Five Best Picture winners in one Blu-ray collection with no shortage of special features is a pretty good deal… if you like the movies. Because I’m a fan of four out five of the titles, this was a real find.

The English Patient (1996)

Director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping WWII romance ranked as #24 in my countdown of the greatest left-wing films of all time:

Filled with poetic dialogue, lush cinematography, some truly extraordinary scenes — such as the sandstorm sequence where Katharine and Laszlo fall in love — and  a charming subplot involving the short-lived but sincere romance between Binoche’s Canadian nurse and Kip (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews), a brave Indian who defuses bombs, you almost will yourself  not to notice the film’s depraved and shockingly selfish philosophy. The film is seductive, though, and you want to give into it, but in the end the only moral outcome would be to have the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” storm in and beat Laszlo to death with a baseball bat.

If you don’t mind being manipulated by an ingeniously crafted and immoral piece of propaganda (and I don’t), another bonus is the look of the film (the cinematography won an Oscar), which is a jaw-dropper on Blu-ray.

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Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Many will never forgive the fact that director John Madden’s fictionalized account of a passionate but ill-fated love affair between a young, struggling William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)  and the beautiful young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires some of his greatest work, beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for that year’s top Oscar prize.

This might be heresy, but I think the best film won.

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The Washington Times does an excellent job documenting the impact “The Undefeated” is having, even as much of the MSM chooses to ignore it and judge the film’s box office as though it were “Harry Potter.”

1. “The Undefeated” packs a Chicago theatre:

“Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in OrangeCounty” was the headline at Atlantic.com. But as Christian Toto of the Washington Times has pointed out, this was based on the experience of a lone political blogger at a single midnight showing of the film, the story was picked up by politico.com and the Los Angeles Times. Not many political documentaries would clock well at the witching hour.

Other outlets have taken their potshots as well. Entertainment Weekly proclaimed, “Sarah Palin’s ‘The Undefeated’: We saw it so you don’t have to.” Huffington Post chimed in, “Box Office Bomb: Sarah Palin and the Failure of ‘The Undefeated.’”

But we aren’t talking Captain America or Harry Potter here. A conservative political documentary requires a different measure of success. And this indie underdog film has been scoring unexpected successes – and fans – in decidedly liberal places.

After a five-city expansion, the film made its Chicago debut Saturday to a packed house at the GeneSiskelFilmCenter. Yes, I said, “Chicago.”

2. Roger Ebert showed both Governor Palin and ”The Undefeated” respect in his review:

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CHICAGO (AP) – In the end, it was just Oprah.

For the final episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” taped Tuesday, the talk show queen appeared alone on her Chicago stage, talking to viewers about what they’ve meant to her during the show’s 25-year run. The finale will air on Wednesday.

Fans leaving Tuesday’s taping said Winfrey had tears in her eyes as the television icon said a final thank you.

“She said, ‘This isn’t goodbye. This is until we meet again,” said Amy Korin, 32, of Chicago, who was in the audience.

Winfrey then kissed and hugged her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, and made her way through the halls of Harpo Studios, saying goodbye to her staff, audience members said. She kept saying, “We did it! We did it!,” Korin said, and giving employees high-fives.

There was a single chair on the stage, but Winfrey stood most of the time, audience members said.

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There’s something curiously missing from this story on Chicago’s Mantu Dance Company. It may be the only time the company has made big news without a mention of Barack and Michelle Obama in years.

One can only imagine the headlines were it so closely linked to a Republican President.

Illinois officials are taking a closer look at a nonprofit dance company that was awarded a $4.5 million state grant in 2003 for a planned performing arts center on the South Side that has yet to begin construction.

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity spokeswoman Marcelyn Love, whose department hands out millions in grant money every year to arts and culture organizations, said the Muntu Dance Theater Co. of Chicago will be placed on “strict oversight” as they move forward with long-delayed plansto build an arts center at 47th Street and Greenwood Avenue in the city’s Kenwood neighborhood.

At issue is a 6 million dollar, if not more, vacant lot in Chicago.

A circular concrete barrier behind a tattered chain-link fence at the corner of 47th Street and Greenwood Avenue in the Kenwood neighborhood is all there is to show for once-ambitious plans to remake a struggling business corridor into a hub for African-American arts and culture.

