HOLLYWOOD’S REPUBLICAN-BASHING COST THEM SOPA SUPPORT

EXCELLENT op-ed courtesy of THR, one of the few entertainment outlets that doesn’t carry Hollywood’s water:

The two parties reacted very differently. Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright. The MPAA was not shy about reminding them that Hollywood has been a reliable source of funding for Democratic candidates, and that it would not tolerate defections.

But that very public message also reached another audience: Tea Party conservatives. Most of them had never given a second thought to intellectual property enforcement, but many had drawn support from conservative bloggers. They began to ask why they should risk the ire of their Internet supporters to rescue an industry that was happily advertising how much it hated them. Pretty soon, far more Republicans than Democrats had bailed on SOPA, and the Republican presidential candidates had all come out for what they called “Internet freedom.”

We’re just hating you back, Hollywood. And never forget that you assholes started it.

On principle, most of us opposed SOPA, but sticking it to Hollywood sure was a bonus.

This industry has blown all of its goodwill with 65% of the American people. Why in the word would we lift a finger to help them reap more of the profits they use to insult, ridicule, marginalize, and campaign against us? That would be no different than running to the side of the ACLU, DNC, Politico, Media Matters, or MSNBC.

They sided with the terrorists during the darkest days of the War on Terror, and now they can rot in hell.

LETTERMAN CELEBRATES 30 YEARS IN LATE-NIGHT TV

I miss liking David Letterman. I was a fan going to back to when he had a daytime television show. Unbelievable what a creepy cretin he’s become.

WOULD YOU LIKE A BEER WITH THAT MOVIE?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo okays the selling of alcohol in some movie theatres. Well, that’s just great. Because alcohol doesn’t make people more talkative or anything.

MARC FORSTER TO MAKE ‘THE WAR MAGICIAN’

Anything that keeps him away from the Bond franchise is a good thing.

HULU SIGNS DEAL FOR ORIGINAL COMEDY

Streaming, streaming, streaming…

What an exciting revolution to watch and to know the stodgy, stuffy, bigoted, entrenched, monopolistic studios are helpless to do anything about it is especially gratifying.

THERE WILL BE A ‘JACKIE BROWN’ PREQUEL IN OUR NEAR FUTURE

The “Dumb and Dumberer” vibe is strong with this one.

BLU-RAY IS HELPING BUT NOT ENOUGH

Studio Briefing:

“We see growth in high margin Blu-ray sales as a net positive for the industry, and continue to look for Blu-ray and digital distribution to help offset declines in physical DVD sales,” Swinburne wrote, while noting that overall DVD declines will exceed Blu-ray gains. “We believe that consumers will continue to migrate to rental transactions (vs. sellthrough), due to the economy, convenience of kiosk and subscription channels, and an overall maturation of physical DVDs[.]”

What should terrify the industry is that Blu-ray is it. 3D is not the next evolution in home video, and the quality can’t improve past Blu-ray without a gimmick like 3D, which will be a hard sell, mainly because whatever that gimmick is will be a different viewing experience than what was originally intended with 99.9% of most titles.

Well, there is ONE more evolution: digital streaming, and we all know Hollywood’s terrified of that inevitability.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO HAS ‘LAUNCHED A GREEN AND ECONOMICALLY CONSCIOUS COFFEE PRODUCT THAT BENEFITS HIS EPONYMOUS FOUNDATION’

What was the middle thing again?

No one, and I mean no one, kisses celebrity butt like the L.A. Times. If there were an Olympic sport for such a thing, the L.A. Times would hold the Gold, Entertainment Weekly the Silver, and the celebrities themselves the Bronze.

TIME WARNER OFFERS RYAN GOSLING FANS THEIR FIX DURING FEBRUARY

What fans?

Gosling has had TWO hit movies in his ENTIRE career and a lot of back up in one of them, “Crazy, Stupid Love.”  Lemme guess; this is the next George Clooney and “30 Rock” the entertainment media creates their own reality around.

Scam artists.

Once upon a time the MSM had the power to create stars. No more. We don’t like them any more than we do Hollywood.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

The Dead Pool (1988) – Pretty amazing how different in tone and style this is from the first one. Cartoony, jokey — not at all serious or dark. Wasted opportunity, really.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

THE MPAA MUST DIE

FULL SUPERBOWL PROMO FOR ‘G.I. JOE: RETALIATION‘

GEORGE LUCAS’ PROBLEM OF MASS APPEAL

6 DELETED SCENES FROM ‘STAR TREK’ MOVIES THAT WOULD’VE MADE THEM A LITTLE LESS CONFUSING

KEVIN BACON TO STAR IN ‘SCREAM’ WRITER KEVIN WILLIAMSON’S SERIAL KILLER FOX PILOT

NEW TRAILER FOR ‘WALKING DEAD’ LOOKS BLOODY GOOD

WHICH ‘HOME IMPROVEMENT’ STAR GOT BUSTED FOR DUI AND DRUGS?

