Fox Nation:

“The Undefeated,” a glowing look at failed vice-presidential candidate and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has already sold out a show in Grapevine, Texas (population 46,000), according to the distributor Cinedigm.

Grapevine isn’t exactly a teeming metropolis but the film is set to roll out across Tea Party country in 10 AMC theaters.

We’re hearing that “Atlas Shrugged” is selling out theatres, even in New York! There’s no way to confirm, but that’s the word on Twitter.

For those of you who have seen it, did you catch our own Andrew Breitbart in a cameo? Christian Adams did:

I caught a showing of Atlas Shrugged and found both Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon as well as Andrew Breitbart on the big screen. …

[W]ho would have thought Andrew Breitbart would be the next Internet media mogul to appear on the big screen?  I caught a glimpse of what I thought was Andrew in an Atlas Shrugged scene involving an anniversary party.   Andrew confirmed to me he indeed has an uncredited cameo in Atlas Shrugged.  Don’t blink, his big moment is only a few seconds.

If you’ve seen “Atlas,” let us know what you thought in the comments. If you haven’t, look for the closest theatre here and request your local theatre screen it here.

By the way, another rumor floating around is that if you buy Andrew’s new book “Righteous Indignation” and see “Atlas” this weekend, and angel will get its wing and a liberal’s head will explode. What you call a two-fer.

Top 10 Reasons America’s Having a Great Week…

1. Tea Party rallies all over the country.

2. Sarah Palin and Andrew Breitbart appear together in Madison, Wisconsin this afternoon. 

3. Big Thuggish Labor loses Wisconsin State  Supreme Court election.

4. Obama hits 41% in latest Gallup Poll.

5. “Righteous Indignation” hits bookstores everywhere.

6. “Atlas Shrugged” finally hits the big screen.

7. Paul Ryan’s budget has Obama chasing his own tail.

8. Keith Olbermann who?

9. Donald Trump is now using words like “Rezko,” “Ayers,” and “Wright.” 

10. The corrupt MSM is losing its grip on the narrative (see: 1 – 9).

All-about-me bonus #11: Picked up “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Cool Hand Luke” on Blu-ray for $10 each.  

Enjoy your weekend and our current victory in this ongoing trench-war of inches.

Fast forward to 2009 when the FCC granted studios the authorization to control the distribution of their films through video on demand (VOD). This essentially reversed the1949 DOJ ruling. Through the use of new technologies. the studios once again own both production (or acquisition) and distribution — as long as its on a television set through VOD. Obviously, movie theatres are still in business, but it’s not difficult to see where this is all headed, especially with the recent announcement of a premium VOD service that, for $30, will allow people to watch a film just 60 days after the theatrical release.

In an earlier post I laughed at the idea of charging anyone $30 to see a movie they could see for free on Netflix just a month or so later, but a bigger picture is starting to emerge. What looked like a desperate game of checkers to squeeze a little extra money out of a VOD market that doesn’t really exist, is now looking like a game of chess, with the endgame being studios back in control of the distribution of their product. Not ALL distribution. There will always be movie theatres. But the chess game might be to get you and I and everyone used to watching our movies at home — which will effectively leave theatre owners as specialty houses for fanboys and the like.

Theatre owners are predictably spooked, but their reaction resembles something closer to a Wisconsin union thug than a savvy business partner:

Theater owners are ready to hit back at Hollywood studios if theatrical windows are shortened in favor of premium video-on-demand, TheWrap has learned.

Among the retaliatory measures that exhibitors are weighing:
* Pulling the trailers of offending studios.
* Cutting in-theater signage for those studios’ movies.
* Renegotiating the split of box-office revenues for films that are released on VOD.

Theaters may even refuse to carry a studio’s film, according to an individual with knowledge of exhibitors’ thinking.

Word of a possible counter-offensive comes just days after multiplex operators went ballistic over studios’ plan to distribute films to homes for $30 a mere two months after their release.

A leaked report said that Warner Brothers, Fox, Sony and Universal would launch a new VOD window in May.

More today:

Though AMC gave few specifics about what its response would be, in a statement released Friday, the theater chain said it notified studios that it expected new “economic arrangements” for premium VOD titles.

AMC issued a thinly veiled threat to studios contemplating shrinking release windows by offering movies on demand sixty days after their release.

Who do they think they’re messing with here? These days you don’t put a horse head in a studio execs bed, he puts one in yours.

Rather than raging against the inevitable dying of the light and arguing in favor of producing buggy whips just cuz, these large chains should start moving analog asses into the digital era.