Eight years ago, the nonprofit Muntu Dance Theatre secured more than $6 million in city and state grants, rights to the two-acre property for $1, and cash donations from the likes of ComEd and Boeing to build a $15 million performing arts center.

At the time, the project came with the blessings of local leaderswho hoped to not only turn around the fortunes of an area littered with liquor stores and boarded-up buildings, but help restore a piece of Bronzeville’s historic luster.

It’s interesting to note that Michelle Obama appears to now have enough time to plan school lunches for every child in America, yet, despite sitting on Mantu’s board for years didn’t seem to be able to find time to provide the least bit of oversight that may have prevented this problem. And that’s not all.

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Like any other red-blooded, rock ribbed, slightly overweight and out of shape movie loving American man, I am waiting to see “The Expendables.”  I am waiting for the body count of the summer to begin with all of my favorite 80’s and 90’s actions stars! I heard they were in there. I went over to IMBD to take a look at any early information about the movie and sure enough there were Stallone and Lundgren. One can only hope that there is some homage to Rocky IV in the movie.

The new tough guys Li and Statham are in the movie along with extreme fighter Randy Couture and fake fighter Steve Austin. There are cameos by Willis and the Democrat Governor of California Schwarzenegger. All the action heroes are there…except my favorite, Chuck Norris!

My favorite Chuck Norris movie is the 1985 cop drama “Code of Silence.” “Delta Force” and “Missing in Action” have better action and more blowing up of stuff, but they lack something that “Code” had: me! I got my first chance to be in a major film when they shot “Code of Silence” in Chicago. I was cast as an extra and later got to be an uncredited cop in a scene with Mr. Norris. It was an awesome experience for a young comic. He was friendly and personable and chatted between takes with everybody. (more…)

UPDATE: The bounty is now $100,000 for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled at Congressmen John Lewis and Andre Carson.

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After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.

That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

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The situation in Afghanistan is like a poker game. There are only three options for action: raise, call or fold.  The President seems to be unable to pick one that doesn’t have Americans on both sides of the debate pulling out their hair.

During his campaign for the White House President Obama said, “We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there… I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan.”

He promised to send another ten to fifteen thousand troops to help those already there. He also declared that the war in Afghanistan was the proper front in the war against terror. Now that he is Commander-in-Chief, his vision seems to be less clear.

The military commanders gave the President four troop deployment options earlier this week but he refused all four. Not for military reasons but because of some hooey about the corruption of the government in Kabul and their inability to run a fair election. Mr. President, if our support for governments was based on whether they are corrupt or not and could run a fair election, we would have pulled federal funding from Chicago years ago. The problem with pulling out of Afghanistan, or Chicago for that matter, is that they would fall into violent anarchy. We have already seen that happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (more…)

I have always been fascinated and frustrated by the phenomenon in our public dialogue that when we get new information after a “debate” is deemed to be over, that the original dispute is never “reopened.”

For instance, when Barack Obama threw Rev. Jeremiah Wright “under the bus” a month after he was praised lustily by the media for not having done so in his famous “race” speech, the history of that event was never rewritten. Similarly, the dramatic positive impact of the surge in Iraq never came close to altering the media’s premature conclusion that the war there was a “disaster,” and the most recent data on the global temperature drop has done next to nothing to change the notion that the debate of global warming is “over.”

In the past week we have seen two classic examples of this quirk in the unwritten rules of media history.

The Obama/Oprah led flameout for Chicago’s hopes to host the 2016 Olympics certainly fits in this category. Much has already been said about the disastrous nature of this development from the economic and political perspectives. However, not nearly enough has been stated about how this event seems to prove that one of the basic foundations of the argument for Obama’s election was a complete lie.   (more…)

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So while chuckleheads like Jesse Jackson and Senator Roland Burris hilariously blame George Bush for Chicago losing the 2016 Olympics, whiny columnists like Mike Lupica are up in arms that conservatives might be gloating over President Obama’s big screw-up. Apparently laughing at all this is somehow anti-American, because Obama is our President, and he was doing this for all of us.

You know… kind of like when Bush was trying win a war in Iraq – and all those left wingers stood behind him.

