The New York Post:

A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all.

“The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with invited guests.

The book reveals how any official announcement of the glittering affair — coming at a time when Tea Party activists and voters furious over the lagging economy, 10-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and Obama’s health-care plan were staging protests — quickly vanished down the rabbit hole.

That was in October of 2009, five months prior to the film’s release in March of the following year. And yet, with over a hundred million on the line, the publicity-savvy Disney all but ignored an event that would’ve generated a ton of publicity towards the film and most certainly increased the all-important “awareness” studios crave most in the months leading up to the release of a tentpole such as this one.

The answer might lie in Disney’s history of putting partisan politics above shareholder profits. For instance, the studio spent $40 million on the 2006 miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” broadcast it only once to great ratings success, but has since refused to rerun it or even release the DVD. Why? Because Bill and Hillary Clinton are upset that the film exposed mistakes made during the Clinton Administration when it came to stopping Osama bin Laden.

But, you know, Hollywood’s money-driven, not political. It has to be true. The entertainment media told me so.

According to Real Clear Politics, Obama’s approval rating in late October of 2009 was above 51%. More importantly, the President wasn’t upside down with his disapproval higher than approval. So what harm could playing up a White House event do to the film? Of course, I ask that question as though we live in a sane world where Hollywood would ever care about offending half its customers. But even if we lived in a sane world, the question would still apply. No conservative I know would begrudge the studio putting on a party for the children of military personnel.

Obama or no Obama, Disney releasing and promoting publicity shots of a costumed Tim Burton and Johnny Depp delighting the children of our men and women in the military would’ve generated a ton of goodwill towards everyone involved and the film itself. However…

According to news reports and Google, Disney did next to nothing to play this event up.

Why?

Occam’s Razor. I think Disney’s a studio run by left-wing partisans who memory-holed the party for the same reasons I suspect the MSM did — to protect Obama from a public relations hit, especially one during the crucial days leading up to a crucial ObamaCare vote.

They’re all in bed together, and it is not a pretty sight.

WERNER HERZOG TRASHES ‘LAWRENCE OF ARABIA’

Whuh?

German director Werner Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu; Cave of Forgotten Dreams) has disparaged Lawrence of Arabia as “not really that good anymore.” Herzog criticized the screenplay by Robert Bolt for depicting the Arab world as “very stupid.” He added: “Lawrence of Arabia doesn’t portray the Arab world in a good way.” … Herzog said that for a forthcoming film he himself is educating himself about the Arab world — “about the region, about Islam, about [the] Bedouin … about the dignity of the Arabian world. This is something which you cannot learn from Lawrence of Arabia. It does not show what is true of today.”

Good grief, the protagonist in “Lawrence of Arabia,” who just so happens to be Lawrence of Arabia, practically becomes an Arab in the film and demands the British treat Arabs as equals. Furthermore, Omar Sharif’s Arab character is portrayed as educated and sophisticated, and over and over again we’re shown the bravery and honor of the various Arab tribes.

Is it David Lean’s fault history recorded the truth about all the tribal squabbles and feuds that doom the third act?

Well, let’s see if Herzog has the sand to “show what is true today”– the good, the terrorism, and the Sharia.

Don’t get me wrong, I very much admire Herzog. But this is just dumb.

BARBARA WALTERS ANNOUNCES 2011 MOST FASCINATING PERSON. IT’S…

I simply can’t imagine going through life caring about what someone as dumb and bubbled as Barbara Walters thinks.

WALT DISNEY, THE MAVERICK: A GUEST ESSAY BY JON FAVREAU

This, to me, is my favorite chapter of Walt’s life. The truly inspiring one.  The anointed king and namesake of Walt Disney Studios quietly slipped out the back door. He cashed in and took a handful of talented artists and, with Roy’s blessing, started over. He dreamed of a place. A place where families could come together and experience something unique yet familiar. A place to share an experience that offered comfort in a changing and scary world that seemed dead set on thumbing its nose at tradition and shredding families apart. A place where cutting edge technology and animatronics could create an immersive virtual reality of an idealized past and future, relying on each family to provide the present.

‘CHIPWRECKED’ REVIEW: BEWARE SARAH PALIN JOKES

In what can only be a bid to appeal to adults and to make amends for the idiocy of the entire outing, Chipwrecked is also packed with slightly out-of-date references – jokes about Sarah Palin, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the double rainbow guy, The Most Interesting Man in the World, and many more populate the film. These jokes are not funny. Yet, these attempts at adult-friendly chuckles are not alone, as Chipwrecked is clearly designed mainly to appeal to children. Oftentimes, when a studio screens a kid-aimed film for critics, they set the screening at a family-friendly time and allow the press to bring their children. It’s a nice touch by the bigwigs, but it allows grumbly old critics some key insights – mainly, are kids laughing at this? Kids laughed at Chipwrecked, but they didn’t seem taken in by it, delighted by the film, or even especially consumed by it.

