Fox News:

Former porn star Sasha Grey says she will not withdraw from an elementary school reading program despite outcry from angry parents, according to a report from TMZ.

Earlier Friday, news broke that a Los Angeles area elementary school is facing some major criticism from parents after the district invited Grey to read to a group of first graders as part of the Read Across America program.

“I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am and what I represent,” she said in a statement.

“I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am.

“I believe in the future of our children, and I will remain an active supporter and participant in education-focused initiatives.”

TMZ obtained photos of Grey reading to the children at Emerson Elementary School in Compton on November 2 as part of Read Across America.

Full story here.

It’s rare that a movie can come along and sweep away viewers into its world without the benefit of major stars and a whirlwind of hype. But this weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to see an absolutely mesmerizing film that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Its name is “Girlfriend,” and before I get caught up in rapturously praising the film, I want to let our Los Angeles readers know that they have one shot to see the film in a theater and help give it a broader life. It screens at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Downtown Independent Theater, the same free-thinking venue that earlier this year earned my praises for having the guts to screen the amazing anti-North Korean documentary “The Red Chapel” for a week.

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In its own ways, “Girlfriend” is even more of a must-see, and I urge anyone who appreciates great acting and writing in the vein of William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor’s darkly meaningful tales to go. It’s a thoughtful, quiet film that builds slowly but surely to a compelling series of events that should leave viewers happy that their intelligence was respected like so few films bother to do, as well as a uniquely satisfying conclusion that will leave you seeing the world in a different way.

While it tells its own very personal, compelling and unpredictable tale, it bears a resemblance to another great film that came out of nowhere back in 1996: Billy Bob Thornton’s masterpiece, “Sling Blade.” Like that film, “Girlfriend” centers on a mentally challenged man named Evan in a small rural town who suddenly has big decisions to make with even bigger consequences hanging in the balance.

But while Thornton was a relatively unknown character actor who drew critics and audiences in with a stunning performance pretending to be mentally challenged, “Girlfriend” stars a man named Evan Sneider, who actually lives with the condition of Downs Syndrome. His performance here is a stunner, because he not only holds his own against an excellent cast, but alternates perfectly between moments of subtle sadness and explosive emotion in a way that would make most so-called normal actors jealous.

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One news item that was mostly lost in the holiday weekend shuffle was that the Los Angeles Police Department has solicited celebrities to use twitter to spread the word about the closure of a prominent freeway.  The story was already pretty funny, then Kim Kardashian tweeted the wrong information… twice.  From Fox News:

What did California law enforcement expect when they enlisted celebrities to help warn the public of the impending closure of a major freeway?

Probably not this.

Kim Kardashian, one of several celebrities with Twitter followings in the millions, was asked by the L.A.P.D to warn her followers of the impending highway closure.

Kardashian complied, tweeting on Friday: “Remember this weekend the 405 Fwy is gonna be closed between the San Fernando Valley and the West Side!!”

Just one problem. The closure is in two weeks.

So the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star tried to correct her mistake, tweeting: “Remember next weekend the 405 Fwy is gonna be closed between the San Fernando Valley and the West Side!!”

Wrong again.

Kardashian erased both initial Twitter messages and finally got it right: “Stay away from the 405 Fwy the weekend of July 16 & 17, it will be closed btwn the 10 Fwy and 101 Fwy North & South!”

Oh. My. Gawd.

My data isn’t fresh on this, but there was a time not long ago where the stretch of 405 freeway between the 10 and 101 was the single most trafficked road in the United States.  Shutting that down for a couple of days is like blocking off L.A.’s pulmonary artery; it just can’t function without it.  So, if the city is going to try to temporarily block it off, they can’t afford any mistakes. (more…)

“Kate, California is going down! Pack up the kids now!

It’s not just California. It’s the whole goddamned world that gone to shit.” (John Cusack, 2012)

It’s surprising to me how often it seems like Sacramento wrote the plot of its own disaster movie and is now acting the part it has written for itself of panicking, incompetent government.

John Nolte, editor of Big Hollywood, has joined that great mass of reverse Joads (of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath), in search of a better life anywhere but California. I imagine him, with his affects, trucking across the Mojave Desert in search of the better life that eluded him in California.

