One year ago today John Nolte reported in this space that “Captain America: The First Avenger” director Joe Johnston said the film based on the legendary comic book hero is “not about America,” and I can finally confirm that he spoke the truth.  The $140 million blockbuster, which opens at midnight, is not anti-American–it’s even kinda pro-American–but if you’re looking for that rare film that surrenders itself to the reality of American exceptionalism, don’t let the title fool you.  Johnston describes the latest from the summer movie factory that is Marvel Studios best: “It’s an international cast and an international story. It’s about what makes America great and what make the rest of the world great too.”   Now, I’m very much relieved that it’s now okay to call America “great” in Hollywood, but as far as “Captain America: The First Avenger” is concerned, self-conscious pandering to multi-cultural feel-goodism combined with some unambitious storytelling makes for an unsatisfying movie-going experience.

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“Captain America: The First Avenger” is set in the latter half of World War II.  The action begins with a scrawny Steve Rogers (a digitally depreciated Chris Evans) doing everything he can to enlist in the U.S. Army.  Rogers has all kinds of heart, but he’s gaunt and is thus 4-F.  The plot turns when an impassioned speech to a friend (“There are men laying down their lives.  I have no right to do any less than them.”) catches the ear of Dr. Abraham Erskine (a very Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci).  Erskine is a German scientist who is working with the U.S. Army to develop a Super Solider Serum–the ultimate performance enhancing drug–and is on the lookout for a test subject.  The serum amplifies what’s inside of you, so someone of Rogers’ size and character makes him the perfect candidate for this breakthrough procedure.  Erskine and engineer Howard Stark (father of Tony) put Rogers in what looks like a retro-50s refrigerator, crank up the dials until all the power in the building short-circuits, and out comes this guy: (more…)

Liberal film critic, Roger Ebert, called Battle: Los Angeles “noisy, violent, ugly and stupid”.  BigHollywood.com Editor-In-Chief, John Nolte, called it “wildly entertaining and subversive”.  That was all I needed to read to know this was a “must see” movie.  And it most definitely is…in fact, movie goers overseas agree as this epic sci-fi film garnered a first place finish in its second weekend overseas bringing in $27.1 million…with Rango, the animated film about the chameloen sheriff (Johhny Depp) earning $17.5 million in its third weekend.  Now that’s American exceptionalism…on the big screen!

As a retired Air Force veteran, I viewed this movie from a slightly different vantage point than one who has never served in our armed forces. And I loved every minute of this fast-paced, heart-stopping, riveting movie…silently cheering on the small platoon of courageous Marines, led by 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), sent out on what seemed like a suicide mission to rescue a few stranded civilians in Santa Monica before the Air Force was to completely level the entire city that had fallen to a devastating alien invasion.

What was originally reported to be meteors falling into the ocean along the Los Angeles coastline (as well as the coastlines of 20 other major cities around the world) was quickly determined to be a well-orchestrated invasion of a massive force of seemingly impossible-to-kill aliens… and they were everywhere… annhilating everything and everyone in their path.  As I watched the fast-paced, chaotic, and gripping action unfold, I often found myself holding my breath and sitting on the edge of my seat — myheart racing wildly, pulling for our heroes.  It has been a long time since I’ve been to a movie that left me exhausted like that, in a good way.

I appreciated how they introduced each member of the platoon and gave us a little insight into their frame of mind just prior to their embarking on this terrifying mission, setting the stage for some of the heart-wrenching actions and decisions that occurred throughout the movie.  It made them more real to me, as real as the stories and situations faced every day by our men and women deploying overseas into hostile combat zones.

The main hero of the movie, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), was very convincing as a tough, no-nonsense, war-weary Marine.  In spite of having just gotten his retirement papers signed — a man who was struggling with some demons from his past (something not uncommon to our brothers and sisters who have served in a war zone) — SSgt Nantz displayed the kind of leadership, ingenuity, courage, selflessness, and compassion commonly found in the members of our military, most especially in our Marines, who are always on the front lines … and go where few dare to go.

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Patrick Goldstein, the Minister of Hollywood Disinformation at the L.A. Times, is obsessed with convincing you that leftist dominance of Hollywood is a whiny conservative myth. Big Hollywood’s indefatigable John Nolte, among others, has taken down Goldstein in numerous columns on this topic, but like an ideological Terminator, Goldstein keeps coming back.

