Brent Bozell:

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.

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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.

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‘THE SUPER COPS’ FINALLY GETS DVD RELEASE

As a kid I used to be sure to stay up — even on a school night — to catch this whenever it played on the Late Show. With that ritual long dead, it’s probably been thirty years since I’ve seen this terrific, underrated, 1974 urban actioner that’s based on a true story and stars David Selby and The Great Ron Liebman.

What I mostly remember is loads of action and the fact that the entire production was shot on location. At the time, the burnt out buildings, vacant lots filled with trash, grit, grime and turtlenecks didn’t feel like a throwback. That was simply what Brooklyn looked like. It was still a cool look, though, and will look even cooler today. The reason for this is obvious when you realize “Super Cops” is directed by Gordon Parks, the man responsible for helming the timeless “Shaft” (1970) and its first sequel “Shaft’s Big Score” (1972).

For the life of me I can’t understand why Liebam wasn’t/isn’t a bigger star. You’ll probably recognize him from his recurring role on “Friends” or his memorable, Oscar-nominated role as the fish-out-of-water union organizer in “Norma Rae.” Besides “The Super Cops,” another showcase for this versatile actor’s talents is 1981’s “Zorro, the Gay Blade,” where he practically steals the show as the ruthless Captain Esteban. You can’t watch his hilarious work and ever hear the word “peoples” the same way again.

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Maybe I need to start calling this “The Early-Afternoon-On-The-West-Coast Call Sheet”. Anyone who runs any kind of blog will tell you that it takes more work to write something when there isn’t much to write about. The search for inspiration is an endless one.

Charlie Sheen’s Apology Tour

Thus far, Sheen’s done both the “Tonight Show” and the “Today Show” and actually does come across as a guy who had some time to stare into the abyss. You never know, though. Sheen is an underrated actor, so it could all be a game to worm his way back into Hollywood’s good graces. No matter how talented you are, you can only be so much of a nightmare to deal with before you become unemployable.

On a human level, I hope everyone finds more peace in their life, but as a Charlie Sheen fan going back some twenty years, I’m eager to see what another phase in his career might bring. Hopefully more awesome B-movies like his epic ’90’s run and not “Major League IV.”

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“AUSTIN POWERS 4′?

I have nothing but love for the “Austin Powers” trilogy, especially the first act of  ”Goldmember” which makes me laugh harder than anything since Steve Martin’s rental car meltdown in “Planes Trains and Automobiles.” But it’s been nine years since the last “Austin Powers,” and while I wish Mike Myers the best and would love to see a worthy fourth chapter, unfortunately, the whole idea has a “Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles” stench to it.

You have a character that captured our pop culture imaginations for a time, but too much time has passed since and now the return reeks of desperation from an actor looking for a sure-fire hit and a studio simply cashing in. Could be wrong. Hope I am. The good news is how so very wrong I was about Rambo and Rocky.  

$250 MILLION FOR “THE LONE RANGER”?

The biggest news over a slow-news weekend was Disney pulling the plug on what looked to be a can’t-lose hit, “The Lone Ranger” starring Johnny Depp as directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. In other words, the creative trifecta that brought Disney billions of dollars with the original “Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy.

The talk is that the $250 million budget is what (for now) killed the project. You could also look to the disappointment of “Cowboys and Aliens,” another high-concept Western that didn’t even open well. But then again the Coen Bros. “True Grit” practically printed money without a special effect in sight. Unfortunately, though, Hollywood is usually looking at the last hit or flop to spot a trend — not, you know, the actual trend.

What’s mind-boggling is that a “Lone Ranger” adaptation would cost a quarter-billion dollars. Do movies really need to be that expensive to become hits these days? Hollywood seems to think so — seems to think they need to compete with the spectacle of video games and the shortened attention spans MTV and the Internet have wrought.

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Unless you are a Nancy Grace obsessive (and who isn’t!?), it’s kinda a slow news days.  BUT!  Charlie Sheen makes headlines again in a bid to steal the thunder of Ashton Kutcher and the “Two and a Half Men” team.  Even if you are a fan of the show, you must admit the off-camera theatrics have long since surpassed those on camera in terms of pure entertainment value.

NEW YORK (AP) – There should be no shortage of material.

Comedy Central said Tuesday that Charlie Sheen has agreed to be the subject of its next celebrity roast. It will be taped in Los Angeles and air on Sept. 19.

That also happens to be the same night that Ashton Kutcher debuts as Sheen’s replacement in the CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men.” Sheen was thrown off the show after his hard partying forced a production shutdown.

