HOLLYWOOD’S NEWEST CRYBABIES: LEPERS … AND INDIA

It doesn’t bother me when crybabies crybaby. That’s what crybabies do, especially GLAAD and CAIR — two of the biggest, fascist crybabies in the history of crybabying.

What bothers me is that the politically correct cowards that run Hollywood only listen to certain crybabies. Southerners, Christians, stay-at-home-moms, Republicans, and pro-lifers continue to take hellacious beatings in all things pop culture. Everyone else is hands off at the first sound of a crybaby.

Those of us on the right can take a joke better than anyone; it’s being singled out by Hollywood cowards who pose as “edgy” that’s galling — the double standard.  Take us back to the good old days of “Blazing Saddles,” and we’ll never complain again.

It’s not satire when you’re singled out. It’s bigotry.

AMAZON PONDERS NEW CHALLENGE TO NETFLIX IN STREAMING MARKET

There’s a bigger story here than just this:

Ever since Netflix first alienated its consumers last summer with a price hike – ruining a perfect record of consumer satisfaction – the market seemed to open for new challengers. That door swung a bit wider after Netflix and Starz failed to agree to terms, further limiting the service’s movie offerings.

At the moment, Amazon has deals with the likes of CBS, Fox, Disney and NBCUniversal.

Hollywood is fighting streaming harder than they would ever fight terrorists and yet you have two of the biggest entertainment retailers on the planet — Netflix and Amazon — expanding this service. It was only a matter of time before someone stepped in to challenge Netflix Streaming, and Amazon is the perfect choice.

This is the future and Hollywood had better get its act together and figure out a way to monetize the future the best they can. Because what’s going to happen is quite simple: That which isn’t streamed will be ignored.

CAMERON DIAZ’S PLASTIC SURGERY

Unless it’s a compliment, I try to stay away from commenting on people’s looks. Weight, age, and the like has nothing to do with who someone is, and it’s hard to go there without brushing up against ad hominem. Beside, I’m no prize.

But as a film fan and someone who loves movie stars, this wave of unnatural-looking plastic surgery is a real problem. Though I would never do it myself, I’m all for people having the freedom to do what they want in order to extend a career or simply feel better. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when it gets to a point where it’s a distraction, that’s when it’s worth commenting on.

And it’s not just women. Mickey Rourke, Michael Jackson, and to a much lesser extreme, Michael Douglas have all  broken the on-camera spell with “work.”

The hardest hit for me was Courtney Cox in “Scream 4.” One of the most natural, girl-next-door beauties around today, and something about her is now … off. Real shame.

Plastic surgery is nothing new. A number of stars, like Rita Hayworth, were “created” by it, and who’s going to argue with those results?

What has changed, though, is how noticeable it’s become as stars have gone too far.

Hollywood is supposed to be more liberated and woman-friendly today, but more than ever these days, beautiful and successful actresses like Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith and the rest, have gone to extremes to avoid aging gracefully like their Golden Age counterparts did.

Hepburn, Crawford, and Davis might have had work done, but not to the point where what was done distracted. And yet, they and others enjoyed long careers well into their forties and fifties.

It’s just a fact that Hollywood is much more monstrous place for women today when compared to the studio system days run by male Republicans.

TRACY MORGAN IS BACK AT WORK, TAUNTING ALEC BALDWIN

More obsession from the clueless entertainment media over a show on one watches.

‘THE CROW’ REBOOT SNAGS NEW DIRECTOR AND WRITER

Though the sequels were unwatchable, the original starring the late Brandon Lee sure had its moments, and the production design did an especially impressive job of creating a foreboding mood and alternate universe that wasn’t completely foreign.

What really made the film work, though, is that when you boil the plot down, it’s a revenge fantasy — a vigilante story.

If they hang on to that element, it could work. But will they?

KATHERINE HEIGL STILL BEGGING FOR OLD TV JOB BACK

What a fall, and all of it self-inflicted.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Prime Suspect 2 (1992): The second in the series is, in my opinion, better than the first. Both feel a little dated with their openly sexist and racist characters, but in the end, this story of the search for the murderer of a teenage black girl examines race in a much more complicated way than what you’re originally led to believe.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

R.I.P. DICK TUFELD, VOICED THE ROBOT IN ‘LOST IN SPACE‘

NEW BEHIND THE SCENES PICTURE FROM ‘THE DARK KNIGHT RISES‘

FOR YOU INDIE FILMMAKERS: KEVIN SMITH WANTS TO HELP RELEASE YOUR MOVIES

PARAMOUNT BRINGS ‘RANGO’ BACK TO THEATERS FOLLOWING OSCAR NOMINATION

THE 20 WORST OSCAR NOMINATIONS OF THE LAST 20 YEARS (INCLUDING ‘CRASH’!)

