MSNBC:

Justin Timberlake kept his promise — and so did his “Friends with Benefits” co-star, Mila Kunis.

Kunis accompanied Sgt. Scott Moore to the Marine Corps Ball on Friday night in Greenville, N.C., according to several local news reports in Greenville.

The actress arrived into the Pitt-Greenville Airport around 2:30 p.m. local time on Friday and was quickly whisked to the Greenville Convention Center, the site of the ball.

Full story here.

People:

This summer, Justin Timberlake accepted a servicewoman’s invitation to attend the Instructor Battalion Marine Corps Ball, and Saturday he made good on that promise.

“What I didn’t know was how moved I would be by the whole experience,” Timberlake, 30, posted afterwards on his website.

Politico:

“To all of you that serve every day for us… Ensuring our freedom, I say: My deepest gratitude to you. I’ve met so many of my heroes… From Michael Jordan to Michael Jackson. And, nothing makes me feel more honor and pride than when I get to meet one of you. Last night changed my life and I will never forget it,”

Along with praising his date and the Armed Forces, he wrote about how moved he was by the evening: “To all of you that serve every day for us… Ensuring our freedom, I say: My deepest gratitude to you. I’ve met so many of my heroes… From Michael Jordan to Michael Jackson. And, nothing makes me feel more honor and pride than when I get to meet one of you. Last night changed my life and I will never forget it,”

He encouraged readers to send their thanks to the Armed Forces and to his date wrote, “Thank you Corporal Kelsey DeSantis. Thank you for inviting me. And, thank you for being my hero.”

More here.

…Mila Kunis:

GQ: Your new movie is called Friends with Benefits. Ever been in one of those relationships?

Mila Kunis: Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism — good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?

Wait, did a young, on the rise actress just call Communism a great failure?  Did she just say that it may sound good in practice but never works?  By golly, I think she did!

And that’s pretty awesome.  From this quote can we determine that Ms. Kunis is a Randian Libertarian?  We know based on her selection of film work and various photo shoots that she most likely isn’t a member of the Family Leaders crowd.  Should we make a YouTube video and offer her a blog spot on Big Hollywood?

Too soon to tell.  Chances are good that if we push the issue, her PR team will force her to retreat and stay apolitical.  And I say, good for her.  I simply find it refreshing that somebody in her position doesn’t shoot her mouth off and say ridiculous things in an attempt to ingratiate herself to Hollywood’s Borg hive mind.  You know, like a certain other young, very attractive actress.  Or like this overrated “thespian”.

Of course, most people in their right mind would say that Communism is a bad idea and has been a total failure every place it’s been attempted.  A majority of Americans would also wrinkle their noses at the idea of Socialism.  That’s why the left and the media have gone through such Herculean efforts to distance their ideas from their actual origins.  “Progressives” supposedly aren’t Socialists because they say so.  To call them out as such reveals “ignorance”.  It is an example of “name calling” or is currently somehow “racist”.  Whatever.  Wealth redistribution, nationalizing private companies, and elaborate currency manipulation schemes are socialist and communist ideas.  If my ideology’s resume included hits like the U.S.S.R., North Korea, Greece, and Cuba I’d probably look into some rebranding too.

Ultimately, Kunis said something obvious, but it is brave nonetheless.  Perhaps, since President Obama ascended to power like a trendy rock star, his popularity is starting to fade with the “in” crowd?  Maybe his dropping poll numbers will take his entire ideology down with him?  Hollywood, and the “in” crowd are quite fickle.  Trends come and go.  You know who was cool in 1991?  Gerardo.  “Rico Suave” baby!!  I don’t think Gerardo would sell many records or fill up Madison Square Garden today. And that’s the risk in being “popular” without substance.  It’s a fleeting thing.  Since Obama himself is so charismatic, people have a hard time blaming him personally for the misery his policies have inflected upon our great nation.  Instead, they have to blame something else.  The Progressive platform becomes the next likely target.

Hollywood will never become a socially conservative industry.  It never has been and never will be.  But I can see libertarian ideals becoming popular in the very near future.  There is something naturally appealing to “free spirits” and artists of the industry in the ideas of personal liberty and personal responsibility.  And I’ll save the snarky commenters the precious time by saying that it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many self-absorbed, narcissist actors find a kindred spirit in Ayn Rand.

Kunis may simply be too smart to fall for the nonsense that most young people, especially in Hollywood quickly embrace.  Her mother is a physics teacher and her father is a mechanical engineer.  She’s a self described computer nerd who spends hours playing “World of Warcraft”.  Most importantly, unlike the other young actresses who come from suburban Utopias or the random trailer park, Kunis was born in the former U.S.S.R..  That’s right.  Her childhood was spent in the hell hole of broken dreams, bread lines, and lack of personal freedoms that the government of California is determined to recreate.  So, at the cocktail parties, Kunis must have to bite her tongue as the Malibu raised, bespectacled junior agent drones on about the evils of Capitalism while drinking $20 cosmos on the UTA credit card.  She and her family have seen FIRST HAND the misery that the academics and progressive politicians only imagine in their fevered dreams.