The two programs won’t compete directly. The Comedy Central roast is scheduled for 10 p.m., an hour after “Two and a Half Men.” (more…)

From Deadline:

We’ve just received word that negotiations have concluded, marking That ’70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher’s return to television after a brief movie career. He is replacing Charlie Sheen in Two And A Half Men. The deal made sense for series producer Warner Bros which already had an overall with Kutcher’s Katalyst production banner. In fact, an hour later, Ashton announced he was joining the show by tweeting to his 6.7 million Twitter followers: “What’s the square root of 625?”

Names like Woody Harrelson, Rob Lowe, John Stamos, and Jeremy Piven circulated in the blogosphere as possible replcements. But until this week, with Deadline’s scoop that the show was in final negotiations with Hugh Grant, there had been nothing concrete going on with any specific actor. Co-creator and executive producer Chuck Lorre only wanted to continue the show “if he can find the right actor and get excited about that,” sources told Deadline. What mattered most to Lorre was that Sheen’s replacement be “somebody Chuck can work with” after butting heads with Charlie for years in a situation that escalated into a very public and nasty feud this spring. (more…)

Oprah Winfrey’s new cable network OWN is already in trouble. Does the talk titan really think bringing  on board a woman too obnoxious and full of hateful crazytalk for the “The View” is going to help.

Meet the woman who moves into Oprah’s studio this fall:

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You have to love freedom of speech, if for no other reason than how it allows us to see who these people really are.

Heckvua choice there, Oprah!

OWN is foolish to gamble millions on a woman who is obviously too full of herself and her own insane ideas — fire can’t melt steel – to sustain any kind of following on daytime talk again. Rosie shorted out sometime during this 1999 Tom Selleck interview and has only gotten worse in the decade since. She’s toxic to anyone not living within 4 square miles of downtown Manhattan and Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, the people who make most of our pop culture decisions never leave that bubble and are unable to grasp that Rosie is a slow motion train wreck already in progress and a long way from stopping.

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Since its premiere in 2003, 178 episodes of “Three and a Half Men” have been produced. Without Sheen, CBS will be lucky to get another full season, but with him they’re almost certain to pass the 250 episode mark. The difference is at minimum 30 to 60 more episodes, and when you combine ad revenue, DVD sales and the lucrative syndication deals in the form of reruns that will live on for decades, you’re talking hundreds of million of dollars lost over what appears to be a personality dispute between an irreplaceable star (Charlie Sheen) and a wildly successful television producer/creator (Chuck Lorre). On the flip-side, does Sheen really want to bank his career on personal tours and a late night talk show when three to five years of millions-per-episode is guaranteed? No one’s that crazy, not even Charlie Sheen. 

There’s simply no upside for either party not to work this out.

Post-firing, Sheen’s played it pretty smart. Thanks to his, uhm, antics, he’s a bigger star after the firing than before. He obviously understands the power of celebrity and how to maximize it and in the process quite deliberately made himself more valuable to the network today than while the show was in production. The publicity surrounding his return to a sitcom that’s already one of the most popular on television would be the stuff of legend. If the report below is true, my guess is that everyone’s sobering up (for lack of a better word) and looking at the win-win involved with getting back to work.

Fox News Online:

The president and CEO of CBS was working Monday toward bringing disgraced TV star Charlie Sheen back to “Two and a Half Men,” RadarOnline reported. …

The source added, “The core issue is, as he put it, the volatile relationship between Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre. He believes that if CBS and Warner Bros. TV honchos can find a way to get Chuck and Charlie to speak again, cooler heads will prevail.”

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The Internets blew up late last night when Charlie Sheen’s Beverly Hills mansion was raided by LAPD. Reports say they confiscated an antique gun from the 1800’s and a few bullets. A restraining order against Sheen was obtained by Brooke Mueller that prohibits the actor from possessing weapons, including the now-famous machete Sheen was seen comically wielding from a rooftop a few days ago. 

During the raid, Sheen calmly ate burgers with friends. No machete was found (he says it was a friend’s) and no arrest was made for the guns and ammo. Sheen’s cool, calm response is the kind of thing likely to only burnish the legend:

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Both ‘Funny or Die’ and Charlie Sheen should do more of this, especially FOD who always lay an egg when they try to tell us how to vote. But that’s because intellectual dishonesty isn’t funny.