MARG HELGENBERGER CLOSES HER FINAL CASE ON ‘CSI’

THE 10 MOST UNDIGNIFIED DEATHS IN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY

‘REAL STEEL’ DELETED SCENE FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STINGS LIKE A BOXING ROBOT

CONAN O’BRIEN AND THE LEGACY OF ERNIE KOVACS

FOX: SO FAR, SO GOOD FOR ‘ALCATRAZ’

MICHAEL BIEHN TALKS ABOUT HIS FIVE FAVORITE FILMS

CARTOON BREAK: 20 LIVE-ACTION FILMS WITH ONE ANIMATED SCENE

5 REASONS ‘FIREFLY’ WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET CANCELLED

4 FLAWED LIFE LESSONS MOVIES ACCIDENTALLY TAUGHT US

BEST USE OF FOOD IN MODERN CINEMA

11 MODERN ACTRESSES WHO’VE GOTTEN HOTTER WITH AGE

20 FACTS ABOUT ‘PLANET OF THE APES‘

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY,  JANUARY 26

TCM:

5:45 PM  EST: Harper (1966)  — A broken-down private eye sets out to find a rich woman’s missing husband. Dir: Jack Smight Cast:  Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris.  C-121 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format.

Imperfect but still interesting (and moody) detective drama salvaged by all that star power.  

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

In other words, had Weinstein’s movie been snubbed altogether, I think people would remember it more fondly than they do. If I recall correctly, no one was complaining much that the movie was nominated, but the win immediately changed the perception of the movie.

I loved a lot of movies released in 1998, but only one of them was nominated for Best Picture. It’s a very tough year for me to pick a favorite. The nominees:

“Shakespeare in Love” – Only saw it once, and I liked it. Costume dramas really ain’t my thing, but costume comedies? Well, that’s…wait, I don’t like them much either. But I guess this one’s alright.

“Elizabeth” – See above. Never seen it.

“Life is Beautiful” – Roberto Benigni winning Best Actor for this remains one of the great whiffs in Academy history.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The invasion sequence alone remains worth the price of admission.

“The Thin Red Line” – For my money, this is a pretentious mess. I’ve got a buddy who says it’s his favorite movie. I say he’ s trying to seem smart. But what do I know? I’m the guy who would have nominated…

“There’s Something About Mary” - Stalker? Big time.

“The Big Lebowski” - Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No, you’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an assh*le.

“Out of Sight” - You don’t have an extra clip I can use, do you?

“Rushmore” - Never in my wildest imagination did I ever dream I would have sons like this.

“Saving Private Ryan” - The Statue of Liberty is kaput. That’s disconcerting.

This is really an absolute squeaker. Why? Partially, it’s because I love all of these movies so much. But mostly, it’s because I’m stupid.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly established themselves with “Dumb & Dumber,” then made the box office bust “Kingpin,” which deservedly found an audience on video. No one expected much from their third movie. Leading man Ben Stiller was not yet a star or a box office draw, but he had honed the nervous stammering act of his in pretty solid comedies like “Flirting With Disaster” and turned in hilarious supporting work in “Happy Gilmore.” In 1998, he had a breakout year, appearing in the underrated “Zero Effect” and the misanthropic “Your Friends & Neighbors.”

Released in the middle of July, less than a week after “Lethal Weapon 4″ and just before “The Mask of Zorro,” the Farrelly’s comedy was a genuine word-of-mouth sleeper hit. It hovered in the lower half of the top five until the end of August, when it finally crept up to number 2 at the box office. First week of September, it claimed the number one spot — a full seven weeks after it debuted at number 4.

Its performance is part of the reason I pick it over the more obvious choices on the Academy’s list and my own list. I worked in a theatre at the time, and I witnessed the slow build. By September, older couples were coming to see the movie — and were loving it. The Farrellys had done something amazing; they had made a vulgar comedy that crossed over to people who would never see a vulgar comedy, much less embrace it.

The key to their success is the unconventional screenplay, and the cast.

Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz have been more than overexposed by now, but in 1998, they seemed like a breath of fresh air. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for a dude to get the girl more than I did in “There’s Something About Mary.” No one has ever deserved a girl who was so out of his league in the history of movies.

This is set up from the very beginning and then pounded into our heads, sometimes with subtlety and sometimes with the force of a sledgehammer to the nuts. The Farrellys make Ted (Stiller) go through hell to land dreamgirl Mary (Diaz); it’s a journey during which no good deed goes unpunished for Ted, and our heart sinks with his about a dozen times over the course of the movie. Consider:

- He comes to the aid of her mentally challenged baseball loving brother Warren (W. Earl Brown – fantastic performance) and almost gets his ass kicked for his trouble. He later gives the gargantuan Warren a piggy back ride.