‘RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’ OPENING SCENE FANTASTICALLY RECREATED IN STOP MOTION

This is awesome.

BRUCE CAMPBELL CHATS WITH FANS LIVE DURING TONIGHT’S SEASON FINALE OF ‘BURN NOTICE’

How cool is this?

—–

—–

LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

For some reason — probably the $3 cost of the DVD — I thought that after 23 years “Bright Lights, Big City” (1988) might play better, if only for nostalgic eighties purposes. Unfortunately, the movie remains so bad I can hardly believe the same director, the late James Bridges, directed “The China Syndrome.”

The story is dull, the performances — especially Michael J. Fox and Kiefer Sutherland — are one-note, and the production design and cinematography are even worse.  The sets look like, well, sets and the “crowd scenes” feel so staged you can practically see production assistants moving people in and out of shots.

The biggest problem, though, is the miscasting of Fox. While he’s a very talented comic actor, self-loathing is so far off his acting radar that you never believe for a moment his character is spiraling into some self-destructive black hole of debauchery.

The film’s biggest failure is that you never get any sense that the time and place of go-go Manhattan during the eighties has been captured. You’d have to work pretty hard to get that wrong.

—–

—–

SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS IN COSTUME AS LINCOLN

TOM SIZEMORE WRITING MEMOIR ABOUT HIS STRUGGLES WITH DRUGS

MOST LAUGHABLE ATTEMPT TO EXPLOIT A BLOCKBUSTER FILM

THE 25 CRAZIEST ROGER CORMAN MOVIE POSTERS

THE 10 FREAKIEST COMMERCIALS OF 2011

NEW PROMO BANNERS FOR ‘THE AVENGERS‘

‘THE AVENGERS’ GETS A PREQUEL (COMIC)

LEONARD MALTIN’S TOP 5 CHRISTMAS MOVIES THAT AREN’T ABOUT CHRISTMAS

NICOLAS CAGE AND JANUARY JONES’S ‘SEEKING JUSTICE’ TO FINALLY (AND MERCIFULLY) GET RELEASED

‘THE CRITIC’ AND 24 OTHER UNDERRATED ANIMATED SHOWS

ALL KINDS OF ‘AMAZING SPIDER-MAN’ IMAGES

74 FILMS YOU CAN WATCH ON YOUTUBE RIGHT NOW

FIRST POSTER ARRIVES FOR SACHA BARON COHEN’S ‘THE DICTATOR’

A LOOK AT THE CAREER OF LANCE HENRIKSEN

PARAMOUNT PICTURES REACH THEIR 100TH ANNIVERSARY AND GET A NEW LOGO

10 SATIRICAL NOVELS ABOUT THE FUTURE

CLASSIC INSULTS FROM CLASSIC ACTORS

10 DOCUMENTARIES TAILOR-MADE FOR NERDS

‘CSI’ DELIVERS ITS LARGEST AUDIENCE SINCE PREMIERE

‘REBEL WITHOUT’ A CAUSE VS. ‘HUD‘

CHARLIE KAUFMAN TALKS SCREENWRITING: ‘IT ISN’T EASY BUT IT’S ESSENTIAL.’

TOP 10 STANLEY KUBRICK STARES

HBO TEASES NEW COMEDIES WITH ‘GIRLS’ & ‘VEEP’ TRAILERS

DEADLY DOMESTICITY: A LOOK AT THE GENRE OF ‘HOME NOIR’

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16

TCM:

10:00 PM  EST: Christmas In Connecticut (1945) –  A homemaking specialist who can’t boil water is forced to provide a family holiday for a war hero. Dir: Peter Godfrey Cast:  Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. BW-102 mins, TV-G, CC,

The whole story is made possible because the protagonists want to display their patriotism and do something good for a war hero.

A reminder that Hollywood didn’t always suck.

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

When the first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie came out, it took everyone by surprise. Prior to its release, movies about pirates were seen as box office poison, with Roman Polanski’s ‘Pirates’ and Renny Harlin’s disastrous ‘Cutthroat Island’ being primary examples of seafaring movies that bombed spectacularly.

So when Disney put out this movie based on their theme park ride, it was a surprise to Hollywood that it took off the way it did.  This was thanks largely in part to Johnny Depp’s unique performance as Jack Sparrow, a wisecracking, guyliner-wearing rogue who won the hearts of audiences with his sharp wit and adventurous spirit. Then the sequels happened, and the trajectory of the franchise was not dissimilar to that of ‘The Matrix’ films. The second one was bloated, flawed, but somewhat enjoyable, and the third one was just a hot, wet, nightmarish mess.

The fourth film in the series, ‘On Stranger Tides,’ comes to DVD and Blu-ray this week, and it finds Depp returning as Jack Sparrow (as if they’d dare make a ‘Pirates’ movie without him). Depp’s co-stars from the previous films, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, are nowhere to be found. Being a fan of neither of those two, I thought that this could only be a plus. I was wrong.

