The new Showtime series ‘Homeland’ is a CIA thriller based on the Israeli television series ‘Hatufim’ (Prisoners of War). The Israeli version follows two IDF reservists after they are released from 17 years of captivity in Syria and how their lives are different after returning home.

The American version, which airs Sundays at 10 p.m., centers on Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), a strong but flawed CIA officer trying not to repeat mistakes that led to the 9/11 attacks. She learns from a condemned Iraqi informant that “an American prisoner of war has been turned.”

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As far as she knows, there are no American prisoners of war. Ten months later, U.S. Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody, presumed dead for the past eight years, is recovered from Baghdad during a raid on a militant compound. Despite all of the pride flowing through the CIA and military circles regarding his recovery, Carrie immediately suspects Sgt. Brody is the “turned” American she had been warned about and begins an illegal surveillance of his home. The viewer is left to wonder who the villain really is.

Growing up in the 1980s, Hollywood never left you wondering who the bad guys were going to be. It was the Russians. The Americans were always the good guys, fighting against Communists to preserve the American way of life. In the years after 9/11 this is not the case.

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Charlton Heston as Judah Ben Hur, the Jewish hero—notice the Star of David necklace—of Ben Hur, 1959.

The Los Angeles Times is, like the NY Times, a reliably anti-Israel newspaper whose liberal/progressive/leftist slant often veers into  support for the Jew-hatred that is the foundation of Palestinian terror.

Even their entertainment articles frequently marinate in a radical ideology that extends to an ignorant and vile denial of Jewish, not to mention literary history.

In this brief announcement of an anniversary release of a Ben Hur DVD, the Charlton Heston character, Judah Ben Hur, is referred to as a “Palestinian nobleman.”

In the book and in all the movies Judah Ben Hur is a Jewish merchant.

This charade of so-called Palestinian history is a replacement ideology, Jewish history erased by faux Palestinians, a post-modern construct with zero historical basis.

I might add that this is also a fabrication of movie history.

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“It is a story, and science fiction is only the pretext. I wouldn‘t even know how to define SF…I think it’s the genre where you can deal with and imagine unhuman characters, but in my book my apes are men, there is no doubt. I believe it was triggered by a visit to the zoo where I watched the gorillas. I was impressed by their human-like expressions. It led me to dwell upon and imagine relationships between humans and apes.” — Pierre Boulle.

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Fast-talking producer Arthur P. Jacobs had been looking for a King Kong like story to bring to the screen when he found the next best thing, French writer Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel La planète des singes, or Monkey Planet, later renamed Planet of the Apes.  Early in the project’s development Jacobs came up with a dazzling inspiration. Unlike the book, which mostly took place in an alien world, what if the main character was on Earth the whole time and both he and the audience didn’t know it?  Jacobs took the story idea to the creator of TV’s The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling.  A former Purple Heart recipient who had been wounded in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, the very anti-war Serling wrote an extremely serious, almost humorless screenplay set in a simian city that resembled 1950s New York and initially proved far too expensive for any Hollywood Studio to produce.

“Imagination… its limits are only those of the mind itself.” – Rod Serling

After making the rounds and being soundly rejected by Hollywood executives,  the ever-hustling Jacobs approached the forty-two year old former John Charles Carter, who upon deciding to become an actor had renamed himself after his mother, Lila Charlton, and his stepfather Chet Heston.  By that time a well-established movie star, Charlton Heston was going through a political metamorphis.  A lifelong Democrat, Heston had been shooting the historical drama, The Warlord, on location in Northern California in 1964 (the film was released in 1965).  Each morning on his drive to work the Lyndon Johnson supporting Heston passed by a campaign billboard that pictured GOP nominee Barry Goldwater with the caption, “In your heart you know he’s right.”  One day, it simply hit Heston that the sign was true, Goldwater was right!  Heston still voted for Johnson in 1964 but was on his way to becoming a well-known champion of conservative causes.  Although he later called Jacobs “a slippery character” Heston was intrigued by the Apes script and committed to the project almost immediately with the suggestion that Warlord director Franklin J. Schaffner be added the creative team.  Not only did he smell a hit, but Heston also felt Apes could make a powerful statement about the flawed nature of man.

