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In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, C.I.A. Directors, Stimulus Road Signs, U.S. Dollar, College Republicans, Hybrid Cars, US Airways, Sylvester Stallone, and Joy Behar.

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.

2) They want to make money. And to make money these days, it means putting the world first, not America. Global tickets sales mean eliminating any scent of American justice – that evil Cowboy mentality that reminds the world we’re reliably awesome. But most important, it’s distasteful to consider a battle between good and evil when it’s happening today.

Because then, you have to choose.

Tonight we’ve got the lovely Lauren Sivan, Carl Cameron, Ron Geraci, and Dr. David Tolin, from the great show “Hoarders!” (love that show)

Here’s an excerpt:

Chapter Three

ACTORS TO ACTIVISTS

Sometimes activists happen to become actors and musicians. It happens more than we might think. And why not? It takes a natural drive and outspoken ambition to claw into stardom. So it makes sense that many famous names and faces have something to say – and it’s not off a script. 

Robin Bronk heads The Creative Coalition, the leading political advocacy group for show business. Bronk says nowadays “celebrities need an agent, a manager, a publicist and an issue.” Saving the spotted owl or protesting against landmines isn’t necessarily good for an acting career, but it shows how the power of celebrity can be used to change minds. “There’s no need to check your citizenship at the stage door,” says Bronk.  All of this idealism can come off as goofy to a Washington desk-jockey. But it is wise not to brush it off; celebrities at the top of their game can successfully push an agenda straight through the stuffiest bureaucracy. 

Senate Dining Room, Washington, D.C., 1970’s Actor Marlon Brando dines with Senator Charles Percy (R-IL).  Brando wrote in Songs my Mother Taught Me, “Simply because you’re a movie star, people empower you with special rights and privileges.”  Brando grew to understand those privileges using his influence to stump for civil rights, better treatment for Native Americans and fair housing. (Photo courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office)

Political media sage and songwriter Mark McKinnon notes, “musicians especially almost always represent the anti-establishment, the voice without power.” Think of activist musicians like Bob Dylan, Bono and Peter, Paul and Mary.  McKinnon continues, “part of the Hollywood-Washington relationship is finding the art of the possible.” 

The result of all this goodwill and ambition can lead to some offbeat alliances — exotic film actress Angelina Jolie plots refugee camp security with Sen. Richard Lugar, trailblazing baseball player Jackie Robinson turns up the heat on President Eisenhower for civil rights and rock star Bono and President George W. Bush buddy up over AIDS policies. 

Grand Foyer, The White House, October 1985 Pres. Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan pose with action star Sylvester Stallone and his wife actress Brigitte Nielsen during a State Dinner for Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.  What better way to impress a head of state – invite Rambo to dinner. (Photo Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.)

There is plenty historic evidence that Hollywood is a powerful mouthpiece for political candidates or issues. In World War II, Rita Hayworth, Bing Crosby, and Fred Astaire asked Americans to buy War Bonds to support U.S. forces. Hollywood played a prominent role in the civil rights movement as stars such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Sammy Davis Jr. led marches on Washington in the 1960’s. Dan Glickman sees Hollywood from both the political side and within the film industry as the president and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America. “When a celebrity shows up at your hearing on Capitol Hill,” he notes, “you are guaranteed to have a full room of reporters, staff members – and it usually means more congressmen show up too.” Whatever the result, it is always great theater when actors turn into activists.

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1. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) – A beautifully crafted uniquely American movie where, for once, the antagonist isn’t “the system” or “the racist system.” Chris Gardner (a superb Will Smith) wants something from life. He believes in this country and understands the key to achieving the dream is simple: never, ever give up. A superb script, based on a true story (the real Gardner has a touching cameo in the closing scene) never once takes the grinding pressure off, but aided by genuinely decent people (white Wall Streeters, no less) and driven by a love for his son, rather than play victim, Gardner keeps moving forward long after most of us would’ve surrendered to self pity. Movies don’t get much more conservative than this.

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2. Rocky Balboa (2006) – The second great patriotic/conservative movie of 2006 and the most pleasant surprise of that year. This movie should’ve sucked but after fifteen years in the wilderness (five of them in the straight-to-DVD bin) writer/director Sylvester Stallone went back to the basics of character, plot, the universal theme of what drives the human spirit, and crafted a movie that only gets better with each new viewing. There’s a second great moment in “Rocky Balboa,” this essential truism: “It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

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3. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) – The scene’s closing line sums up the theme of this under-rated, very entertaining bio of The Mighty Bruce Lee. Driven to achieve great success, Lee understands that only in America can his dreams come true. So deep is his love for this country that the film’s crisis point comes when he loses faith in the American Dream after a number of setbacks (thanks mainly to racist Hollywood). But of course, Lee became and remains an American Icon, unfortunately he didn’t live to see it. Though there’s rumors he’s not dead: “They got him frozen in carbonite down under Chatsworth. They’re gonna melt him down as soon as the economy gets better.”

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4. Rudy (1993) – This movie has never made me cry. Not once. Ever. Really. I don’t lie about such things.

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5. Superman II (1980) – Just a little something to prime my blazing hatred for Bryan Singer’s despicable Truth, justice and all that stuff… “Superman Returns” (2006), which stripped our hero of both his masculinity and Americanism. Not only that, “Returns” is supposed to pick up where part two left off, but again Singer displays only contempt for what Superman is about: his valor. As you can see in this scene, the second chapter closes with Superman promising to never let us down again, but Singer’s sucktacular sequel opens after Superman’s abandoned us for a few years, off trying to find his meterosexual self.