Crybaby antics and muscle will only further incentivize these studios to freeze them out.

To paraphrase Martin Niemöller’s famous admonition about complacency with totalitarian fascists:  “First they came for Rush Limbaugh and called his satire racist, and I didn’t speak out because Rush Limbaugh is a conservative.  Then they came for Dr. Laura and called her commentary racist, and I didn’t speak out because Dr. Laura is a conservative…”

Well, this time they came after a high school drama program in far-from conservative Westbury, CT.  The Arts Magnet School in that city planned a production of August Wilson’s 20th century classic “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” until the district’s Superintendent, David Snead, tried to pull the plug because the play’s characters use the word “nigger”.

First, a little bit about the play and the playwright.  August Wilson was arguably the finest American Playwright of the past thirty years.  His monumental “Pittsburgh Cycle” of plays (of which “Joe Turner” is a part) represents a canon of literary and historic significance that will be studied and performed for centuries.  The group of plays include the Pulitzer Prize winning “Fences” (1987) and “The Piano Lesson” (1990) – yes, two Pulitzers three years apart .  All but one of the ten plays are set in the same neighborhood in Pittsburgh and focus on the African-American experience throughout the 20th century.  Each of the plays take place in a different decade, “Joe Turner” representing the 1910’s and primarily focusing on the experience of Southern Blacks’ migration to urban Northern cities looking for economic opportunities and promises of a more tolerant environment.

It’s obvious at this point, to any reader with a basic high school education, that it would be impossible to truthfully tell the stories that Wilson does in these plays without the word “nigger” escaping the lips of his brilliantly drawn characters.  Of course, if the reader happens to have more than a high school education, or worse, an advanced degree in education and school administration as I’m sure Mr. Snead possesses, you’re probably tossed into a vicious conundrum, torn between the virtues of artistic freedom and politically correct “sensitivity” to “hate speech” language codes.

So, Mr. Snead did what educated, tolerant, quasi-fascists always do:  He tried to use his power to silence what he personally found objectionable.  Even better, he used race-hustling activists as his shield against criticism.  “The use of the N-word is something all civil rights leaders around the country want us to stop using,” Snead said. “I don’t think we should be doing anything to encourage our students to use it.”

Thankfully, the school board that hired Mr. Snead (and now should fire him) saw fit to take up the issue in a public hearing this week and over-ruled the over-zealous Mussolini-wannabe.  The show will go on. And, to the great credit of the vastly left-wing theatre community, much support and advocacy was provided by producers, directors and writers who saw this move for what it was, a repudiation of the basic tenants of free artistic expression, and a not-so-veiled suggestion that future plays should be careful not to use language that “civil rights leaders” might find objectionable.

But, this story should not end here.  This can be a “teachable moment” for Americans who still find it challenging to remember the latest politically correct way to refer to their neighbor who happens to be a  2nd generation son of a Chinese mother and Guatemalan father (hint: you call him an American).

Left-wing activist groups like Media Matters and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network seek to silence voices like Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh under the guise of politically correct language codes that they invent and enforce to fit their needs.  It’s the classic “Al Capone” approach to political activism.  They can’t defeat Rush on intellectual grounds.  They tried and failed miserably to defeat him with competing left-wing radio programming.  So now, they lie about Rush’s supposed racism in an attempt to have the FCC remove him from the air.

Soros-funded Media Matters openly brags about forcing Dr. Laura off the air (although she’s now thriving on Sirius/XM radio) because she dared to use the same word found in Mr. Wilson’s play.  And one can argue that the political and artistic goal of Mr. Wilson’s use of “nigger” is in perfect harmony with Dr. Laura’s use.

So, what’s a lefty to do?  The same left-wing groups who fought to allow high school productions of “Rent” to go forward despite reasonable protestations from parents over its glorification of drug-use and sexual behaviors not suitable for many fourteen-year-olds are now forced to choose between those same free-speech standards and the argument they continue to use to justify silencing conservative commentators on radio, television and the internet.

It’s very instructive for all Americans to witness these events and to bear in mind one inescapable truth:  Whether it’s re-writing Mark Twain or passing laws against the use of cross-hairs on a map or banning a classic play by one of our country’s greatest writers, the knee-jerk instinct to silence speech is consistently and insidiously coming from the political left.

I pray that soon, artists in our community will start re-examining why they continue to align themselves with these speech-squelching totalitarians instead of the freedom-loving center-right Tea Party that they often find so abhorrent.  They better wake-up soon.  Remember, Niemöller’s famous statement ends with: “Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

———-

Enjoy this excerpt from August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” as your Sunday Matinee from Big Hollywood:

In segment after segment Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Obama.  Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Clinton.  And Barbra talked about Barbra.

