“Tree of Life” grossed a pretty pathetic $13 million, “Happy Feet Two” grossed an abysmal $60 million, and “Moneyball” grossed only an okay $75 million. But in this market, where the concept of the movie star is all but dead, Brad Pitt was named the “top money-making star of the year.”

Number two was George Clooney who released two films this year that probably won’t gross $90 million combined.

Bosses at Quigley Publishing Company have asked theatre owners and film buyers to vote for their top 10 box office generators and this year exhibitors credited Pitt with bringing in more traffic than any other celebrity due to his acting and/or vocal appearances in Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and Happy Feet Two.

Coming in at number two was Pitt’s pal George Clooney for both The Ides of March and The Descendants, and last year’s winner, Johnny Depp, fell to third with The Rum Diary, Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Robert Downey, Jr., Meryl Streep and Ben Stiller, also placed on the list and in that order.

As if Hollywood didn’t already have plenty to be depressed about.

Instead, withering reviews and audience indifference have all but killed its chances at significant honors. That hasn’t stopped critics from soft-pedaling their critiques to support the film’s gay agenda, according to Andrew Klavan.

The film more than suggests J. Edgar Hoover (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) had a gay relationship with a fellow agent via clumsy dialogue and cliched confrontations. It’s precisely the kind of ham-fisted storytelling critics are supposed to call out. Klavan says critics like Manohla Dargis of the leftist New York Times instead chose to ignore such obvious flaws in their reviews:

“The tenderness of the love story in “J. Edgar” comes as a shock.” “Mr. Eastwood, working from a smart script by Dustin Lance Black… takes a dynamic approach to history (even as it speaks to contemporary times…)” “[Eastwood's] handling of Hoover and Tolson’s relationship… lifts the film from the usual biopic blahs.”

Okay, you may read this nonsense and say, “Ah, well, there’s no accounting for taste.” But I think a more plausible explanation for it is that Ms. Dargis is full of crap. I do not believe she found the tenderness of the movie a shock, or the poorly constructed script smart, or the antiquated handling of the story uplifting. I believe she said those things only to tout a film with a pro-homosexual agenda. (I say this as a gay-friendly libertarian.) The Times is infamous for this sort of thing, as documented in William McGowan’s book “Gray Lady Down.” The paper lies to its readers, in other words, to promote those cultural productions that support their favored causes.

You can read the rest here:

So, because you all enjoyed that list so much, and because I apparently have a death wish, it’s time for another: The Top 10 Most Overrated Actors/Actresses of All Time.

Unlike last time, I will claim that these are objective facts, not subjective opinions, so that all my critics may have full liberty to attack me (To those same critics who claimed last time that I phrased my opinions in an “objective” manner, this is called being facetious. That means I’m kidding. Also, seriously? That was your criticism?).

Here are my criteria: are they considered great actors/actresses? If not, they can’t make the list (sorry, Rob Schneider). Are they actually great actors? If so, they can’t make the list (sorry, Laurence Olivier). Only those who are considered great actors but are not, in fact, great actors can make this list. Even then, I’m not claiming that these are bad actors unless I explicitly say that I am.

So, here we go. In the words of Han Solo, I’ve got a bad feeling about this …

10. George Clooney: Not a great actor. Not a good actor. Not really an actor. If you’ve ever seen a movie with Clooney where you didn’t say to yourself, “Hey, I’m watching George Clooney” every thirty seconds or so, you haven’t seen a George Clooney movie. You’re mixing him up with Kate Winslet. He’s a D actor. Dull in “Michael Clayton.” Dreary in “Up In The Air.” Dreadful in “Syriana.” Dismal in “Batman and Robin.” He’s not a low-rent Cary Grant. He’s an affordable-housing Robert Wagner.

9. Dustin Hoffman: He turned in some tremendous performances in his early days (most notably “Papillon,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and “Tootsie”), then became a caricature of himself. He has not done anything worthwhile since “Tootsie,” in fact. Even in his better performances, he is a bit too mannered for my taste, perhaps an effect of his method acting. Laurence Olivier thought the same thing. When they were working on “Marathon Man” together, Hoffman showed up on set after having not slept for several days in order to get “in character.” Olivier took one look at him and said, “Dear boy, it’s called acting.”