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Moses was screwed! There is no other way to put it.

At sundown April 18th, Jews all across the world will begin the celebration of the holiday of Passover. Outside of Israel, the first two days of the holiday begin with a Seder (Jewish holidays begin in the evening) a family ritual  based on the Biblical verse commanding:

“You shall tell your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:8)

Notice it says what the Lord did for me?  Because of that line God gets all the credit (which he deserves) but only God.

The “instructions manual”  for the Seder is called the Haggadah, a book that contains the narrative of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, special blessings and rituals, commentaries from the Sages, and special Passover songs. Seder customs include drinking four cups of wine, eating matza, partaking of symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate (bitter herbs, hard boiled eggs, etc), and reclining while we eat to act as free people. In my house that is supplemented with song parodies, stupid parlor tricks (like changing water into blood) and family discussion about the meaning of the freedoms given to us by God.

One key player in the exodus story is missing from the entire Haggadah…Moses; Prophet, miracle maker, former prince of Egypt, and tennis player (the Bible says Moses served in the courts of Pharaoh). Can you believe it, the guy who put his arse online, confronted the most powerful king on earth before and after each plague, split the Reed Sea doesn’t get a mention in the official explaining the exodus script? (Reed Sea no typo in Hebrew its Yam Suf, Sea of Reeds).

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If you want to understand why, 55 years on, Cecil B. DeMille’s epic retelling of the story of Moses, from his birth to ascendancy into Heaven, is still as beloved today as it was when released during the first term of the Eisenhower administration, all you need do is watch the director explain the theme of his masterpiece in the short segment that opens the film. It’s an odd moment. After all, how many movies open with the director stepping out from behind a curtain to lay the groundwork for what’s to follow? This unconventional decision more than works, though, as it sets a thoughtful and reverential tone that will carry you through the upcoming 220 minutes.

Mr. DeMille tells us outright…

“The theme of this picture is whether man ought to be ruled by God’s law or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like Ramses. Are men property of the State, or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today.”

Yes, today, and not just where “The Ten Commandments” is set — throughout the Middle East in countries such as Egypt — but also here in America as we watch an ever-growing federal government burden us with debt and chip away at our liberties. I’m not comparing Egypt’s current struggle with our own in any way other than how DeMille’s use of this universal theme speaks in some way to everyone and will for as long as there’s a civilization. As his epic unfolds, this is the theme DeMille holds on to, straight through to the story’s final line of dialogue — Moses’ (Charlton Heston) parting words to Joshua (John Derek) before he joins the God who has put him through so much:

“Go. Proclaim liberty throughout all the lands, unto all the inhabitants there of.”

Last week I watched the entire film straight through twice, once on the big-screen at a special event commemorating the film’s Blu-ray release, and again just a few days later on the actual Blu-ray. The finest compliment I can pay one of Hollywood’s all-time great epics is that I could watch it again tonight and enjoy it just as much. DeMille’s world is so vivid, so detailed and all consuming, that after spending nearly four hours visiting, you just want to return to lose yourself into it again and again. The story stays with you for days and you truly do miss spending time with those wonderfully drawn characters.

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No actor has ever represented the drama, power and dignity of ancient times on the big screen like Academy Award-winner Charlton Heston. Now one his two greatest films of Biblical times, Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) has gone through a complete restoration for a Blu-ray set release released today by Paramount Home Entertainment. Also in time for Easter, Warner Bros. is releasing William Wyler’s classic Ben Hur (1959), which won Heston his Academy Award for best actor, in a new special anniversary edition Blu-ray and DVD collection.

Father and son on the “Ten Commandments” set

Heston’s son, director and writer Fraser Heston, was actively involved in both new Blue-ray presentations. “ These aren’t like those quickly done transfers that are usually kind of harsh and glaring. The Ten Commandments is a complete shot by shot restoration.”

Fraser Heston remembers that his father wisely held that, “Both films had really great stories that are very compelling. Dad used to say that The Ten Commandments was actually a small story against a big background about a man who didn’t think he was worthy. The whole ‘Why me God?’ question.”

