‘A Dimension Not Only of Sight and Sound, But of Mind’

Fifty years ago this month the smartest television show of all time first aired. As a writer, I am a sucker for good writing. “The Twilight Zone,” as  Michael Anton recently wrote in his commemoration at National Review Online, is nothing if not a writer’s show. Modern sci-fi fans, caught up in dazzling special effects and action, lose sight of the fact that sci-fi, in its radio incarnations “X Minus One” and “Dimension X,” and its later television offerings such as “The Outer Limits” and “Doctor Who,” is the plaything of nerd scribes with creative imaginations. The megastars and big-budgets would come later. In the beginning, there were wordsmiths.

It’s telling that “The Twilight Zone’s” recurring character is not an A-list hearthrob but the diminutive, gap-toothed, akimbo-eared Rod Serling, the show’s chief writer. Rocky Balboa’s trainer, otherwise known as that bow-legged villian of Gotham, is the closest thing one gets to an actor associated with “The Twilight Zone.” Even the theme music steals the limelight from the actors.

A few years ago, I purchased the 28-disc “complete, definitive collection” spanning all five of the show’s seasons. I’m on season five, and I generally watch late on weekend nights after imbibing. The benefits to this are twofold: first, my imagination is more malleable then and, second, it enables me to enjoy the episodes a second time around without deja vu. (more…)

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Tags: " "The X Files, Burgess Meredith, Doctor Who, Michael Anton, Rod Serling
Posted Oct 31st 2009 at 2:41 pm in Featured Story, Television | 25148276 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dflynn/2009/10/31/a-dimension-not-only-of-sight-and-sound-but-of-mind/%27A+Dimension+Not+Only+of+Sight+and+Sound%2C+But+of+Mind%272009-10-31+21%3A41%3A01Daniel+J.+Flynn

Lonewolf Diaries: Shut Up and Do Your Job, Dipstick!

Entitlement. It’s a silly notion. Almost as silly as the idea of “homophobes” or the “whitey,” yet it is still an idea that permeates the minds of much of America’s lower and middle classes today. Truth be told, I’m getting really tired of being made to feel guilty for other people’s shortcomings. When will people stop playing the blame game, suck it up, grow a pair and take control over their own lives?

I was at the Houston airport the other day and I couldn’t find my baggage carousel. I asked the employee there where it was:

“What does it say on the screen?” he asked grumpily.

“Well, it says Carousel 2 but…”

“Then that’s what it is. You should be old enough to know that,” he said as he went off mumbling about how they weren’t paying him enough.  (more…)

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Tags: Burgess Meredith, entitlement, fighting, george clooney, hugh jackman
Posted Jul 7th 2009 at 6:17 pm in Lone Wolf Diaries | 178726151 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/scrowder/2009/07/07/lonewolf-diaries-shut-up-and-do-your-job-dipstick/Lonewolf+Diaries%3A+Shut+Up+and+Do+Your+Job%2C+Dipstick%212009-07-08+01%3A17%3A13Steven+Crowder

At 25, ‘The Karate Kid’ Still Packs a Punch

Looking back at The Karate Kid (1984), which turned twenty-five years old this week, a thought keeps recurring.

Wow. . . Avildsen made it work twice.

John G. Avildsen is, in some ways, a director of little distinction when compared with well-known marquee names like Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, and Tarantino. The vast majority of his movies are utterly forgotten by the average filmgoer — indeed, he’s been nominated for Worst Director at The Razzies three times. And yet, like Victor Fleming decades earlier with his twin successes The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind (both 1939 — read a great recent article on Fleming here), Avildsen has twice punched way above his weight, netting himself an Oscar for Best Director and giving birth to some of the most memorable moments in motion picture history. (more…)

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Tags: "Cruel Summer", "Sweep the Leg", Andrew Shue, Asians in Hollywood, Bananarama
Posted Jun 24th 2009 at 6:50 am in Entertainment | 1663063 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/06/24/at-25-the-karate-kid-still-packs-a-punch/At+25%2C+%27The+Karate+Kid%27+Still+Packs+a+Punch2009-06-24+13%3A50%3A07Leo+Grin

‘In Harm’s Way’: Imperfect Greatness on the High Seas

The United States Navy is in the news and on my mind lately. The events off the coast of Somalia are surely one very good reason for this. Heroism and service. Ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances. Another not nearly so dramatic, but nonetheless exciting reason, for me at least, involves the very recent honor I’ve had of contributing my prose to a citation to confer on Mr. George Herbert Walker Bush the degree of Doctor of Social Science, honoris causa.  His own history, his willingness to serve, to sacrifice and risk everything for a cause, for others, is something we should never underestimate. It’s something we, as Americans have always been good at.

It’s also something our movies used to portray well. We don’t get to see too many of these kinds of movies anymore. Nope, they don’t make them like they used to. That can be said of both the men and women of Bush 41’s generation, as well as the films of that era. But sometimes, in more recent times, we’re graced with shining examples of tarnished excellence, of battered beauty in our citizens and in our favorite art, the movies.    (more…)

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Tags: Blade Runner, Burgess Meredith, CG, Dana Andrews, fx
Posted Apr 16th 2009 at 5:33 pm in Military, Politics, Reviews | 105722No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smann/2009/04/16/imperfect-greatness-on-the-high-seas-of-history/%27In+Harm%27s+Way%27%3A+Imperfect+Greatness+on+the+High+Seas2009-04-17+00%3A33%3A32Schizoid+Mann