The Irish gentlemen, Jonathan Swift, once penned a scathing pamphlet in reaction to political and economical conditions in Ireland due to English policies. His satirical essay, “A Modest Proposal” reached outlandish proportions when he recommended that society make use of beggar and bastard children by eating them. It was a political and economical “solution.” Mothers would have incentive to care for their children and take a pass on abortions because of economic gain their children’s flesh would bring. Crime would go down because unwanted children would no longer roam the streets. Instead, they would be put to use by feeding the rich. Lastly, society as a whole would benefit from the emerging market.

The absurdity of his proposal was the point: “For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public as a part of the Martel-Harper Challenge.”

In Swift’s time, the average person in Ireland was poor and destitute, children were unwanted and a lot of pregnancies ended in barbaric abortions. Petty crime and thievery and moral decay was rampant due to the existing circumstances that forced children and adolescents to fend for themselves. The wealthy nobility languished over the sorry state of affairs, but only offered criticism and scorn for the savages instead of reform to help aid their condition.

[I]t is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for [the mothers] in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, [the children] shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands. … I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

(more…)

—–

At FreedomFest this July, Reason’s Matt Welch spoke with Marc Eliot, author of Reagan: The Hollywood Years. The book chronicles Ronald Reagan’s journey from sportscaster to actor to union president to politician.

Unlike critics who make sport of Reagan’s Hollywood output (Bedtime for Bonzo, anyone?), Eliot documents how backlot politics helped transform the once-proud “New Deal Democrat” into the embodiment of Goldwater conservatism. His tenure as head of the Screen Actors Guild was punctuated by episodes such as the time when he received death threats by one of Al Capone’s henchmen over a union dispute and his starring role in the negotiations that led to actors receiving residuals. And while Reagan’s film career ultimately petered out, he was for a time among the highest-paid contract actors of his day.

(more…)

—–

Not much new here to report but make sure to hang in until the end when Rep. Peter King reveals that members of the intelligence community and the CIA, who agreed to participate with the making of Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming bin Laden film, were blindsided when they learned that that the release date was just a few weeks prior to the 2012 presidential election — an obvious betrayal of their trust and goodwill. 

And why wouldn’t they feel betrayed? My guess is that most were eager to see this story told and to see their years of sacrifice and hard work given a positive bigscreen portrayal for a change. So there’s little doubt it must have felt like a slap across the face once they learned they had been conned into contributing to a “Barack Obama 2012″ campaign commercial.

If you think about it, this is really a two-track story. On one track you have the issue of the White House possibly giving classified information to friendly filmmakers prepared to create  that $75 million campaign commercial — something that obviously needs to be investigated. And on the other track you have Sony’s unforgivable decision to use the heroism and sacrifice of our military and intelligence personnel to boost a failed president’s re-election chances.

The word “disgraceful” really doesn’t do this situation justice.

(more…)

Director Erich von Stroheim, right, was fired by Hollywood for his profligate spending.

Hollywood, an overwhelming leftist enclave, has a deep, dark secret.

This secret has nothing to do with substance abuse or adultery.

Hollywood’s best kept secret is that it is deeply Conservative—when it does the business of, well, Hollywood.

Step into any pre-production meeting and this is what you’ll hear:

Executive Producer: “Who do we get to direct?”

Producer: “Here’s my list.”

Exec Producer scans list, crosses off a few names: “Not enough experience,” he says.

(more…)

As if the capitulation of the Republicans in Washington was not depressing enough, it too often seems like we can’t even find a decent movie to look forward to seeing.  Of course, most of us are not in Hollywood’s target demographic – we’re older, have jobs, and aren’t dead-eyed, drooling morons who yearn to clap our flippers like trained seals at the hackneyed antics of third rate “stars” splashed across out-of-focus screens while seated in moist, sticky chairs that we paid close to $15 each to occupy.  

But I still love movies, and I still have hope that Hollywood is going to accidentally let slip though its paws at least a couple films this year that don’t insult my intelligence, that don’t hector me with pinko propaganda, and that don’t derive from some obscure comic book beloved by a cult of social misfit fanboys whose idea of a romantic evening is a hi-speed Internet connection, a two-liter bottle of Pepsi, and an old tube sock.  

