Ed. Note: Video below is a must-watch.

THR:

Some members, though, told The Hollywood Reporter, on condition of anonymity, that the claim of being “non-political” is disingenous, considering the Caucus prides itself on evaluating political activities that affect the entertainment industry and it often invites political heavyweights to speak at its gatherings.

They also complain of hypocrisy, given that item five in the Caucus’s “Television Creative Bill of Rights” stipulates “the right of diverse ideas,” which they say seems unlikely if members of the liberal majority are allowed to discriminate against the conservative minority.

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The videos in question are portions of interviews that Ben Shapiro conducted with TV-industry elites for his just-released book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.

THR revealed the first batch of videos a week ago and Shapiro has been slowly rolling out more ever since.

The latest one is from Nicholas Meyer, director of The Day After, one of the most successful TV movies in history.

In the video, Shapiro says to Meyer, “Criticism from the right is usually that right-wingers get discriminated against.” Meyer responds: “Well, I hope so.” …

(more…)

The Hollywood Reporter delivers an absolutely terrific and in-depth look at some of the maddening behind-the-scenes nonsense that ended, quite incredibly, with the History Channel’s cancellation of a $30 million miniseries, a move that likely cost its parent company, A&E Television Networks (and its owners Disney, NBCUniversal), millions already invested in production and marketing costs. This from the same network that broadcast a two-hour love letter to Howard Zinn. But it’s obvious the powers-that-be chose to lose a bundle in order to stay in the good graces of the Kennedy family (and therefore Hollywood) in the same way Disney appeases the Clintons by refusing to rerun or release on DVD “The Path to 9/11.”

In the middle of this political storm sat ”24″ producer Joel Surnow, whose only sin is his open conservatism and who obviously did everything he was asked of by every historian thrown his way in order to meet The Howard Zinn Channel’s lofty historical standards. In return, the goal posts were moved time and again until the inevitable came true. Here are some snips, but you’ll want to read the whole thing:

“They were down to specific words,” Surnow says. Producers, for instance, had wanted Jack Kennedy to go to Hyannis Port, Mass., before his father had a stroke, but the historians nixed that. “We had a magnifying glass over every line.”

Surnow reaches across the table, opens a computer and reveals an e-mail dated May 25 from Gillon to him, Koch and McKillop: “I have approved the latest version of episode one for historical accuracy. Congratulations.” Surnow has similar e-mails for all the other episodes.

But the fight wasn’t over. Even after shooting the miniseries in Toronto from June through September 2010, producers felt additional pressure over historical accuracy. After the project was canceled, The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, wrote that when History historians viewed the edited version of the miniseries, they complained that it still contained several scenes of questionable factuality, including depictions of the family’s sex lives.

“That’s not true,” Surnow responds. “The historians went through and asked us a couple questions, just crossing-every-t, dotting-every-i stuff, but they were just notes. Nothing of any historical substance.”

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Here’s a snarky report from James Hibberd of the Hollywood Reporter. No doubt if this was a gay group mobilizing against a show that mocked them, or the NAACP or CAIR protecting their own protected status, Hibberd would be just as derisive and dismissive. No double standard here:

It’s not on the air yet. It’s not shot yet. There’s no pilot yet. Hell, there might not even be a script yet.

But Comedy Central developing an animated project about Jesus Christ has the biggest names in the TV watchdog business forming a Super Best Friends protest super-group to preemptively smite the show.

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When King Vidor first stepped onto the set of The Champ, he was filled with a rare sense of freedom. Frances Marion’s script was unusually simple, focused squarely on a pair of immensely sympathetic protagonists and their relationship. All the key moments, plot twists and emotional climaxes were spelled out on the page, with no false conflicts or manufactured drama to complicate the works. Vidor realized that having such a tight screenplay “would relieve me as a director — now I didn’t have to worry about the story, worry about how I will wrap this up and keep it all together. I could concentrate on little details, touches and things.”

Touches and things. As we learned last week, Vidor equated silent films to ballet: operatic makeup, overwrought facial expressions, stylized movements, and the action punctuated by an enormous symphonic orchestra that — because the players and their instruments were live in the theater — sounded as amazing as today’s very best surround-sound systems. With the advent of synchronous dialogue, all of this vanished — people now wanted to hear actors talk, of all things! Now, rather than mounting a sort of grand operatic ballet, Vidor found himself helming something more akin to a stage play, and the change was jarring and disheartening. How could a director recapture the emotional magic of old, using mere dialogue?

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Breaking at The Hollywood Reporter:

The queen of daytime will interview the president of the country during an ABC holiday special that brings together Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama.

The network has announced “Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special.”

“Christmas at the White House” will air Sunday, Dec. 13, at 10 p.m. (more…)