Both films were huge box office successes that played for months on end in major cities and were re-released several times to renewed success. In the late 1960s, ABC paid dearly to make The Ten Commandments that network’s Easter Sunday night special that continued playing annually for years.

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This is the most recent installment of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, on his book revealing how communists, from Moscow to New York to Chicago, have long manipulated America’s liberals/progressives. Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century is based on an unprecedented volume of declassified materials from Soviet archives, FBI files, and more.

Big Peace: Professor Kengor, Hollywood is celebrating its Academy Awards, a look back at great actors and actresses and films.

Kengor: For me, it’s a moment to look back at Hollywood’s worst communists, communist sympathizers, Stalinists, and duped liberals and progressives—as well as the good guys (and gals) that fit none of those categories.

Big Peace: Fair enough. This should be fun. Let’s start with communists.

Charlie Chaplin comment, “Thank God for
communism!” will make you see (him) red.

Kengor: How about the Hollywood screenwriters who liberals still insist were innocent lambs? Dalton Trumbo, Communist Party code “Dalt T;” Albert Maltz, party no. 47196; Alvah Bessie, no. 46836; John Howard Lawson, no. 47275. Or, if you turn to page 191 of my book—if you don’t have a copy yet, shame on you—you can view Arthur Miller’s party application. Miller wrote The Crucible, about how Joe McCarthy pursued “liberals” unfairly suspected of being communists—“liberals” like Miller, Trumbo, Maltz, Bessie, Lawson.

Big Peace: As you say in Dupes, Hollywood produced “quite a cast.” Let’s narrow the focus to the Academy Awards. (more…)

In a recent interview with Newsweek, actor George Clooney broke heart-wrenching news to the political world: he will not be seeking elected office. I guess this means all the “Clooney 2012” bumper stickers can be put away, and the numerous Clooney PACs that had formed can stand down. (Just kidding. There never were any bumper stickers nor were there PACs.) The truth is, the only person who seriously wondered whether Clooney might run was Clooney himself.

Everyday Americans couldn’t care less. And the fact that Clooney actually made an announcement about his non-existent political future only confirms the suspicion that he is a legend in his own mind.

Clooney’s overblown feelings of self-worth were evident in the fact that he cited his background of sex and drugs as the reason he won’t seek office. Apparently he wanted to use his announcement to impress us. As if we were all going to read it and say to one another, “Wow, Clooney is so cool: the ladies love him and he’s done so much dope.”  (It’s as if Clooney never advanced beyond the mentality of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”)

Here in the real world, salt-of-the-earth Americans would have been far more impressed had Clooney admitted that the real reason he isn’t running for office is because his policy positions make him unelectable. The November 2010 midterm elections, as well as the backlash against socialism in Wisconsin and other unionized states, prove that someone like Clooney would get shellacked at the polling booth were he to run.

While Clooney has and is doing some noble work in the Sudan, most Americans haven’t forgotten Clooney’s raw arrogance and cruelty, a combination common to most liberals, and one which he proudly displayed when he made fun of Charlton Heston for having Alzheimer’s. (For any of you who have somehow forgotten, shortly after Heston was diagnosed with that terrible disease, Clooney said: “Charlton Heston announced ‘again’ today that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.”)

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I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be. 

Why it’s a left-wing film

Director Franklin J. Schaffner’s “Planet of the Apes” might be the most cynical, anti-human and anti-religious film ever made. What’s most telling about the film’s political point of view is the arc of the main character, played by The Mighty Charlton Heston. When we first meet Colonel Taylor aboard an in-flight American spacecraft, he makes no secret of his revulsion towards mankind as he records in his duty log…  Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor’s children starving?

After the ship crashes on a seemingly barren planet light years from Earth, in conversation with a fellow survivor, Taylor doubles down and says outright that he despises man and became an astronaut to get away from his own species.