- He shows up to pick up Mary for the prom and is told by her father Charlie (Keith David? Genius casting.) that Mary already went to prom with Woogie — a Mr. Everybody’s All American type from a different high school. Ted slumps, frowns, but what makes it UNBEARABLE is that he not only pretends that he’s not hurt by the jilting, but that he seems to think he deserves to be jilted. Of course, Mary’s dad is “just f*cking with” Ted, and Mary is home the whole time ready to go to prom with Ted.

- Ted offers Warren a baseball but inadvertently touches the big man’s ear; Warren goes psycho, tears the room apart and delivers a belly to belly suplex on Ted atop a coffee table. I love the  tension in the aftermath of this moment. Ted’s freaked out, Mary goes upstairs with Sheila, her hot mom (Markie Post), to fix her dress, and Charlie consoles Warren and barks at Ted. Ted defends himself, Charlie responds: “Are you yelling at me? Are you yelling at me in my own damn house?” Ted insists he’s not. Awesome. But the capper is when Ted asks where the bathroom is and Charlie answers, “Grrrrrrrrrrr!”

- The bathroom scene. One of the two most talked about scenes in the movie. “Franks & Beans!” Once again, a misconstrued situation — this time only a look, a glance, a harmless peek! — leads Ted into an uncomfortable situation. Perhaps the most uncomfortable situation in movie history. Sheila sprays Bactene on his nuts, a cop shows up (“What? The f*ck?” he exclaims), a fireman — pretty soon the bathroom’s packed with people and Warren is in the hallway screaming, “Franks & Beans.” If you don’t exit this scene with pee-stained pants from laughing yourself wet, there’s something wrong with you. More importantly, if you don’t exit this scene hoping Ted gets Mary, there’s something wrong with your soul.

- On Ted’s day off, he helps his boss’s brother move. Not his boss. Not his brother. His boss’s brother, who happens to be a crusty, mean, profane man in a wheelchair. Genius line: when Ted complains that a gigantic armoire is heavy, the guy in the wheelchair seethes, “Heavy?! What I wouldn’t give to know what heavy feels like, you insensitive prick!”

- He also, out of the goodness of his heart, offers a serial killer a ride, takes a fish hook to the mouth, and is made to dress up in a superhero costume. Nothing in the movie would have been as funny without our empathy for Ted. In “Mary,” the Farrelly Brothers dodge a landmine. She likes golf. She likes to drink beer and watch football. She likes to talk about football. In essence, she’s too perfect, and women should have rooted against her. But, using subtlety and a sledgehammer, the Farrellys make her vulnerable… to stalkers. She’s got so many stalkers she had to change her name. The only reason that Ted ever got a chance to go to the prom with her is because her high school boyfriend Woogie “got weird.” Like a stalker.

Ultimately, it’s my pick because from a pure story standpoint, it’s the most difficult of any of nominees (actual and in Cam-Land) to pull off — a comedy about stalkers that’s actually really sweet despite relentless vulgarity. Its unconventional-but-still-mainstream-and-not-weird structure (the romantic leads are apart for a good chunk of the movie — ask Gore Verbinski how hard it is to pull that off) makes it an even more difficult movie to pull off. But ultimately, it’s the constant barrage of jokes both verbal and visual, great characters and strong performances that make it my favorite movie of 1998.

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As “Teacher” begins, Halsey is saying goodbye to the elementary school that she has taught at for one year. The other faculty members give her a party to say goodbye, but Halsey can’t wait to leave so she can start living off her fiance’s money. However, when she arrives home, her fiance is waiting there with his mother (always a bad sign) and the mother/son duo soon call off the engagement. A few miserable months later, Halsey returns to the classroom where her students have nothing to fear except for the wrath of their professor.

While showing her class well-known films like “Dangerous Minds” and “Stand by Me,” Halsey focuses on one thing: earning or stealing enough money to buy breast implants so she can find a new man to take care of her. When someone informs her how profitable the school car wash is, Halsey jumps to the chance to wash cars in a way that might make Paris Hilton blush. Unfortunately for her, Halsey’s goals for stealing money on this and other occasions are undermined by Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), a teacher so unabashedly peppy that her students seem embarrassed for her. As the story continues, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), who says he’s pro-choice on everything except abortion, gets hired as a substitute teacher and Squirrel and Halsey begin fighting over him. In the meantime, the gym teacher (Jason Segel) desperately wants Halsey to go out with him.

Jake Kasdan, who previously directed the amusing comedy  “Orange County,” directed “Bad Teacher” with none of the heart of that earlier movie and a lot more vulgarity. However, the raunchy jokes don’t work here like they did in the box office hit “Bridesmaids.” “Bad Teacher” is more offensive than amusing and features several gross gags.

