ABOUT THAT ‘ANGEL HEART” SYMBOLISM

Yesterday, in the “Last Night’s Screening” section, I mentioned that after a dozen screenings I might have finally figured out what director Alan Parker was trying to tell us with the returning symbolism of that slow-turning fan.

WARNING: If you haven’t seen “Angel Heart” I’m about to spoil it completely — which, I promise you, would be a real shame.

In the story’s linear timeline, our first glimpse of the fan is seen in a shot outside a New York hotel room during the sacrifice of a sailor. If you remember, this was the ritual Johnny Favourite performed in the hopes of getting out of his contract for his soul with Satan. He ate the sailor’s heart and then stole his identity before becoming our intrepid P.I. Harry Angel. It’s also important to remember that Lisa Bone’s character informs us that Johnny (and therefore Harry) is/was the most truly evil person her mother had ever come across.

Unless I missed something, we only see the fan turn when Harry Angel is or is about to commit a murder off-screen. In other words, while Harry Angel suffers a blackout, evil Johnny Favourite returns to heinously murder those putting Harry on the trail of discovering who he really is.

Essentially, the fan tells us the evil in our protagonist is at work.

My two cents.

Man, I love talking  movies!

RON HOWARD ASKS: WHAT IF YOU ONLY HAD SUPERPOWERS FOR ONE DAY?

Concept, concept, concept. When I was failing in Hollywood I would spend hours, days, weeks, trying to come up with a million dollar concept — something simple that would sell based only on the idea. And just when you think there aren’t any ideas left, someone comes up with:

“The film centers on a man who has superpowers only one day a year.”

Genius.

All that remains now is the harder part: executing the concept.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Watched Obama’s awful speech. You can read my thoughts and those of the other BIG editors here. Afterwards, it was the Packers season opener. I’m not a football but I love the Packers because they bring my wife so much pleasure (we’re going to next week’s Panther game) and I love the NFL because they really are the last true pop cultural institution practicing the all-important art of sincere patriotism.

The importance of the nation’s most popular league passing along these American traditions cannot be overstated. And there’s also something of a vicious circle at work here. Patriotism is one of the reasons the NFL is so popular and NFL helps to make patriotism popular.

God bless the NFL.

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QUICK HITS

YES, YOU’RE OLD: ‘STAR TREK’ CELEBRATES 45 YEARS

‘BEETLEJUICE’ BACK FROM THE DEAD?

INTERESTED IN ‘X-FILES 3′?

CHRIS TUCKER RETURNS … QUITE POSSIBLY MAYBE.

LUCASFILM’S NEW SINGAPORE FACILITY LOOKS LIKE A SANDCRAWLER

“MONOPLY” MOVIE MOVES FORWARD. NO WORD ON “GO FISH”

STEVEN SODERBERGH FILMS FROM WORST TO BEST

“JEDI’ AND WHERE IT ALL STARTED TO GO WRONG…

…“PHANTOM MENACE” GETS OFF TO AWFUL START

...”CLONES” AN EXERCISE IN HOW NOT TO WRITE A LOVE STORY

WHY WE LOVE ABOUT FILM/TV ENGINEERS, TECHIES, AND GEEKS

INSIDE DAVID LYNCH’S PARIS NIGHTCLUB

LIVE IN LOS ANGELES? WANT TO SEE “1941″ ON THE BIG SCREEN?

“UNTOUCHABLES” REDUX?

WHAT THE FILM INDUSTRY DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW 

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CLASSIC PICK FOR SATURDAY, SEPT 9

FMC:

8pm EST: THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989) –Michelle Pfeiffer is the feisty sexy singer who joins a brother (Jeff & Beau Bridges) twin-piano act and sparks changes in the brothers’ act and relationship. Noted for Michelle Pfeiffer’s sultry rendition of “Making Whoopee” atop a piano. Cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges, Jennifer Tilly. Director: Steve Kloves

This was the beginning of a life-long love affair with Michelle Pfieffer that has thus far survived two decades and three restraining orders. It’s also when I started to sit up and take real notice of just how good of an actor Jeff Bridges is.

