This reminds me of when Sonny Bono was running for office and someone asked him his position on illegal immigration. His answer was something to the effect of: “Well, it’s illegal isn’t it?”

Politics only becomes rocket science when the Left tries to turn lies into truth and facts into socialism. The best approach is always a simple, common sense one:

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From the Associated Press:

The troubled actress didn’t admit to stealing a $2,500 necklace last February, but her no contest plea does go on her record as a conviction.

The bright lights never seem to fade on Hollywood’s stars. Even at her memorial service, Elizabeth Taylor left instructions that she arrive 15 minutes late to make an entrance.  Friends and family remembered Taylor before she was finally laid to rest in the same cemetery where her longtime friend Michael Jackson is buried.  Well documented in the press, the relationship between Ms. Taylor and the King of Pop remains an enigma of sorts.  Twice, she stood by Jackson as he endured accusations of child abuse.  When the singer turned to prescription drugs to dull his pain, it was Taylor who convinced him to go to rehab.

No stranger to the perils of drug abuse herself, Taylor knew firsthand Jackson could indeed turn his life around.  After her own rehab stint made headlines in the early 1980s, Taylor was in a unique position to speak out to celebrities who abuse drugs to cope with fame and its pitfalls.  While Jackson eventually passed away, allegedly from a powerful prescription drug, there is something to be learned from the lives of both the King of Pop and Hollywood’s golden girl.

Even when she struggled with health problems, weight issues, and alcohol, the public maintained its fond fascination for Taylor, and she emerged from those challenges fully supported.  Then, she became one of the most active humanitarians in show business; utilizing her stardom to raise funds for AIDS research throughout the 1980s, which continued for several decades until her passing.  Unfortunately, the feel-good chapter at the end of Taylor’s story – one marked by altruism and charity – is uncommon for Hollywood’s brightest stars, who often fade as fast as they shine.

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Hollywood, hear our plea:  Could you make some mainstream movies that don’t suck?  There’s nothing worse than a Christmas season where going to the movies seems about as appealing as sharing a straw with Lindsay Lohan.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues. (more…)

If the real world was like a Hollywood movie, Julian Assange would step onto a rain-drenched sidewalk, insert the key into his Prius and be blown into several thousand pieces of blond Australian jerk.  From their observation post high above on a building, a pair of sinister CIA assassins would smile as they squelch yet another voice of freedom. 

Instead, the Wikileaks revelations and the pathetic aftermath demonstrate that far from being the omnipotent cadre of high-tech avengers, our leaders have apparently been reduced to hoping that the Swedes’ bizarre sex crime laws will do the dirty work for us.  Capping this twerp might be a bit harsh, but it’s not unreasonable to expect that we be able to come up with some better options for dealing with Wikileaks than cancelling his credit cards and leaving the rest up to Sven and Inga.

For decades, Hollywood has depicted the US intelligence establishment as some sort of all-seeing, all-powerful collection of high-tech killers in expensive suits hunting down those who interfere with America’s imperialist designs.  Hollywood has pushed the notion that our government officials are able to implement conspiracies of such ridiculous scope and audacity that they would embarrass a Truther – well, maybe not Hollywood Truther Charlie Sheen, who apparently doesn’t possess a shame gene.  And the lefties seem to buy that image –a preeminent lefty sight has revealed that the Swedish sex charges were trumped up by a Uppsula University feminist gender equity officer in cahoots with Cuban freedom fighters and the CIA.  The role of the Trilateral Commission is left unclear.

We wish we could pull that off!  In reality, instead of weaving exquisite tapestries of deception or launching waves of vicious kill-bots, we have an Attorney General whose Plan A was offering a searing condemnation of Wikileaks as “arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful.”  Wikileaks is “unhelpful” – shockingly, this harsh language somehow failed to deter Julian and Co.  After that smashing success, the AG has initiated Plan B and is promising to possibly consider perhaps contemplating maybe reviewing a number of options designed to somehow do something of some sort.  That is, if he’s not still preoccupied springing some New Black Panthers or failing to convince FIFA not to hold its 2022 shindigg in Qatar.  Figuring out how to lose sponsoring a soccer tournament expecting thousands of Brit, German, French and Italian fans/hooligans to a part of the world that frowns on alcohol probably took all of his attention.  (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 good news first – there’s no pinko sucker punch in The American despite the presence of chatty progressive George Clooney in the title role.  Sure, there’s a tiny bit of the hackneyed “American learns about life from the earthy foreigners who truly know how to live” cliché, but not much.  Now the bad news:  Not only is there no sucker punch but there’s no punch at all.