In the first ‘Pirates’ film, Jack Sparrow was not the protagonist, the story belonged to the characters played by Bloom and Knightley. Sparrow was the Fonzie, the fun character with all the great lines that the Richie Cunninghams of the film get to bounce off of. The Fonzie is the character we all remember the most, but his shtick doesn’t work so well when you take away characters with actual arcs for him to play in service to. But this is exactly what ‘On Stranger Tides’ does, and that’s why it’s a terrible movie.

Here, we’re stuck with Sparrow as he stumbles from uninspired scenario to uninspired scenario, each one filled with adventure movie cliches clearly decided by committee. Depp looks as though he’s just going through the motions at this point, surely he can play this character in his sleep by now, and that seems to be what he’s doing. The plot finds Sparrow searching for the Fountain of Youth for some reason that I’m not sure even the writers are aware of, and Black Beard shows up, because I guess he’s a pirate everyone’s heard of.

Great actors like Ian McShane, Penelope Cruz, and Geoffrey Rush populate the cast, but none of them seem quite sure of what their purpose is, and thus lie there on the screen like dead fish. The squandering of such talent on the part of this film is an unforgivable sin.

As per usual with their releases, Disney does a fine job with the Blu-ray release itself. The picture is sharp, the sound crisp, the extras bountiful. The added bonuses include making-of documentaries, and several commentaries. Too bad it’s all in service of a reeking turd, it’s a slick release that shines initially, until you realize the shimmer you’re seeing is the sun reflecting off of a flowing stream of piss.

‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ is the movie equivalent of empty calories, but not the delicious kind like, say, a donut. Instead it’s a plain saltine cracker, a processed, dumbed-down, bland ball of nothing that has no nutritional value whatsoever, and consuming it is not only a waste of your time, but it’s actually detrimental to your health and will eventually give you diabetes.

Available on Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD
Available on Blu-ray in a box set with all four Pirates films

Other Noteworthy Releases

Batman – Year One: This animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s classic Batman comic features the voice talents of Ben McKenzie, Eliza Dushku, and the great Bryan Cranston. Personally I feel Kevin Conroy is the definitive voice of Bruce Wayne, and his absence here will no doubt be as noticeable as it was in the otherwise-good ‘Under the Red Hood,’ however this being an adaptation of a Frank Miller book has me interested.

Available on Blu-ray and a single-disc or two-disc DVD

Guns of the Navarone: This badass World War II guys-on-a-mission flick starring Gregory Peck and David Niven gets the Blu-ray treatment.

Available on Blu-ray

The Crow: The great Brandon Lee’s breakthrough film was also the movie that ended his tragically short life, drawing a sad parallel to the career of his father, the mighty Bruce Lee. The Crow has gone on to be a great cult item, and with good reason. Michael Wincott also gives a memorable performance as the big baddie, Top Dollar. I wish he was in more movies.

Available on Blu-ray

Kuroneko: Criterion is releasing this Japanese ghost story directed by Kaneto Shindo. Shindo is the man responsible for ‘Onibaba,’ a masterful Japanese horror film from the fifties, so this is not one to ignore.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory: The Gene Wilder classic gets a deluxe three-disc fortieth anniversary set on Blu-ray.

Available on Blu-ray

Bad Teacher: I dig director Jake Kasdan, but I don’t dig Cameron Diaz.  They cancel each other out and bring my desire back to zero.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Red State: I’m a recovering Kevin Smith fanboy. Smith is one of the first filmmakers I really payed attention to, and the fact that he’s a hell of a raconteur helped indoctrinate me into the cult of Kev. A combination of moronic antics in the press and bad movies soured me on Smith, and while I’m glad to see him making movies independently again, the subject matter of ‘Red State’ gives far too much attention to Fred Phelps and his cabal of homophobic hate-mongers, and attention is exactly what those scumbags want. And don’t get me started on the film’s faux “double entendre” title.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Kevin Smith – Too Fat For 40: Smith is much better as a speaker than he is as a filmmaker, something I’m sure even he will admit. ‘Too Fat’ is the latest in the vein of his ‘Evening with Kevin Smith’ home video series.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Cape Fear: Not the original, but the Martin Scorsese remake. The scene where a cigar-puffing De Niro yuks it up in a movie theater while Nick Nolte’s family tries to watch ‘Problem Child’ slays me.

Available on Blu-ray

Hellraiser – Revelations: I’m amazed this franchise is still lurching along in the direct-to-DVD market, but not even Doug Bradley, the original Pinhead, is still bothering to show up for a paycheck in these movies.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

This post originally appeared over at Parcbench

Watching the just-released Blu-ray was almost as profound an experience because the sound and picture are so vivid that — well, I won’t say it’s like seeing “The Lion King” again for the first time, but it is certainly an enhanced experience. And this is the thing I hate about Blu-ray; there are 2500 DVDs sitting in my collection and Blu-rays like “The Lion King” make me unhappy with the whole lot of them. I finish the adventures of Simba in awe of what a difference Blu-ray makes and then think of my “old” collection with the sickening feeling that I just wasted a couple years’ pay on an Edsel.