What you expect from a story like this is that through the experiences Taylor lives through on a planet where apes rule like humans and humans are treated like apes, is that Taylor will finally come to appreciate his own species. In a way this does happen when Taylor is forced to become man’s final champion and advocate, but then at the last second, this evolution of character uncharacteristically has the rug pulled completely out from underneath it. It’s for this reason that the justifiably famous and iconic final twist is more than just a jaw-dropping surprise. Essentially, this final moment tells us that the Taylor we first met, the one who had no faith in mankind, was correct. To put this in perspective, imagine “Casablanca” ending with Bogart’s detached cynicism justified in some way after Ingrid Bergman’s plane takes off. Movies just aren’t supposed to work this way. (more…)

Reality demonstrates that people act on their basest needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that basic needs are things like food, shelter, safety, and security.  If one progresses up the scale, needs like love, belonging, esteem, and respect become important.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Hollywood is a competitive place to live and work.  People who live and work there know that it might be the most competitive place to live in the entire world.  The drive to succeed, to find an edge that propels you to the next level can be very compelling for those who are weak.  Of those who crave the sort of attention that might compel them into the snake pit that is Hollywood, psychologists could agree that components in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are lacking in key areas such as confidence, friendship, and even morality.  All of these mid-level needs should be met for healthy development of creativity, intellect, problem solving, and other high-level needs.  Maslow might reason that in the desperate setting of Hollywood, the underdevelopment of needs like morality, confidence, respect of self and from others might lead to the malformative finding of one’s self at the top of the triangle, with many of the more basic needs still lacking.  In Abraham Maslow’s terms, this is a recipe for disaster of philosophical incorporation. (more…)

Ah, people were always lousy… But there was a world, once. 

Why it’s a left-wing film

The opening montage says it all. Various photographs reveal when the world’s downfall began, with the early days of American industrialization, and then take us straight through to present day (1972) with cluttered, claustrophobic shots of pollution, traffic, and over-population. In the year 2022, the end result of all this unbridled capitalism, technological advancement and baby-making is not a higher standard of living, an end to poverty, or the longer life expectancy we were promised. Quite the opposite. In Manhattan alone, there are 40 million people, half of them unemployed. The lucky ones barely sustain themselves on rationed food and water in small cramped apartments. The unlucky ones are homeless and sleep wherever they’re able to cram indoors to escape the smog and never-ending swelter of a year-round summer known as the Greenhouse Effect, another byproduct of that sinister free market.

But capitalism still isn’t dead. In fact, it’s more powerful than ever. Like African warlords, in this world if you control the food you control everything, and the big fat Soylent Corporation controls half the world’s food supply and seemingly all the political power. Naturally, the gap between rich and poor is now a canyon where a very elite few live the good life in swank high-rise luxury apartments complete with air conditioning, running water, real food, and “furniture,” or live-in prostitutes; accessories that come with the place.  

This only makes sense. After all, capitalism run amok is almost certain to bring us a patriarchal society run by selfish men.

At its core, director Richard Fleischer’s “Soylent Green” is anti-human. We know this because the film’s conscience is Sol Roth (a warm, wonderful Edward G. Robinson in his final role) and he tells us so with the above quote. People are the problem, the scourge of the world. There’s just too damn many of us and we are now paying the price for destroying everything. (more…)

When I saw that Charlton Heston’s former publicist, Michael Levine, had started a petition to let “the Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission [know] that Heston deserves to be placed on a postage stamp,” I emailed Big Hollywood’s Editor John Nolte and jumped at the chance to write this post.

I did so because to honest students of Hollywood’s history, the very name Charlton Heston conjures up visions of greatness. He filled every room he entered, and spoke with a voice that commanded audience after audience, generation after generation.

Although he’s remembered for staring roles in “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “Ben-Hur” (1959), and the “Planet of the Apes” (1968), those are just the tip of the iceberg. During his lifetime he “earned two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, three Emmy Award nominations, …the Kennedy Center Honors: Lifetime Achievement Award.” He “was a six-time president of the Screen Actors Guild, president of the American Film Institute,” and he “received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush [in 2003].”

A renaissance man if ever there was one, Heston is also famous for marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963, for serving as president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 1998 to 2003, and for being an unapologetic warrior for decency and tradition in America’s “cultural war.”