Larry King dutifully congratulated her on all of her observations.

Here’s one my favorite moments:  When Larry King asked her about the first two years of Barack Obama’s Presidency she laments that President Obama did not use his “executive powers” to unilaterally repeal DADT.  Then, pricelessly, without any sense of self awareness she goes on to praise President Bill Clinton as one of our greatest Presidents.  It would have been at this moment that an actual journalist would have pointed out to Ms. Streisand that President Clinton was the “great” President that instituted the DADT policy that she now wants President Obama to unconstitutionally and unilaterally revoke.  Instead, Mr. King appeared to sit back and admire the beautiful lighting that Ms. Streisand probably supervised prior to the tape rolling.

Earlier in the interview, Ms. Streisand reveals that she is glad that Hilary Clinton did not become the first female President because “they” would have blamed her gender for the economic trouble our country is in. Thanks to Mr. King, we don’t know who “they” are. But I suspect Ms. Streisand meant men, revealing her very low estimation of the reasoning skills of those of us inflicted with both an X and Y chromosome.

She came across as narcissistic, judgmental, sanctimonious, and dismissive of anyone who does not subscribe to her point of view. And, God help me, I loved her.

Maybe it’s because I’m a “theatre-guy.”  Maybe it’s because I spent so many years on Broadway. But no matter how many times Barbra Streisand lets me know that I, as a conservative, represent what’s wrong with this country, I still can’t help having the secret desire to see her return to Broadway as the ultimate Mama Rose in a blockbuster revival of Gypsy. I suspect that some time during my first year working on Broadway I was drugged and dragged into a dark room and implanted with a device that alters the part of my brain that would see Barbra Streisand for what she is:  an egotistical blowhard who has consistently snubbed Broadway – the place that made her a star – for lo these many decades.

Barbra Streisand is included in what is known as the Broadway diva Mt. Rushmore.  She, Ethel Merman, and Mary Martin inhabit 3/4 of that sacred monument. The 4th face is bit of a revolving door which changes depending upon the times. Over the past few decades Liza Minnelli, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, and recently Kristin Chenowith have all occupied the “Ringo” chair. I can make a strong case for all of these women as icons of the American stage except, curiously, Barbra Streisand.

When Hollywood called four decades ago Ms. Streisand took her last curtain call and never looked back.  Many Broadway stars before her and since have found fame and fortune on the silver screen and yet still come back to Broadway even if for a limited engagement to pay respect to the industry that made them a star. Not to mention the economic benefit it provides the stagehands, the ushers, the restaurant and hotel workers in the theater district. But not Babs.

Even when she famously returned to live performances in her multi-million dollar string of “final” concerts (How many have there been now, 20?) she refused to play the 2,000 seat theatrical cathedrals in New York opting instead for arenas built for boxing matches.

And yet, knowing the disdain she’s shown for my industry, my colleagues and I still look upon her with reverence, respect and admiration. I kid you not, as bitchy as Broadway is, there are a handful of people you’re just not allowed to criticize and Streisand is one of them.

So here I sit, my good conservative brain telling me all the reasons why I should hate Barbra Streisand, after all, she seems to hate me, my friends, and my industry. And yet, I can’t stop hoping that one day she’ll see the light and let me produce her return to Broadway complete with an opening night gala fundraiser for the Tea Party Patriots.

I know.   I need an intervention.

Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham has embarked on an ambitious venture that is sure to make most mainstream (left of Karl Marx) theatre critics scratching their heads – if not pulling the hair out of them. In the wake of her best-selling book, “The Obama Diaries” Ingraham has assembled a multi-media stage extravaganza complete with actors playing the roles of the President and First Lady.

I’m looking forward to providing our readers with a first-hand critical assessment of the production, but until then we’ll have to rely on some of the lucky folks in the audience last night. According to “MinnCon” at Redstate:

In a word, the show was “Obamalicious,” (satirically heavy on the “malicious”) and combined live onstage narration and hosting by Ingraham with real audio clips, photos, videos, and skewering-yet-spot-on impersonations of our imperious President and the First Lady by two fine performers.

Played – no, NAILED – by actors Russell Brown and Selma Schmidt (I believe those were the names – a printed program was not provided) the fictional secret thoughts of Mr. and Mrs. Prez came to life in all of their vainglory.

For the record, Reggie Brown played Obama and Sonja Schmidt played Michelle and yes, I hear their performances are spot-on and hilarious.