Kunis has demonstrated a lot of smarts with her career.  She’s parlayed a successful television career into a series of high profile features.  She even has a starring role in Sam Raimi’s upcoming “mockbuster” of my film “The Witches of Oz”; “Oz the Great and Powerful” with James Franco.  It’s no coincidence that people who demonstrate above average intelligence in the real world trend conservative.  And I’m not talking about academic background.  I’m talking about street smarts, savvy, and rich personal experiences.  Smart people don’t walk around all the time explaining how smart they are.  Ever notice how progressives are always going on about “intellectualism” and trying to impress you with big words for obviously idiotic things?

Yeah, exactly my point.

I do think libertarianism is on the rise in Hollywood.  I recently produced a film starring the mighty James Woods.  The average age on the crew was about 27.  On set I overheard a female crew person mumbling about how she saw Woods on Fox News and that he had become a “crazy conservative.”  A male crew member, cigarette in mouth, calmly looked at her and replied “he’s not crazy, he’s right”.  I didn’t have to say a word.

Hope and change indeed.

—–

Via My Fox:

Let’s hope it’s just the beginning.

Not only have Timberlake and Kunis graciously accepted these charming invitations from two United States Marines, they’ve done so with class. Hopefully, this will start to spread and after ten long years of war some others in Tinseltown might decide to put aside partisan politics and show a similar graciousness to the men and women who make their artistic freedom possible. Which isn’t to say that some like Gary Sinise haven’t been there from the beginning.

The Daily Mail:

In a twist straight out of a fairy tale, Justin Timberlake has accepted a servicewoman’s invitation to the Marine Corps Ball. …

‘I’ll tell you what, I accept,’ the 30-year-old told reporters at a junket in Cancun, Mexico today of Kelsey De Santis’s request that he accompany her to the Washington, D.C. ball.

‘But not because she shouted out one of my songs, which I do love,’ he joked, De Santis referenced his hit Cry Me A River in her video invite.

‘And not because she had all those beefcake military guys behind her to intimidate me.’

The reason, Timberlake asserted is: ‘I don’t get asked out. Ever. So I was very flattered by that.’

‘If my schedule works out to do it, I’d love to do it. It’s an honour.’

Despite reports to the contrary, Kunis, 27 , also confirmed that she will, in fact, be attending the Marine Corps Ball in Greenville, N.C. with Sgt. Scott Moore.

My detractors might not believe this, but I much prefer covering these kinds of stories over all the negative stuff.

Dear Hollywood: More, please.

Great work from Hollie McKay at Fox 411:

Yes, Mila Kunis is a physically stunning woman with real star power, and true big screen charm and charisma (see the otherwise forgettable “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), but today we’re talking about her gorgeous … mind.

Pajamas Media

GQ: Your new movie is called Friends with Benefits. Ever been in one of those relationships?

Mila Kunis: Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism—good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?

And this is Kunis’s SECOND thing she’s done this week to get on conservatives’ good side. Earlier she accepted an invitation to the Marines Ball.

Now she comes out both against promiscuity AND communism in one sentence.

We here at Big Hollywood would like to thank Mila for making this kind of news … which allows us a the editorial cover necessary to post her photograph.

Due to the immense media attention Sgt. Scott Moore has received for his YouTube Marine Corps Ball invitation to Mila Kunis and the operational tempo of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, he has elected to make a written statement and answer the most commonly asked questions. …

Q.1 Where are you and what do you do?
A.1 I currently serve as the data chief for 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. My military occupational specialty is Data Systems Technician, which is responsible for implementing and monitoring security measures for Marine Corps communication information systems networks, and ensuring that systems and personnel adhere to established security standards. My unit is located within the district of Musa Qal’eh in the Northern Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Q.2 How did you come up with the idea for the video?
A.2 It was kind of a bet between me and Marines in my platoon. I told everyone I was going to do it, but they didn’t think I would go through with it. One day we had a couple minutes, and I took another Marine out with me and we shot two takes. The first one was without sunglasses but I was squinting too much because it was so bright, so we shot the one I uploaded to YouTube. The rest of the Marines liked it, so I posted it that day.

Q.3 When you posted the video, did you ever think you’d really get a date with Mila?
A.3 I always thought I had a chance, and sometimes that’s all you need. The Marines I work with did their best to spread it around.

Q.4 Why did you post the video?
A.4 I wanted to take Mila Kunis to the Marine Corps ball. We all talk about what we are going to do when we get back, and this was my dream. I do feel bad for putting her on the spot, but it’s not like I was going to bump into her on the streets of Musa Qal’eh between now and the ball.

