’s face it, Iran will always be a quagmire.  Let’s put them on the backburner and “bear witness.” North Korea? … Eh.  Perez Hilton getting punched in the face by the black guy from The Black-Eyed Peas?  There’s your cover story right there.

Note: No gratingly bitchy men were actually harmed during the making of this video.

I was sitting in my dentist’s office a few weeks ago, and there on the side table was the Star Trek issue of Newsweek with some kid’s hand holding up a model USS Enterprise against the sun. 

Now I haven’t opened an issue of Newsweek in years, although I have to admit that Evan Thomas is a valuable – actually, essential – addition to society. He forgets to speak his true mind only among his friends, you see, and that gives us a little insight into what these media elites actually believe. He recently said that Barack Obama looked to him like a god, a man above petty things like “America.” 

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It was Evan Thomas who in 2004 admitted that liberal media bias was good for fifteen points at the polls. (That was for John Kerry. If you take away Obama’s 15 points of bias – I suspect is was much more — he would have won Vermont and the District of Columbia and that’s all he would have won – but I digress.) 

Anyway, the Newsweek cover showed the outline of the Enterprise – without the nacelle caps. Whoever made the model for the cover forgot to put them on. It was obvious to me from across the room, but then, that’s the kind of accuracy I have come to expect from Newsweek. And I digress yet again.  (more…)

What an exhilarating week. Big Hollywood is finally up. Traffic is way better than expected.

Greg Gutfeld is posting his wondrous inanities and many pointed yet not vitriolic salvos have been launched against the intransigent Hollywood left and vital ones aimed at the right — for forfeiting culture to the opposition. Movie and television reviews and historical treatises abound, and we’re even breaking news.

John Ziegler launched a massive story where Sarah Palin unleashed on the media for treating her so unfairly. It is easily the mainstream news media story of the week. Big Hollywood is the site to go to for the inside scoop on Ziegler’s forthcoming documentary, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected“.

Actor-singer-songwriter Joe Lima in a timely fashion came to bury Guevara, but also put usually reliable director Steven Soderbergh in his place for wasting so much studio money and movie watchers’ time with the execrable, “Che.”

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