So, in a recent Time Magazine blog, the writer reports on a study from France’s National institute of Statistics and Economics, saying men are worse for the planet than women. It seems that men emit nearly 40 kilograms of carbon daily, as opposed to women’s 32 kilograms.

And as you know, carbon is evil. Like me, but in chemical form.

So, here we are, sitting atop the nexus of lefty journalism, where the writer has managed to slap together two tasty slabs of PC red meat: feminism and environmentalism.

Yes, men are pigs, but not just to women. They’re pigs to the planet too. In an amazingly clever move, Time used a picture of Homer Simpson to illustrate the piece!

The caption: “A typical man.”

Which makes me wonder: what kind of picture would you need to illustrate a writer for Time?

My guess is, it would be the long gone Cathy, from the comic strip… Cathy.

She and her stringy-haired neuroticism will be missed. I loved her fearless take on lip gloss.

Or maybe it was her bumbling husband, Irving Hillman. Boy does he love gadgets -even if he didn’t know how to work them!

Ack indeed.

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I used to think I was a fan of the genre known today as fantasy, and specifically the subgenres of High Fantasy and Sword-and-Sorcery. This was due to a number of factors. A childhood imagination dominated by Dungeons & Dragons. An exposure to memorable movies like Excalibur, Clash of the Titans, Conan the Barbarian, and their lesser 1980s cousins.

Towering above all, though, was (and still is) my unabashed obsession with the two titanic literary talents chiefly responsible for birthing the entire shebang: J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and Robert E. Howard (1906-1936). I consider each the complete equal of the other, two flat-out geniuses destined to be remembered and reread hundreds of years after the Pulitzer-winning authors praised by most mainstream critics are forgotten.

But it was only recently, after decades of ever-increasing reading disappointment, that I grudgingly began to admit the truth: I don’t particularly care for fantasy per se. What I actually cherish is something far more rare: the elevated prose poetry, mythopoeic subcreation, and thematic richness that only the best fantasy achieves, and that echoes in important particulars the myths and fables of old.

This realization eliminates, at a stroke, virtually everything written under the banner of fantasy today.

The mere trappings of the genre do nothing for me when wedded to the now-ubiquitous interminable soap-opera plots (a conservative friend of mine once accurately derided “fat fantasy” cycles such as Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time as “Lord of the Rings 90210”). Nor do they impress me in the least when placed into the hands of writers clearly bored with the classic mythic undertones of the genre, and who try to shake things up with what can best be described as postmodern blasphemies against our mythic heritage. (more…)

A Los Angeles Times article I read recently made me chuckle. It began by wearily tossing an exhausted barb at the 3-D phenomenon sweeping Hollywood: “With sighs of relief, critics last week took off their Polaroid glasses and looked at a couple of old-fashioned, two-dimensional films.” The big-screen photography of one of those pictures drew particular attention, with one critic noting that “It gives reality a true third dimension. . . the kind of 3-D you cannot get with mechanical tricks or by any other means except a rich comprehension and ingenious mastery of the visual storyteller’s art.”

Well, let me fess up. I read the article recently, yes — but in a fifty-year-old copy of the Los Angeles Times. The paper was dated May 6, 1953, and the two-dimensional film being praised for bucking Hollywood’s push towards 3-D was Shane.

It was a time when TV was cutting deeply into movie profits, and studios were scrambling to win back the wandering eyeballs of America. Cinerama, an ambitious, three-projector widescreen extravaganza, debuted in New York in the fall of 1952, with its test film This Is Cinerama garnering front-page fanfare and great acclaim. Bosley Crowther, the Roger Ebert of his time, gasped that it gave the audience “the same sensations. . . felt on that night, years ago, when motion pictures were first publicly flashed on a large screen. . . People sat back in spellbound wonder. . . as though most of them were seeing motion pictures for the first time.” In a single evening, the development of all-new expansive formats had become a fait accompli, and studios immediately began looking for ways to capitalize on the buzz. (more…)

JournoList scandal is back and prepare for it to be a driving force in the news for quite some time. The Daily Caller published an article tonight indicating they’ve obtained emails from the JournoList and the initial details are as damning as we expected when the list-serv, founded by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein in 2007, surfaced with the Dave Weigel kerfuffle last month.

Snippets from the article below, but make sure to read the whole thing at the Daily Caller and return to Big Journalism early and often as we unpack the details that emerge and track the fallout from this seminal event in the history of left-wing media bias. It’s unclear exactly what the Daily Caller has, but there’s certainly no indication from this article they’ve already laid all their cards out on the table.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” (more…)

Time Magazine of 1961 had its own, surprisingly spiritual commentary and conclusions to make about some hefty Old Testament offerings on Broadway: Archibald MacLeish’s J.B. and Paddy Chayefsky’s Gideon.

Two of the world’s greatest theater directors, Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Elia Kazan, seemed almost simultaneously drawn to the Bible in their own personal and/or artistic quests for some meaning to late 1950’s, early 1960’s Man.

Both productions were compared to one another in Time not in the Arts Section but the U.S. Section … hmmm … and with no name attached to it.

Therefore not merely a review but a Time Magazine pronouncement!

The anonymous editor had this to say in conclusion:

“This flawed ending (of Chayefsky’s Gideon) echoes the flawed conclusion in Broadway’s (and MacLeish’s) J.B. of three years ago; both Playwrights MacLeish and Chayefsky assume that man has somehow outgrown God and must evolve a higher morality. They deny that the end of man is to glorify God and seem to agree that man must express, sanction, and glorify himself.” (more…)

So the 2010 Time Magazine 100 Poll is out, and all of you Conservatives out there should be paying attention. Take a gander at the top 25. Notice anything in particular? Where are the local district representatives? Where are the long-standing politicians and Republican strategists that we see time and time again on our cable news networks? SPOILER ALERT: Nowhere.

I’ll bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you GOP’ers?

In response to my recent column on James Cameron, somebody wrote me:

Who cares about James Cameron? … If people spent half the time reading about their local politicians and congressional reps as they do about the Hollywood elite, this country would be a thousand times better off.

Both unfortunately and importantly, the man speaks the truth. Even more sadly however, is the response that he would receive from most of mainstream America; “So what?”

Would the world be better off if Americans cared more about their local government? Probably? Do they? No. (more…)

A curious aspect of the Bond legend is that Ian Fleming’s socialite wife despised the character. She went so far as to host upper-crust parties at which she and her lettered friends — literary giants such as Cyril Connolly, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Evelyn Waugh — cattily disparaged her husband’s popular creation as embarrassingly lowbrow, the English equivalent of American pulp fiction (and thus the modern heir to the “Boy’s Weeklies” of Orwell’s famous essay). “Utterly despicable,” was Muggeridge’s quoted verdict in Time magazine soon after Fleming’s death. “[Bond is] obsequious to his superiors, pretentious in his tastes, callous and brutal in his ways, with strong undertones of sadism, and an unspeakable cad in his relations with women, towards whom sexual appetite represents the only approach.”

During the same period, various Leftist writers began penning spy stories of their own in reaction to Fleming’s potent brew of unapologetic clubhouse masculinity (smoking, drinking, gambling, golfing, seducing) and unqualified patriotism, favoring a more, shall we say, morally nuanced look at the Cold War. Author John “The United States of America has gone mad” le Carré, then finding fame with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963 — good guys die, bad guys win, yay!), considered Fleming’s books “cultural pornography,” and mused that in the real world Bond’s “misty, patriotic ideas” would hardly prevent him from betraying his country at the first opportunity. “Because if the money was better,” le Carré snickered with certainty, “the booze freer, and women easier in Moscow, he’d be off like a shot.”

Into this maelstrom of anti-Fleming derision came a little volume called The James Bond Dossier (1965), penned by a more notorious member of the English literati, academic-cum-novelist Kingsley Amis. A savagely witty writer, a world-class drunkard, and a conflicted serial adulterer (all qualities shared, you may recall from our previous installment, with Bond’s creator), the overarching critical statement of his book was simple enough: “Inside that conservative dark-blue worsted suit and under the same skin as a bearer of the hard-earned double-o prefix there lurks an intruder from another age,” a “Byronic hero,” who “is lonely, melancholy, of fine natural physique, which has become in some way ravaged, of similarly fine but ravaged countenance, dark and brooding in expression, of a cold or cynical veneer, above all enigmatic, in possession of a sinister secret.” (more…)

Time Magazine:

Andrew Breitbart sits in an Aeron chair at an iMac computer gazing out the sliding glass door of his Los Angeles home office. On the patio, a hula hoop and a portable basketball rim await his children’s return from school. Breitbart, 41, dressed on this late-winter day in his standard work uniform of a dirty oxford-cloth shirt and grungy khaki shorts, looks more like a surf bum than one of the most divisive figures in America’s political and culture wars. Then his BlackBerry rings.