8. Spencer Tracy: He’s immensely likable on screen, but he’s not a great actor by any stretch of the imagination. Light comedy is his forte (watch the original “Father of the Bride” or “Adam’s Rib”), but he’s too stolid in heavy drama like “Bad Day at Black Rock.” He’s always Spencer Tracy, no matter what he’s in. That’s more a characteristic of older actors who were movie stars rather than actors (see John Wayne, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, etc.), but those actors are rarely listed among the best of all time. Tracy routinely is.

7. Katharine Hepburn: Overwrought, overhyped, and overblown. Hepburn is the same in virtually all of her films, save “The Rainmaker,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” and “On Golden Pond.” She tends to chew the scenery, and she never inhabits a part; she insists that the part inhabits her. Her films with Tracy are just as formulaic as Hope and Crosby (and no one ever called Hope and Crosby great actors). Many critics loved her because she wasn’t afraid to lose her femininity at the door, but that made her a hard actress to love onscreen.

6. Gregory Peck: Atticus Finch is supposed to have a Southern accent. Joseph Mengele is supposed to have a German accent. And characters are supposed to be different from each other. Philip Green in “Gentleman’s Agreement” is not supposed to be the same character as Joe Bradley in “Roman Holiday” or Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick.” Peck could not play pathos, could not play vulnerability, and could not play real anger. Like Tracy, the best word to describe him would be stolid.

5. Leonardo DiCaprio: He shows flashes of brilliance, then subsumes them in gigantic waves of mannerisms. When he burst onto the scene with “Titanic,” I thought he was going to be one of the great ones – for someone that age to turn in a performance that good in a movie that bad is worth noting. But watch him in “Gangs of New York,” and you find yourself laughing out loud at the notion that this whiny nobody is supposed to be the tough guy. Watch him in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and he can’t even decide whether to pronounce Athos as “Aaathos” or “Aye-thos.” Watch him in “The Departed” – well, don’t bother to watch him in “The Departed.” Somebody has been whispering in his ear that great acting is about being showy. It isn’t. It’s about being subtle. We can only hope he heeds that warning before he ends up like Dustin Hoffman.

4. Bill Murray: Great in comedy (see “Tootsie” and “Groundhog Day”), laughably awful in everything else. He turned in what may be the single worst performance in the history of film in the remake of “The Razor’s Edge.” It is a wonder that the director of that film did not somehow mix up Murray and a block of wood during the shoot. It is unthinkable that he was nominated for an Academy Award for the most boring movie of all time, “Lost In Translation;” sitting around mumbling does not make for great acting. Here’s the thing about emotion on film; we should actually see it. I understand the idea of allowing things to simmer beneath the surface. But that doesn’t mean your performance style should invariably mirror a Tiki mask.

3. Tom Hanks: Bill Murray with a touch more emotion, Robin Williams with a touch less. Light comedy is fine (“Big”), everything else borders on the maudlin. “Castaway” is unintentionally hilarious (rent it and do bits on it), he’s a hole in the screen in “Saving Private Ryan,” and his performance in “Forrest Gump” is one-note. He’s not a bad actor, but he’s certainly not a great one. He is a great producer, though – for “Band of Brothers” alone, he should be enshrined among the best.

2. Meryl Streep: Undoubtedly I will be hung by my toenails for this pick. She is a marvel technically, but she’s always cold. I can’t think of a single film in which she has reached me emotionally. I always get the feeling while watching her movies that I’m watching a documentary about acting for a master class; I never get the feeling that her characters are real. On this one, I agree with Katharine Hepburn, who couldn’t stand Streep’s acting: “Click, click, click,” she once said, talking about the gears you can see turning inside Streep’s head.

