–“THE UNDEFEATED” OPENS TODAY. “THE UNDEFEATED” OPENS TODAY. “THE UNDEFEATED” OPENS TODAY. “THE UNDEFEATED” OPENS TODAY. “THE UNDEFEATED” OPENS TODAY.

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but “The Undefeated” opens today. Buy your tickets here. Vote here to have it screen in your area.

Big Hollywood’s been in this pop culture/politics battle for over two years now and I’ve been in it for almost seven. And this is where we are at with “The Undefeated” (which opens today):

Pop culture-check.

Politics- check.

Corrupt MSM-  check.

A three-year crime committed against Sarah Palin- check.

The election of our lifetime a year away- cha-freakin’-eck.

Now … it’s all up to you.

And don’t let me down. I’m famous for holding on to a grudge like it will save me from a fall.

–“THE KENNEDYS” WINS TEN EMMY NOMS

Besides getting a nomination for outstanding miniseries or movie, the project also earned nods for Greg Kinnear and Barry Pepper, who portrayed brothers John and Robert Kennedy, respectively, and for Tom Wilkinson in his role as family patriarch Joe Kennedy.

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The Best Years of Our Lives was on TCM today.

Even when the Good Guys and Bad Guys all seemed incontestably defined, World War II still created a certain amount of what we now call “post-traumatic stress” … and, of course, the world, even then, could not or would not … or simply refused to understand.

Then there was the film’s 1940’s, unsavory version of a war protestor who so provoked the veterans that the character Dana Andrews portrayed punched the Axis sympathizer into and virtually through a display case and, of course, our hero lost his job.

Then the double amputee and his fear of marriage … well, I cried through the whole film, particularly the wedding ceremony we thought would never happen.

During it, of course, hope springs eternal and Dana Andrews renews his commitment to new beginnings, goes over and kisses Theresa Wright … right there! (more…)

It always impresses me when an aged actor manages a comeback that is authentic, one based on more than mere nostalgia, one appealing to an entirely new generation of moviegoers. Jackie Gleason spent most of the 1970s appearing in pale television retreads of his 1950s heyday, and for most of that time he was absent from the big screen entirely. A revered comedic master, yes — but nevertheless his career as an innovator and taste-maker seemed long over. Then came Smokey and the Bandit, a fitting capstone to a long career of memorable portrayals and endless belly-laughs.

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.” (more…)

The United States Navy is in the news and on my mind lately. The events off the coast of Somalia are surely one very good reason for this. Heroism and service. Ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances. Another not nearly so dramatic, but nonetheless exciting reason, for me at least, involves the very recent honor I’ve had of contributing my prose to a citation to confer on Mr. George Herbert Walker Bush the degree of Doctor of Social Science, honoris causa.  His own history, his willingness to serve, to sacrifice and risk everything for a cause, for others, is something we should never underestimate. It’s something we, as Americans have always been good at.

It’s also something our movies used to portray well. We don’t get to see too many of these kinds of movies anymore. Nope, they don’t make them like they used to. That can be said of both the men and women of Bush 41’s generation, as well as the films of that era. But sometimes, in more recent times, we’re graced with shining examples of tarnished excellence, of battered beauty in our citizens and in our favorite art, the movies.    (more…)

9am PST - Boomerang (1947) – A prosecutor fights to prove the defendant in a scandalous murder case is innocent. Cast: Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb, Cara Williams Dir: Elia Kazan BW-88 mins, TV-PG

Here’s a treat for you. Elia Kazan directs this tough, little tightly-paced (88 mins!) hickory knot of a docu-drama starring The Mighty Dana Andrews and just as Mighty Arthur Kennedy. No time is wasted in getting to it. The story opens in broad daylight on a busy street and before you can say, “What a lovely little town,” a Priest has his brains blown out and the manhunt is on. Kennedy, at his sneering, contemptuous best, confesses and is prosecuted by State’s Attorney Henry Harvey (Andrews), but something’s amiss and soon, all instincts for what’s good for him to the contrary, Harvey finds himself in the awkward position of having to prove the man’s innocence. (more…)