Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975. (more…)

Some films end with revelations that strengthen the story and leave audiences impressed by a well-orchestrated twist. Other endings undercut the stories that preceded them and make audiences wonder why they even bothered paying attention. “Fair Game,” the new film that chronicles the conspiratorial story of former CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), features the second type of ending when, after focusing on a White House conspiracy, it reveals the truth about who leaked Plame’s identity to the media. 

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“Fair Game” is based on a book written by Plame and former ambassador Wilson. It begins by introducing Plame, a CIA operative, who is on a secret mission in Kuala Lampur. She eventually returns home to her husband and the two spend an evening out to dinner with their friends. Her friends don’t know that Plame is working for the CIA and the couple want to keep it that way.

According to the film, the Vice President’s office soon requests that someone should travel to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein sought uranium from that country. At the time, the Bush administration was reviewing intelligence reports about Iraq’s leader and the threat that he posed to the United States. Plame supports sending her husband to Niger to investigate the reports. After his trip, Wilson returns to the United States and reports that a sale of uranium didn’t occur.

To publicize his discovery and to undermine President Bush’s rhetoric about the threat that Hussein posed, Wilson submits a column to the New York Times. In the article, he notes that such a deal had not occurred. The publication of that article occurs halfway through “Fair Game” and the rest of the story focuses on the war that the Bush administration waged against Wilson and his wife, whose identity was eventually leaked to columnist Robert Novak. The filmmakers argue that the Bush administration orchestrated the leak and sought to undercut the credibility of Wilson and Plame. (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.

From 2000 to 2008, George W. Bush was the “dumbest president ever,” a man who whom the left first derided as having attained places of power simply because of his father’s name, and whom they later criticized for having succeeded only because of Karl Rove’s political strategies. As a matter of fact, the pin-the-blame-on-Rove game continued even after Bush left the White House (it continues to this day in some circles).

No wonder the possible release of Wes Jones’ “College Republicans” as a feature film seems like an attractive option to students of postmodern politics.

This film chronicles Rove’s attempts to secure the chairmanship of the College Republican National Committee in 1973. Along the way, it attempts to communicate Rove’s ideas, personality, and methodology to viewers.

From what I’ve seen of the script, the aspects of Rove’s life highlighted in the film will not provide the left with as much red meat as they probably want. In other words, while the film casts a bad light on Rove in more than one instance, its enduring focus on Rove’s pragmatism actually seems to justify his misdeeds by showing that he stuck to his guns instead of abandoning ship when the going got tough.

For different reasons, the Religious Right will likely not enjoy the focus on Rove’s pragmatism either. My guess is that if (or when) this film hits theaters, large swaths of evangelicals will see Rove as a man who will do or say anything to promote himself or get his candidate elected. (more…)

Just two months after the murderous attacks of September 11th and on behalf of the Bush administration, Karl Rove went to left-wing Hollywood to meet with top entertainment executives in the hopes of enlisting them to help with America’s war effort. Though the politics of the situation were reversed, the same thing happened during WWII. Just after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the left-leaning Roosevelt administration asked for help from a Hollywood mostly run by right-leaning studio execs who were, to say the least, neither fans of the New Deal or the president. 

The contrast in what resulted from these two cinematic call to arms is as stark as it is revealing.

Paul Haggis and Julie Christie wear orange ribbons to the 2008 Oscars on behalf of the terrorists held at Gitmo.

In 1941, Hollywood both figuratively and literally went to war. Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney and many of the biggest stars of the day would eventually serve in the military and do so with great distinction. With the help of others, Bette Davis and John Garfield worked tirelessly to organize and run the Hollywood Canteen to bring Hollywood directly to our servicemen. And when they weren’t selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of war bonds here at home, too many movie stars to count went overseas to give our boys a firsthand taste of celebrity glamour and home. 

And then there were the films… literally hundreds of them meant to boost stateside morale, meant to remind us Why We Fight, meant to help America win the war.

In every sense of the word, this was Hollywood’s finest moment, where a community that was largely run by conservatives willingly set aside their political differences and united to rally around their commander-in-chief for the cause of America and the defeat of tyranny.  (more…)

The brilliant Humberto Fontova tells a story in one of his books (I believe it’s Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him), about guitarist Carlos Santana being confronted once about wearing the iconic Che T-shirt. After deservedly getting an earful about what a murdering coward Che was, and how the counterculture’s favorite revolutionary icon despised musicians and artists like Santana himself, an irritated Santana reportedly sputtered, “You’re just hung up on the facts, man.”

