You can’t get much more mainstream than “Julie & Julia,” a feel good summer of 2009 release starring Meryl Streep, directed by Nora Ephron and aimed at the kind of broad female audience a $40 million production and August release date is always aimed at. “Julie & Julia” ain’t no edgy indie, ain’t no Oscar bait, and yet throughout the last two-thirds, the screenplay (written by Ephron) salts the proceedings with one gratuitous and divisive shot at Republicans after another. And for no reason that serves the overall story. The insults are so jarring and out-of-place that it’s not far-fetched to assume that Ephron’s conscious goal was to spoil the good time of those unsuspecting moviegoers who made the dual mistake of paying the price of admission and not voting for Obama.

I missed “Julie & Julia” when it was first released … kind of on purpose. Meryl Steep’s acting of late — well, the last 15 years,  has become increasingly unbearable to sit though — which is why God invented Redbox. For a buck, I’ll try most anything — except sushi.

Surprisingly, both me and the misses (whose birthday is today — Happy Birthday, Pretty Wife!) were immediately drawn into what started out as a well-structured and charming based-on-a-true-story about two women in two different eras learning to love the art of cooking and coming of age as writers. 

Set in post-war France, Streep plays Julia Child. She’s married to an American diplomat (the always superb Stanley Tucci) and finds herself increasingly restless with all the time she has on her hands. In love with the local cuisine, she decides to fill the hours with a French cooking class and the rest as they say is history. (more…)

Leave it to Oliver Stone to come up with the idea of a miniseries to put the likes of Stalin and Hitler “in context.” Oh, and for good measure, let’s toss in Joe McCarthy, whose mission was to expose Communists in the U.S. government.

What makes him a natural for this kind of project is Stone’s admiration for Fidel Castro – his documentary  about the Cuban dictator (shelved by HBO – kudos to them) attempted to “portray the human figure” – and Hugo Chavez (whom he “warmly embraced” when on some kind of fact-finding tour of Latin America).

Do they share a wardrobe?

What is it with Hollywoodites and dictators? Michael Medved tries to explain:

“Many people in the entertainment industry feel guilty about their own wealth. They know that they earned it in an arbitrary way, not because they are so much better than someone who’s still working as a waiter in Beverly Hills, but they earned it out of luck. They believe that all capitalism works that way – that people have goodies showered on them not because of their own hard work or creativity, but because of good fortune and luck. That guilt produces this fascination with socialism.”

Feeling guilty, guys? Why not give that excess money to a worthy charity? Or you could decline the big-buck paychecks and ask for something a little more in keeping with what, say, someone working at a convenience store would earn. But I digress. (more…)

Before we begin…

Perhaps it’s genetic and, because I’m Irish-American, I’m sounding like Joseph McCarthy when he railed against Communism with his Un-American Activities Committee. Plus, with a name like Moriarty, given that’s the “handle” for the major villain in the World of Sherlock Holmes, I’m doubly cursed.

My sometimes awkward efforts to trace the growth of communism in the American performing arts does not have the substantive weight of an historical scholar, but it does have my over-forty years of personal experience behind it.

In an almost childlike way but with plenty of time to ponder my past in film and theater, I offer up a truth that, for me, has only been glimpsed in depth by Glenn Beck. (more…)