I suppose that I am somewhat unusual in never having liked the lead characters of the crime drama Law and Order: Criminal Intent, nor thought the performances of lead performers Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe particularly appealing or praiseworthy. D’Onofrio, of course, was known for his excessively exaggerated performing style in his portrayal of the show’s lead character, Detective Bobby Goren, and in my opinion Kathryn Erbe did a good but unimpressive job of depicting an essentially unappealing and uninteresting character in lead detective Alex Eames over the course of the show’s ten seasons.

Both characters annoyed me in essence, I suspect, because they were such perfect specimens of a particularly common and grating type of contemporary American: the Priggish Urban Liberal-Progressive Busybody Knowitall Pseudointellectual Snob. And in doing so, the show conveyed a point of view firmly based on authoritarianism, exemplifying the contemporary worldview that the political writer Jonah Goldberg calls liberal fascism.

I imagine that the unappealing character type at the center of Law and Order: Criminal Intent hardly requires any further description for most readers, as it thoroughly infests current-day TV news and talk shows, newspaper columns, Slate and the Huffington Post and other fashionable politico-cultural websites, contemporary art shows, your neighborhood Starbucks, and other such locales made repellant by their presence.

Sunday night’s episode on the USA Network, the last in the series, had a story line typical of the show’s ten-season run. Several people fighting over profits from a highly popular website are the suspects in the murders of two of the parties in the legal dispute over ownership of the site. Once again, that is, the culprits are big-business bigwigs, which makes for more interesting settings than the usual domestic violence or street crimes that most murders result from, but it is of course ludicrously fanciful for a show that has been fairly realistic in its depiction of police procedures (and which the producers seemed to take a good deal of pride in). In that way Law and Order: Criminal Intent was a thoroughly conventional example of the mystery-crime genre.

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Jonah Goldberg in The Los Angeles Times:

In short, “Avatar” tells the tale of a disabled Marine, Jake Sully, who — through the wonders of movie magic — occupies the body of a 10-foot-tall alien so he can live among the mystical forest denizens of the moon world Pandora. Sully is sent in mufti, like a futuristic Lawrence of Arabia, to further the schemes of the evil corporate nature-rapists desperate to obtain the precious mineral “unobtainium” (no, really). Jake inevitably goes native, embraces the eco-faith of Pandora’s Na’Vi inhabitants and their tree goddess, the “all mother,” and rallies the Pandoran aborigines (not to mention the Pandoran ecosystem itself) against the evil forces of a thinly veiled 22nd century combine of Blackwater and Halliburton.

The film has been subjected to a sustained assault from many on the right, most notably by Ross Douthat in the New York Times, as an “apologia for pantheism.” Douthat’s criticisms hit the mark, but the most relevant point was raised by John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard. Cameron wrote “Avatar,” says Podhoretz, “not to be controversial, but quite the opposite: He was making something he thought would be most pleasing to the greatest number of people.”

What would have been controversial is if — somehow — Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. (more…)

Twelve years ago in his breakout performance as an arrogant young genius in Good Will Hunting, struggling fresh-faced actor Matt Damon sneered at his Boston psychiatrist for “surrounding yourself with all the wrong f__kin’ books. You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. That book’ll f__kin’ knock you on your ass.”

The political left loves shout-outs, and this was a direct one to Zinn himself, whom Damon actually lived next-door to as a child, and whose book apparently knocked the actor on his own behind. “Ben (co-screenwriter Affleck) and I were laughing our asses off writing that,” he recalls. (What is it with Damon and the word “ass”?) ”We liked it that the smartest guy in Boston was reading Howard Zinn.”

Self-proclaimed radical historian Howard Zinn, 87, is arguably the most popular proponent of the “history from below” school of historiography, which explores past events from the perspective of everyday people as opposed to the so-called “Great Men” theory, which actor Josh Brolin, another Zinn devotee, calls mere “propaganda.” The Boston University professor wasn’t the first academic to pioneer this approach, but he is no doubt the first to dispense with tedious scholarly ballast like footnotes and citations, and to have pop culture powerhouses like Damon, Brolin and Pearl Jam running interference for his openly politicized agenda. His 1980 book A People’s History of the United States, one of the best-selling history books of all time thanks partly to Damon’s shout-out, is a litany of oppression and exploitation on the part of America’s white ruling class, a “raggedly conceived Marxist caricature” of American history, as David Horowitz calls it in Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. (more…)

Generally after a story has been told as a book, play, musical, numerous animated, live, made-for-TV films, and Muppets movie, its content is completely exhausted. But Disney’s latest, “A Christmas Carol,” by writer-director Robert Zemeckis of “Forrest Gump” and animated films “Beowulf” and “The Polar Express,” resurrects the classic tale through vibrant visuals while sticking to the classic story.