From my perspective (and the perspective of any good capitalist) the only real measure of a show is how it does at the box office.  And  by that measure, “Obama Diaries, LIVE” appears to be a hit.  The show played to capacity audiences in not-so-conservative Minneapolis.  If the show can play there, imagine how it will do in Dallas.

Another source who attended over the weekend reports that the plot device used to frame the subject matter is hilarious and the cameo appearances made the show a once-in-a-lifetime experience:

The White House, the story goes, had tried to book the theater on the same day, which set up a brutal exchange on stage between Ingraham and the Obamas.   The evening involved several surprise elements that brought the crowd to its feet. Academy Award Winner Jon Voight, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, and bestselling writer Vince Flynn made appearances on stage.

“Over the weekend people heard how funny the show was,” Ingraham told us, “so now I’m weeding through a dozen other requests to bring it to other cities across the country.  If I didn’t have my radio show and my Fox News duties, I’d tour it like The Ice Capades.”  The next stop for the Obama Diaries is Texas later this month (Dallas Nov 20, and Houston Nov 21).

Just as critics raved about Will Farrell’s semi-coherent “Thank You, America” last season, I’m sure this stage presentation will be met with the same level of enthusiastic gushing. After all, political satire has no ideology, right? It’s merely about poking fun at our leaders no matter their party affiliation. “Laugh at the king or he’ll make you cry” goes the lyric from Stephen Sondheim’s “Anyone Can Whistle”. “Truth to Power”, don’t ya know? Yeah, we’ll see.

For the final two hours of the show, we will also have live, streaming audio of “The Stage Right Show” with live callers, running commentary, by yours truly and a slew of surprise call-in guests (many of whom are your favorite Big Hollywood contributors).

Join us here at Big Hollywood, sign in to the live-blog chat room, and join the interactive, multi-media, Broadway fun! We liveblog using ScribbleLive.com, so if you haven’t already, head over there and create a profile–don’t forget to upload an avatar!

And, don’t worry, if you come late, the usher will seat you at an appropriate break in the performance.

The setting is a conference room of a law firm.  Henry Brown (David Alan Grier) and his white partner Jack Lawson (James Spader) are interviewing a prospective client (Richard Thomas).  The client, a wealthy white man, is standing trial for the rape of a black woman.

Two expert attorneys interviewing a prospective client is the perfect device for Mamet to not only inform the audience of the facts at hand and the idiosyncratic personalities of the characters we will spend the next hour and a half of our lives with, but it also serves as a perfect showcase for the playwright’s legendary use of dialogue, timing, over-lapping speech patterns and no-holds-barred language.  For a Mamet addict, this is heroin.

It is a chance to watch a conversation that anyone outside that room was never meant to hear.  And the language the characters use reflect the comfortable and brazen style reminiscent of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, the unique vernacular often referred to as “Mamet-Speak.”

Also present but silent in the play’s opening scene is Susan (Kerry Washington), an associate at the firm.  She stays on a platform that stretches the length of the stage, upstage of the action.  She is always seen, observing but remaining silent.  We notice her, but we don’t focus on her.  Her mere presence (as well as the fact that she is a beautiful black woman and the plot centers on the rape of a young black woman) is a clear indication that she will play a pivotal role in the scenes that follow, and she does.

Yes, “Race” is about a rape trial.  And yes, race plays a factor in the case.  And yes, the race of the characters on stage serves as texture, tension and explosive material for the plot’s development.  But, the real over-riding subject of this play is Political Correctness and the destruction of our society because of it.

Guilt or innocence is rarely discussed by the attorneys in the context of the facts of the case or the strategy in defending their client.  They cynically attempt to navigate the politically volatile waters they find themselves in.  A major piece of evidence in the case is a twenty-year-old postcard written by the accused man which contains inflammatory language about black women.  This is held up as more critical to proving his guilt as a rapist than any physical evidence at the scene of the crime.  It is taken as a given that a rich white man who appears to hold a prejudice against black women will be assumed to be guilty of this heinous crime.  Thus, political correctness replaces jurisprudence and the constitutional presumption of innocence. 

Welcome to the Politically Correct world we inhabit.

And this is the world Mamet wants to expose.  Ever since his landmark play “Oleanna” which was written in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings, the playwright has been at his best when he shows us the roaches that live behind America’s proverbial refrigerator but only scatter when he shines his flashlight on them.