Engaging adult dramas are hard to come by these days, which is why the movie gods created home video. Far from a perfect film, but still well-acted and worth your time. The music’s better than you might expect (the stars do their own singing) and the story and characters have a surprisingly self-aware sense of humor about themselves.

And nobody smokes a cigarette like Jeff Bridges. Each puff is its own performance. Watch. You’ll see what I mean.

–Please send tips/suggestions/requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

–Please thank ScottDS for today’s awesome quick hits…

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975.

If I speak with some hostility about the Boomers’ failings and excesses it’s partially because that’s my nature as a Millennial/Gen Yer. According to William Strauss and Neil Howe’s books each generation acts as a check on the excesses of its parent generation. As young adults in the ‘60s and ‘70s the Baby Boomers declared war on the cultural institutions of their GI Generation parents. The GIs (born 1900-1924) are what Howe and Strauss describe as a “civic” generation; they were driven toward creating social harmony. The Boomers (an “idealist” generation) were a check on that, fomenting greater individualism in the 1970s and culture wars in the 1990s. That our electoral maps are so split today is their fault. When the Civic GI President Ronald Reagan won in 1984 it was almost a solid red map. My generation – also a Civic generation – is a reaction against Baby Boomer extremes and will seek to create greater social harmony. This will become much more apparent as the younger Gen Yers in junior high and high school now start to make waves in 10 years.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet (born 1957) has been emblematic of the divisive Boomer paradigm for his whole career. His plays and films are famous for the “Mamet style” of short bursts of memorable dialogue and the mainstreaming of casual profanity.

And so in his book detailing his rightward shift away from a “Brain-Dead” Hollywood leftist, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, the reader finds this same mindset applied to the political essay. The need to divide the world into clear cut categories of Liberalism and Conservatism pervades the text. Mamet even capitalizes them to Emphasize the Great Importance of the Political War between Boomer Liberalism and Boomer Conservatism. Gone is Simon’s sense of skepticism in Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine.

The Secret Knowledge is a collection of 39 short essays. Mamet has crafted an experience like the signature Boomer film “Forrest Gump.” Life is like a box of chocolates – and devouring the delicious morsels of Mamet’s book is an addictive treat, filled with surprises. Who cares if it’s just a political sugar rush? Most conservatives are familiar with the bibliography Mamet cribs his ideas from: Sowell, Hayek, VDH, Friedman, etc. Thus they won’t learn anything life-changing but will still enjoy the thrill of Mr. Mamet’s Wild Ride. And if that sentiment doesn’t summarize the Boomer cinema of Lucas-Spielberg-Bruckheimer-Moore-Stone then what does?

The endowment of the Baby Boomer Hollywood Apostates is the call to fight, the drive to confront with big special effects, and the need to divide ourselves from the intolerable. This makes for satisfying blockbuster popcorn films and effective (James Carville-Karl Rove style) political warfare. While there is plenty to critique in the failings of the Boomer presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush credit must be given: the Boomer political strategists were masters. Too bad they wasted their brains on winning the electoral fights while ignoring (and sometimes exacerbating) the more vital policy fights.

In Part 4 of the Hollywood Revolt, we’ll see how the Gen X leader Andrew Breitbart is reinventing this confrontational spirit – what he calls Righteous Indignation — and redirecting it in a more pragmatic, effective way than the Boomers ever could.

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The man at the center of the story is Ronny Valentine (Vince Vaughn), a solid salesman who is business partners with his best friend Nick (Kevin James). Ronny and Nick are trying to develop a new type of car that would combine the sexiness of classic cars with the environmental friendliness of newer models. They are searching for a major car company that is willing to invest in their work.

Ronny is also thinking about proposing to his long-term girlfriend, Beth (Jennifer Connelly) and Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) enthusiastically supports the idea. It’s surprising that Geneva is so pro-marriage considering that she’s having an affair, a discovery that Ronny accidentally makes while planning his proposal.

After seeing Geneva with a rugged guy named Zip (Channing Tatum), Ronny must decide whether or not he should tell Nick about the affair. Aside from crushing his best friend’s heart, Ronny knows that revealing the truth would distract Nick from his research in developing the new car model that they are trying to sell. Throughout the story, Ronny tries to figure out what he should do about the “dilemma” he faces.