And sure, while the mind-blowing animation presented in mind-blowing high-def is certainly part of the draw, none of that means a thing without a compelling and timeless story that works on almost too many levels to count. Themes of courage, duty, manhood, and bravery are all explored through complicated (in a good way) relationships that often force our young protagonist to make emotionally impossible choices. This is heavy stuff for an animated film, but the presentation is so beautifully handled, nothing feels close to heavy.

I suppose kids sense and learn from these themes on a gut level, but the screenplay is so mature and well-structured that adults can’t help but appreciate the brilliance that went into almost every scene. And as someone who has never been a big fan of animated films that stop in order to break into song, “The Lion King” is a notable exception. Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score and the songs by Elton John and Tim Rice are not only good, they’re memorably good. In fact, you can’t imagine the film without them, which isn’t the case for most post-1950 Disney offerings.

The two-disc package is loaded with extras, including extended scenes, deleted songs and scenes, a sing-along feature for the kids and two behind-the-scenes looks at the making of this unqualified masterpiece.

I’m only willing to invest the money replacing a very few of my DVDs with Blu-ray, and this would certainly be one of them.

—–

“The Lion King” recently was re-released theatrically in a 3D edition, snaring the top spot at the box office for two straight weeks before settling for third over the Oct. 1-3 weekend.

“Lion King” producer Don Hahn’s impressive credits include “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the first animated film nominated for Best Picture Oscar. In 1996, Hahn published a book entitled “Disney’s Animation Magic,” explaining the step-by-step process of making an animated film. Currently, he is working with director Tim Burton on “Frankenweenie,” scheduled to hit theaters in October 2012.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Hahn on the development of “The Lion King” and how he and his team made what was a stunning 2D picture into a 3D masterpiece. I asked Hahn how he originally began production for “The Lion King.”

“We hoped it would be special, and we all knew it was a little bit of a risk since we haven’t made a film with just animals,” Hahn says. “At first, it was hard to get people to work on it since it was unconventional and seen as kind of the B-movie in the studio. But we did some test screenings before the movie was released, and people really responded to it. It’s astounding 17 years later to see the phenomenon it’s become.”

Hahn feels lucky to have “The Lion King” compared to other Disney classics.

“We stand on the shoulders of so many Walt Disney animation movies in the past like “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin,” so to be favorably compared to those and not be a disappointment was like winning the lottery,” he says.

Hahn credits “King’s” recent box office success to people going back and revisiting this story on the big screen with family and friends.

“The kind of audience reaction we’ve had in these last two weeks has been wonderful. I think it’s fun for them to hear the music with all the other people in the theatre and applaud with them. It’s an emotional story that people love hearing again and again,” he says.

I asked Hahn how the 3D conversion process started, and what steps he and his team had to take in developing it for the big screen.

“When we all got together again, the main question was ‘how do we enhance the storytelling in this movie by using 3D?’ Whether that be to show the audience Africa or an intimate moment between father and son with the technology of 3D was very fun for us, and it was very much like a class reunion for all of us to come together again,” he says. “We remixed the entire movie with a 3D sound mix so it feels like you’re sitting in the middle of Hans Zimmer’s orchestra and feels like you’re in the center of a wildebeest stampede and have to duck your head when they run. We wanted to make it as experiential as possible and feel like you’re there.”

Hahn took part in the film’s Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack, including work on a hilarious blooper reel.

“Well, we had never done [a blooper reel] before since there are no outtakes in animation,” he says. “But we went back to the original recording sessions from the early 1990s and our editor found some of the funnier moments from James Earl Jones or Jeremy Irons and strung those up. Then, I went back and called the original animators and asked them if they could come back and animate Scar or Mufasa and all of them said ‘yes.’”

Hahn is no different than any fan of “The Lion King” – he has his own favorite character.

“I have a soft spot in my heart for Pumba. He ’s a gentle soul who probably knows a lot more than he thinks he knows. He’s a big, huggable warthog so I’m a big fan of Pumba,” he says.

“The Lion King” Diamond Edition will be released October 4.

Could it be that somewhere, someone is targeting our kids?  Not with bullets made of lead but with surgical strikes of agenda.  A scheme scripted and softly veiled (sometimes not) into the nonsensical programming they love so much.  As if the ridiculous plot points and mind-numbing hyperactivity aren’t bad enough, there is something else in play that’s even more contrived than their recycled storylines.  Some might think me hypersensitive, but consider this…  if you see it in media, it is on purpose.  It was written, rehearsed, shot, edited and delivered. 

If it’s in there, it’s intentional.  Never forget that.

How about a date?