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

This is NOT a propaganda piece – Jaker shows just how difficult the job of counterinsurgency is, and how successful and rewarding it can be. The 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment’s Regimental Combat Team 3, the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 8 and the unit’s highly motivated civil affairs teams took over Patrol Base Jaker in the almost deserted Taliban controlled town of Nawa-l-Brakzayi in Helmand Province. The British unit that was relieved had been so under manned that they had to over depend on air support that sometimes killed and wounded local civilians.

Enter Jaker’s commanding officer Colonel William McCollough, a scholar-warrior of the best type who commands through example, intelligence and understanding. McCollough’s officers, NCO’s and enlisted personnel not only push back the Taliban from Nawa but implement a large number of successful civil affairs missions, ranging from rebuilding and resupplying local schools, clearing irrigation ditches and providing wheat seed to replace the poppies that help fund the Taliban. They also reinvigorate the abandoned market place, gradually getting the locals to bringing back almost 80 merchants and do their best to help reform the corrupt local governmental hierarchy and police. This is a film about gaining trust, one uneasy step at a time.

It’s a huge job, but the Marines of Patrol Base Jaker are more than up to it thanks to civil affairs professionals like Gus Biggio, who gave up a successful career on Wall Street to serve his country. The success in Nawa is in a big part due to getting to know and understand the local Afghani people, who grow poppies and let their son’s fight for the Taliban, because they’ll wind up dead if they don’t. Afghani governmental and police corruption is not shied away from. McCollough and his officers listen to the complaints and observe the locals confront Afghani officials right on camera.

One of the film’s biggest strengths is that the viewer gets to know average Afghanis, young and old as real people, in many ways vastly different from us, but still wanting peace, education and self determination. School kids and parents yearn for the reopening of the first school and merchants and farmers are anxious to get back to their trades. Even local tribal leaders are shown now not afraid to stand up and speak their minds in public, gradually coming to trust the Americans, not as conquerors but as allies. The Marines in Nawa are not trying to turn these Afghanis into Americans they’re just trying to give them a chance to live their normal lives.

The successes in Nawa didn’t come without a bloody price tag, during filming four Marines, including a highly regarded 34-year-old NCO and recent first time father lost their lives trying to bring peace to the region. One of the most affecting scenes is the ceremony honoring that sergeant with members of the battalion in formation as his helmet is place a top his M-4 carbine commemorating his sacrifice. David Scantling’s Patrol Base Jaker captures the spirit, intelligence and compassion of the modern American fighting man, whose contributions are not always won at the end of the muzzle of a weapon, but often with a bulldozer and a school book.

Mitty Griffis Mirrer’s Gold Star Children is an inspiring look at how the children of service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are coping with their losses. And it is told through the eyes and words of many of those children and surviving parents including Ms. Mirrer, who lost her own father in Vietnam when she was only 16 hours old. Mirrer doesn’t appear to have any previous film credits, but this film is not only as professional as any top PBS documentary, but also so emotional that hardly anyone in the audience could back a tear or two, myself included.

The spouses and kids of Gold Star children aren’t blaming the U.S. Government for their losses. They are all incredibly proud of their parents or spouses service and are learning to cope through a wonderful mentoring program called TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. At TAPS older children and adults who have lost loved ones go through extensive training to help the younger kids deal with the loss in a positive fashion. In the process the adults learn as much from the kids as the kids do from the adults. The maturity and decency of the youngest surviving family members is incredible to see. Nine-year-olds talk openly about how they are dealing with dad or mom’s death while mothers strive to regain a positive sense of normalcy for their children. Mirrer has captured the children and adults of TAPS on camera in a poignant and compassionate style that was not easy to accomplish.

One dignified Hispanic-American mother tells how as a child she lost her father in Vietnam and now has to deal with the death of her officer husband in Afghanistan. She has two bright and decent teenaged boys who are a true tribute to their dad’s memory and the family works with each other one day at a time in a fitting memory to a loving husband and father.

Gold Star kids are brought to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington to help clean it and are then told the stories behind some of the 50,000 names chiseled there. During the annual Rolling Thunder biker rally of Vietnam Vets these tough looking former soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are shown giving kids rides on their bikes and talking with them quietly about their own war time friends and experiences. One nine-year-old girl from Texas trains and then runs a children’s TAPS marathon as a tribute to her late father, learning about, while also teaching others, how to deal with the loss while on her own emotional journey.

The quietly gripping content of this film that director Mirrer so deftly gives to her audience makes any one viewing it feel sadness, pride and wonder, all at the same time, at how everyone from grownups to three-year-olds are dealing with their grief. This is not a film that is easy to explain, it is far more a film that has to be felt. Gold Star Children should be mandatory viewing for all high school students so they can see just how real the phrase “Freedom isn’t free,” truly is.