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This is a technically well-written script by Rowan Joffe that tells a story that made me want to lick my finger and stick it in a socket to jump start my soul.  Stop me if you’ve heard this before, which pretty much means stop me now.  Clooney plays a hit man who “wants out” and hides in an Italian village while he puts together his One Last Job.  He interacts with a few locals, sips coffee, acts paranoid, and awaits the series of twists and betrayals everyone sees coming a mile away.  Arrivederchi, two hours of your life.

I almost wish that the script had empowered Clooney’s Hollywood lib instincts so I could have felt something while reading the script other than the same exhausted ennui that the main character is supposed to feel.  Yeah, he’s burned out and morally and emotionally bereft.  We get it.  I mean, we’ve only seen this movie and this character, what . . . 500 times?  Except this one is hiding out in the same soul-regenerating village Italian countryside we’ve seen in, what . . . 500 other movies? 

Call it Clash of the Cliches.  Too bad they never actually unleash the kraken.

Let’s catalog some of the other clichés: (more…)

Via the indispensable NewsBusters:

Best-selling novelist Stephen King slammed Glenn Beck as a “crazy” “nutcase” and Rush Limbaugh as a cynical huckster in his August 6, 2010 Entertainment Weekly column. The horror author derided Limbaugh as having “no conviction in that sonorous, slightly flabby voice.”

King attacked the radio star for supposedly not being sympathetic enough to the plight of Lindsay Lohan’s drug problem. Yet, he provided no quotes or real examples, just a vague summary. The liberal writer complained of Limbaugh, “There’s a hollowness there, and a patronizing undertone when he interacts with callers (who are called Dittoheads for a reason).”

Again, offering no transcript, King opined: (more…)

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Lindsay Lohan is an adult, responsible for her own actions, but take a glimpse into the nauseating world she inhabits; one of manipulation where the producers and photographers manipulate her with fawning compliments to get their pound of flesh, and Lohan manipulates them not only to hear those compliments but to lord her superiority over everyone. Lohan’s 11 hours late, which brought the cost of this photo shoot up an extra hundred thousand dollars. Here’s the result:

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If there’s a sadder story playing out in Hollywood right now than the downfall of Lindsay Lohan, we’re unaware of it. Unfortunately, this is a story we see much too often with former child stars addicted to more than just fame. A tough judge helped to give us Robert Downey Jr. back, another seems to have settled Paris Hilton down. Hopefully this dose of harsh reality will be a step that helps to keep The Lindsay Lohan Story from turning into a full-blown tragedy.

The Associated Press:

A judge sentenced Lindsay Lohan on Tuesday to 90 days in jail and an inpatient rehab program after finding the actress had violated the terms of her probation in a 2007 drug case.

The actress immediately burst into tears after the ruling.

Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel issued the sentence after listening to testimony from employees of an alcohol treatment program that Lohan had been ordered to attend.

Lohan missed seven classes since December, which led to the judge’s harsh rebuke of Lohan moments after the “Mean Girls” star offered a tearful apology. (more…)

Seeing that George Soros and Sting are working together to “end the drug war” puts me in mind of a story an Army buddy who works in the DEA told me about busting in the door of a drug house only to find three occupants – the oldest four years old, having been left in charge while his “parents” went out to score meth.  Yeah, drug use is a victimless crime – if you ignore the victims.

Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency manipulation and general scuzziness to enlist entertainment celebrities like Sting in his newest quest.  The Drug Policy Alliance is the result, a group whose members, as its founder puts it, “come from across the drug use spectrum.”  Yes, the junkies, stoners, hopheads, dope fiends, pill-poppers, and Lindsay Lohan are unanimous:  Drug laws are bad, and it’s probably BusHitler’s fault.