Unfortunately, Ronny spends most of the story digging himself into a bigger and bigger hole. Instead of making good choices early on, he makes stupid decisions and the story drags out the “dilemma” as much as it can. With very few twists and turns, the story meanders along leading to its inevitable conclusion. 

Many of the choices that Ronny makes throughout the story aren’t easy to understand. Ronny is given numerous opportunities to be honest with his friends  but he always opts against it. He isn’t even comfortable confiding in his girlfriend Beth. Even when she becomes suspicious, he keeps lying for no apparent reason. His remaining silent seems to have less to do with his character and more to do with the writers wanting to up the tension in Ronny’s life.

As Ronny, Vaughn does a solid job and is responsible for the few strong laughs that the movie offers. Unfortunately, the supporting cast isn’t given a lot to do. Queen Latifah, as an executive working with Ronny and Nick, is particularly wasted in a silly role. Even Kevin James, who did great comedic work on “The King of Queens,” doesn’t have the chance to show off his comic abilities in this story.  

Admittedly, “The Dilemma” has an interesting premise and a funny performance from Vaughn. However, the story wastes a lot of the talented actors involved and it drags out with very few surprises. “The Dilemma” might be worth a rental when it comes out on DVD but it’s surely not worth the price of a theater ticket.

Those juicy ethical questions form the center of the new Ron Howard movie “The Dilemma,” a truly offbeat and intelligently adult comedy that stars Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Winona Ryder, and Jennifer Connelly in a quartet of performances that rise far above the norm of most mainstream comedies. It marks a refreshing return by Howard back to the fun and human comedies he specialized in back in the ‘80s with “Splash” and “Gung Ho,” and away from the blockbuster and Oscar-baiting fare he’s been delivering in the decades since.

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“The Dilemma” appears to get off to a rocky start, as the storyline at first focuses on the efforts of longtime buddies Ronny (Vaughn) and Nick (James) to develop an electric car that macho guys won’t be ashamed to drive. Ronny is the smooth-talking fundraiser of the duo, while Nick is the engineering genius who can help them make a $400,000 deal a reality. Some of the negotiations and stress attendant to the business deal are funny, but they’re just not as compelling as what unfolds when the story gets to their personal lives.

Things improve greatly when the story shifts focus to Ronny’s attempt to set up an incredibly romantic proposal for his girlfriend Beth (Connelly). He is hoping to follow in the footsteps of Nick and his wife Geneva (Ryder), whom he calls his “hero couple,” but then he catches Geneva cheating with a hunky young thug (played by Channing Tatum in one of the greatest scene-stealing supporting roles since Brad Pitt rode away with “Thelma and Louise”).

So the titular dilemma unfolds in a string of events that begin to spin wildly out of control as Ronny spies on both Geneva and Nick, and winds up getting in so much trouble that everyone around him starts to believe he’s fallen back into his old gambling addiction again. How Ronny and the rest of the gang spin their way back out again makes for a richly rewarding and funny film that has a surprising bite to it and offers each lead actor a chance to shine.

Credit for this goes all around, but has to start at square one with writer Alan Loeb, who is currently Hollywood’s hottest screenwriter after making an amazing career turnaround in which he sold a dozen scripts at age 39 after nearly two decades of failure. Adding to his inventive work in the Jennifer Aniston-Jason Bateman comedy “The Switch” and his vibrant take on the world of corrupt finance in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” Loeb shows once again that he knows how to offer up thought-provoking situations in entertaining fashion.

Howard brings a jazzed-up energy to the proceedings, while also creating a mood of awkward tension in many spots that suits the story well and gives much of the film an indie feel. Vaughn gets to deliver two of his funniest rants in years in his best role since “Wedding Crashers,” and also brings the funny in an absolutely insane comedic fight scene with Tatum.