CW ORDERS ‘HUNGER GAMES’-STYLE DRAMA PILOT

‘SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN’ GETS THREE NEW IMAGES

DOCUMENTARY-STYLE 3-D FILM ABOUT KATY PERRY IN DEVELOPMENT

NEW PROMO ART FOR ‘THE AVENGERS’ INCLUDES 3D POSTER

CATCHING UP WITH VISUAL EFFECTS MAESTRO DOUGLAS TRUMBULL

TOTALLY PSYCHOTIC FAIRY TALES THAT HOLLYWOOD SHOULD FILM NEXT

CAN ‘BRIDESMAIDS’ WIN A SCREENPLAY OSCAR?

COOL IMAGE: THE REALITY TV VENN DIAGRAM

‘MOTOR CITY’ ADDS GARY OLDMAN AS VILLAIN

ON WATCHING EVERY SPIELBERG MOVIE

TOP 10 MOVIE PERFORMANCES BY PROFESSIONAL WRESTLERS

ACTORS WHO REPRISED THEIR ICONIC ROLES FOR ADVERTISEMENTS

10 MOVIE STARS WHO SHOULD TAKE THE PLUNGE INTO TV

A LOOK AT THE FILMS OF DIRECTOR ROBERT MULLIGAN

THE BEST FOUND FOOTAGE/MOCK-DOC MOVIES YOU PROBABLY HAVEN’T SEEN

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COMING SOON TO HOME VIDEO

Lionsgate is proud to present Madonna: Truth or Dare, available for the first time on Blu-ray Disc on April 3rd, 2012.

Go backstage and under the covers with the musical and pop culture icon, Madonna, as Lionsgate debuts Miramax’s Madonna: Truth or Dare on Blu-ray Disc this April. See the Queen of Pop as never before – singer, dancer, sex goddess, businesswoman and den mother – in an up close and personal documentary chronicling Madonna’s 1990 “Blond Ambition Tour.” Presented for the first time with a stunning new 1080P High Definition transfer and 5.1 DTS Master Audio, Madonna: Truth or Dare, including the original theatrical trailer, premieres on Blu-ray Disc on April 3rd, just as Madonna makes her way back into the spotlight. With a Super Bowl half-time performance, a new album, tour and the launch of her “Truth or Dare” lifestyle brand, 2012 is destined to be the year of Madge. Madonna: Truth or Dare will also be available on DVD for the suggested retail price of $9.98.

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY,  FEBRUARY 3

TCM:

9:00 AM  Night Of The Iguana, The (1964) — A defrocked priest surrenders to the sins of the flesh in a Mexican hotel. Dir: John Huston Cast:  Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr. BW-118 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format.

Much to choose from tomorrow, but if you’re looking for something unfairly forgotten and a little offbeat, you could do worse. Ava is not only beautiful, though that hardness that comes with alcoholism is starting to show, her performance is simply superb. Ava was much more than just a pretty face.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

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“When morals decline, and good men do nothing, evil flourishes.”

The trailer and therefore the movie hits on all the high and low points of the long-serving F.B.I. Director’s life and it certainly looks great period-wise, but you have to wonder what the actual story is going to be about. Thematically it’s all there, however, and that’s important. The opening piece of narration (quoted above) gives you an idea of what will drive the character and the closing piece of narration – “even great men can be corrupted”  – is likely the theme Eastwood’s driving throughout.   

Hate to say it, but it’s still difficult to accept DiCaprio in these adult roles.

“J. Edgar” hits theatres November 9th.

The Scorsese-directed suspense-horror film has been number one at the U.S box office for two consecutive weekends, despite its stunning  collection of genre cliches, long-out-of-fashion narrative ambiguity, agonizingly slow pace, and few real surprises, along with the director’s usual arresting visual style. Thus a good deal of the credit must go to DiCaprio’s star power.

Telling the tale of a U.S. Marshall, played by DiCaprio, who with his new partner investigates the escape of a violent prisoner/patient at a federal detention and treatment facility on an island several miles off the coast of Massachusetts, Shutter Island employs enough horror and suspense cliches to scare off any discerning moviegoer. 