In a recent article entitled “Washington-Set Films May Fudge Facts, But Good Ones Speak To Larger Truths,” the Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday discusses how D.C. audiences composed of political insiders scrutinize Hollywood’s D.C.-based historical dramas for fidelity to the facts. “Myth or reality?” she asks. “That’s the question posed by movies based on true events, and it’s a conundrum that Washington officialdom seems to have a perennial problem in reconciling.” As examples, she references such films as Charlie Wilson’s War, Thirteen Days, All the President’s Men, and of course, Oliver Stone’s controversial oeuvre: JFK, Nixon, and W. (I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to use the word “oeuvre” in one of my blogs).

History buffs and D.C. insiders may nitpick about such films, but as Ms. Hornaday writes, “You don’t have to support Stone’s signature brand of revisionism to agree that overweening literalism can sometimes obscure a larger truth.” (more…)

In my opinion, the story of Shirley Sherrod isn’t about racism, but accusations of racism. If someone says they aren’t racist, and without any physical evidence to the contrary, you should take them at their word. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that this never happens. And so when you accuse an entire group of racism, like the Tea Party – what you get is rage and frustration.

Spencer “call them racists” Ackerman

It’s exactly what that d-bag, from that private leftwing group Journolist, said. If you remember, Spencer Ackerman wrote:

Instead, take one of them – Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Yeah, deja vu. (more…)

JournoList scandal is back and prepare for it to be a driving force in the news for quite some time. The Daily Caller published an article tonight indicating they’ve obtained emails from the JournoList and the initial details are as damning as we expected when the list-serv, founded by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein in 2007, surfaced with the Dave Weigel kerfuffle last month.

Snippets from the article below, but make sure to read the whole thing at the Daily Caller and return to Big Journalism early and often as we unpack the details that emerge and track the fallout from this seminal event in the history of left-wing media bias. It’s unclear exactly what the Daily Caller has, but there’s certainly no indication from this article they’ve already laid all their cards out on the table.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” (more…)

The political thriller Fair Game premiered at Cannes today. (Pause for giant, collective yawn from Big Hollywood readers…)

The Sean Penn-Naomi Watts “starrer” (hey, it’s fun using unnecessarily awkward Variety-speak!) revisits the Valerie Plame Wilson scandal, an episode I’m not even going to bother recapping, because to do so would simply be coma-inducing for all of us. Besides, I already summed up the affair and dissected the screenplay’s political slant for Big Hollywood here. Suffice it to say, it’s a tale the Hollywood Left is hell-bent on getting Americans to care about.

As are its water-carriers in the media. In a deceptive puff piece an article last week for the Los Angeles Times, Rachel Abramowitz discusses the film and interviews its director Doug Liman. The first clue that we’re about to be sold a crockpot of hooey comes when she describes Valerie Plame as “the undercover CIA operative whose name was leaked to the media by the Bush White House in an effort to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.”

Notice how matter-of-factly those lies are delivered. Matter-of-fact because the left-dominated entertainment industry clings to its anti-Bush narrative about the affair as received wisdom: courageous patriot Joe Wilson dared speak truth to power by exposing the lies neocons used to promote a “war of choice,” and then the wicked Bush and his flying monkeys Rove and Cheney plotted vengeance against him from their White House lair. (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…)

Dick Wolf has fallen from the heights as a writer on “Hill Street Blues,” a supervising producer of “Miami Vice” and the creator/producer of the once-excellent “Law and Order” trilogy.  The flagship of the “Law and Order” series is “Law and Order,” the two other shows being “SVU” (Special Victims Unit) and “CI”(Criminal Intent). Perhaps 20 years is too long for any series, but “Law and Order” has devolved into the cheapest form of left-wing paranoid delusion. It is so obvious, it gives left-wing propaganda a bad name. Maybe Karl Rove planted a mole.  I now watch it for its comedic satirical value, as one would watch “Saturday Night Live.”