So what, then, am I so tweaked about?  I’m a father of three children; ages six, eleven and thirteen.  For years, it has troubled me that a selection of children’s shows were laced with strains of propaganda and amoral thought.  Some suggest they have scientific proof that modern children’s programming dumbs one down.  But, it has the potential to be much more dangerous than that.  No matter what side of the political fence you are on, there is one thing upon which I think we can all agree.  We don’t want our children exposed to certain subject matter before they are ready, much less have someone else’s opinion subconsciously embedded in their minds.

I’m guessing by now you would like an example.  I’m cool with that.  As funny as the show can be, one of the repeat offenders is Nickelodeon’s iCarly.  They follow the standard “aimed at tweens” obsession with first kisses, gross-out gags, rebellion and celebrity status.  The show is full of small desensitizing moments that include a half-naked chubby boy, made up “cuss” words and disrespect for adults.  Not too long ago, an episode called iWant MY Website Back aired.  Spencer, Carly’s crazy adult brother, dressed in elderly drag in order to hoodwink the grating Nevel.  The affable Jerry Trainor, who plays Spencer, sold the gag and yes, it was funny when an older man was mistakenly taken with her… I mean him.  If it stopped there, fine.  Of course, it did not.  Later in the episode the doorbell rings, and it’s the old man.  With a desperate tone, he tells Spencer to put the wig back on, and they can try again.  At a minimum, this brings into question sexual orientation.  So many issues are layered in that moment that we almost have to applaud the writer’s skill at subtext (just kidding).  Still, should this content be couched in a primetime kids’ show on a kids’ network? 

Don’t answer yet.

I have an even more unsettling example.  Remember … if it’s in there, it is on purpose.

Disney just launched a new series called Kickin’ It.  (Speaking of new Disney series… Disney, please cancel A.N.T. Farm.  It just sucks.  I digress.)  The third episode of Kickin It contains a suggestion I would never have expected to see in a kids’ show.  Ever.  One of the characters, Jerry, claims to have the ability to talk to dogs.  Because he was raised by wolves.  In the episode, Dummy Dancing, Jerry distracts a police K-9 dog, so his friends can sneak into an office and steal a flash drive.  Jerry talks to the dog.  The dog just sits there, as you would expect.  Then, with romantic undertones, Jerry tells the dog, “My perfect day would end with a moonlit walk on the beach.”  Next, a policewoman walks up and the conversation goes like this…

POLICEWOMAN – What are you doing with my dog?
JERRY – I’m just getting to know her.
POLICEWOMAN – You know he’s a boy right?
JERRY – This is really awkward.
Cue the LAUGH TRACK
POLICEWOMAN – It is for all of us.

I agree.  Awkward.

Am I going to point to sexual orientation here?  No.  At least not the way you might think.  This moment in the story is nothing short of a subtle implication towards bestiality.  Call me crazy, but it’s in there.  It’s on purpose.  The suggestion is that if this dog were a female… maybe Jerry has a shot with her.  Liberal or conservative… this is wrong.  Not right.  With some people in this world trying to remove the stigma of pedophilia, I have no doubt there are those who have no limits.

Parents should not have to be on guard concerning children’s programming.  They should be able to feel comfortable about leaving their kids in front of the TV for thirty minutes.  I want to commend a couple of shows that, in my opinion, give them that.  Even though many times they follow the recipe of talking louder than the last person who spoke, shows like Good Luck Charlie, So Random and Spongebob Squarepants give parents that level of security.  At least for now.

We all have to be aware.  Turn it off it you deem it wrong for your family.  Don’t just accept it.  Demand better.  Support the good stuff.  Let the producers know what matters to you.  And, if this doesn’t matter to you… it should.

Full Episode of iCarly – iWant My Website Back

Full Episode of Kickin It – Dummy Dancing

–WEREN’T WE JUST TALKING ABOUT MICHAEL RAPAPORT?–

Big Hollywood’s own Carl Kozlowski co-hosts a weekly (Thursdays 6-8pm PST) podcast called “GrandTheft Audio.” Tonight their special guest is actor Michael Rapaport.  Tune in here. And Sunday you can see the show live. More info here.

–DISNEY EXEC: “A GOOD SCRIPT IS UTTER BULL***T”–

In today’s Variety, Disney Exec Andy Hendrickson argues that moviegoers are only interested in spectacle and not story, and used the top 12 box office champs of all time to back up his claim.

You can argue as to whether or not that’s correct, but at the very least someone is telling the truth about the inexcusable crap studios are delivering these days.  But even if he’s right about moviegoer tastes, why not spectacle AND story? It’s not as though they’re mutually exclusive.

Hollywood can point to the Top 12 all they want, and no doubt that piece of junk “Avatar” is right at the top. But after the spectacle wears off, what does Hollywood have? After the technology is everywhere and no longer “spectacle” and all the “ooh” and “ahh” is removed, who’s going to return to James Cameron’s lame-o, Pocahontas-lite again?

