Many months ago, HBO announced it was planning to make a movie based on the book, “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. After reading John Nolte’s article, which indicated that the movie would be focused primarily around Governor Palin, and it wouldn’t be portraying her in a very positive light, I decided to study up on it. I purchased a copy of the book, read the TWO chapters based on Gov. Palin, and took down some notes.

As Nicole recently noted, HBO decided to release a trailer to that movie late last year. The actual movie doesn’t air until March 10, or as John Nolte wrote in his follow-up piece:

The one dynamic HBO probably didn’t count on was Palin’s decision not to run for the 2012 nomination. The film’s promotion and the cable news chatter that’s sure to follow seems timed to hit on, before, and around March 6, which is Super Tuesday.

The one line from the notes I took back in March that stood out as I was reviewing them for this piece, was:

Even though this book is supposed to be a story about 2008, it’s really all about 2012.

This movie was orchestrated from start to finish as a way to damage Gov. Palin during an election year by people who are not merely “artists & entertainers.” Just look at the people involved in the making of the movie.

First you have the director, Jay Roach who donated $2,300 to Barack Obama in 2008. Danny Strong, the person who wrote the screenplay, gave Obama $2,500 in 2008. Julianne Moore, the woman who does a poor impression of the governor, only gave $250 to Obama in ’08 but shelled out $2,500 to the DNC in 2010. And then there’s the film’s producer, Tom Hanks, who has one of the most nauseating donation lists I have ever seen, including giving a staggering sum of $345,000 to Obama. It’s safe to say that these people only donate large sums of money to causes they believe in. By looking at their donations, it’s easy to see what it is that they believe in.

Danny “Obama Victory Fund” Strong, based his HBO screenplay on a book that came under significant scrutiny after it was published, even by MSM types. The thing that stood out amongst most of its critics was the fact that Heilemann and Halperin didn’t source any of the accusations they made. They claim to have interviewed more than 300 people during their research, but not one of those people are named. Heilemann and Halperin do, however, name the people who were present during each instance during the ’08 campaign that they claim happened.

I found it interesting that within the Palin chapters of the book, Nicolle Wallace, her husband Mark Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and/or the mysterious “famous GOP strategist” are always present. It’s no secret that Nicolle Wallace has been trashing and undermining Gov. Palin since the 2008 race. Most recently, she was caught in a lie by a former senior adviser to the McCain campaign, Charlie Black. From National Review Online:

Over at the Washington Examiner, Byron York reports that Wallace is claiming, in a new Time interview, that McCain’s team considered bumping Palin from the veep slot. “There certainly were discussions — not for long because of the arc the campaign took — but certainly there were discussions about whether, if McCain were to win, it would be appropriate for her to be sworn in,” Wallace tells the magazine.

“Look, I was with McCain 90 percent of the time. If I wasn’t around, I knew what was happening. And nothing like this happened.” Wallace, he says, “is one of the few dissidents,” one of the “disaffected” staffers who continues to criticize Palin, and “she is inaccurate in doing so.”

[Charlie] Black says that’s nonsense. “Nicolle, like any author, is trying to sell books. This comment to Time, like her book [It’s Classified], is a piece of fiction. There were never any such discussions. At no high level of the campaign was there ever such talk. She’s probably doing this to sell her book.

Steve Schmidt also has a long history of trashing Governor Palin. In a 2010 post, Dan Riehl pegged the source of Schmidt’s animosity (emphasis):

The only modest bit of news in all this is that the pathetic Steve Schmidt continues to lack the class and intelligence required to simply shut up. Look at the basic facts even Schmidt is forced to confess. He would make it seem as though Palin was the absolutely worst thing about the McCain campaign, then he turns around and admits that, without her, things would have been much worse. That makes no sense.

On top of that, the fools running the campaign, including Schmidt, continued to consider Sen. Joe Lieberman for VP up until the very last minute, absolutely without realizing what a disaster that would have been. It took reactions outside the campaign to finally give them a clue how foolish they were in formulating and managing the campaign. Now suddenly, Schmidt is the all wise and wonderful know it all with the reputation, intellect and credibility to dump on Palin yet once, again? That makes no sense, either.

