I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail. (more…)

The great thing about a-holes, is you can see them coming. Whether it’s Sean Penn or Jeanine Garafalo calling you a racist or wishing you dead – their essential douchebaggery makes them easy to spot and harmless. Their inanities should only generate guffaws, not concern.

I wish I could say that about nice people.

See, nice people are worse.

Case in point: Matthew Modine.

He’s a nice guy. Pleasant, in a puppy dog sort of way. I loved him in Vision Quest.

But he’s also clueless. Dangerously so. And when you combine congeniality with congenital cluelessness, you have a recipe for carnage. (more…)

Imagine if somebody were to really sit down with Osama Bin Ladin and say, ‘listen man,what is it that you’re so angry at me about that you’re willing to have people strap bombs to themselves, or get inside of airplanes and fly them into buildings.’ That would be the miracle if we can get, sit down and talk to our enemies and find a way for them to hear us. – Matthew Modine

No, we’re not making this up. It’s all captured on video here.

Ahh, to have the luxury to be so airy and ignorant and superior about such things. He should thank the United States Military for that luxury. (more…)

News broke last week that Laurie David, former wife of Larry David (of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame), was fined for wetlands violations at her Martha’s Vineyard home – and it wasn’t the first time, either:

The property owned by Ms. David off North Road was the subject of a series of wetlands violations in 2005, when construction of a stone fire pit, barbecue grill area and wooden stage for a children’s theatre with seating was begun in a wetland without a permit.

Ms. David, as you may recall, produced the Goracle’s epic documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  She also wrote The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming for children (doing her part to convince one in three frightened children that the earth will implode before they grow up), and went on a much ballyhooed bus tour with fellow greenie Sheryl “One Sheet” Crow in order to help Save The Earth™ a couple of years back. How riding around the country in an exhaust-spewing bus and using up oodles of electricity for Sheryl’s musical stylings was supposed to “help” is beyond me. But wait, the bus was powered by vegetable oil instead of that dastardly fossil fuel, and pal Sheryl is committed to being green by driving a hybrid and using cold water to wash her clothes. Forgive my cynicism; I’m convinced. (more…)