And I love trailers too.  I hate commercials in front of movies, but there can never be too many trailers.  Each new trailer is like a bright new dawn or a just-poured pint of draft Dos Equis lager – full of hope and promise.  Sure, most of the time that hope and promise fades when Kevin James waddles on-screen to make a fart joke, but still….there are moments where something awesome blows your mind.  

Those rare, fleeting moments where a trailer teases you with the promise of a great story, an exciting adventure, a hilarious romp…where you think “Wow, that looks cool!”…where you just know that as funny as the jokes the trailer reveals are, the ones that await in the movie itself will be even funnier…they make sitting through the crap worth it.  That’s what makes me love trailers – trailers have the power to remind us that movies don’t have to suck.  

(more…)

Every year around this time, the Fox network takes it upon itself to remind us of the cultural poverty in which America’s teens are growing up. The annual Teen Choice Awards is a sort of showcase of the very worst in pop culture. When you take Hollywood’s desire to make scads of money off kids, and combine it with Hollywood’s desire to push the envelope as far as it will go, it’s not surprising that you end up with a cesspool.

Not surprising, but disheartening.

Take a look at some of the nominees that teenagers across the country are being asked to vote on this year:

• In the film category, teens can vote for Bad Teacher, one of the raunchiest R-rated films of the year. In various acting categories, they can cast their vote for actors from other hard-R films like Bridesmaids or The Hangover II.
• For best female artist, their choices include Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry, known for sexually explicit personas and performances. One of Rihanna’s singles this year was titled “S&M.” Male singers nominated this year include Cee Lo Green, performer of “F— You,” and Eminem.
• Among animated shows, they get to vote for the decidedly adult cartoons Family Guy or American Dad.
• In the reality show category, they can choose among various Kardashian sisters, or go with Jersey Shore.

Actually, this year is relatively tame. In past years, nominees have included Sex and the City, South Park, Desperate Housewives, and Kick-Ass. Even blogger Perez Hilton, known for drawing filthy pictures on photos of celebrities and for publishing upskirt photos of minors, once got a nomination.

Did I mention this is a show for teens?

(more…)

Ed. Note: Please make Amelia feel welcome so she comes back! –JN

My hometown of Traverse City, Michigan has also been home to the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) since Michael Moore established it in 2005. When Moore announced this new venture, some were excited, some were wary, and many were eager to see exactly what he would do. He assured the public that the festival was just about bringing great films to Traverse City (along with seminars, panels, and other opportunities) and that it would be completely non-partisan. For the first five years, he did a great job.

There were those (myself included) who weren’t crazy about our town being associated with Michael Moore, but it was hard to deny the good that the TCFF was great for us in many ways. The historic State Theatre downtown was donated to the TCFF and restored to its former glory, and the event brought in a nice influx of tourist dollars. For a resort town, that is always welcome.

After five successful film festivals, with few partisan slips, Moore has decided to switch things up.  This year, he is openly bringing progressive rhetoric to the forefront. In an interview with local website The Ticker, he told the public what to expect from the 2011 TCFF. When asked what the biggest news would be from this year’s festival, his response was:

We’ll be doing a major salute to labor, working people, and unions. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the ‘Great Flint Sit-Down,’ a labor event that really helped create the middle class in this country. We’ll have a number of films and events surrounding this that deal with class, labor and working people. And, we’ll honor through the arts those people who are public employees and thank them for all they do.

 A salute to labor. Hooray! I had never heard of the “Great Flint Sit-Down,” but it doesn’t sound like a very tough stance (if you’ll pardon the wordplay) to take. However, this was the action which turned the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into the major labor union that we see today, by going after General Motors in Flint.

(more…)

Modern Hollywood villains stink. You know I’m right. They’re dull and played out. They’re always the same guy. They’ve all become cartoon villains… psychopathic Snidely Whiplashes. I’m sick of it. And you know what’s to blame? Liberalism.

Here’s the problem: the most important aspect of any film is the motivation of the characters. Motivation is what we use to decide whether a character is right or wrong, good or bad, justified or not. It is what makes us sympathize with some and repulses us from others. It is what defines the conflicts of the film. Change the motivation and you change the whole meaning of the story. No other story element is as important as motivation.

“What’s my motivation?”

