Natalie Portman’s Castle and Why the Movie Star is Dead

One day … ONE day after gushing over how exciting the recession is now that those forced to work jobs they hate or who have lost them entirely can focus on their passions, Natalie Portman bought herself a $3 million castle-like estate.

Natalie, whoever’s advising you … fire them. If no one’s advising you, find someone who doesn’t carry a small dog in their purse or dates someone who does. Look to the real world for help. Look to someone who’s spent a few years in a land where the zip codes don’t start with “9-0.” Someone who cares enough about you and your career to say (without any “Honey, babys”):

“Nat, past the gates of your community and away from the hills of Hollywood losing your job doesn’t fuel passion, it fuels despair, and working a job you hate is almost as bad because of the big black  permanent ball of dread it plants in your gut. I know you dig Barack, I did too before he targeted my children and health care, but you can’t flak for his recession. That’s what the mainstream media is for. You have to empathize with your audience, build goodwill. Besides, you’re closing on that castle tomorrow, so today wouldn’t be a good time to get all gushy over how exciting Barack’s recession is. And if you do, I quit.” (more…)

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Tags: "District 9”, "Twitter Effect", academy awards, Castle, Christian Bale
Posted Sep 5th 2009 at 9:52 am in Celebrity News, Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Politics | 218402194 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/09/05/update-natalie-exciting-recession-portman-buys-castle-like-estate/Natalie+Portman%27s+Castle+and+Why+the+Movie+Star+is+Dead2009-09-05+16%3A52%3A07John+Nolte

Despite Ugly Facade, ‘Year One’ Has Positive Message About Religion

The new film Year One is definitely taking a beating from the critics, especially conservative ones.

Two reviews by my colleagues at Big Hollywood exemplify the complaints. Comedienne Victoria Jackson expresses immense disappointment with the film’s high proportion of obscenity and vulgarity (she reports that she left the film in tears of frustration and sadness), and John Nolte observes that it lacks a sensible story line, excessively indulges in its performers’ ad libs, manages to have scenes that are both overlong and end too abruptly, has a nonsensical timeline, and is just sloppy and poorly executed overall.

Both of these critics’ observations are quite accurate, but I think there’s more to this story. (more…)

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Tags: "Year One", Abraham, Bible. Sodom, Harold Ramis, Jack Black
Posted Jun 28th 2009 at 3:02 pm in Entertainment, Politics, Religion | 167406One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/06/28/despite-ugly-facade-year-one-has-positive-message-about-religion/Despite+Ugly+Facade%2C+%27Year+One%27+Has+Positive+Message+About+Religion2009-06-28+22%3A02%3A27S.T.+Karnick

The Stoning Of Team Hollywood

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

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Tags: Academy of Motion Picture arts and Sciences, Ahmadinejad, Al Franken, Alireza Davudnejad, Ambush Bay
Posted Jun 19th 2009 at 5:45 pm in Entertainment, News, Politics | 1641062 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/06/19/the-stoning-of-team-hollywood/The+Stoning+Of+Team+Hollywood2009-06-20+00%3A45%3A26John+T.+Simpson

Review: Year One

“Year One” is one of those rare movies that can’t possibly be as bad as the trailer makes it look … but is. Actually it’s kinda worse. Sex jokes, gay jokes, incest jokes, lesbian jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, bestiality jokes, no story, an episodic plot, fewer laughs and dialogue that’s mostly ad-libbed, makes extra sure of that.

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) play hunter-gatherer cavemen who don’t quite fit in with their small tribe. Both are clumsy, intensely disliked and in unrequited love with a couple of lovely cavewomen. After Zed breaks rule number one and tastes the forbidden fruit, he’s exiled. For some reason, Oh follows along and they set off on a series of tedious antics involving Biblical characters, the city of Sodom and whole lot of wondering as to what director Harold Ramis, the genius behind “Groundhog Day,” “Analyze This,” “Caddyshack” and “Vacation,” was thinking.