There are, for example, the isolated island itself (so reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and many other suspense stories), a stormy scene in a graveyard, wanderings through a confusing maze of corridors in an insane asylum, the hardnosed detective investigating a case that becomes much more complex than he thought it would, a sinister ex-Nazi, a character’s disturbing memories of wartime, classical music backing a scene revealing atrocities, weird people making perplexing claims, a character taking a hypodermic away from a doctor and injecting the latter, an automobile explosion, and many, many more. 

What’s more, Scorsese employs this farrago of the familiar in the service of a plot that ultimately becomes one of those “what really happened?” stories that were so popular in the late 1960s and early ’70s and then died an extremely well-deserved death. Scorsese and his screenwriters actually do a good job of bringing out the epistemological implications of this material, which could inspire in more-educated audience members a few moments of consideration about how humans can in fact know that we know things. But surely no more than a few moments of it.

Unfortunately, the film is so resolutely irresolute that it’s ultimately impossible to know what really happened, and the characters are too wooden for us really to care. DiCaprio’s U.S. Marshall, for example, is given a huge amount of back story in the film, yet the narrative’s ultimate undermining of the audience’s knowledge of what happened and what he actually did makes it impossible for us to judge his actions and thus know how much to sympathize with him. We know little about him except for the tragedies he has endured, which are revealed in only rather piecemeal fashion during an overly drawn-out narrative. 

This seems to be a choice on the director’s part, apparently in hopes of making the atmosphere that much creepier. The Dennis Lehane novel on which the film is based reportedly includes a good deal of lighthearted byplay between the marshall and his partner, and it seems a rather better choice than Scorsese’s. 

Thus, despite DiCaprio’s star power, he is never able to make the character particularly likable, further undermining any change at audience sympathy. 

All of this makes it even more impressive that audiences are turning out in relatively big numbers. To be sure, a good many people who have seen Shutter Island seem quite convinced that it is a mystery meant to have a real answer, as exemplified by a discussion at screenrant.com. Nonetheless, it seems quite clear that Scorsese and his writers intended that no definitive answer to the film’s central mystery should be found within its story. 

It’s possible, of course, that some ticket-buyers may well be attracted by the film’s narrative ambiguity, or that some were drawn in by a fondness for Lehane’s novel (but not many, I think). Perhaps the couple of decades of blessed freedom from these ambiguity stories has allowed the arising of a new generation of moviegoers not yet turned off by such stories. Maybe this sort of story is no longer a cliche for a large part of the audience. 

The trailers, commercials, and other advance publicity for the film, however, certainly did not emphasize the presence of such ambiguity. Instead they dwelt on the presence of DiCaprio, Scorsese’s visual bravura, and the picture’s gothic atmospherics. In other words, a big star in a genre film. 

My guess is that Hollywood industry insiders won’t find Shutter Island ambiguous at all. The message is clear: big star plus recognizable genre equals serious money. 

And that’s the kind of message movie Hollywood does best.

Leonardo Di Caprio is still to set to play Frank Sinatra for Martin Scorsese. But he’s probably not going to sing.

“With those records?” Scorsese asked me, his voice rising, at the premiere last night for his new DiCaprio collaboration, “Shutter Island.” “Frank will do the singing. But we’re waiting for a finished script.”

So while he’s waiting, Scorsese’s next film will likely take a break from DiCaprio. “The Invention of Huge Cabret” is lighter fare for Scorsese, about a 12-year-old boy who lives in Paris and meets famous French silent film director and magician George Méliès.

“Hugo Cabret” is a family movie, unlike “Shutter Island,” which opens Friday and is a complex, disturbing thriller. Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (”Mystic River”), “Shutter Island” was set for release last fall but pulled back at the last minute. That turns out to be a good thing, because although DiCaprio could have earned an Oscar nomination “Shutter Island” is a perfect winter film. “Silence of the Lambs” and “Fargo” were each winter movies that went on to big things at the end of the year.

“Shutter Island,” if you don’t know the book, is certainly a shocker. Beautifully shot and edited (of course by Thelma Schoonmaker) it also has a bunch of perfect “cameo” performances by Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer, and Jackie Earle Haley. It’s partially an homage to Alfred Hitchcock, too, with a pulse-heightening score created by The Band’s Robbie Robertson from pieces of modern classical music.

Read full piece here.

An impressive commitment was shown to keeping the message of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” as a battle cry for our youths’ participation in protecting Mother Earth from global warming and pollution. My children were enthusiastic. I was confused. Something bothered me, and I could not put my finger on why – until Memorial Day weekend.

It started on Saturday morning, when I took my 8-year-old son, Nicholas, who is a Cub Scout, to the Los Angeles National Cemetery. About 2,700 Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, from Cub to Eagle, convened to place flags on more than 84,000 gravesites of America’s finest. It was a moving, profound experience.