In continuing to not take responsibility for what a colossal failure he, as much, if not more than anyone else, was – all Schmidt has managed to accomplish with all his blathering is to put every potential national Republican candidate on notice that hiring Schmidt for perhaps anything other than coffee and sandwich fetching would be an unmitigated disaster dooming them and their campaign to eternal hell across the Republican base.

It’s clear that McCain’s campaign failed on many levels. But former staffers who were responsible for that failure used the leftist media to shift blame from themselves on to Gov. Palin, and that is reprehensible. Both the left and these former staffers had a motive to run this trash against the governor. They simply made up anything they thought sounded really bad then leaked it to an eager, Obama-rooting media which was more than happy to take their word for it. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Wallaces and Schmidt are consistently present during Heilemann and Halperin’s tales. But what does that say about Heilemann and Halperin as journalists?

Can you really be a “respected journalist” if you never cite your sources? Sources are used so that readers can judge for themselves the credibility of each claim. Without them, “journalists” are doing nothing but repeating rumors, which usually earns one the title, “Gossip Columnist.” What about bloggers? Personally, I try not to write on important topics without listing my sources and posting links to back up claims. It’s one reason that I’ve never written a piece about all of the rumors regarding Mark Halperin sexually harassing and making inappropriate comments to female professional acquaintances. After all, they’re just rumors, right? (note: I have actually heard these rumors before, I didn’t just make them up for effect)

For years now, I’ve held to the notion that Gov. Palin’s foes will do whatever it takes to destroy perceptions of her in the eyes of Americans. From ex-staffers with an axe to grind, to smear merchants like Heilemann and Halperin, to the left-wing activists who “produce” all things Hollywood, this book and the movie that followed shows how folks with an agenda can work in concert to achieve their ends.

While each player may have a different overall agenda, the goal is the same. In the United States, 28.2 million households subscribe to HBO. That’s a lot of people who, by and large, are not familiar with the antics of the Wallaces, Schmidt, the rumors about Halperin, or how devoted Hanks is to pushing liberalism with campaign contributions and through the use popular culture. A fact not unnoticed by those responsible for this production.

The new movie deals directly with the 9/11 attacks in the most emotional way possible, telling the tale of a young boy who lost his father in the World Trade Center.

Hollywood has danced around the subject for a full decade, but “Extremely Loud” stops the music cold. It’s manipulative in a manner that should feel offensive, and occasionally does, but director Stephen Daldry (“The Hours”) pulls the strings with a delicacy that makes one forgive the boldness of the enterprise.

But no amount of dexterity can save a final act filled with precious plot resolutions unworthy of even such a flawed presentation.

Young Oskar (Thomas Horn) is still mourning the loss of his father (Tom Hanks) in the 9/11 attacks, but a year after the “worst day” he finds himself starting to forget little things about him. So when Oskar finds a key tucked away in his father’s closet he decides it’s something his father wanted him to discover all along.

After all, father and son have been solving mental puzzles for years before 9/11, and Oskar thinks this is just one last riddle his father wanted him to crack.

Young Horn owns the movie despite the presence of Hanks and Sandra Bullock as Oskar’s beleaguered mum. The child actor handles the daunting assignment with a grace belying his age and experience. The lad’s curious personality – it’s hinted he has Asperger’s syndrome, a lesser form of Autism – means he is wickedly smart, intensely curious and emotionally flat when meeting strangers. Horn narrates shares some very dark, mature thoughts about life and death early in the film that let us know Oscar isn’t an ordinary child.

The early sequences between Horn and Hanks are heart breaking given that we quickly learn of the father’s fate. The two are wonderful together, affecting a relationship so sweet and tender it makes their reality all the more shattering.

Hanks isn’t on screen very much, but you feel his presence in every fame. The Oscar winner evokes paternal love in just a few measured strokes. We don’t need to see him much to understand the consequences of his absence. At times, just hearing his voice on answering machine messages left minutes before his death is enough to make us gulp down our emotions.

Max von Sydow appears later in the film, playing a character representing an easily solved puzzle piece in the narrative. He ends up teaming with Oskar to help him complete his quest, and von Sydow adds another layer of elegance and dignity to a story demanding both. Co-star Sandra Bullock plays Oskar’s mother, and if Hanks isn’t given much screen time she appears even less. That matters since the final scenes hinge on her character, and the connections between Bullock and the audience, let alone with Oskar, haven’t been adequately forged.