One of Hollywood’s open Republicans, Vaughn brings some interesting touches to the film on a more subtle level. He sports a “Don’t Tread on Me” T-shirt prominently in an early scene, delivers a funny riff on how “gay” electric cars are in a move that slaps PC-ness as well as environmentalism. It’s also undeniably pro-capitalist and entrepreneurial, as the guys show a zest for creativity and making money is seen as a worthy reward for innovation. And Vince even has a heartfelt prayer scene to go with the film’s realistic and overall positive portrayal of marriage and its challenges.

Filling a gaping vacuum in the marketplace for an intelligent comedy couples can enjoy together, “The Dilemma” offers a bracingly funny start to the new year. Here’s hoping Hollywood can keep it up.

“Ladies and gentlemen, electric cars are gay. I mean, not ‘homosexual’ gay, but, you know, ‘my parents are chaperoning the dance’ gay.”

Even though Universal Studios withdrew the trailer after protests, Howard says he will keep the line in the film. Now more protests are threatened unless the joke is cut entirely from the actual movie. This line has sent gay activists into a tizzy and has now made any reference to “gay” in a humorous way, the moral equivalent of carrying Mein Kampf into a synagogue.

One gay activist is quoted as saying the joke promotes “hate and homophobia.” Ellen DeGeneres says it is a form of bullying. Anderson Cooper of CNN agrees, ”We’ve got to do something to make those words unacceptable ’cause those words are hurting kids!” Good for you, Andy. And I’m sure you’ll be apologizing to all the Tea Party activists you called “tea baggers” (indirectly mocking them as“gay”), now that you have seen the light.

I’m sure the people at GLAAD would have come down on Mr. Cooper had they realized what he had said, but they were probably just really busy that year and missed the “joke” that was all over TV and the Internet. Thankfully the folks from GLAAD have finally spoken up and are now trying to end “gay” jokes. I say “bravo,” it’s about time to end all of this “attack” humor.  

We must take a stand and stop letting comedy and comedians offend people.

I know! Let’s get a whole list of banned words and topics together! For the children…

Let’s see, we have the granddaddy of all banned words, a word so bad we can’t even print it, we can only refer to it as the N-word. Then we have the F-word, and I have to be honest and admit that I don’t know if that’s “fag” or “fuck.” We also have another contender for the F-word, “fat.” As someone who has struggled with a weight problems, I find fat jokes offensive. In fact I find those “phat” references offensive too. Would “fag” be any less offensive to leftists if it were spelled “phag?” So let’s knock off the fat jokes. I’m sure thin people find jokes about being skinny hurtful as well, so they are now o-u-t out. Short, tall, unattractive, blond and any other reference to any appearance or feature must be banned, as well.

Then we have the “r” word. We wouldn’t want an actor calling an electric car “retarded” now, would we? Jokes about people with or any reference to any type of limited abilities are now forbidden. We also need to be sensitive to how smart people are portrayed — so jokes about geeks, nerds and dweebs are banned. As a Southerner and hillbilly let’s put an end to all of those hurtful references to how stupid people are in the South. No more NASCAR or incest jokes. Then too, we will have to agree to stop making jokes about New Yorkers and folks from Jersey. No jokes about California or its “dude” culture. In fact, let’s just stop jokes about where people are from and how they behave.

I think it goes without saying that any ethnic reference is gone, Outlawed too is making fun of people’s religion, politics or educational background. No reference will be made to a person’s economic status. This can be hurtful no matter how much or how little a person makes. Did I miss anything? Age? No “Geezer” jokes. Relationships? Off limits.

No jokes about anything.   

I once did a TV show and had a joke about Daylight Savings Time and how in Indiana they don’t observe it. “Indiana days are boring enough without being any longer,” was the punchline. The producer asked me to cut it because it might offend someone in Indiana.  I told him that every joke offends somebody and if he could tell me a joke that didn’t I would cut the line without complaint. I got to do the joke.

As a comedian I know two things for sure; there’s no such thing as a victimless joke and everything offends somebody. That is the whole point of comedy. Comedy is supposed to make fun of something. Great comedy makes us uneasy and makes us question our assumptions. Paraphrasing Twain: We are supposed to make hamburgers out of someone’s sacred cow.

Once we start saying you can make fun of everything except … (insert your favorite set-aside here) it isn’t only the end of comedy…

It’s the end of free speech.