With all the money at stake for CBS, the “Men” producers and Sheen, I have to confess I was pretty sure everyone would figure out a way to make this marriage work again. Sheen really is the star of that show and now he’s even something of a world phenomenon — can you imagine the ratings for his return show? — but obviously the powers-that-be have decided he’s not worth the heartache and in turn (depending on if they can successfully continue without him) gave up millions upon millions in potential syndication revenue that each new episode would’ve generated. But this is especially surprising because just this morning word was leaked that a compromise was being worked out.

It should be interesting to see what Sheen does next. On top of trying to find a top-level talent in Hollywood willing to work with him (other than fellow madman Mark Cuban), hits like “Men” are generally once in a lifetime occurrences. That $1.5 million per episode The Sheen’s losing is not likely to be made up with advertising on video podcasts or the Tweeting of brand names.

Sheen’s obviously a talented guy and wildly unpredictable in good ways and bad. He’ll certainly be in the news for the foreseeable future, especially with respect to every twist and turn his “Men” lawsuit takes. But late in the evening  when the house is dark and the porn stars on either side of him are fast asleep — you have to believe Sheen will be haunted by second thoughts. One of the best jobs in entertainment is starring in a hit sitcom. The money is crazy, the hours are cake, and you’re treated like a king. It’s probably the best job in the world right now.

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At the State of the Union address, our President attempted to recapture the magic of “Yes, We Can” by coining the phrase “Win the Future.”  His path to victory included high speed rails, more wealth redistribution, more powerful unions, and less civil liberties.

Charlie Sheen has different ideas.

It’s early March, but I don’t think it’s too soon to declare 2011 “The Year of Charlie Sheen.”  That may actually prove to be an understatement.  Decades from now, our president, “The One,” will be a mere footnote, while Charlie Sheen will have volumes dedicated to his historical impact.

Charlie Sheen’s recent monologues and interviews, dubbed “meltdowns” by the press, have illuminated the conflicts in our culture and society.  It is a tipping point in our culture.   Let’s examine how,  shall we?

Group Think is the New Normal 

Despite all their ramblings about “freedom” and “democracy” and “individuality”, Hollywood, the left, and the youth of our nation represent the biggest bunch of robot clones to ever walk the face of the earth.  We’re supposed to think that Charlie boy is “crazy” because….why exactly?  He’s absolutely correct that he is the reason for his show’s success.  He really does turn their “tin cans into gold.”  He’s worth every cent that he’s paid.  No, he’s “crazy” because he gets on T.V. and has the balls to admit that.  His hilarious, megalomaniacal rants are downright refreshing.  Charlie Sheen sounds like an Ayn Rand character written in the vernacular.  It’s like a Howard Roark speech written by Hunter S. Thompson.  No wonder the left, who is so quick to champion “rebels” like that tool Alan Grayson or  Michael Moore, is doing its best to minimize and marginalize Charlie Sheen. Yes, he is worth the money.  Yes, he is incredibly talented.  Yes, he can do more blow than the average human.  Yes, he can simultaneously satisfy two porn stars.  He is probably better than you and he’s willing to say that.  How dreadful.  Charlie Sheen is a true rebel.  Instead of attacking “soft targets” like Christians, Sarah Palin, and “Islamophobes,” he really is “speaking truth to power.”

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From The Macho Response:

[Sheen's] nothing-can-take-me-down attitude, in the face of this wimpy, middle class, wet rag nanny state finger-wagging opinion is winning. This is a man, owning his actions and insisting everyone else come clean and take responsibility for theirs as well. (Our favorite line? Interviewer: “One of the women said she was afraid she might O.D.”. Sheen [incredulous]: “What’s that got to do with me?”) …

We’ve become a cautious, conformist, inoffensive, non-risk taking, arrogant, lying bunch of NewAge p[**]sies who think if any woman, like this interviewer, says she or others don’t approve, then some form of public contrition and apology is called for. Well, screw that. Neither she, or the public, are Charlie Sheen’s mother and even if his parents disapprove, he’s a grown-assed man who refuses to be a part of whatever milquetoast existence the rest of you think is good for gaining social approval from a worthless feminized culture-killing clique. He didn’t ask for it, doesn’t need it, and isn’t angling for it. He’s a man. He’s rich. And he’s free.

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In May of 1994, I walked into a Hollywood chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time; while waiting for the meeting to begin I watched as an Academy Award-wining actor swept the floor. It was his humbling little task. It’s what kept him sober, he told me. I haven’t had a drink since. For that I am truly grateful.