The threshold problem with comments by Sting such as, “The war on drugs represents an extraordinary violation of human rights,” is that Sting presumably not only believes this piffle, but further believes that he can put down his bass and offer meaningful input into the discussion.  This assumption of competence is a common delusion among celebrities, and here it has more potential for damage than most mindless celebribabble.

Now, Sting is not alone – no one in that clip says anything worthwhile.  One woman, who is bald for no apparent reason, states that “The War on Drugs is a war on people of color,” as if Americans decided they would outlaw crack because they fear that black people might enjoy themselves.  Montel Williams shows up to explain that drug laws prevent him from making choices about his own body, but the awful tie and ridiculous earring he chose to wear make a powerful argument against allowing him to make any kind of choices at all. (more…)

There’s no confusion about who the villain is in Machete – it’s you.

More specifically, it’s you and the other 69% or so of American citizens who agree that we should have a say in who does and doesn’t come into our country by enforcing our immigration laws.  There’s been a lot written about the race war angle of Machete, including a lot of back-pedaling from writer/director Robert Rodriguez himself.  But it’s hard to see this script as anything but a sick MEChA-approved fantasy in which every Anglo man is a slobbering borderline savage who tortures Mexicans when not slaughtering them outright, and every Anglo woman a nymphomaniac yearning to strip down and have a crack at our hero Machete’s macho Mexican manhood.

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Perhaps Rodriguez isn’t making an explicit plea for racial warfare, but Rodriguez’s crude racial stereotypes make Hitler’s Der Stürmer propaganda look like a subtle, sophisticated and affectionate commentary on Jewish culture.  The script does not bat an eye as Machete butchers nearly every Anglo, innocent or “guilty,” who is unfortunate enough to cross his path.  In the end, there is no doubt that Rodriguez is making the most overtly, outrageously and unrepentantly racist film in modern Hollywood history.

But Rodriguez does deserve props for one thing – in purely technical terms, this is one of the best-written scripts I’ve ever seen.  It is vivid, coherent and flows smoothly, unlike the majority of unreadable Final Draft failures out there.  There is not an ounce of flab.  The “jokes” mostly fall flat, but Rodriguez will likely direct it with flair and style.  It’s just too bad this movie combines the racial insights of a 1942 Robert Byrd with the collective moral sense of Enron’s Board of Directors. (more…)

Like many Americans, I tuned into “Glee” this Monday to give the show a second go. In the spirit of objectivity, I must admit that the cast is talented, the characters well-developed, and there’s some strong writing to tie it all together. I felt that it deserved another shot. Only eight minutes into the episode however, much like Ralphie with his Little Orphan Annie decoder pen, I’d been skunked again. Is anybody else turning the dial off of “Glee” for good?

If you frequent the BigHollywood often, you’ve no doubt read about Glee’s recent jabs aimed toward Conservatives (more specifically, last week with Sarah Palin). Despite Sarah Palin having a legion of supporters (many of whom watch “Glee”), the people at Fox thought that it was a safe bet. After all, none of their Hollywood buddies would criticize them for it. That would require, shall we say… testicles? No, when it comes to speaking up against the popular opinion among their elitist peers, Tinseltown decided to lie themselves on the neutering bench a long time ago. It’s because of this that they travel in packs, making drive-bys and are more akin to acting like Cobra-Kais’ cronies than fighting the establishment a la Daniel Larusso. When “Glee” took a swipe at Ann Coulter this week, one could faintly hear the cries of their Hollywood lackeys screeching “Get’him a bodybag!” in the studio back lots and writers’ boardrooms. (more…)

You can say a lot of things about the modern Hollywood “Celebrity Class,” but no one has ever accused them of being short on a sense of self worth or ego. Case in point the recent publicity shenanigans by one Ms. Lindsay Lohan.

In case you haven’t heard Ms. Lohan, former teen movie star, is suing E*Trade for $100 million. Why? In a recent commercial, part of the  E*Trade series of talking baby ads unveiled at the Super Bowl, one baby refers to another baby named “Lindsey” as a “milkaholic.” Ms. Lohan’s claim is that the American public thinks of only one person when it hears the name “Lindsay” and that she is that person. Furthermore, that this funny little ad has so damaged her career and her reputation that she should be compensated to the tune of $100 million.