“The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It’s as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California,” Steinbeck wrote in Travels with Charley in Search of America. Now the desert, notwithstanding the government-induced drought in the Central Valley, is more metaphorical and all around us. There are no jobs but government jobs or the jobs the government has yet to destroy.

“You know what’s remarkable? Is how much England looks in no way like Southern California,” Austin Powers once said. But he was wrong. We are England, circa 1970. We’re still looking for our Thatcher. We hope if New Jersey can get Christie, maybe this state can come back, even if our last Republican governor merely played the part of a conservative. Indeed, the fattest governor in America could have taught the body builder a thing or two about trimming the fat. (more…)

If all goes as planned, as you read this the wife and I will be loading a moving van full of everything we own in advance of a cross-country move back to our home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Eight years ago we did the reverse. Left our beloved home for what was supposed to be a three-year adventure in Hollywood. Much happened over those years — most of it wonderful. But we’ve been terribly homesick every minute we’ve been away and simply can’t wait to pick up our small town lives where they left off.

Crying out in anguished pretension

To say we’ve enjoyed our time in Los Angeles would be an understatement. Adventure we sought and adventure we received. Though I eventually failed out, I loved the few years I (barely) scraped out a living in the independent film world and that it led to eventually being a part of Andrew Breitbart’s BIG empire feels something like providence. There is very little, however, my wife and I will miss about the city itself. We learned pretty quickly that all the cliches are true about the crime, traffic, smog, tremors, and artificiality of it all. Simply put, this city is a dump with a 10% sales tax where light bulbs are contraband the seasons change from hot to scalding and throwing your garbage in the wrong bin ranks as something close to a capital crime. No offense, but I see Los Angeles as nothing more than a big, fascist, one-story ghetto and those of you who love it are welcome to it.  

One cliche that is a total lie, though, is the unbelievably phony narrative created by the Leftist media and Hollywood about the people who live here. Throughout my misspent life, I’ve lived in Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and now California — and I have never met nicer people than the people of Los Angeles. That’s not hyperbole or rose-colored glasses or sentiment. It’s a fact. Over the years, I’ve been all over this city and have met and worked with folks from every possible background and income group; from movie stars, producers, journalists and politicians to cops, public school teachers, and factory workers. The people who live and work and make this city run are almost without exception uncommonly decent and kind.

Which brings me to the Paul Haggis film “Crash.”

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On his Wednesday show, Adam Carolla interviewed Andrew Breitbart to discuss Andrew’s new book, Righteous Indignation. Let me assure you, you’ll LOVE this duo. Andrew’s been a guest on Carolla’s show before, but this was hands down the most entertaining so far.

Check out some of the comments from Carolla’s regular listeners – not surprisingly, some aren’t exactly Breitbart fans (which makes it that much more enjoyable for me, at least).

Carolla tackled topics with Andrew on just about everything – from Righteous Indignation to Communism, the Left’s Racist meme, the racket of building permits and greenwashing, and unions, just to name a few. And a whole lotta LA, which, as Andrew illustrates for us, ain’t what is used to be. The two were on such a rant roll over our waning freedoms, Carolla, who has described himself as having libertarian leanings, almost sounded like another grassroots activist. Who knows? Sounds like he may just have a bit of Presidential appeal. Andrew certainly thought so!

“By the way, are you aware that the Republican Party has nobody running for the presidency right now, and if you had put that out there by mistake and people heard that, and that was your spiel, you would have gone up to Donald Trump level, you would have gone up to 17%?”

Oh yeah – Carolla’s also not a big fan of Maxine Waters. Not. At. All. Which reminds me, this audio is NSFW.

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Let’s start by saying that finding a project in Hollywood that leans to the right is like finding a needle in a haystack. Time is money, so I searched outside Los Angeles; that made things quicker. Since everyone seems to be headed south, I looked in Louisiana. Scouring through websites, I was surprised to find this little gem of a film which had a role open.  Not just a role, the kind of role and actress prays for all her life. Wait, let me rephrase that, the kind of role a Republican actress prays for all her life.