Again, for argument’s sake, I’m not going to get into whether or not Hendrickson is correct about what audiences want today. But you would think these filmmakers would have a little pride in their work and would realize that the reason DeMille’s  ”Ten Commandments,”  Wyler’s “Ben-Hur,” Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago,” and all those terrific WWII epics such as “The Great Escape” and “The Guns of Navarone,” still attract audiences is solely due to the brilliance of their storytelling.

In so many words, what Hendrickson is saying is that no one gives a damn. Well, we already knew that, but if you look at the home video numbers, those chickens are coming home to roost in a big way.

–USA TODAY: “GEORGE LOPEZ EXITS WITH GRACE AND HUMOR.”–

Just as long as he exits.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Boiler Room (2000): It’s like a college play with twenty-somethings bringing together the best of Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” and David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” both of which are referenced in writer/director Ben Younger’s under-appreciated morality tale.  Giovani Ribisi plays Seth, a college drop-out who runs an illegal gambling operation that services bored college kids with too much money out of a cheap apartment. An old friend brings over a co-worker (the underrated Nicky Katt), a ridiculously wealthy stock broker who sees potential in Seth and offers him a job at his small firm.

From here, the story really sizzles because it takes you inside the world of a high-pressure brokerage firm and shows you how all the gears turn.  ”Don’t pitch the bitch,” young men making too much money, and the oddity of selling stocks Wall Street doesn’t, eventually adds up to a dilemma for Seth now that he’s in love with the firm’s secretary (Nia Long) and all that easy money.

The real star of the film, however , is Ron Rifkin, who plays Seth’s father — a sitting federal judge who stands to lose everything if the scandalous and illegal activities his estranged son engages in are ever discovered. Rifkin is simply superb in every scene and the complicated relationship between father and son is what drives the emotional center of the story and, eventually, the plot itself, all to great effect.

Though no “Wall Street” or “Glengarry,” “Boiler Room” is still an engaging film — well paced, structured, and acted — with Ben Affleck doing a pretty good Alec Baldwin impersonation.  

——

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TODAY’S QUICK HITS

FASCINATING GQ INTERVIEW/PROFILE OF JERRY LEWIS

FRANK CAPRA HONORED WITH U.S. POSTAGE STAMP      

PETER BOGDONOVICH ON “THE SEARCHERS”

HEAVEN HELP ME, I CAN’T UN-SEE THIS.

“STAR TREK” TO RETURN TO TV AS ANIMATED SERIES … AGAIN?

FALL MOVIE PREVIEW, UHM, PREVIEW

RIDDLER RUMORS SUROUND “DARK KNIGHT RISES.”

PLEASE, LORD, MAKE IT STOP.

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY AUGUST 12, 2011

TCM:

1:30 AM EST:  Since You Went Away (1944) —   A mother and wife struggle to cope while her husband is off serving in World War II. Dir: John Cromwell Cast:  Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten. BW-177 mins, TV-G, CC.

Oh, how I love this movie.

Wonderful cast, wonderful story, and the Golden Age of Hollywood at its best with big stars, watchable melodrama, and a patriotic streak a mile wide.

Producer David O. Selznick, who would forever be haunted with trying to reproduce his 1939 phenomenon “Gone With the Wind,” tried again here with this deeply moving story of the women left behind to cope during WWII. Obviously, he didn’t (and never would) quite succeed in that, but what you still have is one terrific and moving story that’s well worth every single one of its 177 minutes.

P.S. A fun game to play with every Claudette Colbert film is to try and imagine all the pre-production planning and effort that went into ensuring the right side of her face is never photographed — something she adamantly refused to allow in any of her pictures. Sets were built with this in mind. Tomorrow is Claudette Colbert day on TCM, so if you take a drink every time you see the right side of the Oscar-winner’s beautifully unique face, you’ll be sober as a judge.

–Please send tips/suggestions/requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

Generation Y’s great filmmakers have not yet arrived. And don’t expect too many of them.

William Strauss and Neil Howe argue in their fourth book of generational theory, Millennials Rising, that the babies born from 1982 through 2003 are part of a “Civic” generation. This is the same as the GI Generation (the accurately named “Greatest Generation”) born from 1901-1924 who went through World War II as young adults.

The Greatest provided us with many cinematic giants but none made a deeper footprint on the 20^th century than Walt Disney. The Disney Effect came not just in the artistry of his films but his technological innovations and capitalist ventures. He constructed a billion-dollar corporation which has changed our lives. That’s what leaders of Civic generations do: build transformative institutions.

The Millennial Generation has already seen our Walt Disney emerge and release his equivalent of “Steamboat Willie.” It’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook is only the primitive beginning of what he’ll build in the coming decades. Today because of our saturation in cartoons we fail to appreciate how groundbreaking “Steamboat Willie” and “Snow White” were to a world that had never seen such creatures. And so it shall go with Facebook in a few decades’ time.