Briefly, “A Christmas Carol” is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), a miser who hoards his money and pays his single employee, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman), the bare minimum. Scrooge lives alone in a huge, dark mansion, leading a lonely life. When his nephew Fred (Colin Firth) invites him to Christmas dinner, Scrooge berates him for being happy when he has so little money. When local charity representatives ask for support, Scrooge tells them that he supports the poor through paying taxes. “Are there no work houses? Are there no prisons?” Scrooge asks. To him, taxes are all the dues he owes to society. (more…)

By demonstrating with brazenly self-abasing ignorance that he is wholly Obama’s man, Landesman is making it clear that the NEA is completely committed to Obamaism.

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman

Jonah Goldberg in today’s National Review:

“Last week, Landesman gave the keynote address to the 2009 Grantmakers in the Arts Conference. In fairness, Landesman did not reaffirm the White House and NEA’s obvious initial intent to turn the allegedly independent government agency into an adjunct of Obama’s “Organizing for America” operation. He was more subtle than that.

“Instead, Landesman embraced a timeless tactic of power politics. He debased himself with incandescently vulgar obsequiousness to his supreme leader. “There is a new president and a new NEA,” he proclaimed. “This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists.” (more…)

Today, President Obama delivers his speech to American students after several days of controversy due to its companion U.S. Department of Education (ED) Lesson Plan.

Count me among those who find a U.S. President delivering a speech to students–especially one encouraging them towards academic responsibility and excellence as a means to productive adult citizenship–among the more innocuous, and potentially beneficial activities of the Office.

Appreciating yesterday’s early release of President Obama’s speech and having now read it in context, I would heartily maintain that opinion, were it not for the ED’s controversial lesson plan.

FYI:

Part I, Sec. 1905 of the ED’s General Provisions: ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION states: (more…)

The White House Blog on Tuesday, August 4th titles an entry “Facts Are Stubborn Things.” In it is posted a video of Linda Douglass, the Communications Director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, trying to diffuse criticism of the Obama Health Care takeover by showing two clips of President Obama re-stating his oft-heard yet irrelevant contention that the new Health Care “Reform” bill will not take away the health care options of anyone who likes his or her current provider.  Of course, facts are stubborn things, and the facts (read: common sense) stubbornly refuse to support Obama’s talking point.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics knows that what he is saying is patently false.  The moment the government nationalizes medical insurance, it will undercut all other insurers since the Government doesn’t need to make a profit, whereas insurers do.  Employers, always mindful of their bottom line, will immediately transfer over to the Government plan and all ability of the insured to choose their provider will be lost.  The resultant overload of the government system will force the rationing of health care services.  Soon, the other insurers will be forced out of business and Voilà!, we will have arrived at the goal, previously stated by the President and others like Barney Frank, of a single-payer, Government-run system–just like the failing, overburdened socialized medicine systems of Canada and England. (more…)

What an exhilarating week. Big Hollywood is finally up. Traffic is way better than expected.

Greg Gutfeld is posting his wondrous inanities and many pointed yet not vitriolic salvos have been launched against the intransigent Hollywood left and vital ones aimed at the right — for forfeiting culture to the opposition. Movie and television reviews and historical treatises abound, and we’re even breaking news.

John Ziegler launched a massive story where Sarah Palin unleashed on the media for treating her so unfairly. It is easily the mainstream news media story of the week. Big Hollywood is the site to go to for the inside scoop on Ziegler’s forthcoming documentary, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected“.

Actor-singer-songwriter Joe Lima in a timely fashion came to bury Guevara, but also put usually reliable director Steven Soderbergh in his place for wasting so much studio money and movie watchers’ time with the execrable, “Che.”

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