In 2002 I walk out of my last AA meeting because the culture of recovery in Hollywood had changed. It had become a production of hip, slick, and cool. It had lost its shame. Hollywood sent recovery into the mainstream by putting a camera in the room, and turning the shame of hitting your bottom into a chance to be seen on TV.

When realty shows like “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” put a camera on an addict, it rewards them for bad behavior and puts off the chance at solid recovery. (Dr. Drew himself calls it a media intervention.) But it’s the financial rewards of Nielsen ratings that are helping to slowly kill actors like Charlie Sheen.

Hollywood paparazzi and media outlets flood the public with the comings and goings of troubled souls like Lindsay Lohan, plastering her image everywhere like a car crash you can’t stop rubber necking. Young actors in Hollywood and the MTV crowd see this stupid behavior and the limelight that goes with it and say to each other, “That doesn’t seem so bad. Let’s party.” It’s within that mode of exposure that the addict get’s lost inside the lens of Entertainment Tonight. Most addicts are at some level narcissist. Couple that with being an actor, and you have Siamese twins gazing blood shot into a reflecting pool of flash bulbs.

Hollywood’s long lists of addicts are simply egomaniacs with low self-esteem. However, once the actor/addict gets sober, most are just not that interesting in public and the media looses interest. The upside of this personal discovery are people like Robert Downey Jr.; who has flourished as a performer and person since he really “got it.” (more…)

We have no inside information and refuse to reward with clicks the gossip rags that snark over the crashing and burning of a human being, but it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to see that Charlie Sheen is probably at a crucial tipping point in his life.

So here’s hoping he gets the help he obviously needs and is back home to his family and work soon.

One of the most frustrating things about writing blogs or trying to win over hearts and minds is the slow realization that the opposition actually possesses a different thought process.  It’s not just about laying out the facts, pointing out data, and drawing reasonable conclusions, it really comes down to the way the left looks at the world and parses data.

The other day, I clicked the link at the top of Big Hollywood that led me to a commentary by Michael Lee at “The Wrap.” Mr. Lee takes aim at John Nolte’s commentary about the Ricky Gervais performance at the Golden Globes.  As I waded  through the piece I quickly realized that Mr. Lee didn’t understand the basic points that John made.

And this, unfortunately, is typical.

John Nolte made the astute observation that Gervais‘ performance was awesome because he took the witty, acidic, and mean spirited humor that is usually aimed by Hollywood at the American populace and turned it on the sanctimonious, self-righteous entertainment community.   Had Gervais been ten times more vulgar but aimed it all at Sarah Palin, George Bush, and people who believed in God, there would be no discussion.  There would be no outrage.  There would be absolutely zero press.  Gervais would probably be paid double to return next year. (more…)

Somebody once wrote: “Hell is the impossibility of reason.” That’s what this place feels like. Hell.

Why it’s a left-wing film

Writer/director Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winner (picture, director, editing, sound) is another Cambodian Holocaust denier, a film that again offers no context surrounding the very real consequences that occurred when the Oliver Stones of our world won the day and we abandoned our allies in Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge and those in South Vietnam to communist re-education camps.  

In what’s obviously a very personal film (like his main character, in 1967, Stone served in the Infantry in Vietnam), the director doesn’t use a single soda straw to dishonestly portray the war, he uses about a half-dozen of them in order to focus only on America’s Worst Hits and spin them into a patch-quilt of propaganda that makes our military look as though it was highly populated with monsters. According to Stone, these were men who participated in or stood by as civilians were executed and beaten to death, whole villages were burned, Vietnamese children were raped, and ears were taken as souvenirs. Furthermore, drug abuse, fratricide, and in-fighting was the norm.

In the film’s final piece of anti-American symbolism, after the climactic battle during the Tet Offensive, the American soldiers coming in to take the place of the dead are seen driving a tank that proudly flies a Nazi flag. And our protagonist, the young Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who volunteered because he didn’t think only poor people should fight America’s wars, has had his eyes opened during this rite of passage and he now sees the war as only a terrible mistake:

I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us.

Actually, the enemy was a group of murderous totalitarians and because of those who believed in simplistic poetry spun to sound deep and profound, 3 million people died. But who’s counting? After all, the dead are just a bunch of brown people. You know, like the Iraqis. (more…)

If the real world was like a Hollywood movie, Julian Assange would step onto a rain-drenched sidewalk, insert the key into his Prius and be blown into several thousand pieces of blond Australian jerk.  From their observation post high above on a building, a pair of sinister CIA assassins would smile as they squelch yet another voice of freedom. 