Consider a story about a businessman who kills someone. Suppose he kills for money. Clearly, he’s a villain. But what if he kills because he likes it? What if he kills in self-defense or by accident? Changing his motivation fundamentally changes the nature of the character and thereby the central conflict of the story. All his other traits can be changed with little effect on the story. For example, it doesn’t matter that he’s a businessman or rich or even male. These may seem important at first glance, but they are just details and like Hitchcock’s MacGuffin can be changed without affecting the story. But motivation is different. Motivation is the key factor. It defines the characters and generates the story. Change it and you change everything.

That’s why it’s vital to give a villain a proper motivation. The villain sets everything into motion. If the villain’s motives are pedestrian or nonexistent, then the story is handicapped from the get-go. (more…)

Thanks to Jack Webb’s inviting me to write for “Dragnet,” I became a proud member of the WGA back in the late 60s, but the honeymoon came to an unseemly end at a strike meeting a few years later.  Because the Guild had decided to try dividing the opposition by allowing independent production companies to keep their doors open during the strike, so long as they agreed to abide retroactively by the final contract, I, who was then employed by Talent Associates, found myself in the odd position of crossing a picket line in the morning and leaving my office to carry a picket sign from 3-4 in the afternoon.

At the strike meeting, someone had suggested that because a number of us would be gainfully employed for the duration of the work stoppage, we should have to kick in an additional 3% to the strike fund.  That seemed fair to me, so I raised my hand along with just about everyone else.

Then another writer suggested that because the networks would be using re-runs in order to keep product on the air, the same 3% levy should be placed on residual payments.  That seemed an equally fair notion.  This time, however, when I raised my hand, I found I was one of very few.

That was my initial wake-up call.  The second occurred during a strike meeting in the 80s, when our negotiating committee reported that we had come to terms on DVDs.  We were agreeing to accept 1.2% of producer’s gross.  Oh, and by the way, it would pertain only to movies produced after 1971.

When I saw Julius Epstein trudging up the aisle, it dawned on me that the Guild had just screwed him out of “Casablanca,” not to mention dozens of other Warner Brothers classics of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, that he’d co-scripted with his late brother, Phil.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t the Guild settled for, say, just 1% of producers gross, but insisted that the deal cover every movie going back to “The Great Train Robbery”?

(more…)

Via Power Line:

The top finishers in the Power Line Prize competition are being posted around the web. Number seven, called “Fiscal Child Abuse,” is a video submitted by the Independence Institute in Colorado. It features three young girls who want to start a lawsuit; it is funny, and is one of my favorites in the competition. Roger Simon of Pajamas Media has posted the video. …

Number five was submitted by the Young Cons, two rappers (and basketball players) from Dartmouth. Their video features lots of quick cuts as they interview students and a soldier. The cons themselves take the stage at the end. It is an impressive piece of work that rivets your attention even though it was one of the longer videos in the competition.

And here is number five:

—–

(more…)

Ed. Note: Please welcome longtime commenter Andrew Price to the front page. — JN

It may sound strange to assert that many conservatives don’t understand what makes a film conservative, but the evidence is all over the web.  More and more conservative websites are listing their top conservative films, but few of the films they list can actually be considered conservative.  It’s as if they just picked films they like and then struggled to find something. . . anything they could call conservative within each film.

Indeed, you’d be amazed how many people identify leftist propaganda as conservative because “that film rocked” or because it has a tough guy or advocates revenge. When was conservatism ever about revenge?  And many are mistaking errant lines of dialog for conservative themes. . . a serial-killing, eco-terrorist Marxist does not become a conservative hero just because he spouts off that he doesn’t trust the federal government to provide quality health care.

“I’m just not sure ObamaCare will work?”

So what are conservative values?

Well, surprisingly, this is where people get lost.  Many simply want to attribute everything good to conservatism and everything bad to liberalism.  Others claim things like patriotism, bravery, and even religious belief as conservative values.  But these aren’t uniquely conservative values. Indeed, many liberals have fought bravely and died for this country, and there are even leftist churches, and the truth is that both sides claim to believe in these things. . . they just see them differently. It’s in that difference where we need to look to decide whether a film is conservative.

To bottom-line it, conservatives believe in the individual over the collective but temper their belief in individuality by requiring people to act according to a code of conduct based on traditional morality.  Liberals believe in the collective over the individual and, where they allow individuality, they disdain traditional morality or personal responsibility.  Thus, uniquely conservative values tend to be centered around:

(1) faith in individual rights over collective rights,

(2) an acceptance of cause and effect, and a willingness to let people bear the good and bad consequences of their actions,

(more…)

Click here for Part 1 on Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, here for Part 2 on Roger L. Simon’s Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine, here for part 3 on David Mamet’s The Secret Knowledge, and here for part 4 on Breitbart’s righteous Gen-X indignation.