1. Jack Nicholson: He sucks in everything. It’s that simple. Anyone who considers him a great actor ought to get his/her head examined. I understand that he’s a hero to the ‘60s generation because he did drugs and got murdered for psychedelic “freedom” in “Easy Rider.” That doesn’t excuse him for cursing film with his presence for the next forty years. He has no versatility whatsoever. He is always a cynical/menacing fellow with “reserves of depth” (unless he has no “reserves of depth”). He is the worst case of miscasting in movie history in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (McMurphy is supposed to be a huge red-headed Irishman, not a 5’10” counterculture weasel), a glaring problem in a film that is otherwise impeccably cast (Brad Dourif as Billy is one of the great overlooked performances in the annals of film). Nicholson over Peter Fonda in “1997″ is a cosmic injustice. He is boring, predictable, and what’s more, he’s pretentious and annoying. 12 Oscar nominations for this hack testifies to the idiocy of the Baby Boomer generation that made him famous.

“The Departed” may have won Martin Scorsese a long overdue Oscar, the film doesn’t quite stack up to the source material, “Infernal Affairs.”   Originating from Hong Kong and directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, “Infernal Affairs” has roughly the same basic plot as “The Departed,” in that it follows two moles on opposite ends of the law being driven to the edge of madness as the number of people they can trust dwindles as the body count rises.

“The Departed” is certainly more relatable to western audiences, given Scorsese’s flair for stylish, swear-laden dialogue, however “Infernal Affairs” is not only a tighter picture narratively, it also is a stronger piece of work thematically. Andy Lau and Tony Leung inhabit the roles later filled by Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. Lau has a golden-boy sheen about him that can turn sinister and threatening, while Leung has a world-weary demeanor that trumps DiCaprio’s overcooked performance.

DiCaprio is an actor I’ve never been sold on in the masculine roles he insists on playing. He’s an actor with a boyish look that serves him well in films like “Catch Me If You Can,” but he feels like a counterfeit male doing a tough-guy act whenever he works with directors like Scorsese. A friend of mine described bad acting as “when you can see the gears turning” in the actor’s head. If you look at DiCaprio’s latest, “J. Edgar,” and not only can you see the gears turning, you can hear them clack as loud as the cogs inside Big Ben just from looking at the stills.

In “The Departed,” he plays a character who is worried the criminals he’s embedded with will discover he’s a cop, but it almost feels like DiCaprio’s real fear is that the audience will see his phony streetwise Bah-stonian facade for what it really is.

While “The Departed” flirts with religious metaphor and ultimately ignores it, “Infernal Affairs” spins a compelling crime yarn that serves as symbolism for the Buddhist idea of Hell on Earth, the idea of “continuous suffering.” The film’s two protagonists find themselves living a existence of perpetual suffering, slowly losing their identities in the high tech war on crime. While Leung’s undercover cop is a character who yearns for release from his personal Hell posing as a criminal, Andy Lau’s gangster mole seeks to immerse himself in his role as a police officer, destroying those who know his true identity, ultimately looking to erase the man he was.

To say where the two films differ in the final act would be to spoil the movie, but let’s just say that “The Departed” opts for an ending that only serves to satisfy audience bloodlust, while “Infernal Affairs” has an ending you can’t shake. The film’s final shot makes the ending ambiguous and haunting. The final shot in “The Departed” is a bad joke.

“The Departed” is a film that runs at 151 minutes and says less than “Infernal Affairs” does in 101 minutes. That’s not to say that Scorsese’s film isn’t ultimately a solid one, but like most remakes it’s an inferior piece of work compared to the movie that spawned it. If you enjoy “The Departed,” give “Infernal Affairs” a whirl. It’s ultimately a tighter, more successful film than its little brother.

Available on Blu-ray

Other Noteworthy Releases

West Side Story: In case you missed it, check out fellow Parcbencher Greg Victor’s coverage of this much-heralded Blu-ray release of this classic musical.

Available on Blu-ray or in a deluxe box set

My Fair Lady: Another beloved musical coming to Blu-ray this week, this one being George Cukor’s adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” starring the lovely Audrey Hepburn and the charismatic Rex Harrison.

