Sports psychologist turned film producer David Cook thinks Hollywood is starting to grasp the faith-friendly film market thanks to hits like “Soul Surfer” and “The Blind Side.”

Yet Cook says when industry executives circled around the film adaptation of his spiritually-driven book, “Seven Days In Utopia,” they weren’t sure it could draw a crowd.

It’s one reason Cook took control of the film adaptation. He started his own film studio (Utopia Films) to produce the movie and served as both executive producer and co-screenwriter.

“I’m a sports psychologist. What do I know about making a movie?” he asks. “But I do know about telling stories, and that’s what filmmaking is. I just made sure the story didn’t get botched up.”

Cook wouldn’t let Hollywood warp his beloved story about a young golfer who finds his stroke again after spending a week in a tiny Texas hamlet. That meant the film’s spiritual component stayed intact, but just as importantly the main character would be played by an actor who knew his way around the golf course.

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At times, it seems Hollywood is but a caricature of all things Left: an image created by the most flagrantly non-patriotic and anti-military celebrities imaginable. It seems the mainstream media flocks to stars that fit such criteria, and those stars, in turn, are given an open microphone with which to spew their opinions on the supposedly naïve and uneducated masses in this country (i.e., you and me and the salt-of-the-earth folks who live their lives in flyover country).

Occasionally, however, Hollywood gives us something else: something so far out of the norm for the Left coast, so utterly pro-American and purely patriotic, that we have to pause and take note. We saw this with comedian Vince Vaughn, who launched Chicago’s 52^nd annual Air and Water Show by parachuting out of an airplane over the city with one of the Army’s elite parachute teams.  We saw this with Sylvester Stallone, who refused to apologize for his pro-American film “The Expendables,” and who told his antagonizers that “America apologizes too much,” just for good measure.

And to give credit where credit is due, we’ve also seen this kind of grit from Robert Duvall, Larry the Cable Guy, and Nick DiPaolo, among others.

Now we’re seeing it with comedian Rob Riggle (from the movie “The Hangover”). What few know is that Riggle is not only an accomplished actor but also a Marine Corps Reservist who holds the rank of Lt. Colonel. And he recently told Marines Magazine that one of his proudest accomplishments is of “serving his country” as a Marine. (more…)

In the aftermath of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group’s successful raid to take out Osama Bin Laden last week, I feel privileged to be covering the only film festival in the world to feature films about the military. The Washington D.C. based G. I. Film Festival runs from today through Sunday, May 16 at both the U.S. Navy Memorial at 701 Pennsylvania Ave and the nearby Canadian Embassy. In five short years this outstanding collection of films about the American military experience has became the quality venue for films portraying our troops in a positive light. The festival features everything from combat intense dramas, to personal stories of military families, feature documentaries and shorts to historical epics. This year’s Wounded Warrior night film is the exciting medieval themed epic Ironclad about the brutal aftermath of the signing of the Magna Carta. Through the generosity of corporate sponsors, wounded service men from Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda Naval Hospital will be hosted by the festival for that evening.

Various Hollywood professionals who support the military like actors Robert Duvall Jeremy Renner, Kelsey Grammer, Rick Schroeder, Glenn Close and JAG’s Karri Turner, as well as directors and producers like Ron Maxwell and Lou Reda, are often in attendance. CSI: New York and Forrest Gump’s Lieutenant Dan,  Academy Award-nominated Gary Sinise, will host a reception for Congressional members who have served, or who are currently serving in the U.S. Military. With veterans on both he and his wife’s side of their families, Sinise has been an active supporter of the festival since its inception, as he has of so many other pro-military causes. This year actor William Devane will premiere the drama Flag of My Father at the festival’s Hollywood Patriots Night and a salute to International Warriors will host military films from several other countries.

Last year at I wrote a piece for Big Hollywood highly critical of box-office and morale-killing Hollywood military films like The Green Zone that have dominated movie screens. Well, the G.I. Film Festival has been out front in the battle for positive depictions of the military since it started back in 2007. Festival creators, husband and wife Brandon Millett and Major Laura Law-Millett, first created the festival to combat the continuing inaccurate and negative stereotypes that Hollywood has so often fostered about the United States Armed Forces. In an interview with the Washington Post during the launch of the first G.I. Film Festival, Major Law offered up that, “In movie after movie all you see then was soldiers raping and killing. We want to show something more positive.”

