Rick Moody at The Guardian:

A sturdy corollary emerges in the wake of the graphic artist Frank Miller’s recent diatribe against the Occupy Wall Street movement (“A pack of louts, thieves, and rapists … Wake up, pond scum, America is at war against a ruthless enemy”), available for perusal at frankmillerink.com). That corollary, of which we should be reminded from time to time, is this: popular entertainment from Hollywood is – to greater or lesser extent – propaganda. And Miller has his part in that, thanks to films such as 300 and Sin City.

Perhaps you have had this thought before. Perhaps you have had it often. I can remember politics dawning on me while watching a Steven Seagal vehicle, Under Siege, in 1992. I was in my early 30s. The film was without redeeming merit – there’s no other way to put it – and it was about a “ruthless enemy” and the reimposition of the American social order through violence and rugged individualism. Why had I paid hard-earned money for it? Good question. Before Under Siege, I had a tendency to think action films were funny. I had a sort of Brechtian relationship to their awfulness. And I was amused when films themselves recognised the level to which they stooped, as Under Siege assuredly did.

The moment of revelation could have come at any time. It could have come earlier, and it did among my more astute friends. Had I watched any of the later Rocky pictures, for example, or had I watched Rambo, I might have registered that there was little depicted in these frames but feel-good, reactionary message-deployment. But there were, apparently, films too embarrassing for me to see, Rocky IV and Rambo among them. I remember thinking True Lies, the abominable 1994 James Cameron film (featuring Republican governor-to-be Arnold Schwarzenegger), with its big, concluding nuclear blast – the nuclear blast we were meant to want to see – was, well, more than suspect. (I could never again watch a Cameron film without disgust. And that includes the racist, New Age blather of Avatar.) Or what about the expensive and aesthetically pretentious Gladiator (2000), which I still contend is an allegory about George W Bush’s candidacy for president, despite the fact that director and principal actor were not US citizens. Is it possible to think of a film such as Gladiator outside of its political subtext? Are Ridley Scott’s falling petals, which he seems to like so much that he puts them in his films over and over again, anything more than a way to gussy up the triumph of oligarchy, corporate capital and globalisation?

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Read on as actor Mark Ruffalo expertly twists all the meaning out of words like  “American,” “democracy,” and “equality.”

The Guardian:

I have spent the last two days at the Occupy Wall Street gathering. It was a beautiful display of peaceful action: so much kindness and gentleness in the camp, so much belief in our world and democracy. And so many different kinds of people all looking for a chance at the dream that America had promised them.

When people critique this movement and say spurious things about the protesters’ clothes or their jobs or the general way they look, they are showing how shallow we have become as a nation. They forget that these people have taken time out of their lives to stand up for values that are purely American and in the interest of our democracy. They forget that these people are encamped in an urban park, where they are not allowed to have tents or other normal camping gear. They are living far outside their comfort zone to protect and celebrate liberty, equality and the rule of law.

It is a thing of beauty to see so many people in love with the ideal of democracy, so alive with its promise, so committed to its continuity in the face of crony capitalism and corporate rule. That should be celebrated. It should be respected and admired.

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Slash film:

Sacha Baron Cohen will indeed reunite with his Borat and Bruno director Larry Charles [Ed. note: both pictured above] for The Dictator, a new comedy in which the actor will play both a dictator and a goat herder. Paramount has set a release date: May 11, 2012, so this one is happening soon. And it will draw inspiration from one of the most revered sources of comedic influence: Saddam Hussein.

Deadline also offers up a logline: The film tells the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. It is inspired by the best selling novel, Zabibah and The King, by Saddam Hussein.”

Guardian:

Zabibah and the King was published anonymously in 2000, complete with a strapline that promised royalties would go “to the poor, the orphans, the miserable, the needy”. It is widely accepted within Iraq that the book was authored by Saddam, although the CIA later concluded that it was probably produced by ghost-writers, acting under direct instruction from the Iraqi leader. (more…)

Dare I say, God bless Ricky Gervais?

How many times have those of us in Middle America gotten all settled in for an expected evening of relaxing entertainment, be it at the movies, in front of the television, or in bed with a good book, only to get sucker punched by some cheap, out-of-nowhere sucker punch aimed at our identity, faith or country? You former “Law and Order” fans know especially of what I speak. And so last night Gervais gave the entertainment industry a little taste of what that sucker punch feels like. First, there’s the surprise; then there’s the disappointment and anger; finally, there comes the worst part: the waiting on edge for it to happen again.

