—–

Mark Wahlberg is a Roman Catholic who goes to church every day to pray to be a better servant of God, a better man.

Refreshing, to say the least.

In an interview on the Catholic cable channel EWTN, Estevez joked about the horror of making the pitch for this movie about a pilgrimage – no massive special effects, no parade of gore or bedroom scenes with nudity. It’s just an old man hiking across Spain with three people he meets along the way. It’s a small movie, made on a small budget. It’s about our humanity and our spirituality. It’s so easy to imagine Tinseltown’s eyes glazing over.

—–

But what Estevez said in that interview was still striking. “Hollywood is a very difficult place to be earnest and be heartfelt. And I am not interested in making films that are anything but. There’s a lot of vulgarity in films. There’s a lot of violence, casual sex – things that make me uncomfortable watching – and I’m not interested in perpetuating that message.”  …

Here’s how “The Way” unfolds. Sheen’s character, California ophthalmologist Tom Avery, is a widower who’s been angry at his son’s decision to forego a graduate degree to wander the world. While Avery’s out on the golf course, a French policeman calls to tell him his son has died in a storm in the Pyrenees. When Avery arrives to identify the body, the policeman tells him about the “camino,” and he resolves to travel the route with his son’s cremated remains. On this very long walk, he finds companionship with a burly Dutchman who wants to lose weight, an Irish writer with writer’s block, and a bitter Canadian woman trying to quit smoking – and ultimately rediscovers his lost faith.

The movie is beautiful travelogue of the sites along the route, from mountain vistas to beautiful old cathedrals. It’s a great backdrop for a subtle human story. After the Canadian woman cynically suggestes Sheen’s character is there to march on a self-absorbed baby-boomer journey to a James Taylor soundtrack, she’s embarrassed to learn the truth. Later she admits her own dark troubles. She was a battered wife and is haunted by an abortion she underwent because she didn’t want her husband to have two females to brutalize. She says she can hear her daughter’s voice. Estevez explained, “We give voice to the unborn, and again, that is another thing Hollywood doesn’t necesssarily celebrate.”

Full piece here. Below is an interview Estevez did withLaura Ingraham:

What the formerly relevant singer said is not surprising, but then again, it’s never surprising to hear a celebrity disparaging Christianity. Remember this gem from Rosie O’Donnell?

I have news for Hollywood. It’s not risque to attack Christians, and it’s long been a cliché even for our side to say it’s overdone. If you want to be risque, attack Islam, atheists, or agnostics. My husband is a cradle Catholic (meaning raised Catholic), and he says most of these attacks just roll off his back. Most don’t offend or bother him anymore because it’s simply become the norm. But that doesn’t mean it should be ignored or criticism should be spared for trite offense-mongering like Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” video.

If you don’t want to watch the video, I understand. Lady Gaga is dressed in a blood red habit and swallows a rosary. This desecration of the rosary is offensive to Catholics because of our veneration (not worship) of Mary, mother of God. The director of the video claims Lady Gaga just wanted to take in the Holy. As a lifelong Catholic, Miss Gaga should know better than that, and if she wanted to “take in the Holy,” there are ways of doing it that won’t cause as many digestive problems, like attending Mass and taking Communion.

Anyway, this scene is interspersed with shots of her in a white robe with crosses on it, an obvious take on the Catholic Saint Joan of Arc. Her male dancers are all over her and she eventually can’t resist so she turns around, rips off the robe, and lets the men sexually devour her. Joan of Arc was a brave woman and has become a very popular and well-loved saint in the Catholic church. To use her imagery in this way is in inexcusably poor taste, not to mention completely unnecessary. There are no lyrics in the song to justify its video’s blatant disrespect for Catholicism.