And with that, Happy Birthday, America! Thank you for everything, especially our best; those fine men and women guarding the wall today.

Every once in awhile an action film comes along that revives. That proves that — no matter how strong the political correctness of an age, no matter how pale and pathetic its notions of masculinity, no matter how much Ritalin is force-fed to little boys, no matter how many toy guns, xylophone mallets, and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots get banned from stores and playgrounds — there are certain aspects of the male soul that are inviolate, and certain primal yearnings that are evergreen. Taken (2008) is one of those films, and its release last week on DVD and Blu-ray should be heralded by lovers of all things red-blooded, hairy-chested, and morally sound.

When this movie appeared in the doldrums of Hollywood’s off-season, it was expected to die a quick death in a marketplace filled with audiences either too sophisticated or too sophomoric to respond. Modern theatergoers, the theory goes, increasingly want their “heroes” to be either brooding Abercrombie & Fitch nymphets like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, feckless stumblebums like Ben Stiller and Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s Kevin James, quirky class cut-ups like Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, or silly video-game tough guys like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. When an actor does put some honest testosterone in his performance — Daniel Craig in Munich (2005), Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008) — it’s inevitably to make a much larger point about violence breeding only more violence, all of it equally reprehensible, a product of way too many pesky males wreaking havoc in primitive bursts of knuckle-dragging temper.

 We are led to believe that if only The View and Oprah could become required therapy for guys, if only there were enough copies of How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger to go around, if only enough Neanderthals were herded into sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training, then gee, what a wonderful world it would be. In recent years, only Sly Stallone’s lumbering but effective Rambo (2008) (tagline: “Heroes never die. . .they just reload”) has dared to flip a fully unapologetic middle finger at Hollywood’s human potential movement, offering up a wholesome, rejuvenating hero of implacable moral certitude bathed in the blood of his hated enemies.

Director Pierre Morel and writer/producer Luc Besson’s Taken follows in that film’s laudable footsteps, but significantly ups the ante by adding intelligent layers of real-world characterization to its steel-tipped judgments. The overarching villain in Taken is not a cat-stroking, monocled megalomaniac, nor a motley army of interchangeable third-world guerrillas, but an attitude. A NIMBY (”not in my backyard”) policy practiced by an entire assembly-line of well-imagined kidnappers, pimps, concierges, businessmen, cops, and Sydney Greenstreet sheiks — American, French, Albanian, Arab — all of whom are perfectly content to participate in and profit from the great evil of sex slavery as long as it’s not their daughters being fed into the meat grinder.

Social conservatives have long highlighted the very real plight of women and children across the globe being forced into prostitution (see Donna Hughes, Claudia Barlow and Big Hollywood’s Kathryn Lopez, all at National Review Online). But it’s the rare Hollywood action film that eschews absurdly convoluted plots of world domination or mass destruction in favor of a setup utterly chilling in its innate on-the-ground plausibility. In this age of Natalee Holloway-style sensationalism, what parents haven’t worried about their daughter heading off on a trip? Using this potent, universal fear as a linchpin with which to hold together the stunts, fights, and pandemonium was a stroke of genius, and elevates the audience’s emotional investment far above that of any other action film in recent memory.

As the film’s star, Liam Neeson, stalks through Taken’s miserable underworld of murderous degenerates and silky-smooth predator elites, he is continually faced with the gangland version of the same bureaucratic nightmares that so often terrorize our real workaday lives. “I sit behind a desk now,” a French policeman “friend” tells him by way of rejecting his pleas for help, “I take my orders from someone who sits behind a bigger desk. . . .my salary is X, my expenses are Y. As long as my family is provided for, I do not care where the difference comes from.” When at long last Neeson’s Bryan Mills, captured and defenseless, confronts the man capable of freeing his daughter with a nod of his immaculately coiffed head, the exchange is one that, but for the life-and-death stakes, could have occurred at any DMV or post office:

ST-CLAIR: “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

MILLS: “The last girl — I’m her father.”

ST-CLAIR: “Oh my. . . .”

MILLS: “Give her to me.”

ST-CLAIR: “I wish I could — honestly. See, I’m a father myself. I have two sons, and a daughter. But let me tell you something, Mr. whoever-you-are. This is a business. This is a very unique business with a very unique clientele.”

MILLS: “I’ll pay!”

ST-CLAIR: “This business you have no refunds, no returns, no discounts, no buybacks. All sales are final. Besides, discretion is about the only rule we have.” [turning to his henchmen] “Kill him. Quietly — I have guests.”

Translation: you didn’t fill out the right form/pay the proper postage/return the item by the deadline, so your daughter is going to spend the rest of her life as a burqa-wearing blow-up doll. I’m oh-so-sorry — next customer, please. . . .

Set against these smiling, Armani-clad, ever-so-reasonable slave traders is a man with “a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you,” a man of such singular purpose and moral clarity that we believe him when he promises to “tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to” to find his daughter. A lifetime of living far from the sterilized bubble-universes of political correctness and cradle-to-grave pampering has taught him that there is no negotiating with such scum, no possible penance or rehabilitation, no shrugging at or sympathizing with the worldview they represent. They are the enemy, the nemesis of everything he holds dear as a Judeo-Christian, as an American, and as a father. Against that evil, blood is the only disinfectant.

One of the chief joys of the picture is watching how each defeated villain squeals like a stuck pig and falls over himself to appeal to the hero’s mercy — the very sense of decency they never displayed while engaged in their own unfettered cruelties. “We can resolve this,” one pleads, as if trying to calm down an irate customer returning a defective blender. “I know how you feel. We should talk. We could work this out.” Each time, our hero sees these empty entreaties for what they are: the soulless cries of scorpions unexpectedly denied the use of their sting.