And let’s not forgot that he was also a veteran of World War II. That’s right: he not only talked the talk, he walked the walk as well. (more…)

What annoys liberals more than anything else?  Free Speech and intellectual honesty are probably high on the list of things that give them intestinal cramps.  Considering what I have seen of the anti-war rallies and the folks who proudly wear the ACORN shirt while signing up homeless people to vote three or four times (in the same election), I would also say that soap is probably high on their enemies list as well.  All of that aside, what they really seem to hate is when people who don’t share their worldview invade what they perceive as their turf.  The RightNetwork has crossed the imaginary line in the entertainment sand and sent the left into a rage-filled attempt to abort this infant network before it can really establish itself and slap the  Hollywood elite around the way that Fox News does to MSNBC and CNN on a daily basis.  

Before we get into their outward expressions of anger and disdain, along with the associated hypocrisy and contradictions, we need to understand why they are so mad.  In the world of the left, domination of the airwaves is not a battle of ratings but rather an ideological jihad they are attempting to perpetrate.  That is why they get so unhinged whenever something that would get a smile out of Charlton Heston tries to take hold in the media.   Liberals lost the radio war so badly that they now want the government to legislate a victory for them by making the free market of political thought on the AM dial illegal.  That is what the “the Fairness Doctrine” is all about.  Also, most of the “Hopey/Changey” crowd is either apoplectic about losing the cable media war to Fox News  or are still in the same sort of denial about it that keeps Britney Spears thinking that she is a dominant force in the music industry.

While being forced into whatever the media equivalent of “tapping out” is on these two fronts, they are violently opposing the RightNetwork; a cable channel aimed at the vast audience of people who have come to the conclusion that Hollywood hates them.  The visceral reaction to the RightNetwork by the left tells us everything we need to know about them, their feelings about free speech in the marketplace of ideas, and what they think about the viewing audience in general.   (more…)

The George Clooney film The American opened in the number one box office spot this last weekend despite a terrible reception from those who actually sat through the film. According to the reviews Clooney plays an armorer turned assassin, which means he makes untraceable lethal firearms for other such political killers. So he makes his living with a gun in his hands as he has in other such films like Three Kings and The Peacemaker.

I don’t watch Clooney films, not for free, not on TV and not in theaters. My friends know not to ask me to see his films under any circumstances. A position I quickly came to back in 2003 when Hollywood’s supposed “king of cool” took a vicious and idiotic swipe at screen legend Charlton Heston who had just publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Clooney tastelessly joked, “Charlton Heston announced ‘again’ today that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.” The needlessly cruel quip was delivered at a National Board of Review film awards ceremony honoring the loudmouthed actor. When called on about the stupid comment, Clooney dismissed any opportunity to apologize. “I don’t care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him.” (more…)

Pop quiz: what do the following movies have in common?

Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), The Sound of Music (1965), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Ten Commandments (1956), Titanic (1997), Jaws (1975), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Exorcist (1973), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1939), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Ben-Hur (1959), Avatar (2009), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Sting (1973), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), The Graduate (1967), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Fantasia (1941), The Godfather (1972), Forrest Gump (1994), Mary Poppins (1964), The Lion King (1994)

If you said they all made scads of money, bravo — they are the top twenty-five domestic box-office champions of all time (adjusted for inflation, of course).

But consider another similarity: surprisingly few of them relied on established A-list movie stars — the most famous, the highest paid — for their moneymaking prospects. Gone with the Wind had Gable, yes. The Sting had Newman and Redford. The Godfather, Brando.

As for most of the rest, they either featured no A-listers at all, or used them before they became bonafide movie stars. In fact, many of those pictures can take credit for sending now-famous actors into the celestial Hollywood firmament in the first place. Gone with the Wind made Vivian Leigh known to the world. The Ten Commandments did it for Charlton Heston. The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman. The Godfather, Al Pacino. Star Wars, Harrison Ford. Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews. (more…)

CBS won’t comment, but the NY Times reports that on Tuesday night’s episode of the ”The Good Wife” the story revolved around an artist killed by a bomb after he drew a cartoon featuring Muhammad. It looks as though the episode used a number of camera dodges to ensure no one got a good clean look at Islam’s founder:

In a plot line on Tuesday’s episode of “The Good Wife,” the show’s law firm deals with a suit brought by the widow of a newspaper editor who was killed by a bomb after he published an editorial cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad being searched by airport security officers. In scenes like the one above, the editorial cartoon is depicted only in small portions, obscured by shadows or pieces of paper, and never revealed in its entirety.