Beyond the music world, Christian-bashing extends to television both on and offscreen. If you haven’t read Ben Shapiro’s book Primetime Propaganda, buy it now. In his chapter “The Clique,” he brings up Patricia Heaton, an incredibly talented actress who also happens to be conservative and a devout Christian. Mark Harris, a former executive editor of shows like “The Office,” expected to hate “The Middle” because Heaton was its star. Of course, since Ms. Heaton is a conservative, that means the show has to be conservative, right? Wrong! Mr. Shapiro also reveals that in 2006, Kathy Griffin did an interview with the National Enquirer (because when you want to be taken seriously that’s where you go for an interview) and said Ms. Heaton grosses her out because she says it’s not in the Bible gays should not be together, and “those are pieces of information I can’t forget about.” Mr. Shapiro correctly states Ms. Heaton has never said anything about gay marriage.

And Hollywood’s distaste for Christianity carries over to the big screen, as shown in this article about the movie 2012. One of the film’s characters, the Italian Prime Minister, is shown as foolish because his reaction to global natural disasters is prayer. We all know praying is stupid and doesn’t work! Then, director Roland Emmerich portrays the destruction of Christian symbols around the world. First the Sistine Chapel, then St. Peter’s Basilica falls on the faithful in St. Peter’s square (See? Praying doesn’t work), and finally the famous Christ the Redeemer’s statue in Brazil. But wait! The Muslims praying at Kaaba (the heart of Mecca) miraculously don’t see their holy site destroyed! That’s because Emmerich was talked out of it by his co-writer because of the Fatwa issued on the Danish cartoonists who satirized Mohammed. But Emmerich has justified destroying Christian symbols because he’s against organized religion. Isn’t Islam an organized religion? Of course other famous landmarks could have easily been destroyed, but they weren’t shown. That’s because in Hollywood, it’s still somehow considered edgy, politically incorrect, and crazy to attack Christians, despite all the decades it’s already been done to excess.

And social media has given Hollywood bigots a brand-spanking new platform for insulting their audience. Just last week, actor David Krumholtz took to Twitter to attack Christians, mainly Mormons and Catholics (surprise, surprise!). He’s upset because the Parents Television Council called for the cancellation of his show “The Playboy Club” because it degrades women. The PTC said not everything they talk about is reported (which is true). Mr. Krumholtz, devoid of any justification for “The Playboy Club”’s objectification of women, claimed the PTC should also call out the Mormon and Catholic faiths for their many years of degrading women. Um, what? How would their organization — centered around television content — be better off cleaning up these faiths? Mr. Krumholtz changed his tone when Jay Caruso asked how the Catholic faith degrades women. Krumholtz instead brought up another red herring, the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic church.

Allow me to pause and provide a tidbit of education for Mr. Krumholtz. The Catholic Church has addressed the sexual abuse cases he referred to and is working extremely hard to make sure it never happens again. But why judge the entire Catholic faith on those few sick, disgusting men who did those awful things to innocent children? There are far more good priests and Catholics than bad ones, yet Krumholtz, bitter about his show’s lackluster ratings (it has since been cancelled), couldn’t help but overlook that obvious fact for some cheap haranguing.

Consider this social media episode compared to how liberal Hollywood gets upset when people make judgments about Islam based on individuals who did awful things to innocent civilians. Somehow, it’s okay to make absolute judgments on a Christian faith based on a few bad seeds but not Islam? Got it. Last time I checked, Islamic cultures are also very degrading towards women. At least Catholics and Mormons don’t stone women to death for being raped or whip them for driving cars.

All these examples go to show, if you’re an up-and-coming entertainer, you can be truly controversial if you attack Islam, atheists or agnostics, or maybe — just maybe — declare your love for Jesus. However, if you wish to work your way into the industry’s upper echelons, it appears you must conform to the ingrained, cowardly hatred for Christendom that’s defined Hollywood for decades.

Mel Gibson’s decision to make a biopic of the Jewish religious icon Judah Maccabee is the latest twist in the star’s long, tortured history with the Jewish community.

In a May 2003 interview with National Catholic Reporter Jesuit Fr. William J. Fulco, who translated the script into Aramaic and Latin, assured the nervous Jewish community, “In no way do I experience it as offensive to Jews or anyone else.”