Available on Blu-ray

Three Colors – Blue, White, Red: Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski’s final three films, which serve as a trilogy in which each film vaguely symbolizes one of each of the words in the motto of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity. Kieślowski explores his protagonists with a graceful hand that reveals the soul of each character in a way few directors are capable of doing. The way he shoots stunningly beautiful actresses like Irene Jacob (“Red,” “The Double Life of Véronique“) is absolutely hypnotic, you can’t take your eyes off his films, even when it seems like nothing is happening.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

The Rules of the Game: One of the great classics of French cinema, Criterion is updating their edition of this 1939 Jean Renior film to include it on Blu-ray.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Evil Dead 2: Sam Raimi’s comedic redux of his classic debut gets another release on Blu-ray.  It seems like each of the “Evil Dead” movies got dipped each year on DVD, and given this is already the second release on Blu-ray, it seems we’re in for the same ol’ song and dance on this format. I’ve got the Book of the Dead edition on DVD, so they won’t get me again.

Available on Blu-ray

Larry Crowne: A Nia Vardalos-scripted nothingburger directed by Tom Hanks.  Hanks rolling around on a scooter in the trailer, along with the added presence of Julia Roberts, made me perfectly okay with never, ever seeing this movie.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis: Kino has done a fantastic job restoring the full cut of Fritz Lang’s silent science fiction masterpiece. However this week they’re bringing us a restored edition of the long out-of-print version of “Metropolis” Giorgio Moroder put together that was released in 1984. Moroder’s version made some audacious choices, including replacing the title cards with subtitles, using a score of contemporary pop music and even adding color. Though it’s doubtful that it was intended to replace the original, it’s interesting that someone had the stones to do this to such a film classic.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Tom Cruise Blu-ray Collection: Includes “Collateral,” “Top Gun,” “War of the Worlds,” “Minority Report” and “Days of Thunder”.

Available on Blu-ray

This post originally appeared over at Parcbench

Clint Eastwood is a different brand of director. He’s more nuanced, more reasonable, and he won’t let his knee jerk while telling a complicated story.

—–

Eastwood’s “J. Edgar” is all richer for the director’s cautious instincts. We re-learn why Hoover is both celebrated and mocked thanks to a powerhouse turn by Leonardo DiCaprio as the nation’s longest-serving FBI director.

“J. Edgar” ultimately seems disinterested in Hoover as a law man or rule breaker. The film trots out a series of arguments for and against his hard-line tactics, not bothering to weigh in on either side of the ledger. Instead, it frames a love story between two men who cannot act on their urges – or even admit them out loud.

“J. Edgar” opens with the hoariest of storytelling devices – Hoover himself dictating his life story to a typist drone. We flash back to Hoover’s first few years with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, a time when the Communist movement was first commanding his attention. Right away, Hoover sees the infiltration as a movement that must be snuffed out, and it doesn’t matter how many rules must bend to make that happen.

Hoover rises up the FBI ranks with impressive speed, the only roadblock coming when a dainty FBI peer (Naomi Watts) rebuffs his clumsy advances. From there, we get a dollop of American History 101 – from the Lindbergh baby theft to Hoover wrangling with Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Even better, we see how Hoover dragged the bureau into the modern age, focusing on fingerprint research and other forensic tools to serve the public good.

The film’s chronological time line gets tortured by screenwriter Dustin Lance Black of “Milk” fame. Some flashbacks make sense, while others keep us at a distance from the subject at hand. That leaves a series of clipped but rewarding sequences, all held together by DiCaprio’s impressive transformation into a man incapable of giving lawbreakers an inch. Yet “J. Edgar” ignores some ripe chapters from the 20th century, like Sen. Joe McCarthy’s Communist hunt.

“McCarthy was an opportunist, not a patriot,” Hoover huffs.

Hoover pours all of his energy into his job, but he’s gobsmacked when he meets a fellow agent named Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). Their bond matures over time, and it’s here where Eastwood takes the utmost of care not to overstep his duty to history. Those who refuse to believe the FBI chief led a closeted life won’t like the bigger picture rendered here, but even in a scene where Hoover and Tolson fight, and then briefly wrestle, Eastwood keeps a steely grip on the proceedings.

“J. Edgar” strips the screen of any color that might distract from Hoover himself, leaving a muted palette full of dark blues, browns and gray. He stages a few tense stand-offs to pump up the storytelling volume, including incidents when Hoover wanted to show he was as tough as the agents who broke down doors to nab the bad guys.