One would expect a lot of running and playing among these youngsters as they performed their task. But, no. At each site, they stood at attention, recited the name of the service member and then saluted. Within two hours, 84,000 flags proudly waved in the gentle breeze.

I have passed this cemetery for years and wondered who placed those flags, and how, from a sea of white stones, the Stars and Stripes overnight come and beautifully decorate this hallowed ground. All across this great nation, I picture the same scene and the beauty of these young boys and girls honoring those who have protected the privilege of our magnificent democracy and freedoms.

This Memorial Day, I had the honor of being part of the program at this cemetery. joining Robert Forster, Jon Voight, David Horowitz, Bill Sachs and Maj. Gen. JamesW. Comstock. The general had asked all to remember the first time he or she understood or felt patriotic. As I sat waiting my turn to speak, I reflected on mine. My father was a Navy gunner on a merchant marine ship during World War II. His ship was torpedoed in the Pacific, and he was in the water for three days. He lost some of his close friends and was awarded the Purple Heart.

My earliest recollections of my dad were that on every Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Independence Day until the day he died at age 57, he wore his Navy uniform and raised the flag in our front yard. I remember his solemn pride on those days. He also upset my mother a bit because he still fit in his uniform and had not gained any weight over the years. And, well, she had.

My father often talked of the pride he had for his father, who had come from Sicily and enlisted in the Infantry during World War I. His father also had been awarded the Purple Heart and the Oak Leaf Cluster, which is bestowed on military awards when exceptional conduct is recognized.

Looking out at the sea of faces on Memorial Day, the great beautiful faces of those who understand sacrifice and love our country, I could not help but think of the millions of families connected to the military either by serving or through family history. By contrast, neither President Obama nor Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a parent in the military.

In no way do I suggest that such a connection is a criterion for love of country, but it certainly can affect how one might feel about the military and its history. Certainly, the vice president does have the experience of having a son who is serving.

Interestingly, Mr. Obama’s maternal grandfather fought in World War II, but Mr. Obama often dismisses his grandfather’s beliefs in his book “Dreams From My Father,” saying his grandparents knew nothing of the real violence in the world. He wrote that his grandfather had never seen “real combat” and had a “tendency to rewrite history to conform to the image he wished for himself.”

During the election, however, many media outlets, including the New Republic, Time magazine and the Huffington Post, fawned over Mr. Obama’s “military pedigree” and “World War II connection,” though Mr. Obama himself casually dismissed his grandfather’s service.

Our fathers and mothers have a great deal of influence over our thinking. We must use their meaningful history and pride to appeal to the Hollywood community, to Nickelodeon, Disney, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros. and others.

We should have the same unifying message for our youth today and educate them on the love, honor, sacrifice, pride and patriotism of the military with as much vim and vigor as on Earth Day and in the Big Green Help campaign.

We need a call to arms, like that of the Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards, and spend from 10:30 a.m. until 9 p.m. with programming that would excite our children with the stirring message of our nation’s heroes and their powerful stories of honor and sacrifice.

They know enough about “going green,” so why not go red, white and blue for future Memorial Days? Let’s start on July Fourth, Independence Day, so that by next Memorial Day, perhaps Nickelodeon will heed our call and put together a program that will bring education, encouragement and patriotism to our youth.

Let’s make it as cool to plug-in to patriotism as it is to unplug to save energy.

Robert Davi is an actor-director best known for his roles in “Die Hard,” “License to Kill,” “The Goonies,” “Predator 2,” the series “Profiler” and “Stargate Atlantis” and his directorial debut of the award-winning film “The Dukes.” His new film, “Magic,” will be in theaters later this year.

With my wife and little son, I moved from Nashville to Washington, DC to become a writer and speechwriter. It seemed a foolish gamble to everyone but me. I was happy from then on–happy down to the bones. That probably would have been enough, but eventually my success (as I count success) brought some of the more traditional benefits. They’re nice, but they weren’t necessary. What mattered was finding the backbone to live the life I chose.

“Revolutionary Road” is about that. It’s about the common 20-something realization that “being special” isn’t bestowed upon one at birth, it’s something only we can make for ourselves. It’s about the excuses we find to believe that the trappings of success are not only an acceptable substitute but also a responsible and wise alternative for life choices that most of the world labels “immature” and “careless.” It’s about acting as if we regret not “taking chances” when in fact we are utterly relieved. It’s about being honest with oneself that there are tremendous opportunities in life, and how few of those called to do something out of the ordinary actually answer that voice. And it’s about the pain some feel when they understand just what they’ve passed up.