Dick Wolf

The last episode was “Fed.” It’s a story about an ACORN-like community organizing group called “Rights Alliance.” The founder of the Rights Alliance has a conservative infiltrator murdered to “cover up a cover-up.” The cover up is an affair the founder was having with one of its members. The “cover up of the cover-up” was the money being paid by the founder to his mistress’s husband to keep the affair quiet. The right-wing infiltrator was murdered because he had been secretly video taping a sting he was arranging unrelated to the affair–clearly meant to be reminiscent of the O’Keefe/Giles real life ACORN investigation. The founder feared this tape would open the organization up to scrutiny, thus exposing his affair and the subsequent monetary extortion to his girlfriend’s husband. We are not supposed to be shedding too many tears for our murder victim, given he was “tricking a few dumb kids in an ambush video.” (more…)

Now that Bush is out of office and Palin has become a Tweeter, the left has been searching for other straw men to hang in effigy. Lately, Fox News’ Glenn Beck is filling the bill. He has been ever since he switched to Fox in January and became a major player there.

On Wednesday he attracted three million viewers with guests like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove.

In fact, the more the left hates Beck, the more popular he becomes.

A race-based pressure group called “ColorOfChange” has been running a boycott against Beck for the last few weeks because he said he thinks President Obama may be racist against white people. And, because he dared to express an opinion they don’t agree with, ColorOfChange has been trying to get every advertiser on the show to pull their ads. Apparently they don’t believe in free speech or opinions that run contrary to their agenda.

But Beck’s ratings are soaring ever since the boycott started. And it hasn’t really affected Fox’s revenues as the advertisers who pulled their ads just moved them to other shows. The problem with boycotts is they end up promoting the thing they try to destroy. Movies that probably would have failed before they were “banned in Boston” often make a profit. TV shows that get boycotted often go on to become hits — people want to see what the fuss is about. And if the show is entertaining, they attract steady viewers. (more…)

Over the weekend we noted our skepticism about Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove will be appearing in upcoming episodes of the the left-wing Fox cartoon “Family Guy.”  Mr. Limbaugh recorded his episode yesterday and discussed the episode and the “Family Guy Experience” on his show today.  Here are some highlights:

-A lot of you people been e-mailing me, “How dare you? Why would you capitulate, why would you go on a show that makes so much fun of conservatives? Why would you do this?” ‘Cause it’s a cartoon show and because they asked me and I had script approval, and some of the things in this script are — I had to do four or five takes on one line ’cause I kept cracking up in the middle of it… Brian, the dog, that becomes a Rush groupie, I’m doing my radio show, like now, I’m sitting at the microphone, and I’m talking about Pelosi, and I said, “What can we do to stop the Pelosi agenda?” And Brian says, “You’re going soft!” I said, “What are talking about going soft?” “I know what to do to stop Pelosi! You know, the problem is you just tell everybody she’s on crack.” And I said, “Brian, look, I know she’s on crack, but you can’t just say it that way, it’s not going to persuade anybody. And then he says, “I got a better idea to shut her up,” and that’s what I can’t tell you, you’ll just have to wait and hear it.

(more…)

From an ABCNews.com article:

ABC News’ Cullen Dirner reports: Two popular Republican figures, Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove, will make an appearance on next season’s “Family Guy.”

Arguably a liberal leaning show, “Family Guy” is reaching out to the other side of the aisle.  Karl Rove, the former Bush senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, confirmed Friday on Twitter that he will appear on the show.

“Yes, it’s true. Will be a guest on the Family Guy next season,” Rove tweeted.

Seth MacFarlane, the show’s creator, tells THR.com that it is time to give the other side some face time.

“The Family Guy tends to be very liberal, because it is written by liberals,” MacFarlane said.  He then added that the majority of the show’s lifespan has been during the Bush administration and they thought it was time to mix it up.

(more…)

“Krankheit” in German is pronounced the same as the “Cronkite” following “Walter.” The German word means “sickness” while the “Walter” word means the man who infected TV news with the gazillion dollar-salary Star Anchor larger than the news he is supposed to be presenting. I don’t say that to be mean-spirited or disrespectful of a man who was “the most trusted man in America,” but nobody else appears to be pointing out that Cronkite was actually a liberal ideologue; an advocate of a politically correct, totalitarian world government who used his trust to influence public policy in accordance with his own beliefs.