Daldry dares to evoke some of the most intimate, and harrowing, images from 9/11 including shots of walls emblazoned with “have you seen me?” posters of those missing after the terrorist attacks. Far more controversial will be how the director summons perhaps the most painful memory of that day, the notion that people leaped out of the burning buildings rather than stay and be consumed by fire.

Audiences may wonder why radical Islam isn’t prominently name-checked here. That may be indefensible on a factual level, but it doesn’t mesh with the story at hand. This is Oskar’s tale, and a boy would likely be far more consumed with his father’s loss than blaming those who took him away.

“Extremely” dares to plumb the depths of our 9/11 mourning process while revealing a child’s healing process in a dutifully complicated fashion. But all the arranged pieces meant to comfort us end up pushing us back from an occasionally powerful film experience.

‘RIDDICK 3′ RESUMES FILMING

Best news of the day, other than this, of course.

WHY AM I SUPPOSED TO HATE ‘X-MEN: LAST STAND’?

The third and final installment of the original is no classic but after watching it again last week, I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to hate it so much. Is it just because Brett Ratner directed? The story moves really well, the action is exciting, the climax feels like a climax.

I just don’t get it.

The same way it drives me crazy when I don’t love movies everyone else does (“Raging Bull,” “2001″), it drives me crazy when I enjoy something universally despised. Deep down inside, I really do want to  conform and be cool like everyone else.

Another question: why did Wolverine have to kill Jean at the end? Is there some reason he couldn’t have given her the mutant antidote … that just happened to be laying all over the ground?

FX SETS MIDSEASON PREMIERE DATES: ‘JUSTIFIED’ RETURNS JAN. 17; ‘ARCHER’ JAN. 19

“Justified” feels like a show I should be watching.

New teasers.

TOM HANKS BACK TO WWII FOR IN THE ‘GARDEN OF BEASTS‘

And by “WWII” they of course mean The War of Racism and Terror.

Does this mean Hanks is done making unwatchable, multi-million dollar movies portraying my faith as a big sham? Cuz that would be nice.

‘HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2′ BANNED IN AUSTRALIA

I have never read so much about a movie that absolutely no one saw or is interested in seeing.  NO ONE cares, and yet the publicity machine makes it sound like we’re in the middle of some kind of phenom.

PRETEENS WATCH MORE TV THIS FALL, BUT NICKELODEON, CARTOON NETWORK DROP

If I had kids, the only channels that would be accessible would be Turner Classic Movies and Fox News. Other than that, I can’t imagine allowing Hollywood to in any way define who my children would become.

My child’s life would be dominated by homeschooling, church, John Wayne, and a lifetime membership to the National Rifle Association. Every morning we’d raise the flag and every evening we’d roast all-beef hot dogs to a hippie burning in effigy.

ELVIS COSTELLO: DON’T BUY MY $225 BOX SET

Done. You’re welcome.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Yesterday in the mail my Blu-ray copies of “Gran Torino,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Dark Knight,” “The Good the Bad and The Ugly,” and (tee hee) “The Adventures of Robin Hood” arrived. It’s going to be a good weekend.

“Gran Torino” gets better every time I watch it. It’s amazing how a then 78 year-old Clint Eastwood can still command the screen as a total badass. After three stinkers (“Invictus,” “The Hereafter,” and “J. Edgar”) let’s hope that whatever he does next is a return to form.

Last night, though, it was more episodes of “The Wild Wild West,” which I’m enjoying even more than I hoped I would. It’s one of those rare shows without any growing pains. The formula works immediately, and the first show plays as well as any of the later episodes. That’s pretty rare. For example, the first season of the otherwise brilliant “Seinfeld” pretty much sucks.