Sarandon is adamant [GLAAD's] views on political correctness are becoming too extreme – likening them to animal-rights crusaders People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

When quizzed about the controversy by the New York Daily News, she replied, “What should they (Glee) have said? (GLAAD is) getting like PETA – way out of control.”

Careful Susan, you might end up in one of GLAAD’s Gay Re-Education Camps along with the producers of  “Jersey Shore.”

Thankfully, even more of Hollywood’s pushing back though Daniel Frankel’s story in “The Wrap,” which is boldly titled “Is GLAAD Hollywood’s Latest Bully?” — and I say boldly in all sincerity since the latest left-wing cause du jour is anti-gay bullying and the throwing of that word right back in GLAAD’s face isn’t by accident, nor is it the usual timid approach left-wing special interest groups have become accustomed to in the press. 

Though I urge you to read the whole thing, below are some choice snips that pretty much prove Hollywood’s losing their patience with these neo-fascists. And what immediately follows is a truly frightening look at how the bulies at GLAAD operate, which should chill the spine of anyone who believes in free speech and artistic expression:

In a few short weeks, the organization designed to protect the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community — GLAAD — has turned into one of the biggest bullies in Hollywood.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has loudly taken three big media companies to task in the past few weeks over words used in films and TV shows. …

“GLAAD is much better served when they work with us instead of coming out and hitting us in the jaw in front of everybody,” said one fearful Hollywood publicist.

A network official, meanwhile, noted that while GLAAD issued a statement hammering away at one of his series for its word selection, it wasn’t until the fourth paragraph that the advocacy group explained what was wrong with the term the show used.

“It seemed more about what we did wrong than educating us,” he noted.

The key words below in bold are my emphasis:

But GLAAD has only gotten louder since that time under the leadership of [president Jarrett] Barrios.

In early October, the New York-based organization issued a “call to action,” asking its members to ramp up their tweets and petition Universal and [director Ron] Howard to remove the scene from “The Dilemma” in which star Vince Vaughn, who plays a designer of internal combustion engines, calls electric cars “gay.”

The gag has since been removed by Universal from the trailer, but Howard — who had final cut — refused to pull it from the film.

He told the L.A. Times, “I don’t strip my films of everything that I might personally find inappropriate. It is a slight moment in ‘The Dilemma’ meant to demonstrate an aspect of our lead character’s personality, and we never expected it to represent our intentions or the point of view of the movie or those of us who made it.”

GLAAD deputy director of media programs Herndon Graddick said, “The notion that GLAAD is able to bully around Hollywood is just not realistic.”

But GLAAD can talk tough.

“This is the new GLAAD,” said Barrios, acknowledging a more aggressive campaign to stamp out what it feels is harmful language.

During a tense back-and-forth with Michael Moses amid the recent “Dilemma” kerfuffle, Graddick conceded telling the Universal marketing co-president, “If you do that, we’re going to come at you completely.”

Stamp out…

Remove…

Come at you completely…

That’s not the language, behavior, or mission focus of a civil rights organization, that’s the language, behavior and mission focus of an anti-civil rights organization.

In many ways, leftist Hollywood created this monster. As a general rule, you can never appease a bully, most especially an ideological bully like GLAAD. Their goal here is not a seat at the table, their goal is ideological purity, and once you give into them they smell your weakness and never stop coming at you. The film community is currently having the same problem with a different tiger they currently hold by the tail known as CAIR — a group so radically dangerous they’re now successfully suing to make unconstitutional the banning of unconstitutional Sharia laws.

How many stories has Hollywood refused to tell fearing either GLAAD or CAIR?

What has to be somewhat discouraging for GLAAD is that America is waking up to the fact that they’re not about ”gay” issues, they’re about Leftist issues. The Left is always happy to hijack whatever cause might help them to create ideological conformity, this just happens to be the latest one. And it won’t last much longer. 31% of gay Americans who voted in this month’s midterm elections voted Republican.

 The gay community is increasingly aware of the fact that a good-natured joke in a movie about electric cars is much less of a civil rights concern than an over-zealous Democratic party chip-chip-chipping away at our collective freedoms — and GLAAD’s pathetic attempt to disguise their complicity in that chipping away as some kind of righteous anti-bullying crusade fools no one.