But this time he ratcheted things up a few notches. His first column immediately following the most recent Oscars telecast was not just another pooh-poohing of the liberal bias stereotype, but an assertion that the Oscars actually proves the reverse.

Patrick Goldstein

Witness his eyebrow-raising title: “‘The King’s Speech’: The Triumph of Hollywood Conservative Values.” Wow. Not only is conservative griping about Hollywood unjustified, but we have in fact triumphed. Culture war over, people. In your face, Matt Damon! Don’t let the screen door hit you on your way out, Sean Penn!

The article begins, “[I]t’s become an article of faith in Conservative America that Hollywood is a ‘collection of hopeless la-la-land liberals — or worse, an elitist gaggle of heartland-bashing snobs.’” Notice how Goldstein refers to it as an “article of faith,” as if this perception of Hollywood is not based on evidence but is as insubstantial and unprovable as the existence of God. After all, how else could Conservative America possibly have ever gotten such an impression? (more…)

One of the most frustrating things about writing blogs or trying to win over hearts and minds is the slow realization that the opposition actually possesses a different thought process.  It’s not just about laying out the facts, pointing out data, and drawing reasonable conclusions, it really comes down to the way the left looks at the world and parses data.

The other day, I clicked the link at the top of Big Hollywood that led me to a commentary by Michael Lee at “The Wrap.” Mr. Lee takes aim at John Nolte’s commentary about the Ricky Gervais performance at the Golden Globes.  As I waded  through the piece I quickly realized that Mr. Lee didn’t understand the basic points that John made.

And this, unfortunately, is typical.

John Nolte made the astute observation that Gervais‘ performance was awesome because he took the witty, acidic, and mean spirited humor that is usually aimed by Hollywood at the American populace and turned it on the sanctimonious, self-righteous entertainment community.   Had Gervais been ten times more vulgar but aimed it all at Sarah Palin, George Bush, and people who believed in God, there would be no discussion.  There would be no outrage.  There would be absolutely zero press.  Gervais would probably be paid double to return next year. (more…)

Few franchises have had a steeper fall than the Alien series. In 1992 Alien³ appeared to near-universal derision. James Cameron nailed the essential problem when he said, “[director David] Fincher pissed me off by killing off Newt, Hicks, and Bishop, essentially trashing the entire ending of Aliens in the first few minutes of Alien³.” Absolutely correct. In the place of Cameron’s great characters, Fincher’s film substituted Sigourney Weaver’s wacky desire to have her character die, use no guns, and (in effect) “make love” to the aliens. The result was catastrophic.

And yet is that very different from the disastrous decisions Cameron himself has made since Aliens appeared in 1986? Take his Terminator franchise — the director’s initial script note when first conceiving of the sequel read, “Young John Connor and the Terminator who comes back to befriend him.” Cameron’s buddy and fellow Terminator scribe Bill Wisher remembers that “The idea of a boy and the Terminator seemed real funny to me, and we both had a good laugh about it. But after we finished laughing, Jim looked at me seriously and said this was the story we ought to do.”

For those of us who thought that a Cameron-helmed Terminator 2 would build on the space marine look-and-feel introduced in the first film and perfected in Aliens — in the process bringing the story into that way-cool dystopian future, perhaps with Sarah Connor traveling forward in time to somehow reunite with a still-living Reese and change history for the better — Cameron’s decision to make Arnold the good guy and build the movie around a Hollywoodized moppet was the worst possible outcome.

It wasn’t just the decision to make one of the greatest villains in movie history into a joke that ruined Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it was the simplistic preachiness underlying the plot. Joe Morton, the actor who portrayed the doomed Miles Dyson in the film, recalls that, “[Cameron] told me how Terminator 2 was going to be an anti-nuclear film and that it would show authority figures as the real Terminators. I had read the script and so I remember laughing and telling him ‘Sure Jim. I think kids are going to walk out of the theater after seeing this movie, saying ‘Did you see the way the Terminator shot that guy in the knees?’ But Jim insisted that it would be much more than that.” (more…)

One of the things that I find most unpleasant about the current movie-going experience are the trailers. They’ve become slicker and louder than ever, but nevertheless a relentless homogenization has set in. The reason that a spoof video called A Trailer for Every Academy Award-Winning Movie Ever Made went viral earlier this year was because it deftly mocked a great number of the tired conventions used by modern-day Hollywood’s editors and marketers. See for yourself:

YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen

The above short wouldn’t be so funny if the horrid little things weren’t so ripe for parody. To be fair, the trailers of old were just as bad in their way — if you watch classic film DVDs and take the time to run the special features, you’ll soon grow weary of seeing every film advertised as the GREATEST CINEMATIC TRIUMPH EVER! But we’re supposed to be better than that these days, we’re supposed to have evolved, right? In truth, our stuff’s just as cheesy, and will be revealed as such in a couple decades, when people yet unborn will watch them on some as-yet-unfathomed format and chuckle at how predictable and “of their time” they are.

Every once in awhile, however, a trailer comes along that’s startling in its freshness, that manages to break all the rules and become memorable in its own right. So it was with the two-minute teaser to Aliens, first spied by my then fifteen-year-old self in the spring of 1986. Can’t remember which movie I was at — Cobra probably, or maybe The Karate Kid Part II. But I’ve never forgotten that daring, brilliant bit of marketing: (more…)

The liberal reactionaries are in full hissy-fit mode at Big Hollywood for its latest heresy, calling out Glee for its gratuitous – and worse, unfunny – slam on Sarah Palin as “stupid.”  Apparently, pointing out hackneyed liberal sucker punches lurking within tiresome TV shows is yet another cruel assault upon the helpless Hollywood community of visionary artists who only seek to help enlighten and uplift us unedu-makated, tea-partying, gun n’ religion-clingers dwelling in that small, backward portion of America located east of I-5.

Big Hollywood hater Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times jumped right into full “gotta defend our pals in the Industry” effect with a hysterical (in both senses of the word) counterattack supporting Glee creator Ryan Murphy.  The LAT, for those not residing here, is a small, local pamphlet of uncertain financial stability which recently reduced the physical size of its dead tree edition to about that of an Applebee’s menu.  Its innovative marketing strategy of providing its dwindling readership with even less content for their money has somehow failed to halt its downward spiral toward Chapter 11. (more…)

[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

The truth is, it was State Department official Richard Armitage – a Bush critic, not an evil neocon – who leaked Plame’s name. Yet Armitage’s name never appears in the script. And how could it? That would defuse the filmmakers’ intent to demonize Rove and Bush and to condemn the war as shameful, unjust American aggression.

Coming soon to a theater near you: a movie starring Sean Penn as a great American patriot taking a courageous stand against a tyrannical power. No, it’s not a biopic about Penn’s South American idol, Hugo Chavez, facing down the imperialistic Goliath of the United States. It’s a dramatization of “Plamegate,” the affair of the CIA operative whose identity was outed in the run-up to the Iraq War, ostensibly by a vindictive Bush administration. Fair Game, based on Valerie Plame Wilson’s autobiographical book of the same name, stars Naomi Watts as the aggrieved Plame and Penn as her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, in a role apparently already gaining Oscar buzz.

(By the way, what Oscar voters in recent years refer to as “buzz” is actually the sound of audiences all across this country snoring – such is the disconnect between Oscar winners and what Americans usually like to see). (more…)

This past week, the Stage Right Show (below the fold) featured a great line-up of guest hosts because I was travelling on a cruise ship and unable to broadcast.  Guest hosts included Adam Baldwin, Mike Rauseo, Billy Hallowell, Ben Shapiro and Eric Porvaznik.  And, the interviews on this week’s highlight show include Bill Whittle, Jeremy Boering, Kevin Jackson, Dana Commandatore, Jason Mattera, John Nolte and Andrew Breitbart. (more…)

On this week’s highlight show (listen in below the fold), we start with John Nolte talking about the incredible back-and-forth he had this week with Roger Ebert over his semi-coherent Twitter ramblings.

We also have an interview with Andrew Breitbart and Adam Baldwin on location in a bar in Hollywood.  They speak about the current political climate and how Big Hollywood is moving the conversation forward and motivating the tea party movement.

Internet sensation Demon Sheep joined us on Wednesday and provided a lot of laughs.  Big Hollywood contributor Gary Graham also joined us and discussed life in Hollywood as a conservative as well as his recent mission to Haiti.