What a brilliant piece of casting Ross Martin was. His turn as Artemus Gordon and his chemistry with Robert Conrad elevate the show above the formulaic. The same is true for the score, which is one of the best in series television.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

TNT TO EXTEND MYSTERY MOVIE NIGHT FRANCHISE

WE’RE GONNA GET THAT ‘POLTERGEIST’ REMAKE NO ONE WANTS

THE 99TH BIRTHDAY OF HOLLYWOOD TECHNICOLOR FILMS

CHARLIZE THERON WAS BULLIED BY MEAN GIRLS IN SCHOOL

A REVIEW OF ALAN SPENCER’S SCRIPT FOR AN UNFILMED FOURTH ‘NAKED GUN’ FILM

WATCH ‘THE KARATE KID’ COMPRISED ENTIRELY OUT OF REHEARSAL FOOTAGE

WHAT IF ‘BACK TO THE FUTURE’ HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE?

9 INNOVATIONS OF THE ‘HALO’ FRANCHISE

CATCHING UP WITH TERRY GILLIAM…

… AND A LOOK AT THE VARIETY AD HE TOOK OUT TO PROTEST THE RE-EDITING OF ‘BRAZIL‘

THIS IS MY JOB: TV AND MOVIE ARMORER

ANNOYING TRENDS THAT MAKE EVERY MOVIE LOOK THE SAME

COOL INFOGRAPHIC: ANATOMY OF A STUNT DRIVER

INTRODUCE YOUR KIDS TO SCI-FI WITH THESE MUST-SEE MOVIES

THE 16 BEST MODERN NOIR FILMS

50 REASONS WHY ‘THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY’ MIGHT BE THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME

LOOKING BACK AT BACK-TO-BACK MOVIES

25 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ‘NETWORK‘

TOP 10 WRESTLERS ON FILM

WHY THE (NEAR) DEATH OF FILM MATTERS

50 REASONS WE MISS ‘HARRY POTTER‘

10 LAUGHABLE MOVIE ACCENTS

THE MOST OBNOXIOUS ‘90S CARTOON THEME SONGS

10 VAMPIRE STORIES THAT ARE MORE ROMANTIC THAN ‘TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN‘

BEFORE ‘THE EXORCIST’, THERE WAS ‘THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY‘

MYTHS ABOUT HEAVY METAL MUSIC

13 CLASSIC MOMENTS FROM ‘THE MUPPET SHOW‘

‘DR. WHO’ CHARACTERS WHO DESERVE THEIR OWN SPINOFF SERIES

THOUGHTS ON MOVIE TECHNIQUE AND MOVIE CRITICISM

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CLASSIC PICK FOR WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30

TCM:

3:45 AM  EST: Garbo Talks (1984) –  A young man risks everything to help his dying mother meet Greta Garbo. Dir: Sidney Lumet Cast:  Anne Bancroft, Ron Silver, Carrie Fisher. C-104 mins, TV-G.

A rare opportunity to see a woefully under-appreciated gem. This is the film that made me a Ron Silver fan for life, an actor who never really achieved the success his talents and presence deserved. Silver died way too young. One can only imagine the performances we missed.

The film itself is funny, warm, unique and contains one of the best job resignation scenes ever. The following year, Albert Brooks would take that scene to an even higher level in “Lost in America.”

Trust me, you want to DVR this. There just isn’t anything Sidney Lumet couldn’t do.

--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

So, because you all enjoyed that list so much, and because I apparently have a death wish, it’s time for another: The Top 10 Most Overrated Actors/Actresses of All Time.

Unlike last time, I will claim that these are objective facts, not subjective opinions, so that all my critics may have full liberty to attack me (To those same critics who claimed last time that I phrased my opinions in an “objective” manner, this is called being facetious. That means I’m kidding. Also, seriously? That was your criticism?).

Here are my criteria: are they considered great actors/actresses? If not, they can’t make the list (sorry, Rob Schneider). Are they actually great actors? If so, they can’t make the list (sorry, Laurence Olivier). Only those who are considered great actors but are not, in fact, great actors can make this list. Even then, I’m not claiming that these are bad actors unless I explicitly say that I am.

So, here we go. In the words of Han Solo, I’ve got a bad feeling about this …

10. George Clooney: Not a great actor. Not a good actor. Not really an actor. If you’ve ever seen a movie with Clooney where you didn’t say to yourself, “Hey, I’m watching George Clooney” every thirty seconds or so, you haven’t seen a George Clooney movie. You’re mixing him up with Kate Winslet. He’s a D actor. Dull in “Michael Clayton.” Dreary in “Up In The Air.” Dreadful in “Syriana.” Dismal in “Batman and Robin.” He’s not a low-rent Cary Grant. He’s an affordable-housing Robert Wagner.