Judd Apatow is one of the producers, so that explains the overlong scenes full of unfunny, self-indulgent ad-libbing, but there’s practically no story. Like a foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the duo heads off on the Road to Interminable drifting from one “comedic” set up to the next riffing along the way in that annoying, hesitant-enhanced, post-modernspeak that passes for clever dialogue nowadays: “Yeah, I know, but … you know, if you were … because I could … and then we would – you know what, forget it.”

Beyond plodding, many of the individual scenes are also choppy. Scenes end abruptly as though what the makers had on film was so bad there was no other choice. The whole affair reeks of sloppy, laziness or plain old poor planning that couldn’t be salvaged in the editing room. (more…)

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Tags: "Caveman", "Year One", Barbara Bach, Harold Ramis, Jack Black
Posted Jun 19th 2009 at 4:31 pm in Reviews | 1653143 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/06/19/review-year-one/Review%3A+Year+One2009-06-19+23%3A31%3A53John+Nolte

Adventures in the Scream Trade, Take One

If you’re wondering if I was about to opine on the craft of gut-twisting horror stories, you’d only be half right. I’m actually talking about real life here. As many of you may know from my earlier posts, I first flame-throwered onto the scene here at Big Hollywood about a month ago, on the occasion of Team Oscar’s could-not-be-more-ill-advised taking off for the unfriendly skies of Islamist Iran.

I knew they were going to get punked! They were going to Punkedville! In fact, I was so sure of it, I was the one who broke the story in the US off the French wires to Drudge and Nikki Finke.  One Hollywood Jihadi PR roadside bomb detonated. War Is Hell.

Look at their trip from my POV. I remember the whole balls-to-the-wall anti-Apartheid campaign from the mid-eighties. ‘I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City,’ remember? By the way, wasn’t Little Stevie great in that video? Love him! Point being, if the racist South African apartheid regime was unworthy of cultural exchange, why was the gay-hanging, women-stoning, child-executing, blogger-killing, hostage-taking fascist regime in Iran worthy of a gold-plated Academy PR kiss? (more…)

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Tags: AMPAS, Andrew Breitbart, angelina jolie, Annette Bening, ben stiller
Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 5:58 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment, News, Politics | 9749410 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/04/06/adventures-in-the-scream-trade-take-one/Adventures+in+the+Scream+Trade%2C+Take+One2009-04-06+12%3A58%3A54John+T.+Simpson

Oscar odds: SLUMDOG, Rourke, Winslet, Cruz are favorites, but Penn, Streep and Tomei are live underdogs!

On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture. It’s hard to imagine Slumdog missing out on Hollywood’s biggest prize, having won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and just about everything in between.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

(more…)

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Tags: academy awards, alexandre desplat, Amy Adams, amy ryan, angelina jolie
Posted Feb 15th 2009 at 6:29 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Steve Mason's Box Office | 5191848 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smason/2009/02/15/oscar-odds/Oscar+odds%3A+SLUMDOG%2C+Rourke%2C+Winslet%2C+Cruz+are+favorites%2C+but+Penn%2C+Streep+and+Tomei+are+live+underdogs%212009-02-16+02%3A29%3A27Steve+Mason

Dead, Divorced, Married, Pregnant, Or In Jail

I saw “Gran Torino” finally and it put me in a mood. I see where Paris Hilton says she’s only slept with “a couple of people;” but I’m guessing it’s because the rest of them told her to leave right after.

My only 2009 resolution is to lose weight, so I ordered the paperback version of “The Best Life Diet,” which is by Oprah Winfrey’s trainer Bob Greene. The bad news is the shipping weight was somewhere between 140 and 320 pounds. (more…)

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Tags: Global warming, Jack Black, jennifer anniston, Oprah, Pumas
Posted Jan 17th 2009 at 8:30 am in Celebrity News | 1881318 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rlconover/2009/01/17/dead-divorced-married-pregnant-or-in-jail/Dead%2C+Divorced%2C+Married%2C+Pregnant%2C+Or+In+Jail2009-01-17+16%3A30%3A52Rodney+Lee+Conover