The frontier justice meted out is swift, brutal, and thoroughly satisfying — which means, of course, that the resulting carnage was decried by horrified movie critics as “lowest-common-denominator trash,” a “risible male-re-empowerment fantasy,” an “unsavory mix of sentimentality and high-octane seediness,” and a “post-Sept. 11 throwback to the most primitive movie melodramas.” My, my — how nice to see liberals bitching about a film getting an inappropriate PG-13 rating for a change! Meanwhile, those males around the country who remain proudly unreconstructed — and also, based on the audience I saw the film with, the women who love them — cheered as each doom-laden verdict was rendered:

“I believe you — but it won’t save you.” FFFFZZZZZZZZZ.

“You could have made this much less painful if you had been more concerned about my daughter and less concerned with your goddamned desk.” WHAM!

“It wasn’t personal!” “It was all personal to me.” BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

By the end, the hero’s determination reaches such a fever pitch that he doesn’t even spare a moment for the usual Hollywood banter with the arch-villain cowering behind his terrified human shield: “We can nego–” BLAM! A thunderous exclamation applied with diamond-sharp moral certainty, without a single iota of doubt or remorse. As it should be.

(from left: Jon Gries, Leland Orser, and David Warshofsky)

If there ends up being a sequel to this film, I hope they do it right. Leave behind the kidnapping meme and take on another of the many moral outrages to be found in the progressive multikulti worldview. Bring back Neeson’s three CIA buddies — portrayed by character actors Leland Orser (the real-life husband of Jeanne Tripplehorn, the lucky dog), Jon Gries, and David Warshofsky — and this time give them some real things to do and good lines to say. And for Pete’s sake, don’t have them betray each other, and don’t kill them off for cheap thrills — let them be heroes. Above all, keep the emotional core of the film real and honest, and do your best to drive the heterophobes and misandrists nuts.

Every action movie is filled with its share of stupid implausibilities, but there is nothing stupid about a father’s love for his daughter, and nothing implausible about the sex-trafficking nightmare portrayed in Taken. The legalize-prostitution crowd has gotten a lot of mileage out of putting a reasonable, libertarian face on the whole sordid business, reminding us that, after all, it’s “the world’s oldest profession.” Taken answers back with a growl: “No — the world’s oldest profession is father.” And fathers, for those who need reminding, are men. Males. X-Y.

At the end of the day, when all of the sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training falls away, the male of the species is a killer, the keeper of a bloody heroic ideal that winds through our history and through our myths, back through Snorri Sturluson and Luo Guanzhong, Shakespeare and Malory, Virgil and Homer, and ultimately the Old Testament and beyond. Countless women and children owe their lives and happiness to the men who tread grim paths of death in their defense. Just as many owe their misery to the failure of some men to honor that age-old crimson burden.

The self-loathing ninnies in Hollywood can spend millions of dollars to make Greedo shoot first, or to airbrush shotguns out of scenes. But such pale attempts at enforcing nanny-state ethics amount to little more than spitting into a merciless wind, the harbinger of a hard, isolate, stoic truth that has never yet melted.

It contains some action sequences, including one where Steve Austin and Eric Roberts outrace an explosion, shots of Sly directing gunplay and a very low flyover from what looks like a disabled seaplane.

While the blog says Stallone has “lost 32 pounds since Rambo and currently weighs in at 180,” I don ‘t believe it.

The guy’s arms are still as big as my legs. And if you look at them closely you can see some of the faux tattoo work his character sports in the film poking out from underneath his sleeves.

The footage also gives a sense of what it would be like to work with Stallone: He seems focused, professional, and fun (expressing his pleasure with the flyover shot with the phrase, “That’s sex!”).

The video, which Sly apparently edited, also includes a little taste of what his life’s like after the day’s work has ended.

This section of the shoot took place in Rio, at a palatial home just below the famous Jesus statue.

As Sly walks back to his hotel one night, fans line the streets screaming and taking pictures from behind barricades. (They did this every evening, apparently.)

He walks through the crowd after a long day, and he’s shaking hands, posing for pictures, etc., when one young woman breaks through and mauls him with a desperate hug.

Guess that’s just what it’s like filming overseas with one of the world’s last, great action heroes.

Based on the Wildstorm/DC comics series, “Red” could see Willis playing a retired CIA black-ops badass who is forced to take action when an assassin threatens both he and his girlfriend. The film is being produced by Summit Entertainment, the studio responsible for the “Twilight” series. Willis’s deal has not been finalized, but it could be a sweet one since, as Summit production chief Eric Feig told me a few weeks ago, he sees “Red” as another potential franchise.

Not many fifty-something actors get those kinds of offers.

Willis may also play the lead in ”Scarpa,” about the real life FBI deep cover agent who helped bring down New York’s Columbo crime family from the inside.

He’s also in talks to play a detective on the trail of a murderer in “Inventory,” set for Kevin Smith’s buddy picture/cop comedy ”A Couple of Dicks” and soon-to-be seen in the futuristic actioner “Surrogates.”

That film takes place in a world where housebound humans interact via robotic surrogates. Willis plays (surprise!) a cop who must leave his home for the first time in years to investigate a string of murders. That sounds cool.

It’s interesting to see Willis going back to the kind of roles that made him most popular, much the way Sylvester Stallone has done with Rambo, Rocky and “The Expendables.”

There are very few real action heroes anymore, and even fewer who can maintain their macho into their 50s and 60s.