Such gimmickry can’t hide how poorly the screenplay illustrate Hoover’s evolution from young crime fighter to FBI chief willing to smash laws to get the job done. The best Black can do is paint Hoover’s mother (Judi Dench) in uniformly cruel tones, handcuffing the Oscar-winning actress in a role ill-suited for her talents.

Hollywood routinely tries – and fails – to convincingly age actors to tell tales that span the decades. Here, DiCaprio is burdened with layers of latex, and yet both the presentation and the actor underneath are darn near flawless.

For all of Hoover’s accomplishments, his life story doesn’t translate into a sweeping epic of consequence. Instead, “J. Edgar” is like a Merchant/Ivory romance, one told with furtive glances, the occasional caress and the knowledge that love isn’t enough to beat back societal expectations.

]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cftoto/2011/11/09/j-edgar-review-eastwoods-ode-to-an-fbi-love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name/feed/ 57 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/06/23/high-stakes-poker-hollywood-leftists-hid-millions-of-dollars-from-irs/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/06/23/high-stakes-poker-hollywood-leftists-hid-millions-of-dollars-from-irs/#comments Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:05:07 +0000 John Nolte http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=487320 If Hollywood supporters of President Spread-The-Wealth — specifically Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire – allegedly participated in alleged high-stakes poker games and allegedly won alleged money, did any of them report their alleged winnings to the IRS? Or, if they were concerned about the alleged illegality of these alleged high-stakes poker games, did they blindly donate the appropriate tax-the-rich portion to the treasury?

Greg Pollowitz at NRO:

Interesting. Maybe the next time Maguire is in D.C. for a photo-op with President Obama, he can explain to the president why he’s exempt from paying his fair share of taxes on the winnings — you know, to spread the wealth — or stop by the I.R.S. and drop off a check. 

Fox News reports on other potential legal problems:

Aside from Maguire, RadarOnline reported that entertainment industry power players such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon also tried their hand in the high-stakes game, and that the illicit enterprise was still taking place in the home of a top Hollywood producer.

The Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to our request for comment regarding whether or not an investigation was pending, however it seems these big names could all be in big trouble should legal proceedings escalate.

“If a bloodthirsty prosecutor wanted to go after these celebs, the law allows he or she to file charges and seek up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for each poker game played,” said California-based criminal defense attorney, David E. Wohl. “The reality is however, that there’s a greater chance of Arnold Schwarzenegger being reelected governor than Matt Damon, Ben Affleck or Toby Maguire actually doing jail time for a game of cards.”

Everything started with this lawsuit, which states:

As entertainment falls further under the thumb of big business, we’re going to have fewer and fewer “movements” in media.  The grunge music of Seattle in the 90s, the pure funkadelic madness that came out of Minneapolis in the 80s, and the string of fun fantasy and sci-fi films produced by Steven Spielberg between 1981 and 1987 are a thing of the past.  The industry is more diverse, with studio executives throwing random things at the dart board, hoping something sticks.

A few things from 2010 will stick.  Here are the five albums and five films that rose above the dreck of the year.  I guess this was the worst year ever for entertainment.  Unless you count 1997.  Boy, did that year suck.

Music

I have a simple rule for music.  If it rocks, it works.  Genres are insignificant.  My ipod playlist makes no sense.  It may be the only place, besides the red carpet at the Grammys, that you can find Snoop Dogg next to Toby Keith.

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

This eponymously named album sounds like it came out in 1992, right between the Gin Blossoms and Counting Crows.  And that is a-okay with me.  A soulful album that rocks when it needs to, rolls when it wants to.  Her vocals are great, and the orchestrations and shifts between genres elevate this band above the boring female singer/songwriters that fill the airways.  Yes, Sara Bareilles, I’m talking to you.

Covered in Gas - Evil Cowards

Frequent “Red Eye” guest Dick Valentine released this side project while taking a break from his equally awesome band Electric Six.  This album is definitely NSFW, but since when is rock and roll supposed to be safe?  Clever lyrics, crazy synthesizers, and beats that are more infectious than swine flu.  Not everybody will dig it, but if you do, your cool meter just went up from David Lee Roth to Fonzie.