Mr. Spader and Mr. Grier are a stunning tandem.  Not since Ron Silver and Joe Mantegna delivered Mamet’s dialogue in mesmerizing cadences in the original Speed-the-Plow have two actors so expertly conveyed his style and message.   Hearing Mr. Spader’s terrific stage voice articulating the unmistakable Mamet style in an intimate, live setting is truly a treat, and I drank up every word.  And in a break-out performance, Mr. Grier proves that he is a force to be reckoned with on the Broadway stage.  He has already shown audiences his comedic and musical abilities, but now he commands attention as a dramatic leading man.  Unfortunately for the audience we have to wait too long for the two of them to be alone on stage for a lengthy and pivotal scene.  We want more of the two of them and, unfortunately, less of Ms. Washington.

Ms. Washington is most often paired with Mr. Spader for the bulk of her scenes and the match-up just isn’t fair.  Mr. Spader possesses a mesmerizing and powerful voice that fills the Barrymore (seemingly unassisted by electronic amplification).  Ms. Washington does not possess such a voice.  And when her character must express intensity or anger she resorts to a painfully strained vocal style which distracts from the actual text and just sounds shrill.

The crime is that the Ms. Washington’s performance has led some critics to lazily assume that her character is weak, thus buying into the latest trend of accusing Mr. Mamet of hating women (gee, I don’t know why he seems to want to rail against political correctness so much).  But, the fact is Ms. Washington’s character is actually one of the strongest female roles written for a young, black actress in a very long time.

Mr. Thomas serves his character and the play admirably in a role that is essential to the plot, but not really important to the message.  Thus his efforts are respected, but not what you leave the theatre humming.

Mr. Mamet also deserves praise for his no-nonsense directing style.  He allows the audience to see the action without distraction we too often get from directors trying to remind you that they are there.  The staging is straight-forward and simple and does what it is supposed to do; serve the text and the actors, nothing more.

The set is handsomely executed with what I believe to be either a planned bit of symbolism, or a remarkable accident.  Stretching across the entire stage, upstage of the action is an enormous set of bookcases filled to the brim with law books of all sorts.  They loom over the play at all times.  Every scene has them as its backdrop.  You can’t escape looking at them.  And yet, in this play presented as a legal drama, set in a law office, with lawyers debating about the guilt or innocence of their client, not one of the law books is ever touched.

In Mamet’s view of American law, the actual law is not merely as important as the new, unforgiving rules of political correctness.  Go, David, Go!

Luckily, the press office for this soon-to-be classic has assembled a slick little YouTube video highlighting all of the big moments of the show.  Believe it or not, this video is meant to inspire you to buy a ticket.

Great, terrific, perfect…  um…  a couple things.

First of all, Does Shepard Fairey know you’ve stolen his logo for your set design?  (I guess it’s ok since he stole it from someone else.)

Also, did I really just see an opening number framing America under Bush in 2008 as “Chaos”?  Chaos??  Are you sure that isn’t meant as clever foreshadowing?

And how about those lyrics for “Chaos”:

Round and round
Upside-down
Inside-out
There’s no doubt.
We’re in Chaos!
Here come the hounds of Hell, Chaos!
As far as I can tell, Chaos!

From the show’s web site:

In no way does HOPE show Obama as a saint, but it grants us a view behind the scenes of his cometlike rise and also tells from the personal ups and downs of a man who has worked his way up from a social worker in Chicago to the most powerful man in the world, simply by using his power of persuasion.

In a stirring and modern musical production, HOPE shows the amazing history of the development of a new societal movement to a new generation.

The HOPE production team and its performers do not take up any political stance. We do not express a political opinion in our own name. The presentation of the public opinions and feelings in the musical follows the general interpretation of the current events like they prevail in the media and the society.

As easy as it would be to slam them on this, I actually pity their lack of self awareness.  Remember: this is the same nation who convinced themselves that the Third Reich was just a natural response to the Treaty of Versailles and not an atrocious attempt at world domination fueled by hateful paranoia…  If they can rationalize that, they can pretend their play is not political hagiography.

I also noticed an interesting bit of casting.  The roles of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin are played by the same woman (only major characters in the piece double-cast in this fashion).  Is this a subtle bit of subtext from the director?  Maybe the message is, “All those white women who stood in the way of Obama being President look alike to me.”

So, it appears that producers in Germany think there is a market for hip-hop hagiography.  Maybe there is, for now.  But, as President Obama’s policies continue to drag down the world’s economy and send mixed messages to our international partners regarding the Islamic terrorist threat, the next big Obama musical might be a lot less “Jesus Christ Superstar” and a lot more “Wicked.”