But as Gibson began to screen the film to selected Catholic and Jewish leaders, accusations of anti-Semitism sounded louder and louder in the media. Unhappy with the film’s tone towards the Jewish people and their culpability in the crucifixion of Jesus, leaders such as New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

Eventually, Twentieth Century Fox passed on picking up the film, now titled The Passion of the Christ and it was distributed by indie company, Newmarket Films.

Full story here.

1. The film is based on an old and well known Jewish joke. So old is the joke that I actually heard this back in high school when I was a student at the Brooklyn Talmudic Academy.

2. A certain segment of orthodox Jewish men wear black suits and black hats only. Think of it as a regulation uniform. Why? The most common explanation is that black signifies mourning and the Jewish people are still mourning the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Also—and this is just my personal opinion—black is, y’know, slimming.

3. Be sure to watch the film all the way through the credits. Enjoy!

]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2011/07/04/america-the-melting-pot-jewish-catholic-short-film-to-cleanse-the-palate/feed/ 18 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmoriarty/2010/06/30/catholics-vs-communists/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmoriarty/2010/06/30/catholics-vs-communists/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:51:19 +0000 Michael Moriarty http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=368202 The Great Catholic Scandal!

Hmmm … does this really have to do with child abuse or, to use the Reagan perspective, are these arrests and possibly further imprisonments of high level Catholic authorities “bargaining chips” to convince the Catholic Church that her ban on abortion should be … how shall I say … “seriously reconsidered?”

All is politics these days … and all will be used to further the political game.

However, considering the Catholic Church’s major hand in overturning the Polish Communist State, the “game” is decidedly beyond politics.

The increasingly deadly Game has been a not-so-Cold War for quite some time.

Unfortunately, it is now not only Catholics versus Communists.

It is the Catholic Church versus the entire Progressive New World Order.

Versus the European Union’s Socialism.

Versus Russia’s neo-Soviet allegiance with Red China.

It is basically the Catholic Church versus the World.

Not even America is an ally of either Israel or the Catholic Church.

America is no longer, as the President has repeatedly declared by word and deed, a Judeo-Christian Civilization.

It is clearly and merely a part of the Progressive New World Order.

As I’ve said before, America gave up any substantive resistance to the very Marxist New World Order when her Supreme Court passed the Roe v Wade decision 37 years ago.

In Europe, however, the Catholic Church has refused to condone abortion or euthanasia.

America’s collapse to the first stage of Communism, which is Socialism, was insured when the Nixon/Kissinger Presidency not only collapsed before Vietnamese Communists in Paris but when its Supreme Court – bipartisan, mind you – instituted legalized abortion.

America not only gave up the territorial fight, it surrendered in the spiritual war as well.

We not only lost the geographic battle, we lost the moral high ground as well.

I consider Kissinger, without question, the single most valuable asset to World Communism and the decidedly Marxist New World Order.

It is no surprise that the Last Great Courtier should be spending much, if not most of his time, in Red China.

Kissinger’s infiltration of the White House long preceded Barack Obama’s capture of the Presidency through the front door.

Kissinger bent Nixon into a moral pretzel.

Admittedly, it wasn’t hard.

Nixon’s adoration of Harvard credentials made him and the rest of the nation a sitting duck.

Now we’re deeply mired in the Harvard quagmire with Dr. Obama, the recipient of all the highest degrees now possible, including the Nobel.

And Kissinger now resonates as our real life version of Hollywood’s Sidney Greenstreet.

Dr. K is therefore the odious counterpart to our very American and independent loner, whether it be John Wayne, Ronald Reagan or Sarah Palin.

As much as the Progressives would like to eliminate Good versus Evil as the evaluating slide rule of America, it will never be done.

Even our slightly tainted anti-heroes, like Humphrey Bogart’s Rick in Casablanca, re-enter the war with equally tainted but unavoidable idealists such as Claude Rains’ French inspector.

