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Posts Tagged ‘John Nolte’

Schizoid Mann

The Boggy Nature of Fear

by Schizoid Mann

Halloween is a time of fright and fear. It’s a favorite time of year for many kids. Of course the candy helps, but that’s not all of it. It’s really about the feeling. The leaves are falling, the skies are darker, the weather is getting colder and there’s still more cold to come. It’s a time for spookiness, mystery and the unknown. So, as I write this, on a dark and stormy night, well, actually,  it’s the afternoon, but it is very dark and very stormy outside. My mind turns to this season, to Halloween, to fear.

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There are a lot of films that scared us as kids, and still scare us. Many of the films today are far too graphic for my tastes. Heck, most of television is, too, for that matter. So, I should say right at the outset that I’m not a fan of gore, not in any way shape or form. I know some folks out there are big on the stuff, but not me. Sure, I’ve seen some, the classic Herschell Gordon Lewis, Romero and Savini works, but none of the modern multi-sequel films that grace our theaters with single word titles. I don’t mind being scared. As most would agree, we all need a good scare every now and then. It’s good for you. It’s thrilling. But gore isn’t thrilling for me. It’s sickening. I like to be thrilled, I don’t wish to be sick. Besides, I’ve seen enough of the footage and descriptions of films like “Saw” and “Hostel,” which I rebel against, regardless of how “intelligent” or “clever” they are reported to be. (more…)

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Posted Oct 31st 2009 at 5:42 pm in Film | 48 Comments

Andrew Leigh

‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’: An Alternate View

by Andrew Leigh

So, John Nolte didn’t much care for the new “Harry Potter” movie. If memory serves, he didn’t care for movies 1-5, either. He admits, however, to never reading the books. This is a fatal error in appreciating the “Harry Potter” films, in my opinion.

John is like Charlie Brown and the football — forever doomed to dislike these movies, but he keeps coming back for more. Because the “Harry Potter” films are made for the books’ readers, period. In fact, you might say it’s a unique genre unto itself.

Let me attempt to head off the expected response to this: a movie should stand on its own, without requiring familiarity with the source material. Ordinarily, I agree with this. And I agree that the “Harry Potter” movies would probably be better off if they tried harder to satisfy this rule.

But it seems as though the filmmakers made a conscious or semi-conscious decision at some point early on to make these movies for the readership, not for the general public. They’re really cult films. And with such lavish budgets, if they were based on any other source material, they’d be a financial debacle. (more…)

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Posted Jul 17th 2009 at 4:47 pm in Featured Story, Reviews | 112 Comments

Cam Cannon

What Political Correctness Reveals About the Politically Correct

by Cam Cannon

John Nolte’s review of “Brüno,” a film I haven’t yet seen, tackles Sasha Baron Cohen’s previous film “Borat,” a film I have seen about twenty times. That being said, Nolte is dead-on in his appraisal of the film: it found favor with the left-wing elitists because it poked fun at us regular folk. But in praising “Borat,” they revealed something about themselves, something I’ve known to be true since the summer of 1994.

That was the best year for movies that I can recall. That summer alone we had “Forrest Gump,” “True Lies,” “Speed,” and everyone was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Cannes winner “Pulp Fiction.” And we also had “The Lion King.” I remember the critic for my campus newspaper, The Red & Black (Go Dawgs!), panned the film, noting that the “Circle of Life” song, sung by a gay man, was really about keeping groups of people, particularly minorities, in their place. I thought this was bizarre and brought it up with some of my classmates. (more…)

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Posted Jul 10th 2009 at 11:57 am in Featured Story, Media Criticism, Political Humor, Politics | 211 Comments

Alexander Marlow

Review: The Hurt Locker **Updated**

by Alexander Marlow

Epigraph: a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme.

Epigraphs crop up occasionally in literature and film, but more frequently on the SAT exam.  In fact, I am using the definition of epigraph as the epigraph for this review.  If you are to the right of Bill Clinton, all you need to know about “The Hurt Locker” is its epigraph: “War is a drug.”

Incredibly, the mainstream media is trying to position “The Hurt Locker” as politically neutral.  The mainstream media are dense. “War is a drug.” Drugs are bad.  Thus, war is bad.  This is a left-wing film.  End of story.  Witness the first five seconds of the movie and read the epigraph; if you still have the audacity to trumpet its neutrality, you should be committed to an insane asylum or the newsroom at MSNBC.  (more…)

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Posted Jun 27th 2009 at 7:52 am in Media Criticism, Reviews | 16 Comments

John T. Simpson

On the Record, Off the QT and Not Very Hush-Hush

by John T. Simpson

Dear Big Hollywood readers, it gives me great satisfaction to report to you that BH has been out on point not only on compelling film industry issues, which will never be covered in promo rags like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter (but then again, AMPAS and the studios aren’t buying us off), but on many controversial issues being played out in America and the greater world at large as well.

I know this to be true. Being a news junkie myself, I have found time after time as I was reading about a supposedly breaking subject, like ABC’s recent coverage of the targeted LGBT murders in Iraq, that it had already been on display for all to see in Big Hollywood posts for months.

Not to toot my own horn, but…well, okay, I’m tooting my own horn. And those of Andy Breitbart and John Nolte, who have given I, and so many other wonderful and insightful Hollywood right-wing fringe types, a magnificent bullhorn we otherwise would not have. We appear to be doing the dirty jobs our media just refuses to do. It’s a labor Hercules would completely sympathize with. (more…)

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Posted Jun 3rd 2009 at 5:20 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 3 Comments

John T. Simpson

Adventures in the Scream Trade, Take One

by John T. Simpson

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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Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 5:58 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment, News, Politics | 10 Comments