Alongside Stallone there may only be Harrison Ford and his fictional father Sean Connery. Does Willis have what it takes? Hollywood seems to think so.

Whenever I’m feeling a little down, Streisand’s rousing, patriotic rendition of “Before the Parade Passes By” (from the Hello, Dolly! soundtrack) is the next best thing to shooting up a Diet Rockstar.  The movie may be deadly, but that track is classic Barbra: starts out quiet, plaintive, then slowly builds to an almost militaristic crescendo of chorus, trumpets, beating drums – and Babs, screaming her head off above it all with a heroic, never-ending high note that sounds like a war cry.

I know - that’s so gay.  But for me, the song is musical comfort food – and proof of the power of the human spirit: a rusty Main Street USA antique, shined up and brought back to life by a disadvantaged ugly duckling from Brooklyn, with a voice straight from God, who beat the odds.  That’s when Streisand was still one of a kind.

But that was 1969.  This is now.  Today, “Before the Parade Passes By” would probably be called something like “Whenever the Trans-Cultural Community Gathering Happens to Reconvene.”  And it would probably be sung by Sheryl Crow.

But I digress.  In the massive Malibu mudslide of post-9/11 celebrity Bush-bashings and anti-war ravings, it’s easy to forget that one of La-La land’s first star bloggers, Barbra Streisand - who, to her credit, started out way back when as a JFK-era Democrat - was once a unique and groundbreaking entertainer.  She was also an underdog.  The little girl with the unapologetic schnoz (and the even bigger voice) smashed the 1950s WASPy standard of female beauty and clawed her way up from the gay clubs of Greenwich Village to star on Broadway and win every major show biz award, including two Oscars.

Streisand was the first unabashedly Jewish leading lady to play love scenes opposite superstar hunks like Robert Redford and Ryan O’Neal, and even Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif.   Her on-screen kiss with Sharif probably did more to provoke Arab-Israeli dialogue than any of Obama’s grand words.  (”You think Cairo was upset?” she quipped when Funny Girl was released in 1968.  “You should have seen the letter I got from my Aunt Rose!”) 

Musically, Streisand was a true diva, who could turn an ordinary standard into a three-act mini-drama in itself – the pop equivalent of an operatic mad scene.  Like Judy Garland and opera star Maria Callas – who both came from broken, dysfunctional homes – Streisand lost her birth father before she was two and endured a difficult relationship with her stepfather.  She grew up feeling like she didn’t fit in, harboring a tiny seed of anger to combat overwhelming sadness.  That kernel of rage eventually grew into an all-out, three-alarm fire in the belly, the kind that fuels many great performers.

From the start, I wasn’t so much into the sensitive, people-who-need-people Barbra as I was the show-stopping Godzilla who could obliterate her competition with one loud, elongated belt.  No matter how much Sir Cecil Beaton adorned her, she was still a street fighter.  

Streisand first stormed my consciousness during a network broadcast of Vincente Minnelli’s lavish but butchered On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), an unlikely musical about past life regression (well before Shirley MacLaine got in on the act).  Barbra’s exuberant closing rendition of the title song as she is superimposed against a vast, heavenly sky – all Dusty Springfield hand gestures, Arnold Scaasi couture, and vocal sonic blasts – blew me away.  Nearly 40 years later, despite its bombast, the song has never been sung better.

As a lonely gay teenager, I was bolstered by her striking combination of emotion (feminine) and seeming invincibility (masculine).  Streisand’s raw histrionics and police siren strength gave me hope that one day I’d be grown up too, living an independent life, free of shame.  Perhaps that heightened duality is what qualifies performers like Streisand and Garland as “gay icons.”  At the risk of sounding like a stereotype, her defiant voice helped me get through a lot of dark days.

Delving into Streisandiana, I soon discovered she was equally adept at bringing humanity to a range of non-singing roles.  She went all “street” as an insecure prostitute in The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), turned on the coy quirks as an eccentric genius in Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and gave an atypical, understated performance as a neglected housewife with a rich fantasy life in the forgotten Up the Sandbox (also in ‘72).

While the last film remains something of a blur to me (I haven’t seen it since its first run), one particularly bizarre scene stands out.  Barbra’s character is about to make love with Fidel Castro (don’t ask me the details) when, suddenly, the Cuban dictator removes his shirt to reveal a pair of female breasts.  The significance?  Anybody’s guess.  But probably to show a softer side of the beloved tyrant.  In another subplot, Streisand gets mixed up with some colorful Black Panther types who are planning to blow up the Statue of Liberty.

Those were the days when we could still joke about such things.  Rebelling against the Hollywood jingoism of The Green Berets, long-haired studio execs were exploiting the counter-culture, turning it into slick, subversive propaganda for impressionable young Americans like me.  By 1975, the post-Watergate, post-McGovern election loss, left-wing victim belief system was as much a part of the show biz establishment as the March of Time newsreels had once been.  All my favorite stars – Streisand, MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty – seemed to drink Kool-aid from the same “Democrats good, Republicans bad” trough.

I’ll never forget, for example, seeing Shirley MacLaine’s wonderful one-woman show at the legendary Palace Theatre in New York (I think it was 1975).  The lyrics of her opening number, “Remember Me,” were tailored to drum home her liberal martyrdom:

“In Washington, my name was on the enemies list!

Because I was a Democrat, they slapped my wrist! 