As a retired Air Force veteran, I viewed this movie from a slightly different vantage point than one who has never served in our armed forces. And I loved every minute of this fast-paced, heart-stopping, riveting movie…silently cheering on the small platoon of courageous Marines, led by 2nd Lieutenant William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), sent out on what seemed like a suicide mission to rescue a few stranded civilians in Santa Monica before the Air Force was to completely level the entire city that had fallen to a devastating alien invasion.

What was originally reported to be meteors falling into the ocean along the Los Angeles coastline (as well as the coastlines of 20 other major cities around the world) was quickly determined to be a well-orchestrated invasion of a massive force of seemingly impossible-to-kill aliens… and they were everywhere… annhilating everything and everyone in their path.  As I watched the fast-paced, chaotic, and gripping action unfold, I often found myself holding my breath and sitting on the edge of my seat — myheart racing wildly, pulling for our heroes.  It has been a long time since I’ve been to a movie that left me exhausted like that, in a good way.

I appreciated how they introduced each member of the platoon and gave us a little insight into their frame of mind just prior to their embarking on this terrifying mission, setting the stage for some of the heart-wrenching actions and decisions that occurred throughout the movie.  It made them more real to me, as real as the stories and situations faced every day by our men and women deploying overseas into hostile combat zones.

The main hero of the movie, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), was very convincing as a tough, no-nonsense, war-weary Marine.  In spite of having just gotten his retirement papers signed — a man who was struggling with some demons from his past (something not uncommon to our brothers and sisters who have served in a war zone) — SSgt Nantz displayed the kind of leadership, ingenuity, courage, selflessness, and compassion commonly found in the members of our military, most especially in our Marines, who are always on the front lines … and go where few dare to go.

I love that the movie producers hired members of our Marine Corps to serve as Technical Advisers during the filming of this movie to ensure every shot rang true to how Marines operate in battle and that the cast members had endured three weeks of intensive Boot Camp where they had no mobile phones, no television, no internet and no contact with the outside world.  They all slept in the same big tent, ate rations together, and acted like a cohesive Marine unit, wearing 40 pounds of gear at all times and staying in character between takes.

That rocks.

Coincidentally, I found myself relating to and rooting for the tough-as-nails Tech Sergeant Adriana Santos (Michelle Rodriguez) who was in Air Force Intel (I spent my 20 year AF career in this field), and kicked ass with the military hardware (pictured below with an M4A1 carbine).  Never fired one of those but have no problems handling an M-16 or a 9mm.

I thoroughly enjoyed the intensity and suspense of this movie, never knowing what to expect next.  Yet, according to Ebert:

“In a good movie, we understand where the heroes are, and where their opponents are, and why, and when they fire on each other, we understand the geometry.  In a mess like this, the frame is filled with flashes and explosions and shots so brief that nothing makes sense.”

 Clearly he has never been on a real battlefield.  War is hell.  And in today’s largely asymmetrical conflicts in the Middle East, it is every bit as chaotic and unpredictable as depicted in this movie.

It is no wonder the critics on the left panned this movie the way they did.  It is a pride-filled drama that highlights true heroism, military might, camaraderie, friendship, and forgiveness.  There were some very poignant moments in the movie that made my eyeballs sweat a bit and the popcorn hard to swallow having to negotiate its way past the large lump in my throat.  My heart swelled with pride at how these fine warriors took on every unpredictable, dangerous situation they encountered with uncommon valor — fighting for their families, their homes, their country.  They showed what true heroes are made of … and it made me think of all our brave men and women currently deployed who face unknown dangers, not knowing if they will ever see their loved ones back home again. 

God bless them.

I couldn’t help but notice some parallels in this movie to what we are experiencing right here in our own country.  These Marines faced an unknown, ruthless enemy who wanted our resources and were bent on destroying anything and everything standing in the way of achieving their objective.  There was a scene where one of the civilians being rescued, a young boy named Hector, told his father “Maybe we should try to talk to them.  Maybe they just want to be our friends”.  Sound familiar?  Sorry.  That doesn’t work when the enemy wants you dead…at all cost.

Honor, courage, service-before-self, love of country, and faith (love the close up shot of one of the Marines’ Bibles and the highlighted words “Through Christ comes freedom.”) …all things foreign and distasteful to the left and all the more reason for you to head to the theaters and enjoy.  As a strong proponent of promoting conservative art (music, films, etc.), I enthusiastically recommend this movie.  Go see it.  Let’s make it #1 for the third week in a row!

P.S.  And to our brothers and sisters in the Corps (the “ps” is silent for those who don’t know) …Godspeed and Semper Fi.