9. Dustin Hoffman: He turned in some tremendous performances in his early days (most notably “Papillon,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and “Tootsie”), then became a caricature of himself. He has not done anything worthwhile since “Tootsie,” in fact. Even in his better performances, he is a bit too mannered for my taste, perhaps an effect of his method acting. Laurence Olivier thought the same thing. When they were working on “Marathon Man” together, Hoffman showed up on set after having not slept for several days in order to get “in character.” Olivier took one look at him and said, “Dear boy, it’s called acting.”

8. Spencer Tracy: He’s immensely likable on screen, but he’s not a great actor by any stretch of the imagination. Light comedy is his forte (watch the original “Father of the Bride” or “Adam’s Rib”), but he’s too stolid in heavy drama like “Bad Day at Black Rock.” He’s always Spencer Tracy, no matter what he’s in. That’s more a characteristic of older actors who were movie stars rather than actors (see John Wayne, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, etc.), but those actors are rarely listed among the best of all time. Tracy routinely is.

7. Katharine Hepburn: Overwrought, overhyped, and overblown. Hepburn is the same in virtually all of her films, save “The Rainmaker,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” and “On Golden Pond.” She tends to chew the scenery, and she never inhabits a part; she insists that the part inhabits her. Her films with Tracy are just as formulaic as Hope and Crosby (and no one ever called Hope and Crosby great actors). Many critics loved her because she wasn’t afraid to lose her femininity at the door, but that made her a hard actress to love onscreen.

6. Gregory Peck: Atticus Finch is supposed to have a Southern accent. Joseph Mengele is supposed to have a German accent. And characters are supposed to be different from each other. Philip Green in “Gentleman’s Agreement” is not supposed to be the same character as Joe Bradley in “Roman Holiday” or Captain Ahab in “Moby Dick.” Peck could not play pathos, could not play vulnerability, and could not play real anger. Like Tracy, the best word to describe him would be stolid.

5. Leonardo DiCaprio: He shows flashes of brilliance, then subsumes them in gigantic waves of mannerisms. When he burst onto the scene with “Titanic,” I thought he was going to be one of the great ones – for someone that age to turn in a performance that good in a movie that bad is worth noting. But watch him in “Gangs of New York,” and you find yourself laughing out loud at the notion that this whiny nobody is supposed to be the tough guy. Watch him in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” and he can’t even decide whether to pronounce Athos as “Aaathos” or “Aye-thos.” Watch him in “The Departed” – well, don’t bother to watch him in “The Departed.” Somebody has been whispering in his ear that great acting is about being showy. It isn’t. It’s about being subtle. We can only hope he heeds that warning before he ends up like Dustin Hoffman.

4. Bill Murray: Great in comedy (see “Tootsie” and “Groundhog Day”), laughably awful in everything else. He turned in what may be the single worst performance in the history of film in the remake of “The Razor’s Edge.” It is a wonder that the director of that film did not somehow mix up Murray and a block of wood during the shoot. It is unthinkable that he was nominated for an Academy Award for the most boring movie of all time, “Lost In Translation;” sitting around mumbling does not make for great acting. Here’s the thing about emotion on film; we should actually see it. I understand the idea of allowing things to simmer beneath the surface. But that doesn’t mean your performance style should invariably mirror a Tiki mask.

3. Tom Hanks: Bill Murray with a touch more emotion, Robin Williams with a touch less. Light comedy is fine (“Big”), everything else borders on the maudlin. “Castaway” is unintentionally hilarious (rent it and do bits on it), he’s a hole in the screen in “Saving Private Ryan,” and his performance in “Forrest Gump” is one-note. He’s not a bad actor, but he’s certainly not a great one. He is a great producer, though – for “Band of Brothers” alone, he should be enshrined among the best.