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It’s a rarity to be able to work on a film that portrays soldiers in a good light, especially one in which the hero is a female Captain in the Army. The gem of a film is “Flag of My Father”; a story about how Army Nurse, Captain Judith Rainier, deals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the collateral damage it has on her family. Judith and her veteran father, played by William Devane, share a special bond as they confide in each other over their military experiences. This creates an even greater wedge between her and her half-brothers, the most viscous one being played by John Schneider (which he plays disconcertingly well). “Flag of My Father” addresses PTSD, and is a movie about faith, forgiveness, healing, and family. It is truly patriotic and one of a kind with a great soundtrack, including music from Michael W. Smith and Sarah McLaughlin.

“Flag of My Father” premiere’s at the GI FILM FESTIVAL in DC May 13th, where it is in competition to win Best Feature. After the festival, it may get a small release and will be available on DVD.  (more…)

Ah, lefties. Always thinking of the common man.

The Los Angeles Times:

Authorities said they were taking steps to avoid a repeat of past gridlock when President Obama arrives in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl urged Westside residents to plan activities at home during the period the president will be moving around or face “putting yourself into potential gridlock.”

Obama will arrive at Los Angeles International Airport at 2:45 p.m. He will spend some time at a fundraiser at the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City. He is scheduled to dine at the Tavern restaurant in Brentwood. It’s unclear where he will spend the night, but the president is scheduled to depart from LAX about 9 a.m. Friday, at the heart of the morning commute.

Obama’s visit to L.A. last summer closed numerous streets from downtown L.A. through the Westside, turning 45-minute commutes into three-hour ordeals. In his next visit in the fall he used a helicopter for some stops, and the traffic situation improved.

“Every effort is being made to minimize the impact to the residential communities and businesses affected by the president’s visit,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. “Although it is not always possible to provide advanced information regarding the specific routes of travel involving the president, we are committed to utilizing traffic control measures that minimize the impact upon commuters while still maintaining the safety of the President as well as the communities involved.”

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Imagine an era of movie action heroes who actually look as though they could kick your butt. There was such a time, not so long ago, when masculine men strode the Earth and walked directly into trouble firing very big guns at very bad guys without being all conflicted about it afterwards.

A Purple Heart recipient for his service in WWII as an aerial gunner, Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Born in 1921, his early success as a supporting player in legendary films such as “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” didn’t occur until he was into his 40s and genuine super-stardom finally hit when he was in his 50s, starting with Michael Winner’s “Death Wish” in 1974.

Most critics dismissed Bronson’s acting as wooden and most of his films “reactionary” and “ultra-violent,” but he remained a bankable star in low-budget genre films until he was well past the age of 70. And when he did star in the kind of films critics approve of, such as Sean Penn’s “The Indian Runner” in 1991, they would suddenly find him praise-worthy. (more…)

“I want a river,” murmured D. W. Griffith, his eyes unfocused and gazing into space. “A misty river. A river of dreams. The Thames as Whistler — or perhaps Turner — might have painted it. Only it must be a real river. Do you understand? A real river. Flowing, endlessly flowing. Carrying destiny — the never-ending destiny of life — on its tide. I must see that flow, that silent flow of time and fortune, with all the mystery of unknowable future there. To be seen — and yet not to be seen. . . .”

For cinematographic “boy Friday” Karl Brown (1896–1990), this latest impossible request was all in a day’s work. Ever since begging his way into a job with Griffith as a camera assistant, he had often been sent on strange excursions to capture some particular shot haunting the director’s imagination. “One man who was the master designer, Griffith, drew all the plans,” Brown wrote as an old man in his book Adventures With D. W. Griffith. “The rest of us, from the highest to the lowest, gave whatever was in us to the realization of the master plan. I was the lowest, a beast of burden by day and a chore boy by night. The work was cruelly hard, the hours exhaustingly long.”

This latest task, Brown soon discovered, was for a new film called Broken Blossoms, a title “so sickly sweet that the working crew, a godless bunch by definition, never called it anything but Busted Posies.” The film was supposed to take place in the infamous Limehouse district in London, a poverty-wracked den of thieves, swindlers, brutes, hookers, and opium addicts bordering the Thames. Griffith had pulled strings to get young Mr. Brown called back to Hollywood (from a World War I stint in the Army) just so he could create and capture one master image of the Limehouse riverfront on celluloid. (more…)

This article was co-authored by Stephen K. Bannon.

