“Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renowned international artist now facing extradition. This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom. Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians – everyone involved in international filmmaking – want him to know that he has their support and friendship.” – From the petition to free director Roman Polanski.

Jafar Panahi

“Every possible way has been used for breaking his spirit. He is deprived of his basic and legal rights. Can all of this be called anything but torture? Does a regime have the right to treat one of its artistic elite so shamefully and inhumanely on the basis of a film that has not yet been made?”  -  Taherah Saeedi, wife of renowned Iranian New Wave filmmaker Jafar Panahi, on her husband’s arrest and imprisonment in Tehran.

On September 27, 2009, famed Hollywood film director Roman Polanski was arrested on arrival at Zurich Airport by Swiss authorities on a 31-year-old L.A. warrant for the 1977 drugging and raping of 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, now 45. A huge swath of the liberal leftist Hollywood establishment wasted no time in leaping into action over the Swiss authorities’ dismaying breach of social justice and inhuman treatment vis-a-vis director/child rapist Polanski. Over 100 well-known filmmakers and A-list celebrities signed a petition of outrage demanding Mr. Polanski’s immediate release. (more…)

I know I had said my last BH piece would be it. But I came across a tidbit of slightly older news in the June 19th issue of Daily Variety that perhaps finally brings into total focus and stark clarity all I had said in my Big Hollywood op-ed The Stoning Of Team Hollywood, regarding Team Oscar’s ill-advised soiree to Iran this past March. The fascist alligator has finally bitten one of their own.

It is a tale well worth returning to share with you, Dear Readers.

Documentarian James Longley, perhaps best known for his award-winning film Iraq in Fragments, was already filming in Iran in late February when Team Hollywood arrived. According to this March 2nd press release by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website, Mr. Longley became part of the Team Hollywood crew in Tehran and participated in all activities. (more…)

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)

Dear Big Hollywood readers, it gives me great satisfaction to report to you that BH has been out on point not only on compelling film industry issues, which will never be covered in promo rags like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter (but then again, AMPAS and the studios aren’t buying us off), but on many controversial issues being played out in America and the greater world at large as well.

I know this to be true. Being a news junkie myself, I have found time after time as I was reading about a supposedly breaking subject, like ABC’s recent coverage of the targeted LGBT murders in Iraq, that it had already been on display for all to see in Big Hollywood posts for months.

Not to toot my own horn, but…well, okay, I’m tooting my own horn. And those of Andy Breitbart and John Nolte, who have given I, and so many other wonderful and insightful Hollywood right-wing fringe types, a magnificent bullhorn we otherwise would not have. We appear to be doing the dirty jobs our media just refuses to do. It’s a labor Hercules would completely sympathize with. (more…)

Now that ‘Roxana: A True Story’ has come to a most satisfying and happy conclusion for Roxana Saberi, her parents, myself and millions of others around the globe (a conclusion not always assured, and which looked very grim in some scenes), it is now time for Your Most Humble and Obedient Critic to give you the full skinny on ‘Roxana: A True Story.’

Or, by its Hollywood acronym, RATS. Funny. I actually found that startling contraction fitting, not for Roxana (not hardly), but for all of the major black hats and clueless morons who populated this nerve-wracking Thugocracy Studios production, which had civilized people everywhere both riveted and outraged in its most grueling and suspenseful moments.

Not to mention for Roxana and her parents. But before we get to heroes and villains, let us look at the story to date with all its dramatic twists and underpinnings, many with significant international implications. Just like a good Hitchcock drama should. And I caught ‘em all!

By pure happenstance, Your Most Humble Critic and Boy Reporter was already hot on the job covering Iran (unlike some people) and hammering AMPAS for their tea and finger-cookie soirees with these guys, when I saw what Iran was pulling with Roxana and called it for what it was: a hostage crisis. And on the same day HRW called it the same in a press release on March 13th, which I didn’t find out until the 19th thanks to our on-the-ball Vein Stream Media. (more…)

I really thought my Republican platform piece here at BH would have been my last for awhile. Plenty for readers of all stripes to chew on. And I got too many other things to do. The reason for my reluctant return is yet another critical issue the Obamamedia and our LibDem government are completely flat-lining on: the officially sanctioned exterminations of LGBTs in Iraq, and on our dime. Not to mention State’s cold and lame response. More on that later. Too much more, actually.

First, the one of the main points of this fact-based opinion piece. And I know I’m going to catch hell from the Streisand and Brolin crowd on this one! Ronald Reagan was a hero to gays, and Obama has not been to date. I know, I know. The Evil Ronald Reagan, who practically invented AIDS? Reagan, the Adolf Eichmann of the Gay World? Not true. Not by a country mile!

In fact, Ronald Reagan was a better friend to gays and lesbians in his age than Barack Obama has been to gays in his. But don’t even go by what I say. I’m a right wing extremist, and very biased to what I believe. I admit it. Who isn’t these days? The press? LOL! But here are some irrefutable facts on The One and The Gipper I thought I’d throw out there. A gay buffet for thought, if you will. With swimming pools. And movie stars. (more…)