2. Meryl Streep: Undoubtedly I will be hung by my toenails for this pick. She is a marvel technically, but she’s always cold. I can’t think of a single film in which she has reached me emotionally. I always get the feeling while watching her movies that I’m watching a documentary about acting for a master class; I never get the feeling that her characters are real. On this one, I agree with Katharine Hepburn, who couldn’t stand Streep’s acting: “Click, click, click,” she once said, talking about the gears you can see turning inside Streep’s head.

1. Jack Nicholson: He sucks in everything. It’s that simple. Anyone who considers him a great actor ought to get his/her head examined. I understand that he’s a hero to the ‘60s generation because he did drugs and got murdered for psychedelic “freedom” in “Easy Rider.” That doesn’t excuse him for cursing film with his presence for the next forty years. He has no versatility whatsoever. He is always a cynical/menacing fellow with “reserves of depth” (unless he has no “reserves of depth”). He is the worst case of miscasting in movie history in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (McMurphy is supposed to be a huge red-headed Irishman, not a 5’10” counterculture weasel), a glaring problem in a film that is otherwise impeccably cast (Brad Dourif as Billy is one of the great overlooked performances in the annals of film). Nicholson over Peter Fonda in “1997″ is a cosmic injustice. He is boring, predictable, and what’s more, he’s pretentious and annoying. 12 Oscar nominations for this hack testifies to the idiocy of the Baby Boomer generation that made him famous.

Is HBO’s ‘The Pacific’ An Underrated Masterpiece?

After the brilliant “Band of Brothers,” I was excited about this HBO mini-series and then Tom Hanks had to get goddamned stupid and partisan and anti-American and ruin the whole thing. I knew he was a lib but that didn’t matter. I loved Tom Hanks and then he had to go and declare that our WWII veterans were waging a war of “terror and racism.”

It would be great to be able to go back to enjoying his work, but now — I just can’t get over this.

I’ve never seen “The Pacific.” I do know Hanks probably hurt the ratings and that the reviews weren’t very good. I also know that Hanks so toxified the atmosphere around the release that the thought of watching it still makes me ill.

35mm Projection Could Be gone by 2015

This is actually one way in which Hollywood can save a ton of money, which of course is what they’re desperate to do in order to avoid the hard work of making better movies that will make more money.

People often confuse me as some kind of purist when that’s really not true. I could care less if the projection is digital or 35MM. I love story. Tell a good story and how you project it won’t make a bit of difference.

Woody Woodpecker Movie in Development

Gee, I hope he learns stop wounding Gaia’s trees with all that awful woodpecking.

Innovations of  Zelda Franchise

Back in the mid-80’s when Nintendo first came out it was the 1986 release of “The Legend of Zelda” that became my crack-cocaine. I became so addicted that once I finally won the game I gave up video games forever.

11 Great Films You’ve Never Heard Of

“Purgatory,” a shockingly Christian Western (in a good way), is a great choice, as is “Citizen X,” a superb HBO film based on the true story of the hunt for a brutal child predator in the Soviet Union before, during, and after the fall of the Wall.

I’ve seen three others: “Shattered,” “Split Second,” and “City of God.” Meh. Certainly worth a look.

Can’t comment on the others.

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Last Night’s Screening

Carlito’s Way (1993) — It’s been years and years since I’ve seen Brian DePalma’s near-great, urban gangster tale of a former heroin kingpin (Al Pacino as Carlito) attempting to go straight. I had remembered none of it and enjoyed every minute. There are two amazing set-pieces and two things that just didn’t work for me.  One of the set-pieces takes place in the back room of a barber shop where a very tense drug deal goes bad and the other during the climax at Grand Central Station where our desperate protagonist makes every move he’s learned over his long, sordid life to dodge five mob assassins driven by a blood feud. These sequences represent DePalma at his best where every camera move and cut serves the moment in a way most directors can only dream of.

What bothered me, though, was the silly notion that we’re supposed to believe that Carlito, a man nudging fifty, feels completely out of place returning to his old neighborhood after a five-year prison stint. When you’re that age (and I’m close enough to it), five years just isn’t that long. If he had been locked up for ten or fifteen years it would make more sense. Nothing involving the theme of feeling out of step with the time and place he used to call home rang true.

No one’s ever accused me of being PC, but I was also troubled by the casting of Penelope Ann Miller as Carlito’s love interest. In 1993, Hollywood was still doing something they would never consider today, casting the Italian Pacino as a Puerto Rican. But for whatever reason, casting this very blonde, ivory-skinned woman as our protagonist’s savior and angel felt wrong and like an overt choice meant to symbolize hope, salvation, and redemption through her Caucasian  looks. As someone who’s in an interracial marriage, it’s certainly not that, and normally I don’t even notice such things.

But at some point during the story I asked myself, “Why couldn’t this girl be Puerto Rican?” Rachel Ticotin sure looks like an angel to me and she would’ve only been 34 when “Carlito” was shot. Oh, and she’s one of the most underused and under-appreciated actresses of our time.

As Carlito’s best friend and attorney, it’s Sean Penn who really steals the movie. Why the Good Lord would give a jerk like that so much talent is beyond me. Viggo Mortensen also kills in his only scene.

Pacino’s performance is typical post-Oscar Pacino — a flamboyant scenery-chewer with an over-the top accent.  But reunited with his “Scarface” director, that performance is pretty perfect.

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SCOTTD’S EPIC LINK-TACULAR

ANCHOR BAY ACQUIRES KURT RUSSELL FOOTBALL FILM ‘TOUCHBACK‘

FELICITY JONES TO PLAY FEMALE LEAD IN WARREN BEATTY’S HOWARD HUGHES BIOPIC

5 POSSIBLE REASONS WHY SONY IS BEING QUIET ABOUT ‘THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN‘

5 MOVIE GADGETS THE GOOGLE X LAB SHOULD WORK ON

8 GREAT HUMAN-MONSTER ROMANCES

JOHN, THIS IS FOR YOU: THE TITLE DESIGN OF MAURICE BINDER

VINTAGE TV ESSAY: “NEWSRADIO AND THE COMEDIC ART”

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF AKIRA KUROSAWA’S ‘YOJIMBO‘

TWILIGHT OF THE SUPERHEROES: ALAN MOORE’S LOST WORK

25 FACTS ABOUT DISNEY’S ‘BEAUTY AND THE BEAST‘

WHY PIXAR SHOULD MAKE AN ANIMATED STEVE JOBS BIOPIC

10 GREAT PRISON BREAKS FROM SCI-FI AND FANTASY

8 PROMISED MOVIES THAT STILL HAVEN’T BEEN MADE

FYI

‘CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3′ SETS FIVE-DAY SALES RECORD

NEW BOX OFFICE RECORD FOR ‘BREAKING DAWN’?

JOHN WILLIAMS WILL SCORE STEVEN SPIELBERG’S ‘LINCOLN’

DID ‘COMMUNITY’ GET TOO CLEVER FOR ITS OWN GOOD?

THREE FILMS VIE FOR FAMILY AUDIENCE NEXT WEEK

11 GREAT FILMS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

‘ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT’ TEAM FIRED UP FOR MOVIE

‘INDIANA JONES’ DOC ‘RAIDING THE LOST ARK’ PUTS FIRST 17 MINUTES ONLINE

MICHAEL JACKSON BIOPIC CIRCULATING HOLLYWOOD

EIGHT CHARACTERS POSTERS FROM ‘THE AVENGERS’

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18

TCM:

10:00 PM  EST: Man Called Peter, A (1955)  – A Scottish boy follows his faith to a bright career preaching in Washington, DC. Dir: Henry Koster Cast:  Richard Todd, Jean Peters, Marjorie Rambeau. C-119 mins

Imperfect but still interesting and respectful biopic about Peter Marshall, a man “called by God” to become a minister; a calling that eventually earns him national recognition. Well worth your time, though, especially for a superb scene where Jean Peters speaks to a group of young woman about what feminism and being a woman really means. You wouldn’t hear that message in our popular culture today.

It starts here at right about the 2:00 mark.

--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

Sony Mulling Internet-Based Alternative to Cable TV

Faster, please:

“According to Wall Street Journal sources, Sony is mulling the launch of an Internet-based alternative to cable TV service in the US. Per the report, Sony has approached several big media groups seeking to negotiate rights to beam their TV channels via the Web.

“Sony’s proposal would see the channels go out to Sony-made devices like PlayStation consoles, TVs and Blu-ray players.”

