Hollywood: Whose Side Are You On?

Once upon a time Hollywood movies were often about American heroes vanquishing our enemies. Now they make movies attacking Americans while ignoring the real people who attack America.

Once upon a time Hollywood had no problem distinguishing our enemies from our allies. Now our allies are often shown to be feckless and evil while our enemies are either ignored or made out to be mere puppets of our evil leaders.

For example, last season of “24″ had an African dictator’s troops invading the country and trying to unleash a deadly virus, but of course, they were working for an evil Blackwater type military contractor run by a right-wing “patriot.” Patriot is Hollywoodese for crazy nut job. The same kind of villains were used in this year’s “State of Play” which had evil government contractors murdering people to cover up their evil conspiracy. Or last year’s “Body of Lies,” also starring Russell Crowe, which showed the CIA as a bunch of lying killers who have Arabs picked off with abandon for the aims of US policy. And let’s not forget 2007’s “Valley of Elah” in which American soldiers are portrayed as soulless killers made that way because they were exposed to combat. Or how about “Syriana”, in which a fat George Clooney wanders around the Arabian desert learning how evil the US is while boring the audience with an obscure plot. (more…)

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Tags: "Green Zone", Matt Damon, nazis, Russell Crowe, State of Play
Posted Nov 25th 2009 at 4:51 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Film, Politics, Religion | 26577871 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jhudnall/2009/11/25/hollywood-whose-side-are-you-on/Hollywood%3A+Whose+Side+Are+You+On%3F2009-11-25+12%3A51%3A08James+Hudnall

ZoNation: Defending Palin, Calling Out Liberals

Double Dosage!!! Sorry, I got a bit behind on Shhhtuff, so I hope I can do a lil’ catch up with ya! Here’s me lookin’ out for my womens like Sarah Palin, and a vid lookin’ at naughty Nidal after the jump.

(more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Barack Obama, David Letterman, Evil, Jesus
Posted Nov 21st 2009 at 2:47 pm in Politics | 265306119 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/arachel/2009/11/21/zonation-defending-palin-calling-out-liberals/ZoNation%3A+Defending+Palin%2C+Calling+Out+Liberals2009-11-21+22%3A47%3A33Alfonzo+Rachel

Part 2: The Super-Hero’s American Exceptionalism

Editor: This is the second part of a two-part series. You can read part one here.

The 1970s showed the once-invincible comic book super-heroes to be losers, in attitude and sales. Watergate had disillusioned the super-patriot Captain America with a storyline implying Nixon was the head of a terrorist group. The Captain trashes his outfit and becomes Nomad, The Man without a Country. My 11-year-old mind thought this was ridiculous, as Cap was originally a Depression-era 98-pound weakling until given a Super Soldier serum to bulk up and fight Nazis. It was unlikely that one of the “Greatest Generation” would bail on his country so readily. Even then I realized that this development merely mirrored a hippie writer’s attitude more than staying true to a character’s origins. 

Super-heroes became bleaker and even homicidal in the 1980s. The Punisher, a murderous vigilante, has become a top Marvel character. The Dark Knight Returns, a re-imagining of Batman, introduced an elderly caped crusader fighting the corrupt U.S. government represented by a stoogish Superman. Watchmen was set in a dystopic alternate reality where Nixon is still president and the super-group is made up of, among other miscreants, a rapist and mass murderer. It was a transmutation of established super-heroes from the 60s with Steve Ditko’s Objectivist hero The Question recast as the psychotic Rorschach.  (more…)

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Tags: America, American Exceptionalism, batman, Captain America, Comic
Posted Nov 11th 2009 at 2:05 pm in Art, Featured Story, Politics | 259362143 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mtodd/2009/11/11/part-2-the-super-heros-american-exceptionalism-by-mort-todd/Part+2%3A+The+Super-Hero%E2%80%99s+American+Exceptionalism2009-11-11+22%3A05%3A40Mort+Todd

Ian McKellen: Secret Gay Life Like Being a Jew in Hitler’s Europe

Sir Ian:

“It was illegal for me to do (things) as a private person. Outside London, where I lived, there was no gay pub or bar you could go to. And even if you found one, it was, ‘Knock three times and ask for Louis’. It was horrible living this secret life. You could feel a little bit what it was like to be a Jew in central Europe during a certain period. It was horrible.”