Light Me Up – The Pretty Reckless

Brent Bozell over at Newsbusters has some issues with the band’s lead singer Taylor Momsen.  Point taken Brent, but unlike Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, there is a bit of authenticity behind Momsen’s rock star persona.  You get the sense that it isn’t a bunch of Hollywood types exploiting a young girl to appeal to an oversexed male audience, but a young girl exploiting an oversexed male audience.  A messed up young girl, to be sure, but I think she’s driving the car while we all sit in the back sipping our Slurpees.  If you’re like me and you’ve worn out your Hole “Celebrity Skin” CD, this is a worthy successor.  Taylor Momsen may be the reincarnation of Courtney Love.  What, Courtney Love is still alive?  Yeah, right.  Keith Richards is “alive” too.  Suckers.

The Archandroid – Janelle Monae

This album has been discussed on Big Hollywood before.  Like most leftists, Monae confuses ideals and actions, problems with solutions.  Her personal politics may be off base, but the messages in her songs are pitch perfect.  Plus, you’ve never really heard anything like it before.  That’s the mark of a true artist.

Charleston, SC 1966 - Darius Rucker

HOOTIE!!!!   Such a great album.  “I Don’t Care” featuring Brad Paisley is country music perfection.  Smooth vocals and rock solid country stylings make an album you can listen to over and over again.  And I have.

I probably should have mentioned Kanye West’s new album.  It is pretty awesome.  But man, he is such a tool.

Movies

Were there great movies in 2010?  Why, dare I say it? “You Betcha”!  (Note to editors, you can now feel free to tag Sarah Palin in this post to drive up hits.)

Inception

The Mack Daddy of Mack Daddy movies.  An action movie.  A science fiction movie.  An exercise in existentialism.  Everything is pretty damned perfect.  It’s great to watch a master filmmaker at the top of his game.  And hey, he managed to make Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page likable.  That’s some mad skills.

Kick-Ass

I already went into some detail about how this is a great Libertarian manifesto.  You can read it here.  And to sell my point further, I noticed while watching the Blu-Ray that the main character has an “Atlas Shrugged” poster on the wall in his room.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Are people so tired of Michael Cera being Michael Cera that they stayed away from one of the best movies of the year in droves?  Box office says, yes.  That’s a shame.  Edgar Wright’s homage to video games and twenty something angst is one of the most inventive films ever made.  It’s also wildly entertaining.  Although, I will say that the first time I saw it, I left the theater physically exhausted.  Yes, it’s that intense.

The Social Network

This movie is an odd experience.  It’s so well crafted, so engaging, so “interesting” that you can’t help but love it.  Yet, it is so emotionally detached at the end of the day that you feel a bit empty after seeing it.  Wait, it’s a film about Facebook and how a culture run by socially dysfunctional nerds may lack true human interaction?  Whoa, David Fincher, working on multiple levels there.  That empty feeling in my heart was the point?  Nice!

Centurion

How is crap like that new James L. Brooks movie in theaters and this movie barely got any screen time?  I mean it was in and out faster than a date with Jullian Assange.  (I kid, I kid.  You know we love you, you immature, ignorant, narcissistic, fascist douchebag).  This movie has it all.  Overacting British actors.  Ridiculous violence.  Over the top cinematography.  And hot chicks with weapons.  It’s like a Leigh Scott movie not made by Leigh Scott.  I’ll have to watch this over and over until Zach Snyder’s “Sucker Punch” comes out in March to get my fix.

There you have it.  Ten good things about 2010.  Not the worst year ever for music and movies.

Clearly, that was 2003.

By raw statistics, that would indicate over a quarter of the entertainment business is Republican. Now it could just be that Republicans are more generous.  Democrats are notoriously cheaper than a Barney Frank ferry ride. Al Gore spent more money on harassable masseuses than he gives to charity. Bill Clinton’s idea of charity is giving away used underwear (though in fairness, some of the clothing he soiled is now considered museum quality). Joe Biden spends more on polishing his tooth marks out of his shoes than he routinely gives away.