Nope, this isn’t a gay thing, it’s a leftist thing. Any day of the week, I’d trade all the Patrick Goldsteins on the planet for just one GayPatriot — because that would be good for America.

Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times proclaims, Ignorance should be a punch line. Identity should not:

 Ignorance should be a punch line. Identity should not. Humor can be a tricky thing to analyze and can be easily (and lazily) defended against criticism by saying “it’s just a joke.” Vaughn himself, when defending this line in his film, said “Comedy and joking about our differences breaks tension and brings us together.” And while Vaughn is wrong about the joke in his movie accomplishing this end, “The Office” is a perfect example of humor getting it right.

“The Dilemma” is hardly the first movie to use the word “gay” in this way, but it has come along at a watershed moment in our culture. Hearing one’s very identity regularly used as a synonym for “inadequate” or “undesirable” on a daily basis does more than just hurt feelings. Recent events have made it abundantly and tragically clear the effect that anti-gay language and attitudes can have on young people who are gay or are perceived to be gay AND on the bullies who target them.

Would it change hearts and minds if Howard had made the decision to pull this line from the film? Would bullies suddenly realize the harm their behavior was causing and stop tormenting their victims? Would spontaneous hugging break out in the hallways of America’s schools? Of course not. But it would create a tiny space in our culture -– a window in which people could draw their own conclusions about what it means to be gay, without being told it’s something negative.

Both Goldstein and Howard asked if “comedy will be neutered” if Vince Vaughn’s character didn’t use the word “gay” to mean something to be made fun of. The answer is no. Acceptance of ridiculing gay people under the guise of “humor” would be neutered. And honestly, comedy might be better off if writers found more creative ways to make us laugh. Maybe a pie in the face?

Will we see a similar defense from Patrick Goldstein of Tea Partiers, conservatives, Christians, right-wingers, and Sarah Palin when pop culture rips their identities?

Rhetorical question… Rhetorical question…

The full-fledged ire of GLAAD, straight from the top of the organization, is laughable.  President Jarrett Barrios says, “There has been a rash of bullying, some leading to suicides, much of it because of the widespread belief that it’s somehow OK to say things about gay people that it is not OK to say about other groups. Comments like those in the movie make it seem OK to beat up gay people.”  So, electric cars are gay = it’s okay to commit violence against gay people.  Check.

Make no mistake:  it is an awful tragedy that Tyler Clementi killed himself because of the malicious, despicable humiliation he was subjected to.  To equivocate that with a goofy putdown of electric cars (and GLAAD does not know the context of this line; sounds like something to establish early on in Vaughn’s character arc that he’s insensitive) is not only moronic but as hypocritical as Fred Phelps asking for some peace and quiet at a funeral.  Why, you may say? One word:  teabaggers.

This week, Anderson Cooper shilled for GLAAD (they do those yearly TV browbeating reports, so I guess he’s hoping to get off lightly) and brought out his crocodile tears about how this one word in the movie trailer was offensive.  He and GLAAD must have forgotten how he helped bring an anti-homosexual pejorative into the mainstream of political discourse.  Between the daily crude assaults that Hollywood celebrities spit at everyday Americans petitioning their government and the all-but-violent anti-gay epithets hurled continuously at Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart, GLAAD has not uttered a peep.  Why?  They couldn’t give a flaming pile of crap about consistency, because that would mean betraying the principle of Absolute Power that’s defined the Left since… well, always.

This isn’t a fight for justice or equality.  A fight requires two active participants.  A mugging is more like it, or a demented kid kicking stray dogs on the street.  The last thing Ron Howard is going to do is respond to Jarrett Barrios and call him an idiotic coward.  He and Universal, who are bankrolling the film, are going to tuck their tails and do exactly as they’re told.  Barrios knows this, and he’s laughing all the way to the hit counter on his website.

Priorities.