Are they actually Communist good guys? However, is a Communist good guy even possible?

Now that America is out of the fight with Communism because we have a decidedly Marxist President, all that remains as a defense of even human life and its sacredness is the Catholic Church.

So it is, indeed, Communism versus the Catholic Church.

Marx versus Christ.

I personally don’t think the match is fair.

Karl hasn’t got a chance!

He is unquestionably the Devil’s Advocate and the Satanic Economist and, well, the Bible tells you how such an encounter ends repeatedly.

The Devil loses.

Now, however, because Mao’s Red China still survives, a neo-Soviet Russia is being rebuilt by the puppets of a KGB loyalist, Vladimir Putin, and a full and unapologetic Marxist, Barack Obama, rules the White House, it would seem that Christ’s days are up!

That and the certainty of a whole new Marxist Christ defending abortion.

For me, however, the Marxist/Progressive New World Order is no more than The New Goliath, albeit with an Ivy League degree.

It is a tortured and venomously lying creation of Communism’s tacit agreement with the likes of Osama bin Laden to destroy America first and then worry about the Catholic Church.

The Tea Party was the most unexpected hindrance to the New World Order. That and Fox News’ Glenn Beck.

Therefore, we now have, in the midst of this delay, a shift of focus back to attacking the Catholic Church.

The same Progressive Movement that is now handing out condoms to five year olds is sincerely concerned about child abuse?

You tell me if that contradiction-in-terms isn’t a clear indication of the Marxist New World Order’s real intent while attacking the Church’s undeniably Achilles’ heel.

I guarantee you, if the Catholic Church condones abortion, we won’t hear any complaints about priests and child abuse in the mainstream press, not while the Obama’s public schools are handing out condoms to five year olds without parental consent.

Call me old school but I like music videos that at least loosely match their song. If you’ve got a song about love and your music video is about war, there’s something wrong – unless that song is Jordin Sparks’ “Battlefield.” For this reason, I’ve got a problem with Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro.” 

Lady Gaga is a fad for people who thrive on thinking they don’t thrive on fads. Actually they all do. To prove this I submit the fact that the music video for “Bad Romance” is the most viewed YouTube video ever (haven’t seen it because “rah-rah-ah-ah-ah / Roma, Roma-ma / GaGa, ooh la la” is artless). Lady Gaga’s latest, “Alejandro,” seems to follow a girl trying to break free from a controlling Mexican boyfriend or series of boyfriends. 

There’s really not much to the song. In the first verse there’s a good girl that is controlling (“halo around her finger around you”), and in the second verse there’s a guy that is controlling (“her boyfriend’s like a dad”). I think he’s supposed to be good too, because he’s “gonna fool the bad.” Whatever. As long as we know he’s got a Spanish/Mexican name and Lady Gaga is sick of him, we’re on the same page. 

But nowhere in the song does a pre-Nazi Germany element enter the scenario. First, “Alejandro” is a song with a distinct reference to Central America (“hot like Mexico”), a phrase in Spanish and numerous Latin American names, including the title. At best, its closest European association would be Spain, (and the song’s opening strings could imply that, if it wasn’t for the wind blowing that reminds listeners most of a western desert) but the Mexican reference kind of cancels that out as a location of origin. Germany, and any reference to it, is nowhere to be found.

 Then there’s the military aspect, which also lacks roots in the song. The music video has some added cadence at parts, but in the original song there is no military cadence to the song’s beat, and the instruments used retain a distinctly electronic techno sound. This sound does in many ways fit modern Germany’s musical tastes (at least those of the German exchange student my family had last year), but modern Germany is not pre-Nazi Germany, as I’m sure Germans would be quick to point out. Additionally, in the lyrics there are no references to a society so crushed by post-war inflation that it is at a breaking point, like the music video implies. 