Director Sam Mendes probably intended “Revolutionary Road” to be a straightforward condemnation of suburban life or the middle class or alleged 1950s conformity, but he doesn’t get the final say. The thing about art (if you’ll excuse the term) is that what matters is what it means to us, not what the artist hoped we’d feel. To read this picture as just another slam on flyover lifestyles is to miss a subtler, better opportunity: The picture is about people who want to be special by their own standard, about the process of realizing that transformation can come only if we ourselves do the work, and the demanding truth that following through takes fortitude. Or, as Kate Winslet’s character says to her husband, “It takes backbone to live the life you want, Frank.” It sure does.

“Revolutionary Road” is one of the best pictures of 2008.

But one culture has rejected a far-left film establishment that seeks to undermine its war on terror – the other has embraced it.    

The first culture – the culture that rejects its morally relativistic artists – is America.  The second culture – the culture that accepts and encourages its morally relativistic artists – is Israel. 

Hollywood may make tons of movies like In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, and Stop-Loss, but those movies tank.  Tel Aviv makes similar movies, and those movies are considered the greatest film achievements of the Jewish State. 

There’s a reason for that: while Hollywood believes American exceptionalism is passé, most Americans disagree.  By contrast, Tel Aviv believes that Zionism is passé – and that post-Zionist attitude has infected much of the Israeli populace. 

It’s no wonder that America is winning its war on terror, while Israel is losing hers. 

Let’s take just one example: Body of Lies vs. Waltz with Bashir. 

DiCaprio and Crowe star in "Body of Lies"

Body of Lies had all the elements of a hit.  Exciting action.  Solid direction by Ridley Scott.  Two first-rate stars in Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.    

And it bombed.   

It bombed because watching Body of Lies was like watching an in-depth investigation by Al Jazeera.  The movie did its best to equate American counter-terrorism efforts with Islamic terrorism. 

Body of Lies opens with shots of Americans – led by CIA operative Leo DiCaprio — beating a terrorism suspect bloody.  Near the end of the movie, as Leo is being tortured by an Islamic terrorism, he flashes back to beating an Islamic terrorist.  The implication is clear: the US and its enemies aren’t so different, after all. 

That’s not a message Americans really want to hear.  We understand that our enemies are murderous thugs, and by and large, we also understand that we may need to hurt them in order to get information from them.   

It’s no wonder, then, that Body of Lies was more of a sinking ship than Titanic. 

It’s a different story in Israel. 

The hottest new movie in Israel is Waltz with Bashir.  The movie has already won Best Picture from the Israeli Film Academy, Best Picture from the National Society of Film Critics, Best Animated Film from the Los Angeles Film Critics, and Best Independent Foreign Film from the British Independent Film Awards. 

Waltz with Bashir is an animated post-Zionist journey into the mind of a former IDF soldier who fought in the 1982 Lebanon War.  It follows his investigation into what really happened during the Lebanon War, and it culminates in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, in which the Israeli Defense Forces failed to prevent Christian Phalangists from killing 700-800 Palestinians in those refugee camps.  The Phalangist attack was a response to the Islamist killing of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel.    

The film neglects to mention that only 35 out of the 700-800 killed were women and children – the rest were men, which suggests that most of those killed were in fact members of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization. 

In short, Waltz with Bashir is the Israeli version of Body of Lies, with less realistic action and more psychotherapy. 

In America, this sort of self-indulgent caterwauling is scorned by the mass public.  In Israel, everyone’s just pleased to be accepted by the Europeans for engaging in such self-abnegation. 

The film community in the United States may skew heavily to the left.  It may see its true mission as reshaping American foreign policy along European lines.  And it may make anti-war films with that mission in mind.  But the American public rejects the Hollywood view.  We want more Saving Private Ryan and less Redacted.  We want more We Were Soldiers and less Rendition. 

In Israel, the film community skews far left as well.  But Israel embraces those films.  Since 1948, Israeli film has been heavily focused on undermining Israelis’ patriotism – and Israelis have bought into it. 

Film has an impact.  It’s no wonder that so many Israelis are disillusioned with their state.  It’s no wonder that they’re apologetic for defending themselves.  It’s no wonder they keep trying to make amends for wrongs they haven’t committed.  It’s no wonder they love Waltz with Bashir.  

In America, it isn’t too late.  The American film industry may ignore its profit margin in favor of trendy pacifism, but such willful blindness can only last so long.  Eventually, Americans will demand to see movies that champion America.  Americans won’t let their children be convinced by nonsense like Body of Lies.