And that’s my first point: The right has every right to gloat over Obama’s humiliation, because, thankfully, NO ONE DIED. Unlike, say during the Iraq war, where, whenever there was a roadside bombing, the progressives did their own special victory dance – using the consequences of war to gloat over an embattled president and an unpopular country. I didn’t hear much of the smarmy press calling them out. (more…)

Now if you’re like me, you know children are evil. They’re thieving, selfish creatures whose primary agenda includes spreading germs and smearing mucous on your belongings. So naturally you’d think I`d be in favor of President Obama`s plan for longer school days and shorter summer vacations. After all, that means less brats on the streets, defacing my tree fort made from discarded copies of Oui.

But on the contrary – I think Obama is off base, for three reasons:

First: When it comes to education, more doesn’t mean better. When something blows – ordering more of it doesn`t solve the problem. Fact is, we don`t need more school, we need better schools. Sadly, teachers unions have created a lock on jobs for even the most moronically incompetent – and the only way for a teacher to lose a job these days is if she gives one to a student. Worse – for a lot of kids, sending them back for three more hours of daily schooling in places like Chicago or Baltimore is like an academic version of stop-loss. They learn more about running for their lives than reading for enjoyment. (more…)

So the king of the travel guide racket, Arthur Frommer, has come out against Arizona. Yes, he claims he’ll no longer visit the state because it permit “thugs” to openly carry guns. He revealed this on his blog, after witnessing a protester carrying a rifle outside a building where the President was speaking.

Frommer says he’ll consider whether “tourists should safeguard themselves” by avoiding the crime-ridden hellhole that is the Grand Canyon. After I read about this, I decided to do a search to see if Frommer ever made similar pronouncements about other cities or states. I wondered if he had ever told people to avoid Washington DC, where, according to a US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004 report – that place topped the entire country in crime. (more…)

Iconic filmmaker John Hughes is dead of a heart attack at 59.

Anyone who came of age in the 80s and early 90s can’t help but remember the John Hughes era thanks to the many, many hours of warm, hilarious and unforgettable memories that sprung from the great man’s Midwestern mind.

John Hughes: 1950-2009

As producer, writer and director, Hughes created timeless stories that teenagers and parents alike will continue to discover a hundred years from now. Rich in universal theme, populated with lovable, relatable outcasts, and told by a creative genius who understood us and never talked down to us, John Hughes enjoyed nearly two decades of Hollywood success before retiring to private life in Chicago sometime in the 90s.

Long before today, we were missing John Hughes. (more…)

When writing my book Censorship: The Threat To Silence Talk Radio, I included one of the Obama campaign’s most hypocritical moments.  After reading this, you’ll have no question why the “Teleprompter of the United States” needs one.  John McCain was no challenge in the debates but Obama avoided this confrontation. An excerpt from my book which Simon & Schuster will publish May 5th:

In late August, 2008, Obama supporters unleashed their venom on Chicago’s WGN radio for allowing a critic of Barack to come on the air.  The station had scheduled an interview with Stanley Kurtz, author of an article that linked Obama to 60’s radical William Ayers.  (Ayers – now a professor in the College of Education at University of Illinois – was co-founder of a radical left-wing organization called the Weather Underground that was responsible for bombings of public buildings in the 60’s and 70’s, resulting in injuries to and deaths of several people.)  (more…)

It was a crisp night in Chicago as I ventured down to the Chicago Theater, the Grand Dame of State Street, to catch the final performance of the Bill Maher - Ann Coulter Debate. The ninety year-old movie house dates to a time when they were rightfully called “palaces” because it’s like watching a show inside a giant Faberge Egg. This was the third debate of the series, the other two were held in New York and Boston.

The debate was sold out and people were still trying to buy extra tickets outside the theater. Also out in force were the 9/11: Inside Job protesters, the bane of Bill Maher. I snickered to myself. You would think most people there to be either a Maher or Coulter fan; I forget there are those who can’t stand both of them.  (more…)

This week’s Sunday Matinee is dedicated to Hollywood.

Because it’s Oscar Sunday and the whole world is focused on the Kodak Theatre and the red carpet parade about to happen, it seems fitting that Broadway throws Hollywood a bone today.  Also, considering every other Broadway show these days seems to be a staged version of a popular movie, (“Shrek”, “Wedding Singer”… Really?) it seems appropriate to shine a little light on a Broadway Musical that has been adapted to film.  (more…)