The candidate we needed was The Excorcist!  [big sh*t-eating smile]

Re-mem-ber me…”

As a clueless 15-year-old, dazzled by show biz razzmatazz, I assumed this sentiment signalled an enlightened path.  MacLaine and Streisand both had campaigned for anti-Vietnam Presidential candidate George McGovern (I loved Barbra’s Live Concert at the Forum album – a fundraiser during which she proved her hipness by smoking a joint on stage between songs!).  And wasn’t MacLaine a sophisticated world traveler who had been granted a glimpse of utopia on a much bally-hooed, ladies-only trip to Mao’s People’s Republic of China?

In her second memoir, We Can Get There from Here, MacLaine shared how her brief junket in totalitarian paradise made her take a good, hard look at her own egotistical, Western artistic needs. She described how, in China, she came to feel “a sense of strength, a common bond among these people, joined together in a common task.  They were not producing junk to sell for profit in some second-rate department store.  They were feeding China…. it slowly dawned on me… perhaps we were simply blank pages upon which our characters are written by parents, schools, churches, and the society itself.”

And perhaps by the guilt-alleviating delusions of spoiled actors and actresses?  MacLaine, of course, went right back to the spotlight.  And I kept on devouring her books (but lost interest by the time she became a mouthpiece for preachy space aliens and light beings).

(Both MacLaine and Streisand also campaigned for vaguely radical New York congresswoman Bella Abzug, whom Babs described as a “very special lady… dedicated to peace.”  For the record, I’m here to say there was nothing “peaceful” about Abzug, who once stormed into my family’s apartment in the middle of the day, mistakenly thinking it was for rent.  After imperiously casing the joint - without once making eye contact with any of us, the actual tenants (a.k.a. “the people”) – La Abzug marched out without even a perfunctory apology.  It was more than a little frightening.)

Meanwhile, my favorite singing dark horse was changing, gradually drifting further and further away from my devoted commoner’s ear.

By 1975, when Streisand reprised her Oscar-winning role of Fanny Brice for Funny Lady, the dreary sequel to Funny Girl, rumors of divatude were becoming all too common.  One item claimed that Barbra had ordered award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond to allow her eight-year-old son to frame some of the shots.  (Zsigmond was soon replaced by James Wong Howe.)

Around that time, I happened to meet respected stage and screen actress Estelle Parsons, one of Streisand’s costars in the comedy For Pete’s Sake.  When I excitedly asked Parsons what Barbra was really like, she paused.  Then she gently offered an anecdote about how, in the middle of shooting one of their scenes together, Streisand had abruptly announced she would deliver all her lines to actor Michael Sarrazin instead, essentially cutting Parsons out of the moment.

“You just don’t do that,” Parsons said nicely.

The Barbra Streisand-Kris Kristofferson rock-n-roll remake of A Star Is Born opened the following year, accompanied by a frenzy of bad publicity.  Both New York and New West magazines published a scathing article by the film’s director, Frank Pierson, which detailed the exasperating experience of working with the now-legendary “perfectionist” and control freak.  Even Kristofferson said, “Filming with Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of the movies.”

Critic Rex Reed called A Star Is Born ”stupid, cacophonous and unnecessary” and likened the faux rock songs to the sound of trash can lids being banged together.  (At the screening I saw, a man sitting behind me, clearly dragged there by his wife, groaned loudly during one of Barbra’s most dramatic moments, “God, what a dog!”)  Still, the movie pulled in nearly $100 million at the box office, and Streisand was rewarded with a second Oscar, for writing the Best Original Song, “Evergreen.”

I was glad for Barbra, but even at that young age I didn’t think “Evergreen” deserved any awards.  The song was just another one-note Top 40 ballad, with no drama, no story.  I missed the formula of Barbra’s old repertoire, the predictable-but-oh-so-satisfying rollercoaster rise and fall of her interpretations.  But musical tastes were changing, and Streisand wasn’t about to let the parade pass her by.

Not even I could bring myself to see her next film, the tacky boxing comedy, The Main Event.  But there was no escaping the horrendous disco theme song that was so beneath Babs’s talent.  Suddenly, Barbra didn’t seem to be calling the shots anymore; she seemed to have given up and given in – pimping out her unique voice just to stay in the game.

It was over.  I was done.

I didn’t go out of my way to see another Streisand film until The Prince of Tides (1991), which she both starred in and directed.  Based on the novel by Pat Conroy, the non-musical drama about the relationship between a Manhattan psychiatrist (Babs) and a tormented Southerner (Nick Nolte) was pretty heavy stuff - except whenever Barbra’s legs and nails got in the frame.  Pushing 50, Barbra seemed determined to prove to the world that she was still “hot.”  And yes, she looked great.

But she had sacrificed an otherwise serious film in order to be ogled by, as Norma Desmond put it, those wonderful people out there in the dark.  Was there no one advising this lady?

Looking back – i.e. her liner notes for the album Lazy Afternoon - Streisand seemed increasingly preoccupied with her personal feelings (as opposed to musical interpretations), her looks, and in particular her nails.  By the mid-1990s, almost all traces of the resourceful underdog from Brooklyn had been lost under a golden patina of narcissistic New Age softness.  During the making of Yentl, Streisand had been outspoken about reconnecting with her Jewish roots.  How had that reawakening given way to this cautious wax figure?

Again, I felt let down.  Someone who had once been a lifeline seemed to be disappearing before my eyes.  Where was my old street fighter?  While Judy Garland remained true to herself to the bitter end, a riveting mess – and the ghoulish “lost” recordings of Maria Callas, while harsh, continued to serve as phrasing blueprints for less-intelligent opera singers – Streisand’s vocalizing lost much of its spontaneity and intensity.  It seemed the more she shared select intimacies about her “self,” the more untouchable and less compelling she became as an artist.