Democrats are as hypocritical as Leonardo DiCaprio’s private jet. They talk all the time about the uncaring rich not helping the poor, but come tax time, the charitable giving recorded on their Schedule As is dwarfed by their mortgage interest on their luxurious abodes. Democrats think their public service and undying support of a powerful state is tantamount to charity.

Perhaps showbiz Republicans give more, since their money says the words they can’t speak at work. When you have to put in eight-plus hours alongside people who can’t hold back their opinions about the ignorant bigoted tea-bagging Republicans, you’re bound to come home and take revenge with your checkbook.

Or maybe we just have more to spend. Usually people don’t discover Republicanism until they’re in the upper tax bracket. It’s strange how money looks from the other side of the fence. I know a comedian who once had a line about nobody needing more than three million dollars a year, that any dime you make above three million should be confiscated, because if you CAN’T make it on three million dollars a year, you’re an idiot and don’t deserve it anyway.

The last time I saw him joking about a maximum wage I knew he had made good, because he was now claiming that nobody needed more than $150 million a year. I’m glad that he’s doing well for himself, and he’s learned that three million dollars is not as much as a starving artist might imagine. Especially in show biz, where 25% is taken straight off the top, before the IRS and the State of Wherever-You-Unpack-Your-Suitcase get their share.

But I truly suspect that the amount of Republicans in the industry is far underestimated. Democrats just tend to be louder so it appears like there are more of them.  Here at Big Hollywood, there are only a handful of showbiz types who have revealed themselves. I think more need to come out of the attic, at least for the inner peace they will find. It isn’t healthy for everyone to keep their opinions locked up inside.

I say come out of your hiding places everyone. I think there are more of us out here than anyone can imagine. It’s really liberating to no longer pretend that the economy is in great shape, and the President is competent. And the next time your co-worker claims that at least He’s not as bad as Bush, remind them that a four percent unemployment and a deficit under a trillion dollars would be a welcome relief right about now.

Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), The Sound of Music (1965), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Ten Commandments (1956), Titanic (1997), Jaws (1975), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Exorcist (1973), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1939), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Ben-Hur (1959), Avatar (2009), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Sting (1973), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), The Graduate (1967), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Fantasia (1941), The Godfather (1972), Forrest Gump (1994), Mary Poppins (1964), The Lion King (1994)

If you said they all made scads of money, bravo — they are the top twenty-five domestic box-office champions of all time (adjusted for inflation, of course).

But consider another similarity: surprisingly few of them relied on established A-list movie stars — the most famous, the highest paid — for their moneymaking prospects. Gone with the Wind had Gable, yes. The Sting had Newman and Redford. The Godfather, Brando.

As for most of the rest, they either featured no A-listers at all, or used them before they became bonafide movie stars. In fact, many of those pictures can take credit for sending now-famous actors into the celestial Hollywood firmament in the first place. Gone with the Wind made Vivian Leigh known to the world. The Ten Commandments did it for Charlton Heston. The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman. The Godfather, Al Pacino. Star Wars, Harrison Ford. Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews.

Meanwhile, I note that Will Smith, the current top A-lister, is nowhere to be found on this rarefied roll call. Nor is Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Jim Carrey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Julia Roberts, or many others whose compensation has, at various times, made gasp-worthy headlines. Of the modern crop of top-salaried men, only Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, and wee Leonardo DiCaprio are up there, and only for movies where it can be argued that genuinely astonishing special effects and epic spectacle, brought to life by proven audience-pleasing directors, served as the real stars.

(It’s telling that four of those behind-the-scenes men — Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Cameron, and Walt Disney — are responsible for over half of the list all by themselves.)

Is this being too dismissive of the contributions of highly-paid thespians to a movie’s bottom line? I don’t think so. Do you honestly think that Jurassic Park suffered at the box office because Harrison Ford turned it down and was replaced by Sam Neill? Or let’s go straight to the very heights of heresy: if you took Gable’s indelible, iconic performance out of Gone with the Wind, or Brando’s out of The Godfather, and replaced them with other well-regarded actors, would the movies still have made that Top 25 list? If the presence of these vaunted personalities is so magical in and of itself, how does one explain all the flops starring these very same actors?