My response: wow! I never thought of Ms. Lohan in reference to this ad until she grabbed some tabloid headlines by filing this suit. This redefines the concept of hubris. Oedipus, the old standard for hubris, pales in comparison to the monumental assessment of self on two levels. (more…)

If you’ve seen Superman: The Movie (1978), you surely remember the character of Perry White, the tough-as-nails editor of The Daily Planet. Played pitch-perfect by actor Jackie Cooper, he’s one of the comedic highlights of the picture. “I want the name of this flying whatchamacallit to go with the Daily Planet like bacon and eggs! Franks and beans! Death and taxes! Politics and corruption!”

Cooper delivers his one-liners in a Preston Sturges staccato that helps give the 1970s film a pleasant 1930s gloss, bridging the gap between comic book and movie. But if, like me, you were just a kid when you saw Superman, you may not have known that here was an actor who, fifty years earlier, was one of the most popular and recognizable in the world, courtesy of a little picture called The Champ. (more…)

Stalin reportedly referred to blind defenders and apologists for the former Soviet Union in democratic Western countries as “useful idiots.” Since Stalin’s day, the list has grown to include either those who defend or apologize for radical Islamic regimes or who just turn a blind eye because it suits them for financial or other reasons.

Add singer Beyoncé Knowles to that list:

On Sunday, Mediaite reported that singer Beyoncé Knowles had given a private New Year’s Eve performance for an exclusive crowd in St. Barth — and made the case that she had performed and been paid by relatives of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi (variously known as Khadafy, Qaddafi, Quadhafi and more). Atlanta-based blogger Necole Bitchie reported a $2 million fee; the UK Mirror reported a “six-figure sum” and yesterday Media Takeout made the same claim, repeating the $2 million number and confirming the Gaddafi-hosted party from a guest who was there (hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons also placed Beyoncé at a “Khadafy party.” Today Page Six confirms our original report, with one new piece of information: the party was thrown by Moutassim Gaddafi, known as Hannibal, son of the Libyan dictator who less than a week before made headlines for allegedly attacking his wife in a London hotel.

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The recent fracas at the American Music Awards is yet another reason why I am glad I don’t go in for the mutual admiration society gatherings known as awards shows.

American Idol runner up Adam Lambert, one of the performers during the live East Coast broadcast, shocked viewers with his “pelvic-thrust[ing] … four-minute, S&M-themed routine, taking time out from singing to grope a female dancer, kiss a male musician and, most shockingly, shove a male dancer’s face into his crotch, in an act that simulated fellatio.”

Nothing like watching a little simulated fellatio to round out an evening with the family. Pass the popcorn!

Sources from the AMA claimed that those dance moves had not been part of the rehearsal, and the West Coast version of the show was edited to delete the scene. Now there’s the real scandal: trying to protect children who might be watching. If it’s good enough for the likes of the celebs in the AMA audience, it should be good enough for your 10 year old. (more…)

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Apparently, reality TV couple Spencer and Heidi Pratt – who got their start on MTV’s The Hills and are now a part of this summer’s I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here – have run afoul of one of NBC’s reality programming head honchos with their latest attention-getting antics.

“They are everything that’s wrong with America,” executive vice president of alternative programming for NBC and Universal Media Studios, Paul Telegdy, said in a statement to Access Hollywood. “They are insincere, lazy, entitled and they claim the devil has possessed them.”

Apparently the couple not only demanded the royal treatment, but threatened to quit more than once and basically acted like a couple of spoiled brats.

I’d like to ask Mr. Telegdy: what did he expect? Reality shows take everyday people and turn them into minor celebrities overnight. It’s not like they had to work for years honing their craft while they waited tables and went on endless auditions, hoping and praying for their big break. (Of course, if one or both of your parents is Hollywood royalty, you skip that part and move right on to the big time.) The only “work” involved in reality stardom is standing in line to audition, hoping to get picked; although sometimes people with unusual life circumstances are approached by producers who hope to exploit their lives for ratings that translate into dollar signs (think Nadya Suleman, lovingly referred to by society as the “Octomom”). (more…)