If ”Bad Teacher” was a three-act play, its first and its third acts (which rely on raunchiness) would be its weakest parts. The middle act, when Halsey decides to become an outstanding teacher to win a financial prize, is very funny. It’s too bad the movie didn’t use the same type of politically-incorrect but hilarious comedy throughout it. That would have made a decent, though hardly remarkable, film.

One of the greatest disappointments in “Bad Teacher” is its waste of a strong cast. Cameron Diaz does a wonderfully wicked job as the main character and Timberlake and Segel were well-chosen as supporting players.

Instead of seeing “Teacher,” I would recommend moviegoers rent the Bill Murray comedy “What About Bob?,” a film that “Teacher” often reminded me of. Both stories feature protagonists that may be unlikable in real life but who are fun to watch onscreen. Both stories also feature strait-laced characters who try to prove that the hero isn’t who he or she seems to be.

If Halsey was showing a classroom of students what great comedy looks like, she would show “Bob” and not the overly-raunchy but underwhelming “Bad Teacher.”

“Bad” tells the threadbare tale of Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz), who at the movie’s start is a foul-mouthed gold-digger who arrives home one day to find her wealthy fiance breaking up with her on the orders of his mother, who’s outraged that Elizabeth has burned through $16,000 of his money in a single month. Left without her financial lifeline, Elizabeth loudly wonders what she’s going to do to survive – and as the movie jumps four months into the future, we see that she has become a high school teacher who hates not only her fellow teachers but her students as well.

In fact, Elizabeth is so unwilling to do anything remotely educational that she merely orders her students to plug in the TV and DVD player each morning, and proceeds to show them movies about teachers, like “Stand and Deliver,” “Lean on Me,” and “Dangerous Minds.” While this idea is admittedly funny in split-second bursts as the students watch the films in slack-jawed befuddlement and wonder why they never seem to be given anything challenging to do, the running gag is also indicative of the lack of effort put in by “Bad” screenwriters Gene Kupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg; rather than putting in any effort into their script themselves, they’re content to kick back and allow viewers to elicit ironic chuckles at memories of much better films.

Elizabeth also smokes pot constantly, comes into work each morning with a hangover, and winds up caught in two battles for her attention. She sees rich new teacher Scott Delacorte (Timberlake) pull up in a fancy sports car wearing expensive duds and immediately throws herself at him, while deflecting the attentions of average-shlub gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel). Meanwhile, veteran teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) is a pristine-living perfect teacher who immediately seeks to bring Elizabeth and her wild ways down – particularly once she realizes that Elizabeth is conducting a series of financial scams to finance getting a set of giant new breasts.

Maybe this plot doesn’t sound too bad on paper, or seems like it at least could be passably funny amid the current vogue for raunchy R-rated comedies. But I’m an easy target for that brand of film, and rank flicks like “The Hangover” and “There’s Something About Mary” as some of my all-time favorites – and this still didn’t work for me. At
all.

In order for a comedy to be funny, the characters have to be taking a humorous swipe at some form of recognizable human behavior, as well as turn aspects of normal, everyday life upside down. But in “Bad Teacher,” the only character that is remotely likable or recognizable as a human being is gym teacher Russell, and in portraying him, Segel is appealing but left with the almost utterly thankless role of commenting on Elizabeth’s bad behavior and hoping he can find a way to show her he can make up for being broke by being fun.

Everyone else is such a garish, overplayed freak that it starts to feel like the writers and actors are engaging in a second-grade home movie version of what they think is a naughty comedy. Diaz is so brazenly obnoxious that she only briefly becomes sympathetic near the end, when someone at the film’s studio must have realized that they had to come up with some sort of happy ending to trick the audience into leaving with a vague sense of satisfaction.

Timberlake, meanwhile, is stunningly off-key as Delacorte, who is inexplicably a virgin without it ever being clearly stated whether this good-looking wealthy guy in his 20s is hyper-religious or has any other reason for his status. A scene in which he has a chance to have sex with Elizabeth and merely proceeds to “dry hump” her in various positions is so flat-out illogical that it can’t even be funny: what guy would possibly keep his clothes on in that situation?

And what were an established movie star like Diaz and a musical superstar like Timberlake thinking when they allowed themselves to be directed in one of the most stupid and awkward scenes ever committed to celluloid? Yet the scene is emblematic of the movie as a whole, which feels like one long dry hump: you keep thinking this is about to be fun, but never actually is.