Finally, while there is nothing about the song that is religious, in this video Lady Gaga is a good nun gone bad. Again, without a foundation in the song’s lyrics or music, bringing in the Catholic nun was, as Katie Perry called it, the equivalent of using a fart joke. “Alejandro” director Steven Klein said that when she sucks on rosary beads in the music video, her nun character is trying to ingest holiness. In that case, she should have taken the sacraments. Besides, there’s nothing holy the rest of her nun’s actions. Lady Gaga is hardly the first to try to explain away a music video’s derogatory points in this manner, nor the first to use offensive material to attract attention. One of my college professors told me Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” attracted attention for a controversial scene that supposedly shows a student committing suicide in front of his class, yet implies that the student instead shoots his classmates because the blood splatters (intentionally) at about the same place on each student – in a red splotch on their chest. 

Obviously she’s not the first to combine a sense of sensuality and religion either. But it’s been done quite impressively before, and in a non-offensive manner. See the sculpture “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.” That one involved angels touching a woman’s soul, not pre-Nazi storm troopers trying to molest her. It’s much more artistic – another example of Lady Gaga scraping the bottom of the barrel instead of soaring to the intellectual heights of better artists. Perhaps that’s why so many people love her work. It’s the biggest reason I don’t.

Gaga’s eternal return to the garb of a Nun … The Nun … is a backhanded tribute to her Catholic role model, Madonna.

The key, however, to her triumph over the World’s Music Empires, and The World Media That Makes Them, lies in the unshakably blasé expression on her face.

Obviously nothing about success could faze a Disciple of Madonna who has clearly fantasized how boring it might be to spend the night in bed with Genghis Kahn. 

You’re Blasé
by
Ord Hamilton and Bruce Sievier

You’re deep
Just like a chasm!
You’ve no
Enthusiasm!
You’re tired
You’re uninspired!
You’re blasé! 

Alejandro stands for Alexander the Great and his gang-banging troops, goose-stepping their way through the imaginations of Third Millennium Mankind and, indeed, being sexually irresistible to that greatest of impossible dreams, the Catholic Nun.

The climactic and highly consensual Gang Rape of Lady Gaga is received with her trade-markedly blasé resignation.

Nothing goes to Lady Gaga’s head … well … figuratively speaking … including sexual ecstasy!

It’s the challenge, men and women, boys and girls!

A bottomless well of insatiable need that is forever singing one of Peggy Lee’s greatest hits: Is That All There Is?!

Comedians and comediennes make a great living off of the same formula: behave as if all the laughter and money in the world wouldn’t mean a thing to them and, guess what, they start receiving, in Lady Gaga’s case, a bit of all that money and most of the world’s attention.

What draws me in particular to Lady Gaga is the accuracy of her prophetic visions!

Yes, indeed, both she and I know we are approaching an inevitable World War III … and with all of the cold ruthlessness of Adolf Hitler and the domestic butchery of Mao Tse Tung.

The human race also senses the same thing and cannot help itself from watching Lady Gaga … like deer caught in the dreams of their own demise!

We are undoubtedly living in Biblical times, fulfilling Biblical prophecy.

Which of the Old Testament’s greatest prophets Lady Gaga identifies with would be interesting to know, given our ability to sneak-peak her visionary flights-of-fancy first hand.

Or, if you’ll forgive me, a kind of Dan Brown/Nikos Kazantzakis/Martin Scorsese vision of a female Christ?!

She’s hip … and she’s Alaskan ice caps cooler than those would-be theologians.

If you’re betting on the Second Coming, you could do a lot worse than giving Lady Gaga at least a few minutes consideration.

That’s how she’s ultimately selling herself.

Who knows?

Perhaps Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code gave her the idea!

Her enemy … and the repeatedly avowed enemy of the enlightened despots, from Marx to Mailer, is the same mortal enemy of Christ: hypocrisy.

“Judge not lest ye be judged!”

So far I’ll take her on the terms her last video sells her on: the imperturbably blasé essence of a Goddess who just can’t find her equal!