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. (more…)

A common refrain used by progressives against conservatives is a deconstructionist war against the concept that there even is such a thing as the Left: “There’s so much diversity and disagreement in ‘the Left’ that you can’t just call it ‘the Left.’”

This is just a defense mechanism the leftist employs to avoid having to actually examine their movement. Cult members need to have criticism of their cult obscured. It’s the equivalent of “The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club…”

There’s a grain of truth here, though. All leftists share core ideas – particularly hatred of conservatives and an infinite faith in big government – but there is a range of thought, not unlike denominations within religions. There are variations in doctrine and tactics between Marxists, Alinskyites, Mother Jones populist progressives, Nation socialists, Daily Kos Democrats, Counterpunch communists, and Dissent social democrats. Grouping them all together under the label “the Left” is no more inaccurate than describing Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, and Lutherans as Christian.

Today, thanks to the extraordinary journalism and research of Ben Shapiro for his must-read book Primetime Propaganda, the focus is on one “church” in particular: the Hollywood Left. (more…)

If all goes as planned, as you read this the wife and I will be loading a moving van full of everything we own in advance of a cross-country move back to our home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Eight years ago we did the reverse. Left our beloved home for what was supposed to be a three-year adventure in Hollywood. Much happened over those years — most of it wonderful. But we’ve been terribly homesick every minute we’ve been away and simply can’t wait to pick up our small town lives where they left off.

Crying out in anguished pretension

To say we’ve enjoyed our time in Los Angeles would be an understatement. Adventure we sought and adventure we received. Though I eventually failed out, I loved the few years I (barely) scraped out a living in the independent film world and that it led to eventually being a part of Andrew Breitbart’s BIG empire feels something like providence. There is very little, however, my wife and I will miss about the city itself. We learned pretty quickly that all the cliches are true about the crime, traffic, smog, tremors, and artificiality of it all. Simply put, this city is a dump with a 10% sales tax where light bulbs are contraband the seasons change from hot to scalding and throwing your garbage in the wrong bin ranks as something close to a capital crime. No offense, but I see Los Angeles as nothing more than a big, fascist, one-story ghetto and those of you who love it are welcome to it.  

One cliche that is a total lie, though, is the unbelievably phony narrative created by the Leftist media and Hollywood about the people who live here. Throughout my misspent life, I’ve lived in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and now California — and I have never met nicer people than the people of Los Angeles. That’s not hyperbole or rose-colored glasses or sentiment. It’s a fact. Over the years, I’ve been all over this city and have met and worked with folks from every possible background and income group; from movie stars, producers, journalists and politicians to cops, public school teachers, and factory workers. The people who live and work and make this city run are almost without exception uncommonly decent and kind.

Which brings me to the Paul Haggis film “Crash.”

(more…)

Courtesy of a superb story from The Wrap’s Brent Lang, we get a fascinating look at the possible future of the ever-changing home entertainment world. Hollywood’s biggest problem right now is that consumers are moving away from purchasing DVDs and towards dollar rentals at their local Redbox, even cheaper rentals at Netflix (if you use it as often as I do), and the crack-cocaine of convenience known as Netflix Streaming. Last year DVD sales collapsed 44% and wholesale revenues plummeted to just $4.5 billion from nearly $8 billion. In worse news, Bluray is looking like the new laserdisc — a nice format for hardcore fanatics but not something that’s going to catch completely on with the mainstream.

Studios are losing money like crazy due to this new non-purchasing trend and the hope behind Ultraviolet is that it will put customers back in the frame of mind of owning their home video. Essentially, this new technology will allow you to watch whatever you purchase on your television, PC and mobile device. This convenience appears to be the Big Pitch. I’m not sure it’s enough.  

 The home entertainment market has been shrinking at dizzying speed, but Hollywood thinks that it may have finally found a way to stop the trend before irrevocable harm.  

The answer, studios believe, is in the cloud.