And I haven’t even gotten to the music by Michael Andrews, who should be so ashamed at his alleged attempt at a score that he should immediately seek to have his name taken off the film if he ever wants to work again. Virtually the entire film is underscored by a series of heavy-handed, thumping keyboard sounds that hammer home each and every second that director Jake Kasdan desperately hopes he can trick the audience into laughing.

You might have noticed that I’ve mentioned the filmmakers’ names more than I usually do in a review. That’s because I’m trying to perform a public service: to either make viewers learn the filmmakers’ names so that they can avoid their work in the future, or at minimum, shaming those involved in making this mess so that they try a lot harder if they ever get a chance again.

Someone needs to teach everyone involved how to make a watchable movie. At least I have hope for the rest of the year in cinema, because things can only go up from here.

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Unfortunately, the rest of the movie speed-races downhill. The usually appealing stars—Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake, and the great Lucy Punch—are sadly miscast. And the ill-shaped script—by two writers whose only previous feature credit is the woeful Year One—constitutes an affront to the gods of plausibility.

Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a hot-tramp teacher at an Illinois middle school. Elizabeth arrives in her classroom in tight red sheath dresses, stiletto heels, and impenetrable black shades to hide her hangover eyes. She keeps bottles of minibar liquor in a desk drawer and smokes pot in the parking lot outside. She’s hostile and insulting to her fellow teachers, and her classes consist of screening DVDs for her puzzled students of old movies related to the subject of education. (We see her starting off with Stand and Deliver.) Her only goal in life is to snag a rich man to support her; so when her wealthy fiancé understandably dumps her, she decides that her sole hope of corralling a well-heeled husband is to purchase “a new pair of tits.”

If it need be said, Cameron Diaz, with her big sweet smile and her effervescent light-comic touch, is the last actress you’d expect to be playing such a grotesque and unlikeable caricature. (Even in our current era of out-of-control teachers unions, a wanton tart like Elizabeth wouldn’t last a day in any conceivable school.) A sleazy sexpot is far beneath her talents, and in any case she lacks the overblown physical equipment to be convincing in the part. As if anyone could.

Read the full review at Reason.

Relationship expert Cameron Diaz felt moved to share her opinions with the boys of Maxim magazine.  This time she said marriage is a “dying institution.” Ms. Diaz, who’s seen more home runs than her current beau Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez has seen in his whole career, said “I think we have to make our own rules.  I don’t think we should live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.”  

You remember Cameron – she’s the one who bragged about her promiscuity: “I can be attracted to a woman sexually, but it doesn’t mean I want to be in love with a woman. If I’m going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian. We put these restraints and definitions on people, but it’s hard to define.” 

Cameron Diaz was described by the international men’s magazine as a “rarefied creature even by Hollywood standards,” but to vulgarity aficionados Ms. Diaz is a woman full of “beauty, intelligence, and humor witha 4.0 in Potty Mouth.” Evidently, for consumers of “soft pornfor male adolescents,” Diaz’s coarse language elevates the ‘Vanilla Sky’ actress to the position of matrimonial philosopher and discerning harbinger of “new rules.” 

Summing up her marriage insights with advice that is sure to strengthen the fabric of society, theorist Diaz said: “Guys need women who challenge them and don’t let them get away with their s**t. Women, conversely, need to not be crazy bitches who blow up when their guys tell them something that scares them.” 

Diaz’s thoughts on traditional marriage were a perfect promotional segue for her new movie “Bad Teacher.” After demeaning a God-ordained institution, wanton schoolmarm Diaz set her sights on glorifying her role as a bawdy middle school teacher who probably makes child predator/stellar educators Mary Kay Letourneau and Debra LaFave both look like Teacher of the Year. 

“Lying seductively across a desk in a thigh-high miniskirt and red stilettos in a clutter-filled classroom,” Cameron graced the pages of the rude men’s magazine.  Referring to the movie “Bad Teacher,” the publication declares: “It’s not every day that one of the world’s biggest movie stars offers to fulfill your schoolboy fantasies. But then Cameron Diaz is not your average movie star… Miss Diaz, we’ve been bad, bad boys!” 

In the movie’s car washing scene, Cameron resurrects the spirit of the rather scandalous Van Halen hit single “Hot for Teacher.”  The 1984 video depicted a bikini-clad teacher parading around in front of a gang of lecherous, barely pubescent 7^thgraders who apparently had it ‘bad’ and were ‘hot for teacher.’  Twenty-seven years later, Diaz ratcheted it up a few notches with raunchy language, vodka-swilling and breast enhancements. 

In addition to dissing marriage, the not so angelic‘Charlie’s Angel’ continues to make her “own rules” and feels comfortable promoting a movie where she slithers all over a soapy car in hot pants during a car wash scene full of junior high school children.  Irreverent Diaz said the best part about the movie was that she enjoyed“being allowed to be rude to kids during the filming.”  Diaz joked, “The best thing was getting to abuse children, none of whom were harmed during the filming.” 