We’ll need a Second Coming … if only to sing to her Blasé!

While reaching for the moon
And stars up in the sky,
The simple things of normal life
Are slowly passing by!

You sleep,
The sun is shining!
You wake,
It’s time for dining!
There’s nothing new
For you to do!
You’re blasé!!!!!!!

And doesn’t Leftist Hollywood’s refusal to take on Islam add up to a politically incorrect and culturally insensitive insult to Muslims? As Penn Jillette Tweeted so elegantly last week:

“I believe the most damning thing that can be said about Muslims is saying you’re afraid to say anything.”

Or as an agnostic friend of mine emailed last night: 

“Your headline needs to read, ‘Comedy Central Determines That Christians Are Nicer and More Tolerant Than Muslims’”

So I guess that means we Christians should take the announcement of what looks to be another tired, old, cliched, cinematic attack on our faith as a compliment, right?

Hayden Christensen has signed on to star in Snakes of a Plane/Cellular/The Final Destination director David R. Ellis‘ big screen adaptation of John Case’s thriller novel The Genesis Code.

And what is “The Genesis Code” about? As though you have to ask. From the press release announcing the film [emphasis mine throughout]:

The story follows a former national security expert, played by Christensen, who, while investigating the murder of his only sister and her young son, discovers that a religious sect called The Shadow of the Cross may be involved. With the help of his sister’s friend Ana, they follow the clues to a clinic in the mountains of Italy, where a terrifying secret experiment has been conducted – successfully. The results are so threatening to the foundation of the Church that they will do anything to keep it from being revealed.

From the filmmaker’s own description, at best the Church is portrayed as threatened by a truth they’ll do anything to keep secret. If that sounds vaguely familiar to another Catholic-bashing franchise starring our friend Tom War-of-Racism Hanks, you’re not alone. From a couple of rave customer reviews on Amazon:

I read a lot of thrillers, and I really enjoyed THE GENESIS CODE for the most part. This novel resembles the DA VINCI CODE in the sense that it’s a religious thriller, and the villains and assassins are far-right Catholics.

Another:

Science vs right-wing religion? Hmmm … haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

The good news is that Hayden Christensen’s been cast to lead the potential franchise. So if he’s as inept and over his head at undermining religious faith as he was at mythologizing Darth Vader…

We may not live to see the day, but eventually the truth will be told and the history will be written and it will not be kind to this Hollywood generation. Not kind at all.  They are not only on the wrong side of history, and this war, but they know it and rather than fight they have chosen instead to bow and scrape — to go morally AWOL. 

As the “South Park” censorship and the rest of this report proves, all the Big Talk during the Bush years from our artiste class about questioning power was just as we suspected: a bull shit fig leaf for partisan cowards.  

There are notable exceptions in 90210-Land, but for the most part and for the first time since the invention of this wonderful art form we call the motion picture, The Men Who Make The Movies are nothing close to men. They’re hardly even artists.

What we have instead is an industry infected with partisan Leftists; gutless appeasers of the highest order who at best have chosen to run from this fight and at worst have joined the other side.

NOTE: As always, I want to offer my insincerest apologies for breaking the well-known rule that only allows Hollywood’s big elite stable of butt-boy writers to speculate about an unseen film.

OBITUARY                           August 27, 2009                     Ned Rice

The whole world suffered a terrible loss yesterday with the passing from cancer of a great American icon who overcame unspeakable family tragedies and his own alcoholism to become a legendary advocate for justice.  Born to privilege in a large and wealthy Irish Catholic family, he attended elite prep schools, served in the military, and after a family member’s murder devoted the rest of his life to social causes and fighting injustice wherever he found it.  This larger-than-life character’s quick wit and compelling speaking style made him a friend to all who knew him – even those of different political beliefs-and helped advance the many causes he believed in so passionately.

May you rest in peace, Dominick Dunne.   

OTHER DEATHS YESTERDAY:  Ted Kennedy