This week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report on President Obama’s 2011 budget that ought to shock every single American.  According to the CBO, the federal government’s debt, which was $56,000 per-household at the beginning of President Obama’s tenure one year ago, has risen to $72,000 per-household today, and is expected to skyrocket to $170,000 per-household by 2020.  Should the CBO’s estimates prove accurate, the federal debt would represent 90% of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States in less than 10 years. 

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For some incomprehensible reason, Washington politicians have their heads planted firmly in the sand and refuse to acknowledge the looming disaster.  Instead of addressing the problem, last week, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid looking on approvingly, President Obama signed a nearly $1 trillion health care bill into law.  We’ve gotten to a point that 65% of Americans believe that the federal debt is the greatest threat to America’s future. 

But we did not accumulate a $12 trillion dollar debt overnight. This is not a problem that can be laid solely at the Obama Administration’s feet, nor is it entirely the fault of the free spending Congress led by Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid.  America’s problems go far deeper than the policies of one administration – they are a result of a systemic rot that has eaten away at the financial foundation of our economy for decades.  It is the class of elite incumbents – politicians, bankers, and academics alike – that were reared in the self-indulgent 1960’s and who came to power in the 1990’s that have led us to the brink.  (more…)

I am sitting in my hotel room in Bangkok on a Sunday afternoon; taking a break from prepping a film that will star Djimon Hounsou and be directed by the Steven Spielberg of Thailand, Prachya Pinkaew.  Prachya is famous for Om Bak, Chocolat and Tom Yung Goon, three of the highest grossing films in the history of the country.  You may be wondering why I am in Thailand and not somewhere in the United States.  Why am I in a country 9,000 miles away from home when I could be shooting this movie anywhere in America including Los Angeles. 

In the case of this film, the answer is more complicated than in others.  The location of this film is South East Asia and, it is directed by a Thai national.  That is not always the case.  And, more often than not, the location of the film and its director is not even an issue.  Many films that could be shot in America are not.  In fact, many films with American locations are shot outside of America. 

Why?  The answer is simple:  cost.  Because of the ridiculously high labor costs and other production costs in America, it is just simply not feasible to make a movie in America anymore; especially a lower budget independent film.  And, unfortunately, this is a symptom of the entire economic problems facing America today.  I would love to work in the United States and be home with my family, friends and my little kitty Sidney.  I cannot.  (more…)

The other day I was asked if I thought I would ever come face to face with writer’s block.  I had to laugh.  Inasmuch as I generally write about things that annoy, frustrate or just plain drive me nuts, running out of material or losing the impulse to complain in print are among the very least of my worries. 

When you factor in that Barack Obama is my president, Joe Biden is my vice-president, Nancy Pelosi is next in line, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are my senators, Brad Sherman is my congressman, Antonio Villaraigosa is my mayor and Jerry Brown is lurking in the wings to be my governor, do you really think I’ll be turning my pen into a plowshare anytime soon?    

But at least now you might have a better handle on why I look back so fondly on what I have come to regard as the good old days when an American’s major complaint was that he had taxation without representation. 

On top of everything else, I live in Los Angeles and have spent most of my adult life laboring in Hollywood, a place that some people regard as less an actual location than a state of mind.  I agree it is a state of mind in the same sense that paranoia and schizophrenia are states of mind.  (more…)

Images have power. Propaganda and marketing are based on the power of the image and the thoughts and feelings that the image conveys. A photo op pulled off well can make a politician’s career. A photo op done badly will torpedo it.

Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art. (more…)

Help me out here. What’s crazier – the abysmal failure the stimulus has been in Los Angeles County (like everywhere else) or how outrageously wasteful the plan was to begin with?

Los Angeles County’s take of stimulus funds is by far the largest in California, which has received $18.5 billion in ARRA funds, intended to create 110,219.36 jobs statewide — a pricey rate of $168,264.08 per job.

But Hollywood is a different story entirely. Hollywood — the geographic Hollywood as found on Thomas Guide map page 593 — has received $23,338,327 in grants, loans and contracting. This money has created just 20.57 jobs. That’s $1,134,580.80 per job. And as interviews with recipients reveal, even that tiny jobs claim is clearly false, with many of the claims of newly created positions either impossible to verify or lower than reported.