Did success spoil Barbra Streisand – or, like many Americans, was her focus forever changed by the attacks of September 11th, 2001?

Shortly after that dreadful day, the star began using her official website, www.barbrastreisand.com, to post her now-infamous “Truth Alerts” (”for clarifying significant errors in credible media so that such distortions do not become accepted as truth, as might be the case if they were unchallenged”) and to blog about current events (i.e. against fear-mongering conservatives mostly) – paving the way for the likes of Rosie O’Donnell and, more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow.

Here are some relatively benign samplings (taken out of context, yes, but characteristic nonetheless):

*  “The fact that nearly every major news institution in this country is owned by a large corporation indicates that liberal media simply does not exist anymore.”  Excuse me, Ms. Streisand, but have you watched CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CNN or read the NYT lately?

*  “The press does not criticize Republican actors Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlton Heston for expressing their strongly-held political opinions.”  Excuse me, Ms. Streisand, but I never once heard anyone in the press do anything but call Reagan senile, Schwarzenegger stupid, and Heston a bigot.

*  “Who is Sarah Palin?…  I know she’s a beauty pageant runner-up who is a gun totin’ extremist in her views on the environment, religion, women’s choice and the separation of church and state.”  Excuse me, Ms. Streisand, but please see response to first excerpt.

*  “The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth.  If only it were true, we might have a more humane, open-minded, and ultimately effective public debate on the issues facing the country.”  Excuse me, Ms. Streisand, but the lack of humanity, the close-mindedness, and the increasingly lemming-like state of our populace isn’t all the fault of one channel (Fox News).

In addition to shilling for Dennis Kucinich’s impeach Cheney resolution, Barbra also offers the great uninformed (that’s you) links to some of her favorite even-handed websites such as the Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars, The Huffington Post, Truthout.org, and the Center for American Progress.  (Guess she blanked on Big Hollywood.)

In 2003, Babs was back in the headlines when she sued California environmentalist Kenneth Adelman for $50 million.  His crime: taking an aerial photograph of her Malibu estate and posting it online – along with 11,999 other such shots - as part of the California Coastal Records Project documenting erosion.

Claiming the single photo jeopardized her privacy, the woman who established the Streisand Chair on Global Climatic Change at the Environmental Defense Fund – and who, according to Prince of Tides author Pat Conroy, “lives like Marie Antoinette” - achieved the exact opposite: more than 420,000 curious people clicked on the website for a glimpse of her mansion.

Backfiring of this magnitude became known as “The Streisand Effect.”

Then, in 2006, Barbra made news again during her umpteenth farewell tour.  Between songs, the star indulged in a drawn-out Bush-bashing comedy skit featuring a ”W” impersonator (not Josh Brolin).  (Note: two years earlier, Streisand had been the first Hollywood star to threaten to leave the country if Bush won reelection.  She didn’t follow through.)  Fans, some of whom had taken out loans on their homes in order to afford the best $1000 seats, wanted to hear the great Streisand sing – not lecture them.

But when her audience voiced its disapproval, what did Barbra do?  She lashed out with a very un-New Agey “Shut the f*ck up!”  Here’s the video:

–

Yes, the street fighter was back – only this time she wasn’t fighting for the hoi polloi, she was trying to shout them down.  All of this was having a real Streisand Effect on me.

For instance, I wondered why this world-famous Jewess, who breathed damning fire onto the leaders of her own country, didn’t instead use her high profile to denounce the barbaric ideology that had declared war on us.  Why wasn’t Streisand out there, front and center, raising her vocal cords in support of women in Islamic countries, who aren’t treated as well as American pets?

Why wasn’t she defending the gays – without whom she wouldn’t have a career - who were daily being shunned in Dubai, brutalized in Palestine, executed in Iran?  Gay marriage is great, but how about fighting for our lives?  Between AIDS (which Babs has raised money for) and Islam, the battle isn’t over yet.

Had no one invited Barbra to join Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and 76 other Hollywood hot shots and lend her name to a full-page newspaper ad condemning the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by Hamas and Hezbollah?  Just asking.

Maybe the so-called “War on Terror” was too closely linked with Babs’s own personal Taliban, the Bush administration.  In 2006, the singer cancelled a performance in Jerusalem for an event honoring the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.  Streisand offered no reason why she bowed out, but the Israeli newspaper Maariv quoted unidentified officials who suggested she had changed her mind because President George W. Bush was planning to visit at the same time.

A diva of her stature could shed plenty of light on the new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping the globe and on the millions of people still living in the dark shadow of militant Islam.  That’s a Streisand effect I’d like to see.  But maybe that’s too much to ask from the self-proclaimed feminist who reportedly demands that fresh rose petals be scattered in her toilet bowl when she’s on the road.  Then again, maybe she’s just scared (you can’t sing very well if you lose your head – literally).

Finally, in December 2008, Babs came face-to-face with her longtime nemesis - the war-mongering Leader of the Free World she hailed as ”frightening” – at the Kennedy Center Honors.  But “W’ turned out to be far from the monster she’d been fantasizing about for so many years.

As she confessed on her website: “It was just as surprising to me, as it apparently was to the press, that upon meeting President Bush and extending my hand to him, he said to me, ‘Aw c’mon, gimme a hug and a kiss,’ and then he proceeded to embrace me…. I must say, I found him very warm and completely disarming… even though I think he was kissing me hello as I was kissing him goodbye.” 

Still, Streisand couldn’t resist getting in one last dig about his wink (”which he must have passed on to Sarah Palin”).  Did she ever stop to consider just how many of her die-hard fans probably voted for the man?