Narrative films and television programs were America’s unifying, transformative cultural experience of the 20^th century. Computers, the internet, and technology are their equivalent for the 21^st.

If there was one key disagreement that I had with my friend Ben Shapiro over Primetime Propaganda it was how little he considered the implications of exponential technological growth in the political war with the Hollywood Left. Shapiro acknowledges in the book that a merging of television with the internet will happen someday but still argues that the primary goal of Hollywood conservatives should be to develop careers within the existing entertainment infrastructure.

It’s a worthwhile thought in spirit but such advice fails to consider the success of the blogosphere and Andrew Breitbart’s victories. It’s akin to urging conservative journalists in 2011 to try and get jobs at newspapers and magazines instead of just starting their own online publications.

Hollywood conservatives should be more concerned with developing their own technological, media, and entertainment properties in the world of the internet. They should be thinking not about the technological world as it is now, but rather as it will be 5, 10, 15, and 20 years down the road. (This is where the Silent Generation Doubt comes in – we must doubt that the cultural institutions we have had our whole lives will never become obsolete.)

Consider Transcendent Man, the recent documentary about inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. The film is based on his 2005 book The Singularity is Near and builds on his past 20 years of accurate predictions of technological growth. This is the reality we forget: technology is constantly getting twice as powerful, half as expensive, and much smaller. And the speed of this doubling is accelerating. (Kurzweil has pretty startling predictions about how powerful computers will be by 2020, 2029 and 2050.) By anticipating the future technology we can position ourselves to dominate its use once it’s widely adopted.

Through Kurzweil we can see that the merging of TV with the internet is likely to happen much sooner (certainly within the decade) than most realize.

Movies and television are not always going to have the place in our lives that they did during the last 60 years. Not only will it continue to become cheaper and easier for the whole population to produce their own TV shows and movies, but the mediums themselves will become passé, like theatre and painting today. Roger Simon acknowledges as much in one of the sadder passages of Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine:

The dramatic film is, more than we admit, a superficial form and, in an odd way, dependent on its superficiality for its success. It is at its essence a quick emotional hit, a feeling that we are all engulfed with as we identify with the life on the screen, throwing ourselves into it. At its best (Casablanca, The Seven Samurai, Nights of Cabiria) this can be an inspiring experience with overtones of Aristotle’s catharsis, but it is not necessarily deep or complex. Nor is it engaging to the audience, except in a passive way. The interactive computer arts of the future may reach the mind and the emotions on far more significant levels.

This means that the Hollywood Left as we understand it is losing its powerbase. Just as the Left’s comfy home in the mainstream media is crumbling, so too with entertainment.

This was the great failure of Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School (see chapter 6 in Righteous Indignation.) They thought that by persuading leftists to invest decades of time in seizing the “means of cultural production” – the media, arts, and universities – that Marxism could actually destroy the country. But they failed to understand how cultural institutions are just reactions to the technology of the period.

As technology transforms the way we live our lives the old institutions crumble. This is the opportunity facing Hollywood conservatives today. The three components of the previous generations – Silent Doubt, Boomer Aggression, and Gen-X Independence – require one final ingredient to unify them together: Gen-Y Optimism.

That was the key for Civic Generation President Ronald Reagan, and here’s what it looks like on film for those so beaten down in the age of Barack Obama that they have forgotten:

A trap many film critics fall in to is that they feel that movies have a responsibility to speak absolute truths and subvert the norm, which is a nice way of saying that they want movies to conform to, and confirm, their own worldview.  Just look at Roger Ebert, a critic who loses his mind any time a movie treats violence in a manner he doesn’t deem politically correct.  A good recent example would be the way Ebert childishly punished James Gunn’s Super for being too violent by spoiling the ending in the opening paragraph of his review.  This is the same Roger Ebert who scolded Michael Medved for doing the exact same thing to Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby in 2004.  But I digress, critiquing a movie is one thing, actively punishing it is another.  Of course, Chen doesn’t stoop to Ebert’s level, but what she does do is expect the movie to behave according to her perceptions.

I’m not criticizing Chen for attempting to put Prom in the context of the real world, one reason we enjoy movies is to think about how they relate to life.  But Chen’s review seems to confuse real life with “reel life.”  She acts as though Prom has a responsibility to portray the titular event in a way that she deems realistic, yet her view of the activities that go with said event seems to be informed primarily by other movies.  This causes her to come across as an out-of-touch film critic living in a movie bubble. 

My personal experience with high school prom wasn’t full of sex and debauchery.  It consisted of a nice group dinner and a dance where a DJ played trendy music at a swanky venue to this day.  I was the same person going out as I was coming in, despite the fact that movies try to sell you on the idea that prom is some sort of rite-of-passage that changes you forever (unless you count the fact that to this day, Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” still prompts uncontrollable rage-vomiting whenever I hear it).  If my prom were a movie, it would probably be rated PG.  It’s a given that many teenagers have prom experiences that would be directed by Bob Clark and earn a hard R-rating, but there are also many with the toned-down experience I had with my friends.  That isn’t to say that Prom is at all realistic, but rather, that the experience of prom isn’t the always the time teens use to indulge in bad behavior.  A shiny, clean perspective like Prom is perfectly acceptable.