Instead, the Wikileaks revelations and the pathetic aftermath demonstrate that far from being the omnipotent cadre of high-tech avengers, our leaders have apparently been reduced to hoping that the Swedes’ bizarre sex crime laws will do the dirty work for us.  Capping this twerp might be a bit harsh, but it’s not unreasonable to expect that we be able to come up with some better options for dealing with Wikileaks than cancelling his credit cards and leaving the rest up to Sven and Inga.

For decades, Hollywood has depicted the US intelligence establishment as some sort of all-seeing, all-powerful collection of high-tech killers in expensive suits hunting down those who interfere with America’s imperialist designs.  Hollywood has pushed the notion that our government officials are able to implement conspiracies of such ridiculous scope and audacity that they would embarrass a Truther – well, maybe not Hollywood Truther Charlie Sheen, who apparently doesn’t possess a shame gene.  And the lefties seem to buy that image –a preeminent lefty sight has revealed that the Swedish sex charges were trumped up by a Uppsula University feminist gender equity officer in cahoots with Cuban freedom fighters and the CIA.  The role of the Trilateral Commission is left unclear.

We wish we could pull that off!  In reality, instead of weaving exquisite tapestries of deception or launching waves of vicious kill-bots, we have an Attorney General whose Plan A was offering a searing condemnation of Wikileaks as “arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful.”  Wikileaks is “unhelpful” – shockingly, this harsh language somehow failed to deter Julian and Co.  After that smashing success, the AG has initiated Plan B and is promising to possibly consider perhaps contemplating maybe reviewing a number of options designed to somehow do something of some sort.  That is, if he’s not still preoccupied springing some New Black Panthers or failing to convince FIFA not to hold its 2022 shindigg in Qatar.  Figuring out how to lose sponsoring a soccer tournament expecting thousands of Brit, German, French and Italian fans/hooligans to a part of the world that frowns on alcohol probably took all of his attention.  (more…)

Way back in 1987, filmmaker Oliver Stone achieved an amazing double-whammy at the box office and Academy Awards with the one-two punch of “Wall Street” and “Platoon.” While “Platoon” managed to win Best Picture and “Wall Street” scored the Best Actor Oscar for Michael Douglas, it’s Douglas’ iconic performance as slimy stock trading magnate Gordon Gekko that has stood the test of time and remains eminently quotable to this day. Most impressively, both films said something profound about American society and the human condition.

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Cut to nearly a quarter-century later, and Stone has lost some his clout after spending the past decade making films that were all over the map politically and stylistically. He’s created a family-values, all-American take on 9/11 in “World Trade Center” as well as the off-the-charts lefty documentary “South of the Border” on Hugo Chavez and other leftist South American leaders this year, with a surreal and surprisingly sympathetic biopic on President George W. Bush in “W.” in between.

Now, however, he’s returned to some of his strongest territory by showing what happens when Gordon Gekko is unleashed on the financial industry amid the meltdown of 2008 in his new sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” And it’s a welcome return to form from a master who tops the first film in many ways.

The new film replaces the first’s stellar star turn by a young Charlie Sheen with another twentysomething hotshot, Jake Moore, played by Shia LaBeouf. LaBoeuf thankfully steps into Sheen’s shoes with a performance that covers all the bases from the callow cockiness of youth through his despair over losing everything around him to the romantic determination of a guy who just wants to win back his girl, even if it means losing the world. (more…)

The timing of today’s announcement from the Swiss that fugitive director Roman Polanski will not face extradition to the United States coming just a couple days after we all witnessed Hollywood’s reaction to the audio tape of Mel Gibson’s raging, racist rant is fitting. What an interesting opportunity for a side-by-side look at Leftist Hollywood’s values.

It’s unlikely that anyone who’s considered a serious part of the Hollywood community will openly work with Mel Gibson again for a long, long time — if ever. WME, his agency, announced they had dropped him as a client within minutes of the release of the recording, and courtesy of the L.A. Times, the warning has already gone out making clear that anyone foolish enough to work with Gibson again will pay a heavy price:

There’s little chance he’ll land at another agency anytime soon — signing would bring down a horrible avalanche of bad PR to any agency that got within smelling distance and, more to the craven point, any agent that signs him has little hope of booking him any roles anyway since there isn’t a studio in town that will hire Gibson.

So toxic is the “Braveheart” director that the L.A. Times also “suggested” that now would be a “good time” for Tinseltowners to loudly and proudly condemn the former superstar, and a special point was made to single out his longtime friend Jodie Foster (who just finished directing a film that stars Gibson): (more…)