Ask Diaz about her romance with A-Rod: “It’s really awesome.” Her feelings on marriage: “Marriage hasn’t been important to me.”  On having children: “We don’t need any more kids. We have plenty of people on this planet.” 

Cameron Diaz is convinced that when it comes to marriage, family and education, “We should [not] live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.” Which means the world Cameron endorses is immoral, corrupt, disrespectful, and depraved. 

So there you have it – Cameron Diaz, is just another in a long list of left-wing Hollywood social engineers who seem to believe American society is bettered by way of morally bankrupt musings.

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire – class and glamour during Hollywood’s heyday

The term “movie star” used to mean a lot to the American public – glitz, glamour, excitement. It embodied an “other worldliness,” if you will, that took hard-working people away from the daily grind and gave them something thrilling and new to take their minds off of their troubles. An afternoon or evening at the movies really meant something then, and the stars who populated the silver screen lived up to the hype – publicly, anyway. This was due to the studio system. During the 1930s and ‘40s:

…the major studios groomed their stable for stardom by picking suitable vehicles that developed their personae—sophisticated comedy for Grant, intense melodrama for Davis, and so on. They also controlled the stars’ publicity, doling out digestible, often-erroneous tidbits on their personal lives for the fan magazines and gossip columns.

Once the studio system was broken, however, we began to see Tinseltown’s residents through a very different lens. Stars began to develop their own careers, making their own decisions and living with the consequences, both good and bad. And the press, which was once held at bay by the studio bigs, had much more access to celebrities. Television talk shows like The Tonight Show and Merv Griffin brought us even closer to our idols. They became…well, more like us, except with oodles more money, fancy cars, designer duds and entrée into exclusive clubs and resorts.

Which, of course, they are. Movie stars, celebrities, whatever you wish to call them, are “just like us,” with the same fears, worries, and issues about their love lives. The problem is, we don’t want them to be just like us. They are blessed with fabulous careers that bring them ever so much more than the average person can expect out of life. Think about it: how many of us can hop on a private jet to some exotic locale and have millions of people around the world waiting eagerly to read all about it in the celebrity rags? We want them to rise above the every day humdrum. We want glamour. We want excitement. We expect them to live up to the hype.

 
Brad Pitt looking more like a boxcar vagrant than one of Hollywood’s hottest men.

But these days, what do we get? Scandal upon scandal. Constant whining. Leading ladies pushing grocery carts outside of the supermarket. Leading men sporting very unattractive facial hair and looking like badly aging skater dudes. So-called celebrities who became celebrated not based upon any kind of talent, but because they figured out how to work the system. 

One word: blech.

I expect that many of BH’s commenters might take exception to the “we want glamour from our celebrities” theory, and it’s true that not everyone is enamored with the whole glitz and glamour aspect of the entertainment world. Fair enough. So let’s move on to something we can probably all agree upon: We want to be entertained. Whether it’s acting, singing or dancing, entertainers are paid to, well, entertain the masses. And those who have made it to the top of the heap are paid very, very well.

Remember, actors and musicians were, until perhaps a century ago, near the bottom rung of the social ladder. Men in high society had affairs with beautiful actresses and opera singers, but didn’t bring them home to meet mother and they certainly didn’t do anything so rash as to propose marriage to them.

 
Jennifer Aniston greets her rabid fans in Berlin.

But today, Hollywoodists are treated as close to royalty as one can get in American society. And what do we get in return for our admiration and hard-earned dollars that we spend at the movie theater or concert arena? Instead of focusing on what they’re paid to do, entertainers often want to use their very large public platform to “do some good in the world.” Sounds good, but too many of them seem to go about it in a way that’s insulting to the unwashed hordes without whom they’d still be just another waiter or dry cleaner attendant. Frankly, we get treated like a bunch of dumb hicks who wouldn’t know how to figure our way out of the proverbial paper bag. Environmentalism is one area in which celebs have invested themselves heavily. I’ve quoted him before, but it’s worth quoting Christopher Grey again on the topic:

Celebrities want attention, but they also want credibility because they typically don’t have any. Environmentalism is an easy cause for them to promote to get attention and at the same time appear somehow thoughtful and even educated because it is allegedly based on science. Of course none of this has anything do with reality, but this is the entertainment business. Reality is not important at all. Image is everything. Talking about recycling, stopping offshore drilling, solar power, and electric cars is a lot easier than really trying to do something for people in the world like feeding the hungry, helping abused children, or building houses for the homeless.