Her husband Brandon emphasized that, “We wanted to do something to focus public attention on the courage and selflessness of the American soldiers.”

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Goddamn Army.

Why it’s a left-wing film

Maybe my eternal affection for director Robert Altman’s brilliantly irreverent comedy clouds my judgment, but I don’t want to be too hard on “MASH.” Yes, it uses Korea as pretty weak cover to deliver a withering anti-war criticism of Vietnam and the military, and in the person of The Mighty Robert Duvall’s Frank Burns, the attack on Christianity does, at times, border on mean-spirited (Burns is a cold, manipulative, ambitious, backstabbing, unbalanced hypocrite and the Catholic Father Mulcahy is bumbling and absolutely useless), but man this movie’s fun…

…And funny.

And brilliant.

And refreshingly politically incorrect.

But now we’re getting into…

Why it’s a great film

One of the very first jokes in “MASH” perfectly sets the tone for what’s to come. After a quick sequence at the 4077th and a subtle jibe at Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Capt. Hawkeye Pierce arrives in the person of Donald Sutherland. He’s fresh off a plane from the States and needs a ride to report for duty. While waiting by a jeep, Hawkeye barely gets a word out before a Black enlisted man from the motor pool dresses him down under the assumption he’s going to get pushy about demanding the ride right away. Hawkeye had no intention of getting pushy, barely gets a word out, and after the jerk walks off, Hawkeye mutters under his breath, “Racist.” (more…)

The word legend feels too small. And we’re not alone in that thinking…

Movie icon Robert Duvall will celebrate his 80th birthday in style on Wednesday by stamping his mark on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Godfather star will place his hands and feet in cement outside the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where famous pals like James Caan and Andy Garcia are expected to honour him.

The honour caps a six week period of accolades for the veteran, who is among the favourites to land a Best Actor Oscar nomination later this month for his role as a grumpy hermit in Get Low.

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Trials are a corruption of the entire process and only fools who have something to prove end up ensnared in them. Now when I say prove, I don’t mean about the case, I mean about themselves.

Why it’s a left-wing film

Though based on a true story, what you have here is Hollywood once again cherry picking the true stories they choose to tell in order to reaffirm a political agenda. In this case you have a sleazy ambulance chaser emerging as selfless hero in the fight against big, arrogant corporate attorneys and uncaring multi-national corporations. And if that’s not bad enough…

In the end, after our intrepid personal injury lawyers are unable to beat the big bad corporate America wolf with anything more than a face-saving settlement, in comes the ultimate left-wing hero to save the day. Enter, bum, bum, bummmm… BIG GOVERNMENT! Yes, whatever would we do without the benevolent Environmental Protection Agency.

Again, “A Civil Action” is based on a true story and by all accounts, unlike the bogus “Erin Brockovich”  suit, the facts of this case stand true. So my argument is not with the movie itself or this specific case. By all accounts this was a real tragedy, where due to toxic poisoning in the groundwater, a lot of people got sick and died, including children.

My argument is, however, with Hollywood’s relentlessly out-of-context, choosing of only these kinds of stories to build up the drip-drip-drip effect necessary to craft an unfair and dishonest narrative that always portrays corporate America as homicidal maniacs. As an example of how out of whack Hollywood’s lack of context is, I know of no American corporation responsible for as many deaths as the EPA’s politically motivated decision to ban DDT in 1972.

Where’s the movie about that?

That’s a rhetorical question. And here are some more… (more…)

You just have to glance at my Big Hollywood contributor’s photo to realize that I love a good western – the cowboy hat with the tux kind of give it away. So it was with much anticipation that I awaited the release of the Coen Brothers remake of the classic western True Grit which helped John Wayne win his well deserved Best Actor Academy Award in 1969. I’ll admit to a certain amount of prejudice here. When John Wayne puts the reins to his horse in his teeth, levers that big looped Winchester carbine, pulls his Colt’s revolver and hollars “Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch!” Well, it’s one of my favorite scenes in any film ever made, beautifully summing up Wayne’s legendary status as the most American of icons. Unfortunately, despite the considerable talents of Jeff Bridges, the Coen Brothers and others the new film literally throws that great cinematic moment away.