Having avoided the hyper-immortality that comes with junkiedom and early death – that kind that keeps Garland, Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf selling records from beyond the grave - Barbara Joan Streisand, formerly of Brooklyn, has instead blossomed into a healthy, wealthy high priestess of a new Democratic regime that’s no longer of the working people (unless they’re “undocumented,” of course), but serves mostly to soothe the collective guilty conscious of the Oprah class.

What’s the saying?  “Old limousine liberals never die, they just fade away.”  (The real Marie Antoinette didn’t have that option.)  Celebrities today are the vanguard in a new kind of bourgeois revolution – the real downside of capitalism run amok.

Barbra Streisand is now just another privileged star whose work – like that of Rosie O’Donnell, Tina Fey, and 9/11 Truther Christine Ebersole - this gay fan, for one, can no longer enjoy.  Because once a performer, no matter how great, trades in the stage for the pretentious platform of liberal evangelism, there’s no coming back.  The peasants aren’t that forgiving.

But thanks for the memories.

Walking past the outdoor patio of a gay club just the other night, I noticed all the patrons’ heads turned in the same direction, transfixed by an image on the big video screen inside.  It was Streisand, belting out the the final scene of On a Clear Day – still fresh, vibrant, powerful.  Nearly four decades later, that nostalgic clip of the amazing 28-year-old misfit could still silence a room.

That’s the way I choose to remember her.

Each has written and is directing an action-laden ensemble piece about a group of misfits battling a foreign dictator.

Stallone flexes, fires and wreaks havok on a South American despot

In Stallone’s case, he has an all-star lineup of B-movie badasses – including Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lungren, Steve Austin and Eric Roberts – playing mercenaries on a mission to overthrow a South American dictator. 

The born-again Stallone has certainly earned his patriot’s stripes with the Rambo and Rocky films.

In a leaked character still from the film, he’s also looking more badass at 62 than most of us look at 22. (On set pics have also been released, one of which is above and the rest of which can be found at Empire.com.)

In the other corner we have recent American Idol mentor and former Mira Sorvino flame Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino’s extracurricular activities may put him at a disadvantage, but he is a very talented director of action and has an ace up his sleeve: his heroes are fighting Hitler.

Tarantino’s WWII-era “Inglorious Basterds” stars Brad Pitt, Mike Myers, Eli Roth and Til Schweiger. It follows a group of Jewish-American soldiers dropped behind enemy lines with one explicit purpose: kill Nazis.

A recently-released featurette (below) and the film’s first trailer make it look a bit like a grindhouse version of “The Dirty Dozen.” The trailer actually has Pitt’s character demanding 100 Nazi scalps from each recruit. 

 –

So which gets your vote?

Jordana Brewster is reunited with Vin, Paul and Michelle in FAST & FURIOUS

Universal seems to have answered that question by getting its successful street racing franchise back into the fast lane this weekend with Fast & Furious. The movie, which reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for the first time since 2001’s original surprise blockbuster, has exploded to a high octane $30.11M or so on Friday and that could mean a $70M opening weekend. That would make it the all-time #1 opening for a car racing movie.

Pixar's beloved CARS will likely have only the second-best opening for an auto racing movie by Monday

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENINGS FOR AUTO RACING MOVIES
1. Fast & Furious (2009) – $70M opening (projected)
2. Cars – $60.1M opening
3. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) – $50.4M opening
4. Talladega Nights – $47M opening
5. The Fast & The Furious (2001) – $40M opening
6. The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) – $24M opening
7. Speed Racer – $18.5M opening
8. Days of Thunder – $15.5M opening
9. Herbie: Fully Loaded – $12.7M opening
10. Death Race – $12.6M opening

How big is that $30.11M opening day? It is the all-time biggest debut gross for any movie not released in the summer peak (May – July) and the November-December holiday period.

ALL-TIME BIGGEST OPENING DAYS FOR NON-PEAK RELEASES
- non-peak is defined as May thru July & November-December -
1. Fast & Furious (2009) – $30.11M opening day (estimated)
2. 300 – $28.1M opening day
3. Passion of the Christ – $26.5M opening day
4. Watchmen – $24.5M opening day
5. Ice Age: The Meltdown – $21.7M opening day

The Fast franchise has an odd history. 2001’s The Fast & The Furious scored a blistering $40M opening weekend and reached $144.5M domestic and over $200M worldwide. Then the enigmatic Diesel decided that he didn’t like the script for the proposed sequel. Boyz n the Hood’s John Singleton took the reigns from Rob Cohen and Walker returned for 2 Fast 2 Furious, which still scorted an impressive $127M in the US sans Diesel. Then in 2006, Universal rebooted without Diesel or Walker with The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift, and the fan base eroded considerably as the poorly-received movie generated only $62.5M after a sluggish $23.9M 3-day start.

Now, the original cast returns with Tokyo Drift director Justin Lin at the helm, and those Under 25 Males are showing up (dragging their girlfriends no doubt), and the reaction across the social networking platform Twitter is very telling. The first thing I noticed. Lots of sellouts and long lines.

• damn fast and furious full till 11
• Standing in line for Fast and Furious earlier show was sold out. I so hope it is worth this.
• Didn’t realize fast and furious would do so much business.
• Just saw Fast & Furious. It was crazazy. The theater was packed and every show was sold out. I loved it!
• Waiting in line to see Fast and Furious. Really long line!
• too many people watching fast and furious tonight!
• is watching monsters vs. aliens, only because Fast and Furious was sold out. :/

As far as instant reaction from the Twitteratti, it seems roughly split 60% positive and 40% negative. Here are some “thumbs up” Tweets.