Cronkite should be the poster boy for full disclosure of a reporter’s politics — something I strongly advocate. Instead, he continues to be lauded as “Uncle Walter,” the journalist who was totally unbiased in his reportage at a time when there were only three networks and the size of his news audience and personal influence on politics and national policy was far beyond anything that can be imagined by those who did not experience it. That meant Cronkite was the national oracle of fact and truth during his time as Anchor and Managing Editor of CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. But was he really unbiased? Well, that’s not quite the way it was. (more…)

Last Tuesday evening I was privileged to attend a dinner at which Karl Rove was the keynote speaker.  The event was put on by the Heritage Foundation, the premiere conservative think tank of Washington, DC, of which I am proud to be a supporting member.  While Mr. Rove’s speech covered numerous topics, one point that he made has stuck with me and, I believe, should serve as a light for conservatives as we travel through the political wilderness. 

While Mr. Rove has been defined by the media and Hollywood elite as a partisan attack dog and nicknamed forebodingly as “The Architect,” he came off as anything but and emphasized that conservatives should be careful to work with our current president in a respectful manner.  When he mentioned President Obama’s name, a few overzealous members of the audience shouted out their less than positive feelings about the man; and Mr. Rove quickly and gently reminded them that our president has made some decisions that conservatives should applaud. From the surge in Afghanistan to military tribunals, Mr. Rove explained that President Obama has taken the right steps in regards to some very important issues that face our nation.   (more…)

Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod made the news recently with his comment on NPR’s ‘The Hot Seat’, when he offhandedly remarked that ‘Miss California’ was one of three names considered for President Obama’s new dog, Bo. The remark was met with uproarious laughter by NPR’s Regressive live audience. Then again, the intellectual retards of the Left will laugh at most anything that grossly insults anyone to the right of Stalin, like second graders instinctively laughing at farts.

President Obama — David Axelrod

You know. Like Wanda Sykes, Sandra Bernhard and the Teabag-loving MSM.

As to Mr. Axelrod’s crude and lame attempt at insulting humor that should be beneath the dignity of any presidential advisor, I can only conclude that he made that derogatory comment about Carrie Prejean because Miss California shares his boss’s negative attitude  toward gay marriage. (more…)

In my Big Hollywood post of April 27th, I decried the media’s acting as a cheerleading fourth branch of government, in which the MSM has not only assumed a Dear Leader-like reverence and awe for our new president, but attacks any and all critics with slander, ridicule, and even intimidation, and discounts any real concerns by the public as right wing extremist rabble-rousing and racism.

Given my love of true reporting and Woodward and Bernstein-like investigative journalism, which is really nowhere to be found in this Messianic Media Age of Obama, it was a very depressing piece to write. But after the recent flyover of New York City by Air Force One and F-16 fighter jets, which sent half of the Big Apple fleeing for their lives, it occurred to me.

How would the Left report the news if Obama were a Republican, i.e. an Uncle Tom, as many on the Left call now-GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Eureka! That’s it! See, it’s one thing for me to point out the obvious, as I did in my media slam yesterday. But what if we walked GOP President Obama’s media coverage through the mirror darkly, as was SOP for President Bush?

NOW we’re gonna have some fun! (more…)

You all know the drill. The recent vague and controversial DHS report on right-wing extremism, the cover of which DHS might just as well have put on the Republican Party platform. The endless puerile teabagging jokes from the fourth estate’s finest, giggling into their microphones like ten-year-olds who just found a tittie mag.

CNN reporter Susan Roesgen even called a Tea Party “anti-government and anti-CNN” when her pro-government handout rant to a Tea Partier was rudely interrupted. Ms. Roesgen took particular offense at a sign of Obama with a Hitler moustache. “Why be so hard on the President of the United States though with such an offensive message?” the offended Ms. Roesgen asked.

Yet in 2006, Ms. Roesgen was perfectly comfortable with this Satan/Hitler Bush mask, jokingly calling it a Bush ‘look-alike.’ I guess it all depends on which POTUS you’re hard on. Right, Suzie?

And therein lies the rub. Dissent was SO patriotic not so long ago, wasn’t it? Dissent against war, dissent against torture, dissent against wiretapping, dissent against Gitmo, dissent against rendition, dissent against government abuse of power. In fact, now-Secretary of State Clinton was quite vocal on the matter back in the day: (more…)