It also deflects attention from the obvious fact that celebrities are often some of the most wasteful, energy inefficient, materialistic, shallow, and superficial people in our society. A classic recent example was James Cameron, who talked about how his film, Avatar, was a shining example of environmentalism. Obama echoed this praise. This was the most expensive movie ever made about a war on an alien planet. What exactly about this movie helped to conserve resources or save our planet? The answer is absolutely nothing.

The emphasis on that first sentence is mine. Actors and actresses are not “rocket scientists.” Some of them do attain higher education, for what it’s worth – Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster come immediately to mind – but a good number of them are either high school or college dropouts. This obviously rankles, and they want to be more than just pretty faces. And so we’re told how great it is to live in cow dung huts and do our business in the jungle in a country where half the children are underweight and maternal mortality rates are high; treated to movies about how greedy and destructive human beings are by movie moguls who work in an industry that is one of the world’s biggest polluters; and in a mythical face-off with a giant robot, the “white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America” would be the first to go.

Nice.

 Cameron Diaz is inspired by cow-dung huts in Nepal – but not inspired
enough to move there and live in one.

Of course, don’t forget that if you don’t agree with Hollywoodists politically, you might as well shoot yourself now. If you don’t like the current administration, you’re a racist. If you live in Arizona and support the law that makes it harder for illegal aliens to pour across the border, they’ll punish you by boycotting your state – of course, they don’t live there. Perhaps some of them are has-beens doing it to get their names back out into the press. Whatever. Interestingly enough, there isn’t a boycott of Rhode Island, a state that has been doing what Arizona is trying to do since 2008.

In a nutshell: Americans don’t like being lectured by those who live in glass houses. We don’t like being lectured by people who, because they happen to make a lot of money without breaking into a sweat, behave as though they are more intelligent and more cultured than the rest of us. We don’t like being belittled by those who claim to represent us while they’re overseas. The death of the Hollywood star can, I believe, be partly put down to our being tired of their elitist attitude toward the public whose support makes their fabulously privileged lives possible.

There’s an old saying: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. And a newer one: Shut up and sing. And if you can’t manage that, don’t complain when your adoring public isn’t so adoring anymore.

As noted above, things start out at an airport where our two protagonists meet for the first time. They’re supposed to be on the same flight but plans change when an airline employee does not allow June onto the aircraft. Consoling her, Roy says, “Sometimes things happen for a reason,” right before he boards. However, a few moments later, June is invited back onto the plane to Roy’s surprise.

The plane takes off and after flirting with each other, June heads to the restroom and Roy — who is actually a government agent — is confronted by a number of  passengers who try to kill him. June returns from the bathroom and quickly realizes…actually, she doesn’t realize anything until Roy tells her, that the pilots are dead (supposedly, she’s too self-absorbed to notice the other passengers have been killed).

Eventually, Roy lands the plane and directs June to forget she met him. Soon enough, government agents are questioning her, and Roy has to come to her rescue. The movie continues from there as June starts working with Roy without knowing whether or not he’s lying about being set up for a crime he says he’s innocent of. It seems that Roy has been “framed” for wanting to steal a powerful battery. Roy and June spend most of the plot trying to avoid both the government agents Roy previously worked with and other individuals trying to steal the this battery.

Cruise does a great job with his role. He’s smooth and charismatic and once again the cool action hero. I especially enjoyed a scene in a diner (which was previewed in the film’s trailer) where Roy quickly ingratiates himeslf with a friend of June’s, while June is trying to warn this friend that Roy is crazy.

Unfortunately, I was less impressed with Cameron Diaz’s role. June could have been written as a stronger and more interesting individual. But she’s relegated to flighty and unlikable, like Katherine Heigl’s role in the recent disaster, “The Killers.”

Additionally, “Knight and Day” is scattered with uneven pacing. Jumping from scene to scene and from location to location, the story does not flow well. One second, the characters have been kidnapped and then a few seconds later they’ve escaped. In one scene they’re being attacked on an island while preparing to board a helicopter, seconds later they’re safe. I wish the movie had focused more on longer action sequences rather than cutting to new scenes without resolving the old ones.

“Knight and Day” is ultimately a big disappointment for those looking for a good time. Paul Dano, who briefly appears in the film, is wasted, along with Diaz, who deserves better. Cruise does some good work but that’s ultimately lost in unbelievable plot twists and frantic pacing.

“Knight and Day” is a disappointment no matter when you see it.

—–

When “Shrek” hit the world’s movie screens in 2001, it created a daring new standard for animated films seeking to balance entertaining children as well as adults, and drew outstanding reviews and more than $400 million in box office worldwide. “Shrek 2” scored even bigger with audiences, exploding to more than $900 million in ticket sales and placing it in the rarefied stratosphere of the highest-grossing films of all time.