Granted, Chen concedes that not all teen-themed fair needs to be full of horny teens doing drugs, and it seems she simply didn’t care for the movie, which is fine.  But she forgets that movies can depict certain events like a high school prom in whatever manner they choose, be it raunchy like American Pie, horrifying like Carrie, or kid-friendly like Prom.  Toto noted in his piece that a movie can be whatever it wants to be, so long as it is engaging, and I agree with that statement completely  There are many ways to approach telling any kind of story or theme.  Critics should remember to criticize a movie for what it is, not for what it isn’t, unless of course, it isn’t good.

 In 1937, full of confidence and pioneering spirit as to what could be accomplished in the cartoon medium, thirty-six-year-old Walt Disney acquired the film rights to the children’s book Bambi, A Life in the Woods.  Written by the Hungarian born Siegmund Salzmann, under the pen name Felix Salten in 1923, Bambi was amongst the many books banned in Adolph Hitler’s Germany in 1936 (reportedly the usually animal loving Nazis, saw the Jewish Salten’s story of woodland creatures trying to survive the menace of man as an allegory for Jews trying to escape persecution).  Despite warnings from his artists that it lacked a sufficient plot, and his heavy dependence on the German market, Walt saw Bambias a great opportunity to animate animals with human personalities.  

Typically Walt laughed off the idea that there were any political meanings in his films.  The Three Little Pigs (1933)was seen by many as an ode to the Great Depression; The happy swine danced like the carefree people in the 1920s until the big bad wolf wiped out their houses with the force of the 1929 stock market crash. The usually Republican Walt never intended that the hard-working pig that lived in the brick house be seen as an endorsement of President Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Seven years later, a columnist fumed over Fantasia. In hermind, the film’s climactic scene, where the devil damned human souls into a volcano, meant Disney was saying we were all helpless against Nazi demons.Perhaps the wildest accusation had been made three years earlier when a left-wing newspaper writer had written that in Disney’s Snow White,when the seven dwarfs had taken down the wicked queen, it was a clear triumph for a miniature communist society.  Walt no doubt would have been taken aback to find out that many people in the modern green movement would later cite watching Bambi as the beginning of their interest in environmentalism.  

The making of Bambi proved to be as laborious as some at the studio feared. More idea man than animator himself, Walt had neglected Bambi leaving his artists to get a handle on the plot on their own.  Two fawns, one male, one female, were flown in from Maine for the cartoonists to study, after a time they began to act more like pets than the wild creatures Walt wanted to depict on screen.  A breakthrough took place when one morning a large buck came down from nearby Griffith Park to visit the girl deer at the Hollywood studio and frightened the human spectators by lowering his head and pointing his antlers at them.  After the local SPCA took the spirited stag away the relieved cartoonists had a better idea of how to proceed.  Walt Began to show up to story meetings and made some of his trademark suggestions:  Young Bambi could have a comic adventure stumbling on a frozen pond; Thumper, a character not mentioned in Salten’s book, could become, like Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, the main character for the audience to identify with.  Still the picture dragged on and was finally completed in 1942.  

From the time Walt had put Bambi into production, both of Disney’s parent’s had died, Pinocchio(1940) and Fantasia(1940) had flopped plunging Walt into debt, the studio had been ripped apart by a labor strike, and the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Walt, who no longer had access to the lucrative European market,was in desperate need of a hit.  But Bambi got a lukewarm reception from the critics, many of them finding the life of animated talking animals too serious and realistic. (Writing about Bambi in 1988 critic Roger Ebert stated that the film was sexist pointing to the father deer going off to live on his own, leaving the mother with all the child rearing responsibility.)  Some hunters, who found themselves after the release of Bambi seen as murderers rather than sportsmen, deeply resented the film.  Even with several scenes cut out due to costs, the 2,000,000-dollar movie lost 200,000 in its initial release.  Walt was stung when his daughter Diane came down on him for the death of Bambi’s mother (Disney later resurrected her; the famous doe mom made cameos in both The Sword and the Stone (1963) and The Jungle Book, four years later). 

From then on Walt never had the same enthusiasm for animation, his desire to break new ground was aimed more towards television, amusement parks, and city planning.  Yet despite the bad box office results Walt remained proud of Bambi.  He insisted that it was meant as entertainment, not a disparagement against hunters, and often said in interviews that it was favorite film.  It took fifteen years before the public at large shared his appreciation.   

“I think back to 1942 when we released that picture and there was a war on and nobody cared about the love life of a deer, and the bankers were on my back.  It’s pretty gratifying to know that Bambi finally made it.” — Walt Disney in 1957.