In coming months, most major studios will launch UltraViolet, a system designed to let consumers stream and store movies and TV shows they purchase on multiple devices. It’s the next step beyond Apple and Amazon’s digital cloud services, which allow users to access music and eBooks on multiple devices. …

Reinvigorating the sell-through model is critically important because studios make roughly $15 on every movie they sell versus a few dollars on each one they rent. The studios expected Blu-ray to do that but the phenomenal success of Netflix and Redbox, both of which have made streaming or renting movies easier than ever, has cut into the sell-through business.

So that’s the problem and proposed solution in a nutshell. If it is what I think it is, here’s why I see Ultraviolet going nowehere::

(more…)

Ever since I was a ten-year-old troublemaking punk growing up in the North Cambridge projects, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Not for fame and fortune. I didn’t even know or care about that back then. All I knew is that I wanted to get into people’s heads and mess them up the same way Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Harlan Ellison got into mine. Better yet, scare the bejesus out of them like Joseph Stefano’s masterful Outer Limits series had me and millions of other kids hiding behind our sofas in terror. That’s all.

In 1985, I had my first writing success in the Northwest Pacific Writers’ Conference Ferry Tales contest. They wanted a story as relates to ferries, the major source of transportation between Seattle and ports all over the San Juan de Fuca Straits, so I gave them one: “The Midnight Shuttle,” the story of a man who gets wicked heartburn and decides to get some fresh air on the last ferry ride out of Bremerton, Washington, only to discover he had died and was on Acheron, the mythic ferry to Hell. I was neck-deep in dark stuff at the time, and I wanted to share the dread. Writers and Christopher Nolan will understand.

That story took second place, and Heloise was slated to hand me my award at a dinner in Tacoma. That is, until I committed my one and only DUI in celebration of my victory and spent the weekend in county jail instead. Such are the ups and downs of life as a writer. In 1998 I decided to pursue a career in screenwriting. In 2004 my first script, Ludwig the Great, a Pythonesque twist on the life of King Ludwig II, garnered a number of prestigious award noms and an invite to a red carpet awards gala at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills. I met stars like Andy Garcia, comedic genius Barry W. Blaustein (a personal hero and inspiration of mine), and did I say there was an open bar? What more could an aspiring alcoholic hack scribe ask for? (more…)

Hollywood Reporter:

The New York State Senate passed a bill legalizing gay marriage late Friday in a 32-29 vote, and many in Hollywood immediately took to Twitter to applaud the news.

“Tonight we’re all New Yorkers! Straight & gay alike, let’s all celebrate marriage equality,” tweeted Kathy Griffin. “The right side of history!”

“Marriage equality…. vote yes,” added Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin’s It’s Complicated co-star Steve Martin tweeted to him: “Alec! Now we can get married!” To which Baldwin responded: “Ok. But if you play that effing banjo after eleven o’clock….”

Tweeted Shannon Elizabeth: “Congrats to NY!!!! I just heard gay marriage passed 30 minutes ago-yayayay!!!!!!”

Wrote Alyssa Milano: “Way to go, New York. One people. One planet. One love. #Equality4All”

Actress Elizabeth Banks weighed in: “Party on Christopher Street! Wish I was there. Congrats New York. #terroristsdidnotwin”

Lindsay Lohan praised the state’s governor: “Nice work to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.”

Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan said the West Coast should follow New York’s lead: “Way to go, NY. Time to catch up, California.”

(more…)

In 1796, President George Washington decided to retire from public service, thus not seeking a third term. He wrote a 32 page Farewell Address, with Alexander Hamilton’s ever present counsel. It was printed in Philadelphia’s American Daily Advertiser, on September 19, 1796. Not only is it mesmerizing, it is pertinent. To shed light on the remarkable, relevancy of his words and the timelessness of his wisdom, I am writing a five-part series on George Washington’s Farewell Address.

—–

Where is reason?

But the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory to all.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, speaks to us about the obligation we have, as citizens, to the United States Constitution. Obligation. Americans, we the people, who live in America, we the people, who reap from her spirit, her resources, her goodness, her history of independence and equality, should be obliged to live by and honor our Constitution.

But do we? How can we, if we do not know it?

Americans love football. How would we ever expect a football player to play the game, if he did not know the rules? Similarly, how do we expect to maintain our republic if we do not know the rules, the laws, of our intended government?

Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty.

George Washington states that we should respect the Constitution’s authority, comply with its laws, acquiesce to its measures.

(more…)

Today in Variety: