This is a new, recurring segment on Big Hollywood where we focus on some of the best talent you (generally speaking) have never heard of. You’ll remember these people as “the bad guy fighting George Clooney” or “the main girl’s funny best friend.” These wonderful actors often make up most of what’s great about films but rarely get A-list consideration. No, you won’t see their name on the marquee; in fact, you’ll have to wait for the credits to roll.

Actor: Stephen Dillane

You know him as: Thomas Jefferson (“John Adams,” 2008), Harry Vardon (“The Greatest Game Ever Played,” 2005), and as a ’semi’-antagonist Harker (“Spy Game,” 2001)

This guy is a personal favorite. I hate, hate, hate to put the “unknown” tag on him, because there is apparently no justice in this world; I do this with great reluctance. While Dillane doesn’t have the movie star glow to him, his characters usually have twice the amount of depth as their leading counterparts. He is a very natural actor to watch, and he complements the other aspects of his films by playing his part well. There is a bit of commonality to his roles. For the most part, he seems to know situations in and out. While some actors are typecast to a certain role (mafia, military, etc.), Dillane is always the smart one in the room.

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Michael Moore quoting Thomas Jefferson to justify his Marxism is a true highlight. Let’s just hope he’s right about unions being on the ropes. No doubt the low-to-no turnout at his astro-turfed Michigan rally earlier this month has the mega-millionaire feeling a little gloomy.

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A little bit of wisdom that was shared with me not too long ago. “God gave us a Powerful gift – your mind. As you look around at any object, it began as an idea in some one’s mind. Any change of situation begins as a thought.” Indeed there is infinite power in an idea.

Russell Kirk wrote, “Conservatism is not a political system, but a way of looking at the civil order.” Put more plainly, it is a world view. People often confuse being a conservative with being a Republican. However, Republican is a political party not a way of thinking. All republicans are not conservatives. In fact as we have seen over the years there are even some republicans that are not republicans. Being a conservative is really about the embrace of an idea.

There is a film I recommend everyone rent and watch. It is called “Amazing Grace.” It is the story of William Wilberforce and his struggle to end the slave trade in the British Empire. (more…)

The classical poet A.E. Housman wrote, “For nature, heartless, witless nature.” He might have said the same thing about history, which like nature is neither cruel nor kind; right, nor wrong; it is simply indifferent. It has, as they say, no dog in the fight.

If, however, one is looking back and telling history, it might then be said that one is right or wrong about history. One might say as much about Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was wrong about history in his remarks accusing Republicans opposed to Democratic healthcare reform of using the same stalling tactics as the defenders of slavery and Jim Crow.

In remarks intended to further paint the political right as immoral, racist and evil, Reid offered that, “Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ’slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right.  When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ’slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”

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It’s no secret that the term “Separation of Church and State” has been bastardized beyond recognition by today’s post-ACLU era. Of course the toolbags of Hollywood have always done their very best to warp its meaning into something more lop-sided than Gary Busy’s left eye-socket. If Thomas Jefferson had known that his private letter would have been the fulcrum to the arguments of liberal propagandists for centuries to come, I doubt that he would have written it.

Poll after poll, the United States ranks as the most “God-fearing” nation on the planet. Good on us! Whether you believe in God or not, it’s tough to deny the reality of Christian principles being an intricate part of our country’s historical fabric.

One has to ask themselves however, as arguably the last “Christian nation” around, why were our Founders so adamant about keeping the Feds grimy paws out of our churches? (more…)

This past January, London’s Daily Star tabloid announced urgently that an upcoming episode – “the most controversial episode ever”! – of The Simpsons on the Sky1 network “pokes fun at Islam” and “is certain to enrage Muslim fanatics.” As anyone who morbidly follows this sort of thing (as I do) knows, enraging Muslim fanatics is hardly an accomplishment of Halley’s Comet-like rarity. It doesn’t take much: books, cartoons, teddy bears named Mohammad, posters of puppies, piggy banks, a Burger King ice cream swirl and the Nike logo (both of which apparently too closely resembled the Arabic script for “Allah”), are just a few of the recent Western offenses that have sparked their frothing outrage worldwide.

Yet despite the Daily Star’s perversely hopeful tone, there was no violent reaction in the UK from said fanatics, nor was there one in the United States after the episode originally aired here last Thanksgiving weekend (in a grimly ironic twist, the same weekend as the devastating mass murder and mayhem committed in Mumbai by a band of – wait for it – Muslim fanatics, or as the culturally sensitive media preferred to call them at the time, “gunmen”). So why no Muslim fury over The Simpsons? (more…)

Though Thomas Jefferson never said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” the well-applied use of satire is certainly one of the highest forms of dissent.  Jonathan Swift, after all, is more remembered for his grim irony in castigating the British and Irish for their collective humanitarian failures than for any contributions to the culinary arts.

Mad Magazine reigns supreme in creating a satirical crucible through which all subjects, social, cultural, political, artistic and philosophical typically pass.  The difference between valid satire and mere mockery being, of course, the elements of truth contained therein, it is sometimes difficult to rule out former as as being buried so deeply in the latter as to be inconsequential, particularly during political campaigns.  The editors of Mad would likely say that if such a line is drawn, they erase it, but nonetheless credibility rests on facts in satirical endeavors, humor being in the manner of delivery.  (more…)

“The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it.” Joseph Goebbels

There is no shame in artists receiving monetary compensation to sell ideas, products or a presidential agenda. When everything is transparent and contracted aboveboard, this is called advertising. When this process is whispered into being, strategized and set into motion from the shadows of government and from behind closed doors, it is propaganda.

From Sun Tzu to Psy Ops, propaganda has won wars, toppled cultures and changed civilizations. As a self-identified enlightened and educated culture, we  thought ourselves beyond such base manipulation. We were wrong.

Where were the voices of dissent on the NEA conference call when so called “artists” were asked to further the President’s agenda?

I have danced ballets and I have done commercials; one side art, the other side business. What side were the NEA recipients on? (more…)

I’ve got to admit that I set out to create this video expecting the finished product to be nothing more than tomfoolery as per usual. When I sat down to review the final version however, I realized just how sad/scary this is. These people are our future. They’ll be building our airplanes, teaching in our schools and possibly… running our country. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t trust 90% of these kids with a pair of scissors.  All of this begs the question: how did they get into Berkeley?  More importantly, what the heck are they teaching over there?

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In the comment section of a recent post, I drew some fire for making the following, apparently shocking claim:

We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation.

It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very nuanced and sometimes cynical views about organized religion, the United States was somehow conceived to be a secular nation. This belief is not only untrue, but detrimental to an adequate understanding of the underlying political philosophy of the founding, not least of all because it envisions the government as the nation instead of merely the organization through which the nation conducts its civil affairs, and more importantly because it betrays the singular belief that undergirds the entire American experiment: That the rights of man come not from government but from God. (more…)

The popular meme circulating throughout the “unbiased” media yesterday was: The original Tea Party was about taxation without representation but Americans HAVE representation and Republicans are just mad because they lost. The more I twist that in my head, the more absurd it sounds. What they’re really saying is: you are only allowed representation in government if you’re the majority.

Funny how that didn’t seem to be the case in California when Prop. 8 passed. I don’t remember any snide reporter telling a disappointed same-sex couple “Hey, you lost, get over it.” In fact, their protests have been covered by teary-eyed reporterettes (too young to remember Selma) as a modern civil rights struggle. (How is the right to keep your income and raise children free from debt not a civil right?) And the justification of majority Democracy gave no comfort to Prop. 8 opponents who went to court to overturn the majority. (more…)

Wow! Here is what I did today. I taught my comedy writing classes, I went to the driving range and YMCA with my son, and I worked for about four hours on a new web site I‘m helping to launch. Let me see was there anything else? Oh yeah, I became a dangerous potential terrorist and enemy of the state.

Gun Owner

How did I become more dangerous to America than an Islamic fundamentalist with a vest full of C-4? It was all my fault! You see, I was so worried about Big Brother I didn’t see Big Sister sneaking up on me.  Janet Napolitano has declared that a lot of Americans who are only exercising their constitutional rights are a danger to the country. 

After six years of hearing the liberals in this country cry about how the evil Bush/ Cheney cabal had infringed their civil rights we have change. Our new administration is bringing us change we can believe in. They would rather spy on conservative Americans than offend Europeans or the King of some third world country. They would rather infringe upon my God given freedoms than offend the Castro brothers. (more…)

March 16 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening of “1776.”  Written by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, it went on to run for 1,217 performances.  It’s hard to believe that forty years ago it was still popular to write an unabashedly patriotic musical that openly celebrated American Exceptionalism and painted the founding fathers not just as humans but as the intellectual and moral giants that they were.  Because the 1972 film version is tantamount to a filmed version of the play rather than a Hollywood re-interpretation, its original intent and form is easily accessible to today’s audience.  It deserves a good look and therefore, is this week’s Sunday Matineé.  (more…)