Speaking of which, take a look over yonder to said website, and check out all the important things GLAAD is doing for the gay community.  Do you see any mention of Adam Lambert?  No?  That’s weird, because his free speech is being curtailed to appease Islamic protesters in Malaysia, a country where homosexual sex can land you in prison for 20 years.  You’d think that a statement like “Lambert is morally unfit. His gay lifestyle will harm our society. He is of bad, bad character and poses a danger to young Malaysians” from Nasrudin Hassan, a representatives of Malaysia’s Islamic Party, would merit more attention than “Electric cars are gay,” wouldn’t you?  But you just believe that because you have a spine, and you’re able to tell the difference between an annoyance and danger, between oppression and irreverence, you heteronormative hatemonger, you.

It’s no surprise that GLAAD’s still wearing politically correct blinders to guide their selective outrage.  In fact, it’s become so commonplace, it’s even easy to ignore, but we’re not gonna do that anymore.  The Left relies on it.  It’s time to hold this frivolous organization’s feet to the fire.  So allow me to announce:  Big Hollywood’s very own To-Do List for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation!

1. Speak out against censorship, accusations of moral degeneracy directed toward gay American pop star performing in Malaysia.

2. Pressure Iranian publications to profile gay couples in country to combat false statements from President, just like recent pressure for Essence.com to profile a lesbian married couple.

3. Upbraid Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, David Shuster, Keith Olbermann, Janeane Garofalo, Roger Ebert, D.C. Douglas, Bill Maher, Carrie Fisher, Brad Friedman, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Maxine Waters, John Kerry, The American Federation of Government Employees, National Public Radio, and President Obama for using “teabagger” as slur.

4. Investigate and publish names of individuals attempting to silence Andrew Breitbart by calling him gay while protesting at Right Nation 2010.

5. Make Marc Maron persona non grata for hateful bullying of recently outed Ken Mehlman.

And we’re just getting started here.  Commenters?

Politico:

Since Clint [Howard] isn’t an A-List Hollywood celebrity, he’s not too worried about how his conservative beliefs might affect his career.

“I’m in a good spot because, you know what? It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “The fact is, the studios aren’t banging down my door, the networks aren’t banging down my door. I work in a lot of little funky movies … so it’s not like I’m throwing everything away by stepping out of the closet.”

In fact, Howard said that he hopes his Heritage videos might actually help his acting career.

After playing so many goofy characters, he said, “selfishly for me, this was an opportunity for me to get a piece of tape of myself that is attorney-like, doctor-like, politician-like. … It was a nice opportunity as an actor to step up and show my skills.”

Still, he said, it would be wise for young Hollywood conservatives to exercise caution when speaking their minds.

“I’d tell young people trying to break into and succeed in the business: Be careful about this stuff,” he said.

“In general, we’ve all sort of kept our mouths shut,” Howard said of his Republican cohort. “A lot of us got fed up with the harsh attacks on President Bush when he made the decision to prosecute the first war in Afghanistan and then to make the move into Iraq. … On a few sets, I did not speak up. I wanted to, but there were some real liberal-minded people that were just throwing nasty stuff around about our president and I just felt like that’s what I wanted to do — fight back – and instead of fighting back, this like-minded fellowship has given us all a bit of release and a place to go and share.”

Read the full article here, except for Patrick Goldstein. He should start writing his angry, knee-jerk, corporate water-carrying immediately.

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From the Daily Caller:

Clint Howard told TheDC that he got involved with the project when an acquaintance of his, Eric Peterkofsky, approached him with the idea. “This is something that is right in my wheelhouse, both as an actor and as a conservative minded citizen,” Howard said. “I’d been looking for opportunities to do something like this and when it come up it seemed like a no brainer.”

Howard has no illusions of grandeur. According to him, celebrities who get too heavily involved in political activism can become tiresome. He hopes to avoid this pitfall and act soley as a concerned American.

“I understand that show business people can wear the public a bit thin when it comes to politics. I know they wear me thin,” Howard said. “I’m not a policy wonk and I don’t dream of being a political operative. My goal as a citizen is to do what I can to help the causes that I personally believe in. To me, it is the same as walking the precinct.”

Read the full Daily Caller piece here. ]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/05/actor-clint-howard-ridicules-dems-afraid-to-meet-the-voters/feed/ 76