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The Washington Post claims Gervais “crashed” last night and had a “meltdown.” The Guardian suggests Gervais toned down his act later in the show after being disciplined backstage. The New York Times declared Gervais “merciless” and suggests he will not be asked to return for a third time as host. The Hollywood Reporter is almost positive Gervais won’t be asked back after “bruising all those egos.”

No, Hollywood is not happy with Mr. Gervais for ruining their evening with cheap shots, ridicule and insults.

Well, how does it feel, Hollywood? How does it feel to be “blindsided” and trapped for a few hours not knowing when it might come again?

Kind of sucks all the fun out of the evening, doesn’t it? (more…)

Even in the vast annals of Hollywood sycophantic suckuppery, the recent UK Guardian profile of Oliver Stone by Carol Cadwalladr is in a class by itself.  It is a fawning treatise hailing everything about Ollie, from his unique artistic vision to his unique attitude toward self-love – and, unfortunately, I’m not referring here to his narcissism.  Yet this hagiography still provides some intriguing clues about a question that arises every year or so when Stone puts out a movie:  Why does this pretentious clown still get taken seriously?

I think it’s because entertainment journalists seem to think he’s hot.

I mean, after all, Stone “is a man’s man… a sort of latter-day Ernest Hemingway, an action man with a reputation for women and drugs who won the Purple Heart for bravery in Vietnam “

Wow, a Purple Heart “for bravery” – glad we have the MSM’s famous layers of fact-checkers and editors hard at work making sure reporters don’t make basic, embarrassing errors.  But I digress.

The overriding theme of the profile – and Stone’s own personal narrative – is simply how hunky the auteur is.  Whether he’s palling around with Castro and Chavez or simply talking about his Daddy issues – which, trust me, are nowhere near as terrifying as his Mommy issues – we learn that Ollie is all-man, all the time. (more…)

Sean Penn, who has some kind of twisted relationship with Hugo Chavez, recently defended the Venezuelan president. In an article in the Guardian, Penn, “defended Hugo Chavez as a model democrat and said those who call him a dictator should be jailed.”

He directed his ire directly at journalists who accuse Chavez of being a socialist and a dictator.  He said:

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media. There should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

According to the Washington Post, the murder rate in Venezuela has quadrupled in the past 11 years under the leadership of Hugo Chavez. The article breaks it down to two murders every hour.

Perhaps Mr. Penn would like to educate himself on the recent findings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  This 319-page report was referenced in an editorial in the Washington Post dated March 1, 2010 titled, “Report details violence and lost freedoms in Venezuela.” (more…)

The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman:

“I have always been interested in what I call actor-speak – and when I say “interested”, I mean “intrigued in the way you might be by a man talking to himself, without having any desire to go over and engage him in conversation”. However, while I continue to march past muttering men on park benches, I am, thanks to my job, an unwitting expert on actor-speak, having spent many hours of my life listening to actors bang on about their “love of the craft” and “the thing about [insert name of director] – he takes you on an emotional journey”.

“Some may call this argument prejudicial, but those who do have never spent a morning with Helen Hunt, listening to her expound on her skills. This has nothing to do with lack of respect for actors; just a lack of respect for the language they learn – perhaps at acting school – to describe what they do.

“The New Yorker event sounded promising: its panel of pleasing scene-stealers included John Turturro and Joan Cusack. But when – just 10 minutes in – panel member and actor Richard Kind (you’ll know him, look him up), said actors do theatre “to nourish themselves”, I knew I’d made a grave tactical error. The verb “nourish” should only be used in a culinary context, and even then with restraint. (more…)

From an interview in today’s Guardian. On getting her head blown off in “Team America: World Police”:

“I didn’t like that at all,” says the actor and comedian. “I didn’t see it, but I know about it. The only upside to it was I was given far more credit for being famous that I’ve ever been given in my life.” …

“What am I getting my head blown off for? For speaking out against an immoral, illegal and unjustified invasion and occupation? What they did was cowardly. To try and get yourself off the hook by saying we’re equal-opportunity offenders, it doesn’t mean shit to me.”

On tea party activists: (more…)