If you combine this with Comedy Central’s over-the-top censoring of a recent “South Park” episode, we’re really only left with two explanations, right? Either Hollywood’s had a massive change of heart and has suddenly decided to treat religion with respect or they’re terrified of becoming the next Theo Van Gogh.

Right?

We should all be rippling with anticipation over how one or both of these moral revelations will alter upcoming Tinseltown product. If The Former Religious Bigots Known As Hollywood have finally come around and changed their ways when it comes to insulting people of faith — just for starters, who will the new bad guys be on all four of those “Law & Order” series? Who will be the new whipping boys in the independent film world?  (more…)

At least as far as movies go, I believe the above headline to be accurate. The Best Picture nominees at the Oscars that year were Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, and The Shawshank Redemption. In this series, I will look back at the Best Year Ever, cleverly focusing on a different movie each week. Starting with…

The key to any great year at the movies is a great summer at the movies, and 1994 had that. I can’t personally decide which movie that summer was my favorite, so I’m starting with my wife’s favorite. My wife grew up in a small town in South Georgia. They didn’t have a movie theatre. Not that she was in the stone ages, but going to a movie was, to her, an event, not a regular occurrence. We had been dating for only about a month, when one Tuesday afternoon in December of 1991, I said, “Hey, let’s go to the movies.” Puzzled, she replied, “It’s Tuesday.”

As good a day as any, I replied, before whisking her off to see “The Last Boy Scout.”

Three years later, she was worse than me. We would watch two movies in an afternoon, three if they weren’t playing at the General Cinema theatre, with its uncomfortable red seats. Our tastes were not discriminating, we would see anything. On July 15, 1994, we went to see Disney’s Angels in the Outfield (co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Adrien Brody!), then ducked into the next auditorium to watch True Lies. My wife saw it at least ten times that summer. (more…)

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a clergyman, tireless activist, civil rights leader… mountain mover.  He even became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (back when they gave Peace Prizes for real, hard-fought accomplishments).  And wherever he traveled he generated big crowds.  Nothing could compare to the crowd assembled at the National Mall in 1963 for the March on Washington.  King would deliver his famous speech and four words would ring in history forever:  ”I Have a Dream.”

My book Hollywood on the Potomac, chronicles many historic moments when Hollywood took a stand on the biggest political issues of the day — from World War 2 to Iraq, International Relief to Civil Rights.  In 1963, it was stars such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Harry Belafonte at the Lincoln Memorial with Dr. King.

Actor Marlon Brando at the Civil Rights ‘March on Washington’ (to his right are playwright James Baldwin and actor Charlton Heston).  Brando also participated in the ‘freedom rides,’ protests that publicly tested segregation court decisions in the South.  After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Brando scrapped his upcoming movie telling The Joey Bishop Show, ”I felt I’d better go find out… what it is to be black in this country; what this rage is all about.” (more…)

In a publicity event for the new History Channel film “The People Speak” held at UCLA last week, actor/producer Josh Brolin was charming, self-effacing, funny, and down-right likeable.  And, that was the whole reason he was there.  We live in a culture obsessed with celebrity and in full adoration of movie stars in particular.  In short, we are a nation of Star-F%*#ers.  And people like Howard Zinn know it.

Part of the discussion at Friday’s Q & A event centered on the appearance of hypocrisy by the filmmakers for using big-name stars in their film, considering the overall thesis of Zinn’s world view is that REAL history is made by the individual struggling against the elite in power.  Producers Chris Moore and Brolin agreed with the criticism but lamented that the only way to get the History Channel to air this movie would be if stars were connected to it.  Understandable.  But, the inclusion of big name, likable Hollywood stars like Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman, Marisa Tomei and Brolin serve a greater purpose than just aiding the pitch meeting at the network. (more…)

The men and women who earn the right to wear eagle, globe and anchor of the United States Marine Corps are a special breed.   To those outside the Corps, they talk funny.  They look funny.  They are extremely impressed with themselves – and they have every right to be. 

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies: (more…)