Movies We Like: ‘Godzilla, King of the Monsters’ (1956)

So, when it came time for our little girl to watch her first grown-up movie, I was torn between Saving Private Ryan and a film I have loved since I was a kid, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  Now, Private Ryan teaches important, practical lessons that every American should learn, like how to maneuver your infantry company across a beachhead under fire to wipe out a Nazi crew-served weapons bunker. On the other hand, Godzilla has a hideous dragon with radioactive breath.  Tough call, but we decided to save Private Ryan for when she’s six – better late than never.

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What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain. (more…)

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Tags: 40th Infantry Division, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A-Bomb, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Asahi
Posted Nov 8th 2009 at 6:24 am in Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Film, Reviews | 25620250 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/11/08/movies-we-like-godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-1956/Movies+We+Like%3A++%27Godzilla%2C+King+of+the+Monsters%27+%281956%292009-11-08+14%3A24%3A12Kurt+Schlichter

‘Watchmen’: Tough on Liberal Sensibilities

There has been a lot written about vigilantism and conservatism in film lately. My friend David Swindle wrote a piece for American Thinker “What’s So Conservative About Vigilantism?” Big Hollywood contributor John T. Simpson wrote “Story and the Power of Conservative Themes in Film” and I wrote about vigilantism for Parcbench.com.

Conservative’s favorite vigilantes know that no justice system is perfect just like “Dirty Harry” Callahan knows there is no time for due process when people’s lives are at stake. These heroes always draw a distinct line between good and evil, and we trust them to do the right thing.

Watchmen, which was recently released on DVD, gives us a darker view of our heroes. It suggests that maybe we shouldn’t trust them, and takes a very cynical view of the fight of good versus evil. The characters are pitched as superheroes but most of them are as human as any of us.

The film takes place in a fictional 1985 where Richard Nixon is still the president. Over the years, “watchmen” had been working with the government to keep the world a safe place but eventually became outlawed. While President Nixon is trying to avoid nuclear warfare with the soviets, some “watchmen” see a world that is not worth saving anymore while others continue to operate as vigilantes. (more…)

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Tags: Dirty Harry, Rorschach, Terrorism, the comedian, vigilante
Posted Aug 7th 2009 at 6:03 pm in Film, Politics | 19904647 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cyogerst/2009/08/07/watchmen-tough-on-liberal-sensibilities/%27Watchmen%27%3A+Tough+on+Liberal+Sensibilities2009-08-08+01%3A03%3A34Chris+Yogerst

G.I. Joe’s Benetton Moment

So the latest GI Joe flick is creating controversy, because the character is no longer portrayed as a typical American soldier. Instead he’s part of some elite murky force of international fighters – a Benetton ad with rocket launchers. On MSNBC, Donny Deutsch tried to take John J. Miller to task over his objections to the change – pointing out that the shift from an iconic American character to a mushy international delight is a “business” decision. For the movie to make money internationally, Donny thinks the character has to become part of global task force of community organizers. To this, I say, “Fiddle faddle,” which is short for “Silly stupid fiddle faddle.”

I wrote about this two years ago, just when Hasbro and Paramount execs decided to give GI Joe a makeover. Back then they felt the world would be too pissed at us for getting rid of Saddam Hussein to go see a movie about an American hero. As it turns out, they were wrong – the backlash over Saddam’s death had less impact than Norman Fell’s.

But for a moment, let’s attempt to use Donny’s logic on other flicks. “Sex and the City,” my favorite film – made a pile of money around the world, and it was about five American chicks exercising their rights to both unfettered capitalism and sex. According to Deutsch, it would have been better to make them all multi-racial, transgendered dolphins – and stationed them in Brussels in a cool undersea condo shaped like Earth. Granted, that does sound awesome – but it probably would have been less successful than the original concept (which made me cry). (more…)

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Tags: Benetton, Charlotte York, community organizers, Dirty Harry, Donny Deutsch
Posted Aug 5th 2009 at 11:41 am in Daily Gut, Entertainment, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 200490109 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/05/200490/G.I.+Joe%E2%80%99s+Benetton+Moment2009-08-05+18%3A41%3A10Greg+Gutfeld

Cultural Kleptos: How the Left Hijacks Art (and Everything Else) for the Good of Mankind

Kids love movies about people who tell lies – because they’re such naughty, little fibbers themselves.  During my formative years, it seemed like the same two films were on TV everyday when I came home from school – to remind me of the dangers of mendacity.  Perhaps it was a portent of things to come.

William Wyler’s “The Children’s Hour” (1961)

One was Weird Woman (1944), a neglected camp classic that was part of Universal’s low-budget Inner Sanctum series - about a scorned librarian (scream queen Evelyn Ankers) who seeks revenge on her ex- (Lon Chaney Jr.) by spreading gossip about his new wife (Anne Gwynne), an all-American voodoo princess he met on a South Seas expedition (don’t ask).

After several people inadvertently die as a result of Ankers’s aspersions, Chaney and gang steal a move straight out of the Democratic playbook - they devise an elaborate, fear-mongering ruse to guilt her into submission (and make her confess).  Here’s a clip of Ankers being browbeaten – with prophecies of gloom and doom – by little-known B-actress Elizabeth Russell: (more…)

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Tags: Anne Gwynne, audrey hepburn, Cairo, Charles Bronson, Dashell Hammett
Posted Jul 30th 2009 at 5:03 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 18642669 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/07/30/cultural-kleptos-how-the-left-hijacks-art-and-everything-else-for-the-good-of-mankind/Cultural+Kleptos%3A+How+the+Left+Hijacks+Art+%28and+Everything+Else%29+for+the+Good+of+Mankind2009-07-30+12%3A03%3A16Charles+Winecoff

Story and the Power of Conservative Themes in Film

Boy, did I ever kick a hornet’s nest with my tongue-in-cheek Archie Bunker-on-steroids BH post, “My Secret Life as a Conservative Republican.” Lefties called it Reaffirmation With Senator Smalley, which I expected. But Righties nearly wet their pants in fear, which I did not expect in the least. Where’s the pioneering spirit, self-confidence and gutter-level humor that founded this country?