• Just hopped outta Fast and Furious. Forget 2 and 3, this was the real sequel. Better than you hope it’ll be, I promise.
• new fast and furious = AMAZING
• Fast and Furious 4… wow, what a movie! For boys, that is.
• Fast and Furious 4, great action movie. It’s as good as the first one. SpitBaby gives it 4 of 5 stars.
• Saw Fast and Furious tonight. It was pretty darn good! Lots of American Muscle.

Not everyone agrees however. Some are Twittering their disapproval.

• The ‘Fast and the Furious’ perfectly describes how I would leave that movie.
• just saw the new fast and furious.bad as expected.
• just got home from seeing FAST AND FURIOUS! IT SUCKED!!!
• Fast and Furious: Not bad, but I wouldn’t tell you to pay theatre $ to see it unless you’re a fan of the first movie. Too many jump cuts.
• Fast and Furious: worst movie ever.
• fast and furious was awful. whats the appeal? minus hot guys, crappy cars and chicks making out? no thanks

For Vin Diesel, this weekend’s opening is an all-time best, and you’ve got to wonder who gives him career advice. He walked away from the both 2 Fast 2 Furious and the sequel to the highly lucrative XXX (XXX:State of the Union was ultimately made with Ice Cube as the lead grossing just $26.8M domestic, but it would have certainly performed much better as a Diesel project).

ALL-TIME TOP 5 VIN DIESEL OPENINGS
1. Fast & Furious (2009) – $70M opening (projected)
2. XXX – $44.5M opening
3. The Fast & The Furious (2001) – $40M
4. The Pacifier – $30.5M opening
5. The Chronicles of Riddick – $24.3M opening

Meanwhile, thanks to the F&F hot wheels, Paul Walker has three $40M+ openings on his resume.

ALL-TIME TOP 5 PAUL WALKER OPENINGS
1. Fast & Furious (2009) – $70M opening (projected)
2. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) – $50.4M opening
3. The Fast & The Furious (2001) – $40M opening
4. Eight Below – $20.1M opening
5. She’s All That – $16M opening

MVA still a MONSTER at the box office - especially in 3-D

Monsters Vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) continues to be a box office juggernaut as it begins its second weekend. The animated send-up of B-movie sci-fi from the 1950’s continues to be fueled by its 2,075 or so standard Digital 3-D engagements and the added 143 Digital IMAX runs scoring an exceedingly strong $8.9M on Friday, which will likely translate to an estimated $35.6M for the frame and a 10-day cume of almost $108M. That will represent an approximate weekend drop of just 40%, which is impressive given that the opening 3-day was $59.3M.

Possibly the creepiest movie poster ever

The Lionsgate genre pic The Haunting in Connecticut sold another $3.67M in tickets on its second Friday, and it should reach about $10.65M by Monday for a new cume of $38.47M. That would mean a drop of only 54%, very good for a horror flick.

Jason Segal unleashes the crazies on passerby on the Venice Boardwalk in I LOVE YOU, MAN

Meanwhile Knowing (Summit) and I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) will both spend another week in the top five. The Alex Proyas-directed Nicolas Cage vehicle managed $2.67M to start the 3-day, and Knowing may reach $8.69M by Monday. With a new cume of $58.76M, the gang at Summit has a shot to push this one just past $70M in the US. John Hamburg’s Apatow-style comedy with the inspired pairing of Paul Rudd and Jason Segal is also holding strong with an estimated $2.73M in tickets sold on Friday and a weekend target of $8.69M. I Love You, Man could reach $65M domestic before it wraps its theatrical engagements.

The news is not good for the well-reviewed Miramax release Adventureland. Despite a score of 89% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, Greg Mottola’s much-anticipated follow-up to Superbad has stumbled out of the gates with just $2.17M from 1,862 playdates. The weekend gross will likely be in the $6.05M range for a Per Theatre Average of just $3,249.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Fast & Furious (Universal) – $30.11M, $8,088 PTA, $28M cume
2. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $8.9M, $2,169 PTA, $81.09M cume
3. The Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate) – $3.67M, $1,345 PTA, $31.36M cume
4. I Love You Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $2.73M, $1,052 PTA, $44.17M cume
5. Knowing (Summit) – $2.67M, $805 PTA, $52.74M cume
6. NEW – Adventureland (Miramax) – $2.17M, $1,168 PTA, $2.17M cume
7. Duplicity (Universal) – $1.43M, $571 PTA, $29.5M cume
8. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $970,000, $343 PTA, $56M cume
9. 12 Rounds (Fox) – $850,000, $365 PTA, $7.57M cume
10. Sunshine Cleaning (Overture) – $580,000, $1,211 PTA, $4.05M cume

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Fast & Furious (Universal) – $70M, $20,220 PTA, $70M cume
2. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $35.6M, $8,674 PTA, $107.79M cume
3. The Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate) – $10.65M, $3,901 PTA, $38.34M cume
4. Knowing (Summit) – $8.69M, $2,616 PTA, $58.76M cume
5. I Love You Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $8.69M, $3,342 PTA, $50.12M cume
6. NEW – Adventureland (Miramax) – $6.05M, $3,249 PTA, $6.05M cume
7. Duplicity (Universal) – $4.56M, $1,810 PTA, $32.63M cume
8. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $3.49M, $1,235 PTA, $58.52M cume
9. 12 Rounds (Fox) – $2.7M, $1,158 PTA, $9.42M cume
10. Sunshine Cleaning (Fox) – $2.03M, $4,238 PTA, $5.5M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.