The beguiling Baya Benmahmoud sees the world through fascist-covered glasses.

Baya, the main character in the new French comedy ‘The Names of Love,’ is obsessed with her far-left politics. How obsessed? She uses her feminine wiles, and they are considerable, to change the hearts and minds of those who dare to believe in right-of-center politics.

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If ‘The Names of Love’ sounds like yet another liberal treatise from the film industry, think again. Not only is Baya, glowingly portrayed by Sara Forestier, hardly one to be admired, but the film itself is so overstuffed with ripe comedic elements that any political grandstanding goes down like tapioca pudding.

Peel back the bald political content and you’ll see a damaged woman attempting to find love with a man who examines dead birds for a living. When was the last time Kate Hudson, Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Aniston tried that in a rom-com?

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***UPDATE: Some on Twitter are calling for boycotts of Michael Vartan. To quote a failed president: Let me be clear … I don’t believe in boycotts or guilt by association. My point in bringing up Vartan was to prove Hanks is a Hollywood player in support of my blacklist argument. It’s impossible to work in the world of entertainment and not be associated with a creep in some way. To hold this against Vartan would be extremely unfair and, in my opinion, fighting one blacklist with another.  However…

Hold it against Hanks all you want.

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Because too many of us have become desensitized to the vile attacks thrown at the Palin family on an almost daily basis, you have to sometimes imagine these things happening to someone else in order to fully to comprehend just how awful and ugly they are. Imagine it wasn’t 21  year-old Bristol Palin in that bar being heckled by a Hollywood bully, but instead it was one of Barack Obama’s beautiful young daughters being raged against by a tea partier.

“Your mother’s a whore!” “She’s evil!” “Your mother’s the fucking Devil!”

This is unthinkable … and yet it happened.

And the 47 year-old coward who attacked this young mother isn’t some street bum. According to TMZ his name is Stephen Hanks and according to his Twitter feed he runs Stephen Hanks Management in Los Angeles and one of his clients is no less than actor Michael Vartan, who some of you might recognize from the long-running television show “Alias”:

Again, I want to go back to our hypothetical world where Stephen Hanks is a tea partier who screamed “Your mother’s a whore!” at one of Barack Obama’s daughters…

Would Hanks have a career in Hollywood tomorrow? Would the condemnations we’re currently not seeing from anywhere in the industry be pouring in fast and furious? Would Michael Vartan drop him as his manager in disgust or in order to save his own career?

The answer to all of these questions is “of course!”

And who could blame anyone for having that kind of a reaction? I certainly wouldn’t. If anyone in my life attacked one of President Obama’s daughters like that and remained unrepentant it would certainly end our professional relationship and damage our personal one.  

But in the real world where this attack was levelled at a Palin all Hanks did was enhance his Hollywood resume. This will likely help his career, which brings me to another point.

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Alec, you need to stop treating American soldiers like they were members of your own family.  They deserve better than that.

Not content with achieving Father of the Year Emeritus status for his unique, outside-the-box parenting skills, Alec Baldwin spent yesterday evening on Twitter to once again offer his nuanced, carefully researched insights into a variety of important topics.  In doing so, he offered a powerful challenge to such innovators as Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and even Hanoi Jane for the coveted title of “Hollywood’s Biggest Idiot.”

In the past, I’ve even taken to these pages to defend Alec as a performer.  But as amusing as he is on screen, the fact is that he is a moral illiterate who refuses to let his manifest ignorance hinder his desire to have himself taken seriously as something more than an actor. 

Alec wants to be just like Ronald Reagan, except he’s handicapped by some challenges the Gipper didn’t face – like being a leftist, a jerk and a fool.

The bloviating buffoon apparently got agitated because Georgia decided to execute a cop killer who had spent 22 years failing to convince any jury or judge that the overwhelming evidence against him was inadequate.  Ironically, the police officer Troy Davis finished off with a bullet to the head was an Army veteran – and judging from Alec’s attitude toward our warriors as manifested in his subsequent tweets, he probably thought that fact supported sparing the killer of Officer Mark MacPhail, Sr.

Here’s a selection of some of his inane tweets from his Twitter timeline.  Let’s see who fails to live up to Alec’s exacting standards!