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Tags: europe, Gay, gay life, Hitler, Ian McKellen
Posted Oct 30th 2009 at 8:11 am in Celebrity News, Politics | 255486157 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/10/30/ian-mckellen-secret-gay-life-like-being-a-jew-in-hitlers-europe/Ian+McKellen%3A+Secret+Gay+Life+Like+Being+a+Jew+in+Hitler%27s+Europe2009-10-30+15%3A11%3A27Big+Hollywood

The War on Propaganda

“The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it.” Joseph Goebbels

There is no shame in artists receiving monetary compensation to sell ideas, products or a presidential agenda. When everything is transparent and contracted aboveboard, this is called advertising. When this process is whispered into being, strategized and set into motion from the shadows of government and from behind closed doors, it is propaganda.

From Sun Tzu to Psy Ops, propaganda has won wars, toppled cultures and changed civilizations. As a self-identified enlightened and educated culture, we  thought ourselves beyond such base manipulation. We were wrong.

Where were the voices of dissent on the NEA conference call when so called “artists” were asked to further the President’s agenda?

I have danced ballets and I have done commercials; one side art, the other side business. What side were the NEA recipients on? (more…)

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Tags: 9/12 DC rally, Constitution Revolution, Goebbels, hate speech, Hitler
Posted Oct 5th 2009 at 6:46 am in Entertainment, Politics | 23500294 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cburgard/2009/10/05/the-war-on-propaganda/The+War+on+Propaganda+2009-10-05+13%3A46%3A35Chris+Burgard

Daily Gut: PC Hollywood Villains

So another Rambo flick is on its grimy, sweaty way and this time the villains are human traffickers and drug lords. To make them even more despicable, they’ve kidnapped a young girl and are probably ignoring her strict vegan needs.

Look, I applaud Sylvester Stallone’s heroic stance against human traffickers and kidnappers – for I know there will be quite an outcry especially from the large and very influential human trafficking and kidnapper lobby.

Of course, this movie comes on the heels of two other edgy ventures: The G.I Joe flick – which turned a gritty American icon into an airbrushed Benneton ad, and “Inglourious Basterds” a fantasy that has average Jews hacking Nazi soldiers to pieces.

These three movies have two things in common:
1) They avoid present, real danger in the world and instead choose villains that are not just safe, but politically correct to hate. You’d think it would be easy for Quentin Tarantino to find a present day enemy for the Jews (like, say, a terrorist group that denies the Holocaust and wants to wipe Israel off the map), but maybe none exist! And what of those guys who flew planes into the World Trade Center? I suppose in the era of the “unclenched fist,” we must be more sensitive to “backlash” than barbarism. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, Benneton, box office, Drug trafficking, GI Joe
Posted Aug 31st 2009 at 1:04 pm in Daily Gut, Entertainment, Film, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 21512295 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/31/daily-gut-pc-hollywood-villains/Daily+Gut%3A+PC+Hollywood+Villains2009-08-31+20%3A04%3A16Greg+Gutfeld

Nothing Inglorious About Pro-American ‘Basterds’

Remember the children’s magazine, Highlights? Its motto is “fun with a purpose.” The motto for Quentin Tarantino’s latest flick, “Inglourious Basterds,” should be “violent with a purpose.”

It’s 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester Groth) latest film triumph starring Germany’s latest hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), is set to premiere for the top brass of the Third Reich – including the big cheese himself, Adolf Hitler – and their guests. Funnily enough, the premiere is to be held in a cinema owned by Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish refugee with her own obvious reasons for hating the Nazis. Naturally, she plans her revenge for the fateful night.

Meanwhile the Basterds, a crack group of Jewish-American soldiers under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), is undercover in France and “in the business of killing Nazis, and business is booming.” Those Nazis who manage to escape death are given meaningful souvenirs of their time with the Basterds. The paths of these two groups cross in a way that only Tarantino, master of gory coincidence, could imagine.