Finally, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche was our guest for a thorough interview on the NEA conference call story as well as his life and career before the story broke last year. (more…)

The same country that brought us Leni Riefenstahl is now set to deliver Hope: The Obama Musical.  I’m serious, they are really doing this.  The musical is set to open in Frankfurt on Jan. 17th and, in all fairness, it would be wrong for me to give any kind of opinion on the quality of this show before John Nolte flies me out to Germany to see it (John?  I’m waiting…hello?  Is this thing on?) [Ed. Note: Absolutely! Just bring back all your receipts and, uhm, I'll get to them when I can.]

Luckily, the press office for this soon-to-be classic has assembled a slick little YouTube video highlighting all of the big moments of the show.  Believe it or not, this video is meant to inspire you to buy a ticket.

Great, terrific, perfect…  um…  a couple things. (more…)

When Oscar-nominated director John Hancock made the film “Prancer” in the winter of 1988, he didn’t realize that his tale of a small-town girl (Rebecca Harrell) who believes that one of Santa’s magical reindeer has landed in her hardscrabble Indiana town would stand the test of time. He had made one outright classic with 1973’s “Bang the Drum Slowly,” in which he gave Robert DeNiro his first major starring role (the film also stars Big Hollywood’s own Michael Moriarty) and which Roger Ebert considers the best baseball film ever made, followed it up with the cult-favorite horror film “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” and had an underrated gem with Nick Nolte called “Weeds” get lost in the shuffle of its distributor’s bankruptcy in 1987, but neither had broken through to become a television or video staple.

In fact, due to legal hassles, “Jessica” wasn’t available on video until many years later, and “Weeds” has never made it to DVD because the negatives suffered the rare indignity of being completely lost by its producer. Meanwhile, “Prancer” – in which John brought a healthy dose of reality rather than schmaltz in portraying the girl’s struggling parents – has held up so strongly that it was recently named #19 on BH Editor-in-Chief John Nolte’s list of the 25 greatest Christmas movies of all time, with Nolte calling it a “lovely, low-key, tender family film with a rich spiritual theme.”

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It has been almost one year since I began writing here at the Big Blogs of Breitbart.com.  When it all began, I was motivated by the events that brought down Sacramento Music Theatre executive Scott Eckern.  Ironically, his story, which inspired this new avocation also served as a real-life lesson in the new political world we inhabit.  You see, Mr. Eckern was forced to resign his position because it was discovered that he donated money to the anti-same sex marriage Prop. 8 campaign.  Knowing that, I would have been a fool to put my name on the things I’ve written here.  So, “Stage Right” was born.

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to have free-reign on all things theatre at Big Hollywood (gently guided by the collective wisdom of Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte) and I’ve had a fantastic time writing about the industry, about the non-profit world… even about my favorite shows.  But now, things have changed just a bit.

It started with Patrick Courrielche’s now famous expose’ on the NEA Conference Call.  Just like the Scott Eckern story, what bothered me most at the time was the media and especially the left-leaning theatre writers’ attack on Patrick.   Instead of showing any level of skepticism over the appropriateness of staff members of the NEA and the White House coordinating discussions with artists about how they can help move the President’s agenda by creating works of art in favor of specific issues, Patrick was attacked and libeled for the sin of telling the truth and bringing the subject to light.

Next came the media’s reaction to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles’ blockbuster series of videos exposing the corruption at ACORN offices from sea to shining sea.  Again, the venom and outrage is directed at the messenger while the message gets rationalized and obfuscated.  This story raised my ire to such a degree that I began posting at Big Government. (more…)

Last night, VP of Sesame Workshop Sherrie Westin joined Bill on “The O’Reilly Factor” to defend a recent show where “Sesame Street” trashed Fox News:

So, PBS, if it is true, as VP of Sesame Workshop Sherrie Westin indicated in the above segment, that the GNN (Grouchy News Network) clip exposed by Big Hollywood three weeks ago was in praise of Fox, then how do you explain this?!?!:

I don’t know what was in the head of the producers, but my guess is that this was one of those parodies that was too good to resist. But it should have been resisted. Broadcasters can tell parents whatever they think of Fox or any other network, but you shouldn’t do it through the kids. -PBS Ombudsmen Michael Getler

I guess that means you were against Pox News before you were for it, or something? (more…)

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.

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)

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…)