Not even 20 full-time jobs have been created in Hollywood proper.

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On September 12, 2009, I grabbed my MiniDV camera and moseyed on over to the Tea Party protest in West Los Angeles to chat with some super-charged “Astroturf.”  I spoke with numerous varieties from a vast spectrum of turfdom including the ever-vivacious, Evan Sayet polypropylene turf with advanced Anti-Intellectual Dishonesty Guard™, and the high-performance, all-weather Sonja Schmidt turf. 

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Summer is the slow time on Broadway as theatre pros recover from their Tony Award hang-overs and try to rush out to the Island for a few days of R & R before the new season begins.  This year it seems there are a few plays aiming for early fall openings hoping to ride a crest of popularity into the always-lucrative holiday season.

Just as last season brought a record number of plays as well as stellar gross sales (despite doom-sayers in the industry) this season already looks locked and loaded with a huge number of shows scheduled to open between October 1st and the first week of May (the traditional Tony nomination cut-off).  So to help the readers of Big Hollywood plan their trip to the Great White Way (we can still say that, can’t we?), I submit the top 10 things to look for from the center/right perspective:

10.  ”Superior Donuts” – A transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre (one of my personal favorite regional houses in America), the play stars “Spinal Tap”’s Michael McKean as an aging hippie who owns a donut shop in a largely black neighborhood and Jon Michael Hill (do all young Broadway actors HAVE to go by three names now?) as a 21-year-old from the neighborhood who talks his way into a job at the shop.  From the New York Times review:  ”In one of the play’s most amusing exchanges Franco challenges Arthur to name 10 black poets. Arthur names a few, then stands dumb, a look of deep concentration on his face. “It’s like watching George Bush on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Franco cracks.” (more…)

My Name is Ari David

Many of you have read my blogs. I have been a producer, writer and stand up comedian in LA for about 10 years. I am now taking on a new project by running for Congress and in so doing, challenging Henry Waxman for his seat.

A wise man once made the observation that all politics is local and a critical issue that I am challenging Henry Waxman on is how local television and film production are disappearing from the LA area.

Henry Waxman has been in office since 1975 and has presided over a massacre in the local entertainment business and been completely out of touch with the constituents’ needs on this issue. If a Congressman from any other district in the nation allowed a local mill or industry to go out of business or move away, that elected official would have had to answer to his constituents and would have been forced to pay attention to the local crisis and provide solutions and financial relief for the industry in order to preserve the jobs and livelihoods dependent upon the industry’s existence. Henry Waxman has done none of this and now is the time for the people of this district to show him the way to a new job and elect me, a leader who is in touch with the district’s needs to save and protect this industry.  (more…)

LOS ANGELES – Millions of fans from around the globe gathered along Sunset Boulevard to pay final respects to California today, as a slow moving funeral procession transported the eccentric superstar state’s remains to its final resting place in a Winchell’s Donuts dumpster in Van Nuys. The self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop Culture’ died last week at 160, in what coroners ruled an accidental case of financial autoerotic asphyxiation. The death sent shock waves across the world and sparked an outpouring of grief by rabid fans.

“I don’t care what the tabloids and the Wall Street Journal say,” said a weeping Illinois. “I still love you, Cali!”

The 640-mile long funeral parade route was lined with flowers, candles, teddy bears, and IOUs from millions of mourners and debtors who made the somber journey to watch the passing of the state that had once ruled the box office and industrial charts. Among them were current chart-toppers who cited California as a key influence.

“If it wasn’t for California, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Arizona of Westside 3, the popular Sunbelt trio who recently benefited from the late state’s generous gift of fleeing taxpayers and businesses. As a tribute to their mentor, Arizona vowed the group would start spending money “like crack-addled hip hop stars.” (more…)

I had the pleasure of seeing an independent film named “Corked,” a movie that satirizes the pomposity and smugness of the culture of Sonoma Wine Country.

As somebody who does not drink alcohol, does not go to independent films, and does not drive my car outside the West side of Los Angeles (it’s an old car), I forayed into Downtown LA to watch a “mockumentary“ where adult beverages were served. (more…)