A good ol’ boy and Jews brutally mowing down Nazis. What’s not to like? It’s probably one of the few times you’ll see a redneck positively portrayed in Hollywood. (more…)

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Tags: Adolph Hitler, brad pitt, Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds, Melanie Laurent
Posted Aug 25th 2009 at 3:40 pm in Reviews | 20981866 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2009/08/25/nothing-inglorious-about-inglourious-basterds/Nothing+Inglorious+About+Pro-American+%27Basterds%272009-08-25+22%3A40%3A52Pam+Meister

Daily Gut: Barney Frank’s Heroic Stand Against Tyranny

So Barney Frank finally found someone he could beat in a debate. The Congressman was speaking at a town committee meeting at Dartmouth, Massachusetts, when a crazy lady approached the microphone with a quivering rant – linking Obama’s health care plan to the Nazis. This was a lay-up for Frank, for the bug-eyed woman was a LaRouche follower, a member of a group of far-left conspiracy chuckleheads – who, like cockroaches, never go away despite the bug spray. These poor folks need medical help, not publicity, but Frank didn’t see it that way. It was his lucky day: he could speak truth to power, even if the power might have been a lonely shut-in.

Now, I am not saying this crackpot was a plant – I’ll leave that to Barbara Boxer. But the provocation was. You could practically see Barney winding up for the pitch, and he even acknowledged the Obama flyer she was carrying. See, he knew where this was going – it was a chance for him to shine with a well-rehearsed line. So while the media paints this as brave Barney standing up to white, racist Obama-haters who’ve hijacked the health care debate – to me he’s Lebron James slam-dunking Steven Hawking. (more…)

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank, health care, LaRouche, LeBron James
Posted Aug 19th 2009 at 1:48 pm in Daily Gut, Politics | 208134232 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/19/daily-gut-barney-frank%e2%80%99s-heroic-stand-against-tyranny/Daily+Gut%3A+Barney+Frank%E2%80%99s+Heroic+Stand+Against+Tyranny+2009-08-19+20%3A48%3A15Greg+Gutfeld

‘Inglourious Basterds’ Review

Take a ruthless Nazi leader who can order the deaths of a Jewish family with the same dispassion with which he requests a glass of milk. Mix his story with that of a Jewish woman who flees the slaughter of her family only to grow up and discover an opportunity to kill Hitler himself. Add in a cocky American Lieutenant named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who leads a secret mission in which each of his men are ordered to scalp 100 Nazi, and you’ve got the combustible mix of lead characters who cross paths with explosive results in Oscar-winning writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, “Inglourious Basterds.” 

Bringing together his usual strengths as a director of intense performances from sterling casts, an amazing score pasted together from classic scores of past films, incredibly sharp and catchy dialogue and a warped time frame that that will throw viewers through a satisfying series of loops, Tarantino has easily made his best film since “Pulp Fiction.” Coming off a humiliating misfire with 2007’s “Death Proof,” which was half of the box-office disaster known as “Grindhouse,” Tarantino has admitted that he felt the need to double down on his strengths and prove that he was just as relevant and inventive as ever.  (more…)

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Tags: brad pitt, Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds, Nazi, nazis
Posted Aug 18th 2009 at 8:55 am in Reviews | 207186111 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2009/08/18/inglourious-basterds-review/%27Inglourious+Basterds%27+Review2009-08-18+15%3A55%3A03Carl+Kozlowski

Daily Gut: Plants

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…)

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Hitler, John Dingell, KKK, michelle malkin
Posted Aug 12th 2009 at 12:59 pm in Daily Gut, News, Politics | 204290137 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2009/08/12/daily-gut-plants/Daily+Gut%3A+Plants2009-08-12+19%3A59%3A20Greg+Gutfeld

‘La Muse’ Review

Twenty-four year-old Susan La Muse has god-like powers. Actually, her powers surpass those of God since she can reconstitute dead people from scraps of debris and restore them to full health and cognizance. She waves her arms and AIDS disappears from Africa. Every internal combustion engine changes to electric (although the question of what is generating this electricity is never answered.)  She makes disparaging remarks about being a “white girl” while celebrating every other race. And she solves most of her problems through sex. 

Straight sex, gay, bi, group, it doesn’t matter to the sexually omnivorous Susan whose libido knows no bounds. In her most asinine encounter, which becomes key to “world peace,” Susan pulls a train of skinhead Nazis who quickly see the light, accept their “bi-curious” strains and copulate with her and one another. Thereafter, anyone who views her sex tape becomes one with the world and all living things. And “Kumbaya” was heard in the land.   (more…)

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Tags: "Enter the Haters", Adi Tantimedh, Africa, AIDS, Big Head Press
Posted Jul 31st 2009 at 6:56 am in Art, Featured Story, Politics, Reviews | 19437481 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mbaron/2009/07/31/la-muse-review/%27La+Muse%27+Review2009-07-31+13%3A56%3A14Mike+Baron

The Man Who Would Be God

A while back, I heard Obama bragging about his first few months in the White House.  When he claimed he had done as much in that period as any president in history, my initial thought was for the first time in his life he was being modest.  Frankly, I think he’s done more, much more, and I only wish that some of it had been good for America.

He’s taken over car companies, banks and lending institutions.  He’s printed so much currency that he’s the envy of counterfeiters and con men everywhere.  He’s buried the nation in so much debt that children born 40 years down the road will be greeted with a slap on the butt and a lien on future earnings.  For good measure, the Community Organizer in Chief has created more czars than the Romanovs. (more…)

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Tags: FDR, Jews, nazis, Obama, President Sarkozy
Posted Jun 17th 2009 at 6:43 am in News, Politics | 1616625 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/06/17/the-man-who-would-be-god/The+Man+Who+Would+Be+God2009-06-17+13%3A43%3A03Burt+Prelutsky

What’s President Obama’s Script For Iran?

You know, people, I really wish I knew what the story was regarding President Obama’s puzzling diplomatic approach to Islamist Iran. Inquiring Minds Want To Know. This ain’t no movie, and I really don’t like the storyline to date. Haven’t since 1979. So what’s the script? White House Productions seems to be holding the storyline in blackout mode, and at this point I’m ready to put former FOX reporter Roger Friedman on the job of rooting it out. He sure did a bang-up job on “Wolverine.”

To be fair, I actually gave the President credit in this March 26th opinion piece entitled “Is President Obama Turning The Tables on Iran?” See, it occurred to me that the President might be undertaking a very brilliant strategy toward the Islamic Republic. If the President offers the Iranian regime nothing but carrots and gets nothing but sticks in return, then the regime is exposed as the hard case it really is. Nobody could say the President hadn’t tried every means at his disposal to make peace. (more…)

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Tags: al qaeda, Ali Khamenei, AMPAS, anti-gay pogrom, Argentina
Posted Jun 8th 2009 at 8:15 am in News, Politics | 1515784 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/06/08/whats-president-obamas-script-for-iran/What%27s+President+Obama%27s+Script+For+Iran%3F2009-06-08+15%3A15%3A14John+T.+Simpson

Into the Gathering Storm

If you’re a history buff and you’ve got HBO, then have I got a movie for you: Into the Storm. (And if you’re cable-less, add it to your NetFlix queue.) Yes, it’s made-for-HBO, but it’s from the John Adams/Band of Brothers wing, not the Recount/Angels in America department.

It’s a sequel of sorts to The Gathering Storm, known informally around my home as the Greatest Churchill Movie Ever Made. And in answer to the first question on your mind right now, no, the new HBO/BBC co-production is not quite as good as Gathering Storm. (But then, we just have to resign ourselves to the fact that nothing ever will be.)

Partly it’s Albert Finney’s fault. They say nobody’s perfect, but they haven’t seen Finney play Winston Churchill. (He most deservedly won both an Emmy and a BAFTA.) You’ve heard the phrase “tears of joy”? A largely alien experience to me, a pretty stoic, manly guy. Alien to me no more, my friends, once I watched Gathering Storm for the first time.

I regret to report that Brendan Gleeson, who essays the role in the sequel, gives it a yeoman’s try, but can’t quite measure up. There are simply more and richer layers to Finney’s performance, perhaps due to nothing no less unfair than a longer and more experienced life, even (dare I say it, oh what the hell) more talent. Janet McTeer, who plays wife Clemmie in the new movie, fares better, nearly matching Vanessa Redgrave’s marvelous performance in Gathering Storm. (Why, they even look alike.) (more…)

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Tags: Albert Finney, brendan gleeson, Churchill, Film, hbo
Posted Jun 4th 2009 at 8:14 am in Military, Reviews | 150698One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aleigh/2009/06/04/into-the-gathering-storm/Into+the+Gathering+Storm2009-06-04+15%3A14%3A07Andrew+Leigh

One Critic’s Review of ‘Mr. Ganis Goes To Tehran’

If anyone wrote a script like this, no one would believe it.

But I already read the book.

That they even went to Iran in the first place was an abomination, especially given their three-hour gay rights infomercial called The Oscars just five days earlier.

And it only kept getting worse. (more…)

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Tags: Alfre Woodard, Ali Larijani, Alireza Davudnejad, AMPAS, Annette Bening
Posted Mar 9th 2009 at 3:07 pm in Celebrity News, News, Politics | 7465419 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/03/09/an-open-letter-to-hollywood-and-gay-rights-activists-on-iran/One+Critic%27s+Review+of+%27Mr.+Ganis+Goes+To+Tehran%272009-03-09+22%3A07%3A51John+T.+Simpson

Hollywood’s Second Class Jewish Chicks & “Two Lovers”

Why is it that on the silver screen, the Jewish chick is always the undesirable one, the safe choice, the ugly/annoying one?  Even women who are Jewish (or half) in real life play the “desirable gentile goddess” while the Jewish woman character is the second fiddle.  It might have something to do with the self-hatred of many male Jews in Hollywood for whom the Jewish woman is exactly that stereotype; besides, many of them need to justify marrying outside of the faith.  Or maybe it’s just the self-hatred.

I ask this because in “Two Lovers,” which hit nationwide release this week, Joaquin Phoenix plays a Jewish guy whose parents want him to date (and marry) the beautiful Jewish daughter (Vinessa Shaw), of the couple who are buying their business.  But, instead, he prefers the hot blonde gentile woman (played by the half-Jewish Gwyneth Paltrow) who doesn’t want him.  The Jewish woman as the safe, not-as-sexy-or-hot choice is nothing new in Hollywood.  We’ve seen it in sooo many TV shows and flicks, like the 1972 incarnation of “The Heartbreak Kid” in which Elliott Gould Charles Grodin dumps the homely Jewish stereotype-ette for the hot (at that time) Cybill Shepherd. (more…)

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Tags: Amelia Kingston, Amy Irving, Crossing Delancey, Cybill Shepherd, Elliott Gould
Posted Feb 28th 2009 at 8:39 am in Entertainment, Media Criticism, Reviews | 6927074 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dschlussel/2009/02/28/hollywoods-second-class-jewish-chicks-two-lovers/Hollywood%27s+Second+Class+Jewish+Chicks+%26amp%3B+%22Two+Lovers%222009-02-28+16%3A39%3A32Debbie+Schlussel

Hollywood Ignores Terror to Ask Why They Hate Us

Will we ever see a worthwhile film about the fight against Islamic terror? Forget stories about emotionally tortured soldiers who return home to abandon their combat fatigues for civilian armor and take to the streets to protest American war crimes while government agents illegally wiretap these men (and women) of conscience. Films of this nature – pictures that gloss over totalitarianism but reflexively attack any pretense for American military involvement – are a political cliché. But we will never see a film that depicts the complexity of this struggle – opponents may suggest that the contrasts are too stark – because, despite the many nuances a director could provide (including the tenacious way Islamic extremism can overrun a people, alongside the reluctance of Western civilization to acknowledge the gravity of this threat), there is still an obsession with that most absurd of all questions — Why do they hate us? (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, hollywood asks why do they hate us?, islamo fascism, nazis
Posted Feb 2nd 2009 at 11:40 am in Entertainment, Politics | 3849073 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lfein/2009/02/02/why-do-they-hate-us/Hollywood+Ignores+Terror+to+Ask+Why+They+Hate+Us2009-02-02+19%3A40%3A08Lewis+Fein