Well, Michelle Malkin certainly does:

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The music world stand up against overzealous Feds? This is 2011, when Fascism is cool, not 1968 when rock -n- roll meant freedom  – as opposed to Bigger, Fatter, Government.

Gisbon CEO Hanry Juszkiewicz contributes to conservative candidates, so that probably won’t endear him to the music world either, no matter how righteous his cause.  

Those contributions, however,  might help to explain this absurd raid:

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It isn’t the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian’s ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name “United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms.”

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With the impending August 2nd debt ceiling “deadline” drawing near (which just so happens to be two days prior to a certain somebody in D.C.’s big Five-Oh birthday bash) and all the wheeling and dealing going on inside the Beltway, President Obama tells us it’s time to “pull off the band-aid” and “eat our peas.”

Mr. President, Bobby Powers and Party Time have a message for you and the rest of your fellow “Cleptocrats” in D.C.:

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Now THAT is how you deliver a message since it appears emails, phone calls, faxes, office visits, and…oh…a million-plus sign-bearing, flag-waving patriots descending upon the Nation’s Capitol don’t work.

I just love these guys!

Bobby Powers stumbled across my YouTube page over a year ago and introduced himself via email.  Naturally I checked out his site and instantly became a fan when I heard their song Take Your Hands Out of Our Pockets.   Since that day, I have had the great privilege of sharing the stage with Bobby and the rest of the Party Time gang (Robin Gordon, Tony Rook, and Michael Marino) after our first meeting on the National Mall at the 2010 Tax Day TEA Party. (more…)

This week, Citizens United’s Dave Bossie and Steve Bannon debuted their new documentary, Fire from the Heartland:  The Awakening of the Conservative Woman.  

The film chronicles conservative women who have sparked the popular call for common sense governance and captured the public’s imagination.  It is a required viewing for anyone honestly interested in the roots of the Tea Party phenomenon and the future of American conservatism. 

In the 20th Century, the fonts of confusion and uncertainty that breed discontent among a people were identified by the conservative philosopher Russell Kirk: 

(Discontent occurs) not necessarily when they are poor, but when they are emotionally and intellectually distraught…when even the family seems imperiled; when people can no longer live as their ancestors lived before them…. 

Against the chaos of our age, conservative women have rightly raised their voices to say “Stop!” 

Their intellectual and visceral understanding of the transformational changes racking America – and what is at stake – is why conservative women are leading the movement in their respective fields: the pioneers, Clare Booth Luce and the indomitable Phyllis Schlafly; in politics, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, U.S. Representatives Michele Bachmann, Cynthia Lummis and Jean Schmidt; in the media, Ann Coulter, S.E. Cupp, Dana Loesch, Michelle Malkin, Kathleen McKinley, and Michelle Moore; and in activism, Deneen Borelli, Michelle Easton, Tabitha Hale, Sonnie Johnson, Amy Kremer, Jenny Beth Martin, and Jamie Radtke.  (more…)

Filmmaker Steve Bannon and Citizens United Productions are following up “Generation Zero,” their film about the financial meltdown, with a powerful movie about the ascendancy of women in the conservative movement. “Fire From The Heartland” features the distinct and diverse voices of fifteen women who have had an ever-growing impact in government, social media and the Tea Party movement since the 2008 election.

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My good friend Lori Byrd wrote an excellent review for Big Hollywood earlier this week, covering many of the aesthetic and production details along with her remarkable insight. This frees me up a bit to focus on the message of the film not only from a male perspective, but also as one who has been with the Tea Party movement from the beginning and has had the good fortune of working directly and indirectly with some amazing women.

I saw the movie with a large group of people at last week’s Red State Gathering in Austin, TX. The screening took place only a few hours after I’d gotten to meet and interview Nikki Haley, the mercurial candidate for governor from South Carolina. As we settled in to watch the movie, I looked around to see how many women were in the room. Let’s just say that under-representation wasn’t a problem. (more…)

Not only did Citizen’s United’s new film “Fire from the Heartland” teach me quite a few things I didn’t know about some of my favorite women in the conservative movement, but at times it moved me to tears. What was most fascinating though, was viewing today’s tea party movement leaders in the context of history. 

“Fire from the Heartland” follows the progression of the conservative movement and the role women have played in it and helps the viewer understand why so many women are at the forefront of today’s tea party movement.

 
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I was fortunate enough to be one of five conservative women to be invited to a private sneak peek of the film with director, Steve Bannon, a week ago in DC and the reaction among all of us was equally strong and positive.

The story is told in a very personal way through the eyes (and words) of 15 of the leading women in the conservative movement, but also by looking at it “from the outside in” through video and still shots.  Through the lens of history, we get an interesting overview. From women during the frontier pioneer days to individuals like Clare Boothe Luce, Phylis Schlafly (whose interview is featured) and Margaret Thatcher to women who have only in the past couple of years become political leaders, we see how women came to be such a driving force in the conservative movement.

The interview segments in the film are particularly powerful.  They are beautifully shot with the women presented in front of a black background, wearing white blouses and black skirts or slacks.  That styling really brings the personality of each woman forward and focuses all attention on what they are saying.  It is interesting though, that even though they are all dressed in the same colors, their personalities are still expressed through their wardrobe – Michelle Bachmann wears a beautifully tailored crisp white button front shirt, while Ann Coulter wears a white knit tank top and short black skirt. (more…)

From the film’s website:

The first-ever film to tell the entire story of the conservative woman in her own words, “Fire from the Heartland” is a powerful statement about America at a crossroads and the women who have awakened to the crisis. With role models such as Clare Boothe Luce, Margaret Thatcher, and Phyllis Schlafly as inspiration, these women are the unintended consequence of the liberal feminist movement.

Tracing the long history of the many conservative women who have been the backbone of this great nation, from the founding mothers of our Republic to today’s “Mama Grizzlies,” this powerful and compelling documentary honors the self-made American woman. (more…)

Late last spring, through the auspices of a mutual friend, I spent an afternoon visiting with eighty-nine-year-old author Ray Bradbury. Walking upstairs to his den, I found the genial (and, for the record, fairly conservative) writer dressed in a rumpled shirt and boxer shorts, surrounded by a sea of awards and papers and memorabilia of every description, and happily watching Turner Classic Movies on a big-screen TV. “Isn’t this channel great?” he enthused, telling me how excited he had been to guest host there a year earlier. We spent the next hour talking about films — his early days as a local boy visiting the studios on roller skates and asking stars for autographs, his long friendship with special effects maven Ray Harryhausen, his experience writing the screenplay to Moby Dick (1956) for director John Huston.

And all the while TCM played in the background, like an old friend.

I’ve since reflected on how Turner Classic Movies has grown over the years into one of the most universally admired cultural forums in America. It’s a familiar presence in households of all political persuasions. If you like old movies, you like TCM, period.

That’s why the mini-uproar here at Big Hollywood last week was so disheartening. For those of you who missed it: during an on-air introduction to the 1957 movie A Face in the Crowd, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz gave legions of conservative viewers a collective poke in the eye, by way of a not-so-veiled sneer at talk-show host Glenn Beck. You can see the sad spectacle for yourself by clicking over to the TCM website, but here are the money quotes: (more…)

In this painting, the meek are those who are easily led, ignorance is a tool used against them and red represents the communist countries that should have erased all doubt by now about the abysmal failures they have proven to be and will always be — no matter what variations of “ism” they call themselves.

“The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth” — 2000 mixed media on wood 38″ x 52″

Now that “the chickens have come home to roost” and we have an administration that does anything it damn well pleases while spitting in our faces to stay in power as they shove their agenda down our throats, I think it’s safe to assume we have nothing to lose by…gee…let me see…oh, I know…how about fighting back? I think Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and the other girls in this movement have done more then their fair share and could use a little back up! Are there any men in this conservative movement other then Rush and Glenn Beck? Republican Senators and other “conservative” elected officials who sit idly by while their constituents repeatedly get kicked in the teeth, should be very grateful we can’t legally do more then just vote them out. Can you say tar and feather? (more…)

I know the video isn’t as “funny” (i.e.: immature) as many of my previous installments, but when you get incredible dames like Ann Coulter to take part, it pays to not tarnish their good names with my shennanigans.

In all seriousness, I’d encourage all of you to take an active role.  Create a video response or leave a comment. We’re all in this together people… Gosh, even I thought that sounded cheesy. (more…)

So you remember Barbara Boxer’s attack on the townhall protesters, calling them disruptive “plants,” because they were too well dressed to be protesters.

She had a point: they were well dressed. And most protesters of the lefty persuasion are not–a marker of people who lack real professions allowing them to purchase clean clothes. Boxer believed that these outspoken, button-downed folks were all part of a right-wing plot meant to stir up anxiety, fear, and perhaps soup. And of course, yesterday, President Obama kept the joke alive  his own town hall meeting, saying he didn’t “want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here.”

How funny is it then, that when it comes to plants, the leftwing response is beginning to look like a spread in “House and Garden.” Michelle Malkin points out that the little girl that asked that key question about those old people “saying mean things” is actually the daughter of a major Obama campaigner, supporter and donor. (more…)

So what happens when you produce something so huge that it’s virtually unreadable? Normally it’s left unread. I call it the Harlot’s Ghost maxim.

But what do you get when this strategy of over-delivering backfires? Pure comedy unmatched even by a “Golden Girls” marathon.

More specifically, you get pols who never read the health care bill faced with people who have. Witness the town hall meeting this morning with Senator Arlen Specter. The folks present didn’t just read the bill, they’re now quoting it – something even the Titan of Transparency never really wanted.

Even better, this level of discourse is coming from the non-Twitter crowd, the beyond Facebook folks more concerned with Lipitor side effects than Lady Gaga’s lady parts. They are not motivated by racism, as the left wants everyone to believe, but by real concerns – some raised at the dinner table, some reasoned in books. None from Twitter, I imagine. (more…)

Yeah-I think I get it? If you’re a media personality of mediocre talent and dubious intelligence like…uh…gee, there’s so many to choose from? Oh, I know, let’s go with Janeane Garofalo now that she’s decided to be a spokesperson for the party of “love, openness and diversity” again. Anyway, apart from proving you’re not smart enough to keep your mouth shut, what happens if you’re a media personality of mediocre talent and dubious intelligence and you openly preach the most vile form of inflammatory hatred towards an entire group/race of people in today’s politically correct climate? 

You get a pass and high-fives from the MSM of course, but why? (more…)

In my Big Hollywood post of April 27th, I decried the media’s acting as a cheerleading fourth branch of government, in which the MSM has not only assumed a Dear Leader-like reverence and awe for our new president, but attacks any and all critics with slander, ridicule, and even intimidation, and discounts any real concerns by the public as right wing extremist rabble-rousing and racism.

Given my love of true reporting and Woodward and Bernstein-like investigative journalism, which is really nowhere to be found in this Messianic Media Age of Obama, it was a very depressing piece to write. But after the recent flyover of New York City by Air Force One and F-16 fighter jets, which sent half of the Big Apple fleeing for their lives, it occurred to me.

How would the Left report the news if Obama were a Republican, i.e. an Uncle Tom, as many on the Left call now-GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Eureka! That’s it! See, it’s one thing for me to point out the obvious, as I did in my media slam yesterday. But what if we walked GOP President Obama’s media coverage through the mirror darkly, as was SOP for President Bush?

NOW we’re gonna have some fun! (more…)

You all know the drill. The recent vague and controversial DHS report on right-wing extremism, the cover of which DHS might just as well have put on the Republican Party platform. The endless puerile teabagging jokes from the fourth estate’s finest, giggling into their microphones like ten-year-olds who just found a tittie mag.

CNN reporter Susan Roesgen even called a Tea Party “anti-government and anti-CNN” when her pro-government handout rant to a Tea Partier was rudely interrupted. Ms. Roesgen took particular offense at a sign of Obama with a Hitler moustache. “Why be so hard on the President of the United States though with such an offensive message?” the offended Ms. Roesgen asked.

Yet in 2006, Ms. Roesgen was perfectly comfortable with this Satan/Hitler Bush mask, jokingly calling it a Bush ‘look-alike.’ I guess it all depends on which POTUS you’re hard on. Right, Suzie?

And therein lies the rub. Dissent was SO patriotic not so long ago, wasn’t it? Dissent against war, dissent against torture, dissent against wiretapping, dissent against Gitmo, dissent against rendition, dissent against government abuse of power. In fact, now-Secretary of State Clinton was quite vocal on the matter back in the day: (more…)