For those too young to have seen the original, True Grit, based on the excellent Charles Portis novel tells the story of precocious young Mattie Ross who hires a boozy, tough-minded U.S. marshal to bring in her father‘s killer from 1880s Indian territory, a large chunk of what is now Oklahoma. Her stubborn caveat is that she gets to come along. Indian territory (that’s what they called it – not Native American Territory) was a no man’s land where the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole settlements sometimes gave uneasy safe haven to American outlaws on the run from Hanging Judge Parker’s U.S. Marshals in neighboring Arkansas.

John Wayne was and is this country’s most popular screen legend, still in the top ten in the Harris Poll every year. Yet he was often an unsung actor, though one who could fill the screen and entertain like few of his profession before or after him. It’s not that the 2010 True Grit is a bad film, it’s not, but it’s not a great film either. The Coen Brothers version just make you realize how much more entertaining the Wayne and Henry Hathaway directed True Grit really still is.  In their effort to give us a more down and dirty version of the Old West, though the Wayne film is hardly sanitized, they’ve made this new version dull and uninspiring. Co-writer and co-director Ethan Coen said that they wanted to do the film from fourteen year old Mattie’s perspective and make it tougher and more violent. In the process they merely aped the original and duplicated most of the best scenes and dialogue, virtually verbatim. (more…)

That Robert Duvall is one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen is incontestable. His roles as Gus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove” (1989), Sonny Dewey in “The Apostle” (1997), and Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies” (1983), are simply unforgettable. In addition to these characters, Duvall gave us famous lines that have literally worked their way into our nation’s lexicon over the years. In particular I’m thinking about his lines, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” (“Apocalypse Now,” 1976) and “It’s a pretty day for making things right” (“Open Range,” 2003).

Although Duvall has received an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards, among other recognitions, I concur with film maker Lionel Chetwynd in saying that Duvall has not been “elevated to the unique place he [deserves to occupy] in American art.”

So why hasn’t Duvall been elevated to that unique position? Generally, it’s because he’s not your run of the mill Hollywood personality: he makes his home in Virginia instead of Los Angeles or New York City. And specifically, it’s because of his politics.

By his own admission, Duvall “[tends] to be conservative,” which is better that being a leper, but alienates just as many Hollywood elitists nonetheless.

And Duvall isn’t just talking when he says he tends to be conservative. For instance, not only is he open about the fact that he didn’t vote for Obama in 2008, but he laughingly told Mike Huckabee that, “if given the chance, he wouldn’t vote for him again.“ Keep in mind, Duvall not only attended a McCain/Palin rally in Albuquerque during the 2008 election cycle, but also introduced Palin to the crowd there and held a sign reading: “Drill Here! Drill Now!” (I’m sure Robert Redford is pleased as punch about this.) (more…)

Last week, Heartland Truly Moving Pictures President and CEO, Jeffrey L. Sparks, announced that the feature film documentary, Lt. Dan Band: For the Common Good, featuring actor Gary Sinise and his “Lt. Dan Band” is a Crystal Heart Award winner and will be screened during the 2010 Heartland Film Festival, which will take place through October 23rd in Indianapolis.

The film, directed by Jonathan Flora, follows Sinise and his band as they support the troops and first responders around the world including Kuwait and Iraq.  The Lt. Dan Band began playing shows in 2003 and has played close to 200 concerts for America’s heroes and their families.
Films that receive the Crystal Heart are being honored for best meeting Heartland’s mission of “exploring the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”  Having seen this uplifting and inspiring film, I can assure you that it does just that. 

“Having long known the high reputation of the Heartland Film Festival and the quality of films it showcases, it is a true honor to be recognized and I tip my hat to Jeffrey Sparks and his staff for all they do,” said Flora, who hails from Ohio, served with the 82nd Airborne and also produced the film along with his wife, Deborah Flora.  “As a veteran and filmmaker working in Hollywood, it is a privilege to be able to support our troops and first responders through our medium.  The spirit of service and commitment to the greater good has always served as an example to me.  At its core, this movie is about remembering those who are willing to lay down their lives for others and those who are left behind.  Gary Sinise is a man who has chosen to remember and to honor.  Gary truly is the Bob Hope of this generation.”  (more…)

In the Age of the Hollywood Sucker Punch, betting your time and dollars on movies and TV is more perilous than ever.

As often as not, you can expect to fork over $20-$40 at the theater expecting to laugh, cry, and be entertained. . .

. . . only to find yourself trapped in a widescreen, 3D, surround sound, stadium-seated liberal indoctrination chamber.

With TV, you can dedicate months and years to becoming a dedicated fan of a series. . .

. . . only to suddenly start getting lectured on what creeps you and your family are by dint of your politics/religion/gender/race/fill-in-the-blank.

Closing in on two years patrolling the mean streets, Big Hollywood already has dozens of posts that document these lies, cheap shots, and propaganda in grim detail. Amidst the cultural carnage conservatives step ever more gingerly, sifting through the rubble for scraps worth investing in.

One way most of us navigate this minefield is by discerning which actors — big, well-known, picture-opening actors — are worth trusting on name alone. No one has a perfect record, but the best gain our confidence by routinely choosing projects that hew to some modicum of quality, decency, and fair play. You may not agree with the underlying message or political slant of their movies, but that’s not the point — it’s completely possible for conservatives to love great liberal movies and vice versa. Rather, these actors convince us over the course of their careers that they aren’t likely to sucker punch their fans, or to embarrass their country, profession, or family by allowing politics and prejudices to tarnish their public reputations and filmed entertainments. (more…)

Robert Duvall has been an American cinematic icon for nearly five decades, ever since his memorable debut as Boo Radley in the 1962 film adaptation of “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Since then, he’s been in some of the greatest films of all time, as well as what is considered one of TV’s greatest accomplishments with “Lonesome Dove.”

Better yet, Duvall is a proud conservative who recently made it clear in an interview on Fox News Network’s “Huckabee” show that he did not vote for Obama, and if given the chance, won’t vote for him again. That flinty sense of humor combined with an effortless modesty makes him one of the most down-to-earth and human of stars, and has carried him through work in numerous independent projects that he had his heart into and staked his reputation upon.

Another hallmark of Duvall is his Christian faith, which he won’t discuss in particulars, but which shines through in some of his films as a vibrant example of walking the walk rather than just talking the talk. He put $5 million of his own money up for the budget of 1997’s“The Apostle,” a film he wrote, starred in and directed about a tormented Pentecostal preacher who faces a period of reckoning. (more…)

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It’s hard to really notice eccentric people in a modern city the size of Los Angeles, where millions upon millions of residents tend to blur together as they rush past each other in their cars. But in rural America, the town oddballs still stand out, whether they’re lovably kooky, or – as is the case in the richly textured and highly entertaining new film “Get Low” – they’re seemingly antisocial recluses with an array of bad social skills.

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Starring Robert Duvall in one of his best and most colorful performances, as Appalachian hermit Felix “Bush” Brazeale, “Get Low” is a character-based dramedy that knows when to mine the comic gold to be had in exchanges between Duvall and his co-star Bill Murray, and when to pull back and allow a powerful yet quiet and deeply human story grab hold of viewers. Based on an improbable yet true Depression-era story, it follows Felix as he embarks on a highly unusual quest: to pay for his own funeral in advance, but not actually be dead in it.

Rather, Felix wants to be alive and watching what others say about him. There’s been a thousand legends created about him throughout the lonely decades of his life, but only some of them are true. The problem is, some of the worst tales may be the most accurate ones. (more…)

Tales of the whimmydiddle’s mysteries aside, one of the most stupefying stories I can recall from my childhood in the North Carolina – Tennessee mountains was about a Volunteer State man who held a 1938 funeral for himself before he died so he could hear what people had to say about him.  More than 8,000 attended, including a man who lived next door to my grandmother. He said he went because he and the others there got to participate in a lottery for the man’s land when he did pass on, which was 5 years later.  That man was “Uncle” Felix “Bush” Breazeale — shown [below the fold] sitting in front of his own coffin — and it’s that episode of his real life story that Get Low (as in get buried) is about.

The rest of Get Low tracks elements of the real story and uses some of the real names, but it introduces fictionalized backgrounds and situations to flesh out compelling characters.  In the film, Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) has lived alone in a cabin in the woods for 40 years.

During those years, the townfolk’s imaginations have concocted all sorts of stories about him. He killed two men in a fist fight one says he heard. Another says Felix knows the devil and has unholy powers — a claim I heard several times myself about people who lived far back in the Appalachian woods  where they practiced granny magic with mountain herbs and Witch Hazel. The Smokey Mountain mists do excite imaginations. But when Felix learns a friend from long ago has died, he goes to see sardonic funeral director Frank Quinn (Bill Murray — who delivers his lines so well it’s hard to hear over the audience laughter) and his associate Buddy (Lucas Black) with a wad of cash to buy himself a funeral party. (more…)

M*A*S*H  (1970): Robert Altman’s irreverent film adaptation of Richard Hooker’s novel is a spoof on the futility of war that was set in Korea but coming as it did while our troops were fully engaged in Southeast Asia, its anti-establishment subtext is really about  the confusion and cultural clashes during the Vietnam War.  

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Set in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital somewhere near the stagnant Korean War front lines, the plot ambles along following several zany yet competent doctors “Hawkeye” Pierce (Donald Sutherland), “Trapper” John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) and “Duke” Forest (Tom Skerritt) as they try to adapt their markedly undisciplined lifestyles to the rigid protocols of the US military—saving lives along the way.

Featuring notable performances by Robert Duvall as the bumbling and overly-sanctimonious Frank Burns and Sally Kellerman as a career military nurse “Hot Lips” O’Houlihan who cannot get out of the way of her own sexuality, this dark comedy is as good as it gets in the genre of biting satire. (more…)

“I apologize for being less than what you probably expected me to be.”

In director Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake, a creatively-stifled, self-destructive former country music star drowning himself in whiskey and self-pity before finding a second chance in the love of a woman and her four year-old son. If the story sounds familiar, it should. In 1983, star Robert Duvall and screenwriter Horton Foote won well-deserved Oscars for their poetic, understated work telling almost the exact same story in “Tender Mercies.”  You won’t mind, though, because both “Crazy Heart” and Jeff Bridges are nearly as good. And if some kind of loyalty to The Mighty Duvall makes you resistant to checking out this near-retelling, fear not. He’s not only on board as a producer but brings great color and character to a supporting role, as well. He even sings a bit!

“Crazy Heart” defines the idea of a simple story well told. One glimpse at the trailer and we all know where the plot beats will lead, at least through the second act. We know that Bad Blake and small town reporter Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) will fall in love and that this is certain to bring about some kind of personal and professional reformation for the has-been booze hound. What we don’t know is “how” that story will be told or where it will end up, and it’s in the telling that “Crazy Heart” soars. (more…)

It’s the end of the world – and I feel haunted

Imagine that the entire world as you’ve known it has come to an end right before your eyes. Almost everyone has died, or gone crazy scavenging for food, even becoming cannibals in the name of survival. Your beautiful wife, who was the light of your life, left you to wander off in the night and die rather than endure another terrifying day of huddling from the elements and hiding from the human monsters that most everyone else has become. 

And now all that’s left is you – and the ten-year-old son whose care has become your entire purpose of your existence. You had a good life once – until just a decade before – with a dignified career, nights at the opera, and joy emanating from every pore of your beautiful spouse. But now it’s all a memory, and a fading one at that. You haven’t been called by your own name in so long that you and your son are only known as Man and Boy. 

What then, the universe asks? Do you keep a faith in God, or curse the hopelessness around you? Do you try to maintain the fire of a good soul and pass moral values to your son, or do you let your morals and humanity eventually slip away? If your morals slip away in the middle of nowhere, does anyone notice? 

Those are the questions that lie at the root of director John Hillcoat’s profoundly moving adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Road.” Starring Viggo Mortensen in an alternately feral and saintly performance of shattering emotional depth – his are the most haunted eyes I’ve ever seen sustained in a film performance – it is a film that doesn’t shy from some of the most disturbing questions of human existence, yet also guides viewers gently through to a sense of grace and hope that will move, for even days afterward, those brave enough to take the journey.  (more…)

The horrifying news that Susan Sarandon will make her Broadway debut this Spring (because Broadway isn’t left ENOUGH?) has gotten me to thinking… Instead of Ms. Sarandon, and Rosie O’Donnell and Alec Baldwin & Jessica Lange (in the SAME play, no less) why can’t a Broadway season contain actors who are not so excruciatingly annoying?  I’m not even saying actors who are center/right in their politics — but how about actors who just focus on acting and, when off-camera, acting with class?

Here’s my wish-list for that season, in a perfect world…

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