But the magic started to wear off with 2007’s “Shrek the Third,” as the returns tumbled back down a couple hundred million or so. But that clearly didn’t worry the folks at Dreamworks, who now have trotted out Shrek and his band of eccentric friends and family and placed them in a richly 3D world without bothering to give the actual script much dimension as well.

Think back to the original “Shrek” and you’ll recall that aside from some of the best vocal work ever in an animated flick from stars (so many other animated films use stars to no real effect other than box office curiosity) , and a wickedly funny non-stop lampooning of Disney films and fairy tales, it also had a rousing and expertly done adventure tale involving Shrek and Donkey fighting off a dragon to save Princess Fiona.

The second film has plenty of fans, including some who like it even better than the first, but it kept the laughs without as much adventure, since Shrek mainly had to contend with having royalty as family and the personality conflicts that situation provided. Opponent-wise, the Fairy Godmother tried to upend his love life by attempting to use potions and trickery to get Prince Charming to marry Princess Fiona instead of Shrek.

“Third” featured Shrek mainly facing the dilemma of whether to become an heir to the throne of Fiona’s family or go back to his simpler beloved life in the swamp. There was way too much sappy dialogue and not nearly enough funny moments and action to stir viewers on the same level as before.

And that is a problem made even worse in the new film, in which Shrek feels trapped by domestic life and is so desperate to cut loose as an ogre again for just one day that he signs a deal with the ruthlessly magical Rumpelstiltskin for just that purpose. But there’s always a catch in a fairy tale deal, so the twist this time is that Shrek has to give up a different day of his life in exchange for gaining the day he desires – and he accidentally gives up the day he was born.

This, of course, sets off ramifications throughout Shrek’s world, somehow not killing him but forcing his entire life and all his relationships to turn out completely different and much, much darker and sadder. Along the way to setting things right, there are a few slapstick set-pieces, but as with far too many of the current wave of 3D films, things seem to get frenzied solely to create a whiz-bang effect rather than to create genuine wonder or comedy.

Ultimately, “Shrek Forever After” gets trapped in maudlin sappiness, becoming a drawn-out examination of Shrek’s life and an appreciation of family rather than regaining the anything-goes anarchic spirit that spawned the series in the first place. With Diaz and especially Murphy being underutilized in comparison to the prior series editions, this feels like a paycheck more than a creative endeavor.

Just hope this is the last payday in the series and leave us with our happy memories of the first two.

The film is set in the mid-1970s and the lead couple, Arthur and Norma Lewis, are played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz. He works for NASA and she’s an elementary school teacher. They’re a relatively boring couple with one son  The movie begins with the doorbell ringing very early in the morning and the couple finding the box on the doorstep. Mrs. Lewis learns more about the box from Arlington Steward, played by Frank Langella, the mystery man who dropped it off. The young couple has recently faced some disappointing news about their jobs and the financial benefits of pushing the button are obvious to both of them, even though their financial situation has not been detailed enough to show a compelling desire for them to lean towards pushing the button at the expense of another person’s life.

Whether or not to push the button is the psychological dilemma that the characters are faced with. Will they choose to benefit themselves at the expense of a stranger’s death? Will the button really cause a person’s death, and if they push it not believing in the consequences are they still accountable for it?

It is, after all, just a button. In a box.

Unfortunately, though, the debate about these issue is over rather quickly. Instead of focusing on the reasons behind making either choice, a decision is made hastily. The movie then becomes about the consequences of the decision rather than the choice itself, which would have been a far more interesting concept to explore.

From the decision about the button until the end of the movie, the film explores the repercussions that come from the couple’s choice. Once that choice is made, the movie quickly trends into a surreal and strange journey too bizarre for viewers to care much about. The premise of the movie comes with enough questions to last for the rest of the film, but instead of slowly answering them and raising the stakes on the choice, the movie instead takes the audience into an even stranger world that involves lightning strikes, identity loss, and zombie-like behavior. These odd events keep occurring without a full or clear explanation.

Also, because the movie starts off quickly, there is very little time to develop the lead characters and their status in life. From then on, it is hard to understand their actions and motivations and to empathize with their plight. We know the couple faced frustrations at the workplace and obviously a million dollars would be beneficial, but who are these people before they receive the box is a question never asked. Since the box comes into play so early in the movie, the characters are often doing and saying things that revolve around it.

Overall, I did like the premise of the movie and I was intrigued when I saw the commercial. However, if you expect a psychological thriller about a strange choice and how a couple makes it, you’ll be sorely disappointed. This movie focuses on the less interesting consequences of the choice and the weird and paranormal nature of those consequences.

The movie had a lot of promise on the outside but on the inside, viewers will quickly learn how shallow this box really is.