The woman at the other end of the line, conservative fulminator Ann Coulter, is among Breitbart’s staunchest allies, and they soon are engaged in a spirited attack on liberals. “Their entire structure is writhing in diseased agony on the side of the road, and they don’t even realize it,” Breitbart says. But the left isn’t the only object of disdain. “I’m sick of this effete GOP nothing sandwich,” he adds, growing more animated. “As long as everyone is so pristine and socially registered, we’re going to lose.” Shortly before signing off, Breitbart says, “The second I realized I liked being hated more than I liked being liked — that’s when the game began.”

It’s a game he plays extraordinarily well. Breitbart has become the Web’s most combative conservative impresario — part new-media mogul, part Barnumesque scamp. Last fall, he launched Big Government, the flagship of his wickedly right-of-center sites, which also include Big Hollywood, Big Journalism — which described the House’s March 21 passage of the health care reform bill as a “socialist putsch” — and the news aggregators Breitbart.com and Breitbart.tv. On its first day of business, Big Government produced a scoop: undercover filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles — the would-be Borats of the right — had shot videos that appeared to show workers at ACORN, a liberal organization that lobbies for affordable housing, offering tips on how to open a brothel. For Breitbart, the videos proved to be a gold mine, putting the left on the defensive and Big Government on the map. That the filmmakers were accused of entrapping their subjects and editing in footage of O’Keefe dressed as a pimp seemed almost beside the point. (more…)

Over the weekend, Time Magazine published a long, glowing profile of Tom Hanks to help promote his upcoming HBO miniseries “The Pacific.” And as with all things entertainment media, the subject is never challenged or even made to shift uncomfortably in his seat. The push to ascend Hanks to “national treasure” status is clearly on.

Hanks does seem to be a genuinely nice man and the work he’s done to bring American history to life on film is impressive, especially during a time when the singling out of America’s exceptionalism is more and more frowned upon in artistic and academic circles. ”From the Earth to the Moon,” “Band of Brothers,” and “John Adams” are not only artistic achievements, but in this MTV-addled culture, might be the best hope of teaching America’s youth about the unique history and greatness of this nation. And I suspect ”The Pacific,” the 10-part miniseries premiering this Sunday on HBO (which Big Hollywood’s Michael Broderick will cover extensively) will be a worthy addition to what came before.

But when it comes to leftist Hollywood, whenever Tinseltown and America meet, you have to brace yourself for it — and by “it” I mean the leftist sucker punch. Throughout, Hanks sounds perfectly reasonable, intelligent and even patriotic for a couple of thousand words. But of course that’s just the lure to get us on his side before we’re walloped with this left cross: [emphasis mine] (more…)

If you’ve seen Superman: The Movie (1978), you surely remember the character of Perry White, the tough-as-nails editor of The Daily Planet. Played pitch-perfect by actor Jackie Cooper, he’s one of the comedic highlights of the picture. “I want the name of this flying whatchamacallit to go with the Daily Planet like bacon and eggs! Franks and beans! Death and taxes! Politics and corruption!”

Cooper delivers his one-liners in a Preston Sturges staccato that helps give the 1970s film a pleasant 1930s gloss, bridging the gap between comic book and movie. But if, like me, you were just a kid when you saw Superman, you may not have known that here was an actor who, fifty years earlier, was one of the most popular and recognizable in the world, courtesy of a little picture called The Champ. (more…)

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It always impresses me when an aged actor manages a comeback that is authentic, one based on more than mere nostalgia, one appealing to an entirely new generation of moviegoers. Jackie Gleason spent most of the 1970s appearing in pale television retreads of his 1950s heyday, and for most of that time he was absent from the big screen entirely. A revered comedic master, yes — but nevertheless his career as an innovator and taste-maker seemed long over. Then came Smokey and the Bandit, a fitting capstone to a long career of memorable portrayals and endless belly-laughs.

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.” (more…)

You would think at this point it would be impossible for anyone (especially me) to be stunned or outraged by anything the news media tries to pull when it comes to Sarah Palin. After all, once you have been exposed to a year-long brutal beating, one tends to become numb to a simple low blow. However, the news coverage of her Hong Kong speech still managed to spark the senses on several levels. 

First, it must be noted that it is rather incredible that this speech got as much play as it did. Remember, this is a private citizen from Alaska who was a “failed” vice-presidential candidate, who has given no official indication she is ever going to run for anything ever again. The speech was a private affair in a foreign country and contained no real “news” whatsoever. The news media was barred and were forced to cobble together bits and pieces of what was said from the paying customers who attended. And yet, nearly every major publication gave the event heavy play and links to FOUR of those articles were displayed prominently on the Drudge Report all day long.  (more…)

Like everyone else driving along Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park last year, I couldn’t help but notice the now-iconic Shepard Fairey “Hope” poster of candidate Barack Obama emblazoned 20 feet high on the side of a building near Dodger Stadium.  As a piece of advocacy, it was tremendously effective – Obama the visionary, gazing bravely into the middle distance and the distant future – even if it did turn out to be a shameless rip-off of an Associated Press photograph.

That image is now once again front and center in the wake of the revelations that the National Endowment for the Arts has apparently been colluding with the White House’s Office of Public Engagement and the president’s United We Serve “call to action” to enlist sympathetic artists in the furtherance of the administration’s political goals, in defiance of tradition and perhaps, as George Will has suggested, the law.  Having served myself on both the NEA’s Opera-Music Theater and Oversight panels in 1985, I find this news to be profoundly depressing. (more…)

Are Jon Stewart fans smarter than the rest of us? Is that the reason why many of us do not find him hilarious… that we’re too dumb to get the joke? His audience goes into stitches when he rolls his eyes and puts his hand over his mouth, and I’m left befuddled. Or am I too old? We all know that the people who watch “The Daily Show” are young, intelligent and informed. Or at least that’s what they’ve been trying to tell us. Unfortunately recent polls paint an entirely different picture.

Maybe it is generational. I know that’s how some fans explain the humor gap to me. Stewart is playing to the young kids and I’m just too old to get it. The problem is, while “Daily Show” viewers might still think they’re kids, they aren’t anymore. Rather than holding a Student ID in their wallets, most “Daily Show” viewers are much closer to their AARP cards. In fact, a recent analysis puts the average age of a “Daily Show” viewer at 41.4 years old.

But are they brighter? Well, according to a recent online poll by Time magazine, 44% of respondents claim that Jon Stewart is America’s most trusted “Newsman.” You cannot convince me that bright people would trust a comedian to be a “Newsman.” (Or maybe it’s just normal for the kids today, since comedy is now considered ample experience to be a United States Senator.) (more…)

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I anticipated the new U2 album, “No Line on the Horizon,” with something approaching dread – the kind of dread only a longtime fan can muster.  

I stuck with U2 virtually my whole life – from their sophomore album October (the first record I ever bought with my own money), through the ambient experiments of “The Unforgettable Fire,” to their earthy and earnest “Joshua Tree” phase, all the way through the avant-garde “Zooropa” wackiness.  God help me, I even loved “Pop.”

Through it all, it had been easy for me to tune out the political pontificating for which the band was known, drowned out as at was by so much wonderful music.  But by the time of 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” that ratio had begun to shift.  The band’s musical output declined in both quantity and consistency, while at the same time Bono’s political activism went into overdrive.   (more…)

No, it’s not any of those celebrities we’re told are stars. DiCaprio and George Clooney didn’t even make the top 10. Neither did Ashton Kutcher, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Seth Rogen, Matt Damon, Will Farrell, or Tom Cruise.

Every year for about 15 years now, Harris Interactive has conducted a nationwide poll and asked a very simple question: “Who is your favorite movie star?” And every year since the taking of the poll one particular individual has placed in the top ten — 13 of those years in the top 3.

This year, 2,388 U.S. adults were surveyed and this star rose three places to tie Will Smith for third. Only Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood rank as more popular.

One last hint before the reveal: This star is the only actor in the history of the poll to rank posthumously: (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

Sometimes I just don’t get the Republican Party.

Back in 2004, a smart, good-looking moderate Republican Hispanic ran for Congress. At the time Victor Elizalde was just under 40 years old and working as an executive at a big-time Hollywood studio. As an ethnic minority, a family man and a rare open conservative in an industry dominated by liberals, Mr. Elizalde represented hope and change for the Republican Party.

Yet because he was running for Henry A. Waxman´s safe seat, Mr. Elizalde got no support from the Republican Party . In fact, no one in the party´s leadership took notice of him. As a result Mr. Waxman trounced Mr. Elizalde with 71 percent of the vote. (more…)