People, this is OUR Fortress Hollywood! This is OUR sanctuary! Since when the hell do we care about what demagogues like Keith Olbermann think or say? Or any other mental tinfoil hat Lefties like Garofalo for that matter? It’s like Churchill worrying about Hitler calling him a fat cigar-chomping drunk! Who won that fight, and why? And who was in the right, despite all the insipid name-calling?

Time to grow a pair, people. It’s also time to raise the stakes. Now, I’ve heard from some contributors here at BH that it is really bad in Hollywood in places. That people might even lose their jobs if they spoke up like I do here. If true, that’s McCarthyism at its worst. Fortunately, that’s not my experience. I still have great relationships with people in the biz who could care less about politics. All they care about is finding great scripts or literary works to adapt, and telling great stories on film.

And that is where the battle really needs to be fought: on their playing ground. An insurgency of ideas, if you will. Example. Just under the Big Hollywood sign today, I saw the banner “TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Thrives on Strong Moral Foundation.” That PJM-linked article describes how The Closer, a show that portrays the border, the illegals situation, and even the cops themselves in very gritty and realistic fashion, is the top-rated scripted show on ad-supported cable since its inception. (more…)

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Tags: Academy, Afghanistan, al qaeda, American Gangster, AMPAS
Posted Jul 21st 2009 at 10:22 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Politics, Religion | 184986103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/07/21/taking-the-fight-to-the-left/Story+and+the+Power+of+Conservative+Themes+in+Film2009-07-21+17%3A22%3A45John+T.+Simpson

Heroic Hollywood: Thinking Inside the Box

In this post, I want to give some advice to beginning screenwriters who are having difficulty finishing — or even starting — their first screenplay. I’ve been mulling over what to say for several weeks now, trying to come up with some inspirational words of advice to motivate you into achieving your goal. After much thought and deep-dish contemplation, I’ve boiled my advice down to this:

If you want to write for Hollywood, think like a
hack writer and stick to the Hollywood Formula.

How’s that for inspiring rhetoric?

Now, most “creative” types (that is, people who don’t actually have a job writing for Hollywood) will tell you that adhering to a formula is a bad thing because it stifles creativity. (more…)

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Tags: Dirty Harry, formula, Goldfinger, Heroic Hollywood, hollywood
Posted Jul 6th 2009 at 4:11 pm in Entertainment | 17675837 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rdvonch/2009/07/06/heroic-hollywood-thinking-inside-the-box/Heroic+Hollywood%3A+Thinking+Inside+the+Box2009-07-06+23%3A11%3A05Russ+Dvonch

Guns, Guns, Guns! (Featuring Michael Moore)

This topic is long overdue (especially in light of the death threats). Oftentimes, people wonder where conservatives get the cojones to say the things that we do. It’s simple… We’re armed. It’s a tough concept to grasp among the pansies who won’t touch a .45 without a pair of tongs I know, but it’s just a fact… Oftentimes, a very painful one.

Sure some of the shots taken at Michael Moore are cheap, but to you I say; Let he who is without disdain for the man, fire the first round.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Dirty Harry, Fun COntrol, Michae; Moore
Posted Mar 5th 2009 at 4:48 pm in Political Humor, Video | 73554149 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/scrowder/2009/03/05/guns-guns-guns-an-assault-weapons-ban-thats-cute/Guns%2C+Guns%2C+Guns%21+%28Featuring+Michael+Moore%292009-03-06+00%3A48%3A19Steven+Crowder

‘Gran Torino’ Conservatives

We live amid a chaotic age. 

As with the Age of Industrialization’s dawning, this Age of Globalization’s advent is a time of promise and peril, wherein many Americans’ cherished way of life is being “creatively destroyed” by a tsunami of merciless changes seemingly beyond control.  The very concept of a sovereign nation-state is besieged by the discordant forces of disorder – and without order, there is no justice or freedom for the people. 

In most American lifetimes, only societal tumult of the late Sixties and early Seventies is comparable, if not equivalent.  Then, it was the “Destructive Generation” (as David Horowitz has termed the Hippy-Boomers) who assailed our nation’s traditional cultural, political and economic institutions.  Out of this madness arose a hero to restore order, justice and liberty:  Detective Harry Callahan. 

Stripping away the character’s now clichéd Byronic veneer of an alienated anti-hero, Detective Callahan was at heart a harkening to the traditional Irish beat cop.  The beat was different, but the challenges – imposing order upon disorder – were not.  A deeply conservative figure for his times, it was no accident that Detective Callahan served as a law enforcement officer in San Francisco, the time period’s epitome of societal disorder and cultural disintegration.  Here, in the radical New Left’s psychedelic citadel, “Dirty Harry” Callahan made his stand for tradition and the imposition of order to secure justice and freedom for law-abiding citizens.   (more…)

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Tags: Clint Eastwood, Detroit, Dirty Harry, Gran Torino, Gran Torino conservatives
Posted Feb 26th 2009 at 1:16 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics | 6789891 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/tgmccotter/2009/02/26/gran-torino-conservatives-2/%27Gran+Torino%27+Conservatives2009-02-26+21%3A16%3A30Rep.+Thaddeus+G.+McCotter+%28R-MI%29