I grew up in the fairly small city of Little Rock, Arkansas, and from as early as I can remember, I wanted to escape to Los Angeles or New York City and enter the world of showbiz. I watched and read about movies with a passion, viewed David Letterman every night with a mix of jealousy and wonderment (this was ’80s, pre-jaded Letterman), and wrote short stories that I hoped could be turned into movies someday.

Now in my late 30s, I’ve been pursuing those dreams for a long time as an adult. I’ve had some successes but nothing that would make me famous (yet! There’s always a “yet,” right?! Riiiiight). Yet in March, I was able to take back-to-back trips to Hawaii and Alabama that gave me a whole new perspective on showbiz and politics.

I was first flown by Sony Pictures to Hawaii to join several other Christian film journalists on the set of a 2011 film called “Soul Surfer.” (Yes, despite those of you who would like to think I’m a Communist infiltrator to BH because I admitted liking George Clooney’s “Up in the Air,” I am in fact a Catholic Christian who also writes about film for a national Christian magazine.) (more…)

These days, big-city philistines posing as cultural elites call it “flyover country.” From the comfort of a private jet, it looks like a vast ocean of emptiness. And yet, every election day, media newsrooms find themselves grudgingly painting that part of the map red — blood red.

To them, the American hinterland is part Deliverance, part Raising Arizona. Toothless gas-station attendants. Frumpy diner waitresses. Motor-home brothels hedging the highways. In the Heat of the Night racist police officers on the prowl, yee-haw! Ignorant picnicking churchgoers spewing toxic barbecue fumes into the pristine blue sky. Country-music lovin’ high school students destined to grow up into unwashed, uncouth, uneducated truckers.

Coast-bound libs fancy the South as kinda like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but with Wal-Marts. Flyover country. A nightmare realm.

Well, back in the summer of 1977, flyover country was pissed. The nation they loved was being run into the ground by the jet-setters. Skyrocketing inflation. Rampant unemployment. Plummeting GDP. Crushing misery index. Multiple oil crises. Vanishing trade surpluses. A wretched President. Ordinary people were scared and angry, looking for — what’s the word? — oh yeah, “change.” Spare or otherwise. (more…)

By now, everyone should know that the new film, GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, is a despicable excuse for a movie. It was harshly panned by Big Hollywood as well as by me. For an action film, it is horrible, but for an American film, it is a disgrace.

Director Stephen Sommers said, “this is not a George Bush movie — it’s an Obama world.” Sounds to me that since Bush is no longer president it is supposed to legitimize the disintegration of patriotism for our armed forces. That would explain why the Joe’s are no longer the all American heroes they once were. Instead, they are a multinational task force that picks up the pieces after the USA fails.

This film represents everything President Obama worshipers stand for, which explains the lack of Americanism.GI Joe has always been a vehicle of unapologetic patriotism. What happened? Obama happened. For some reason, it now feels like multiculturalism was not acceptable until Obama was elected into office?

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