There are other considerations that trump the movie-star effect in terms of improved profits. Consider that eight of the top twenty-five films were rated G, and eleven PG (four others had a PG-13 rating, and a paltry two were rated R). It’s clear common sense: make a movie suitable for the whole family, and you’ve just doubled or tripled your ticket tally, not to mention all the extra popcorn, soda, and candy getting sluiced through the digestive tracts of America’s moppets in direct violation of nanny-state health doctrine. That’s not to say that there’s no place for R-movies, just that a film’s potential for profit should always remain a healthy multiple of its budget.

Given all this, it’s high time that the stumpy tail of A-list Hollywood stops wagging the studio dog. Ten or twenty million guaranteed, up-front dollars to an actor for any movie (much less an R-rated one) is fiscal insanity. It’s the quality and appeal of the movie as a whole that counts. Once one comes to grips with this, paying a huge salary to a well-known celebrity begins to seem like a far poorer use of a studio’s money than spending the same amount of dough on better special effects, larger advertising buys, a great script, and/or a quality crew of cinematographers, editors, sound designers, and musicians.

Patrick Goldstein, who gets a lot of criticism round these parts, wrote an excellent article last year about the trend towards reduced star salaries. Music to my ears. Movie stars will always be with us, and at their best they add a great deal to a film’s artistry. But perhaps they will once again assume their proper economic place in the hierarchy of moviemaking (less money, less creative control), allowing Hollywood’s much maligned product to get better as a result.

Well, here’s one way to entice Middle America into your film, insult them by having your three main stars hit the promotional circuit and savage Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin as stupid and evil: 

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QUIZ: What makes you most want to see “Inception” now?

1. Ellen Page’s insufferably cruel sanctimony?

2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s pathetic, butt-boy me-toosim?

3. Leonardo DiCaprio’s wild hypocrisy?

Actually, “wild hypocrisy” is an understatement….

The same Leo you see in that video belly-aching with so much touching concern over Mother Earth, just happens to be the very same elitist whose PRIVATE jet-setting helped cause the chaos that cost hundreds of World Cup fans — who had spent upwards of $1300 for tickets — the ability to attend the game. Found buried yesterday in the sometimes useful L.A. Times:

The congestion on the ground, caused in part by earlier bad weather on Wednesday and in part by the arrival of large numbers of private aircraft, led to what one British Airways pilot described as “absolute chaos.”

According to a report in Britain’s Financial Times, “Some of the fans had spent upward of $1,300 for semifinals tickets but were stuck in Johannesburg while private jets carrying Spain’s King Juan Carlos, South African President Jacob Zuma, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and socialite Paris Hilton landed.”

Keep in mind that Leo isn’t just any hypocritical Hollywood environmentalist, he is the hypocritical Hollywood environmentalist. If you recall his film “The 11th Hour”:

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Had Leo simply practiced what he preached and flown commerical, maybe things would’ve been a little less chaotic and a few more of those folks wouldn’t have wasted their hard-earned money. But they’re just the great unwashed and Leo is the The Great Movie Star Who Commands From Above, so… whatever.

Leo may want to get in the head of BP’s CEO, but I’d like to get in Leo’s head and understand why someone who believes the planet is in peril would commit an act of genocide against the entire human race by flying around in private jets.

My vote, however, goes to Ellen Page, who just went from the lovable and spunky Juno to a shorter, joyless, less-likable version of Rachel Maddow.

How sheltered of a self-involved little bubble does one have to live in to think speaking the term “holistic intelligence” out loud doesn’t automatically qualify you for the All-Time Top Five Moments Of Hollywood Assholery. Page actually considers herself a feminist and yet here she is trashing the compassion and questioning the intelligence of a self-made Governor raising a special-needs child as her oldest son serves in Iraq.

What’s young Page’s claim to intelligence and compassion fame. Oh, that’s right, she’s a celebrity.

Man, I wish I’d never seen this video. I love Christopher Nolan and have been dying to see “Inception.” But goodwill matters and this Terrible Trio of Tactlessness just dropped the needle on that meter way below the half-way point.