Update on ’Star Trek’ Sequel Production

What will Hollywood do if this franchise peters out? Clone the original cast? “Star Trek Babies”?

What the ‘Community’ Hiatus Says About the Current State of TV

You buy this?

Community creator Dan Harmon attempted to explain why his NBC show continues to get low ratings despite outstanding marks from critics. “Well, the average person comes home from work really tired, and just wants to flip through channels until they land on the thing that’s the least objectionable to them,” Harmon said. “So they don’t regard the television as an appliance that’s supposed to spiritually satisfy them, they regard it as a thing that’s supposed to comfort them and be a little stupid. It’s not because they’re stupid, it’s because that’s what TV has given them all their lives and it’s hard to go out and do the work of finding a show.”

I can’t judge the show because I’ve never seen it, but this actually seems to be the decade for intelligent television — from “The Sopranos” straight through to “The Shield,” “Mad Men,” and “Breaking Bad.”

An NBC show obviously has to pull in more viewers than those cable shows, so maybe that’s the answer. Move to cable.

Celebrating 40 years of ‘The Omega Man‘

This is one of those films I keep watching again and again hoping I’ll like it better. But as much as I want to like it, to say I prefer Will Smith’s remake would be quite the understatement. Maybe it’s watching Heston enjoy the dirty, filthy hippie movie “Woodstock” or those silly sunglasses Anthony Zerbe wears.  There’s something about “Omega Man”’s tone that doesn’t work for me, and it gets worse as the film rolls on.

The 10 Best Behind the Scenes Film Books

Making a film is so difficult and intense and (usually) filled with larger-than-life personalities that I have yet to learn about what happened behind the scenes and find it any less fascinating than whatever the picture was that came out of it.

New Poster released for ‘Titanic 3D’

Couldn’t Rose and Jack have both survived by alternating places on that slab?

Just a thought.

I do love the movie, though. Its flaws are obvious in the department of screenwriting but Cameron’s epic moviemaking is extraordinary.

Tom Hanks Offered Presidential Action-Thriller ‘Patriot Down’

Let me guess, this President will be a liberal Democrat who served his country in the military but opposes “Bush’s wars.”

Just the thought of Tom Hanks playing a President bores me.

Visual Cool: The Title Design of Saul Bass

No doubt Saul Bass was cool but these never-ending tributes that started online over a year ago are starting to get tiring.

Could filmdom’s Website group-thinkers consider “discovering” someone else who’s “cool,” please?

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Last Night’s Screening

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) – John Ford’s final masterpiece always surprises me by how poignant it is. After a screening, as time passes, my takeaway is John Wayne’s confrontation with Lee Marvin: “That was my steak, Liberty.” and of course Jimmy Stewart’s. What I forget, though is that Wayne’s Tom Doniphon is the real hero of the story, and not just because he saves Ransom Stoddard’s (Stewart) life.

By killing Liberty Valance (the awesome Lee Marvin), Doniphon effectively kills off his own way of life along with it. He not only loses the love of his life (Vera Miles) to Ransom but also elevates the man into a political force who will help end the frontier in favor of civilization. Effectively, through his selfless act, Doniphon sacrifices everything that made him who he was and, in the process, creates a safer world that no longer wants any part of men like him.

Whenever I put the DVD in, it’s with the expectation of a good, ole-fashioned “town” Western. When it’s over, though, I’m blindsided by how profoundly sad and moving the story is, and it stays with me for days afterward. 

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

YES, REALLY: PETA TARGETS ‘SUPER MARIO BROS.’ OVER MARIO’S RACCOON SUIT

‘MAN OF STEEL’ SEQUEL ALREADY PLANNED

TRAILER FOR THAT OTHER SNOW WHITE MOVIE

TIM BURTON IN TALKS TO DIRECT ADAPTATION OF ‘MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN‘

‘WEST SIDE STORY’ STARS CEMENT THEIR PLACE IN HOLLYWOOD HISTORY

AMC ORDERS UFO DRAMA SERIES ‘THUNDERSTRUCK‘

DVD EXTRA: BLU CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE

AND THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE IS…

NEW ‘MUPPETS’ POSTERS TARGET ‘THE TWILIGHT SAGA’ TRIO

HBO AND ‘SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’ TEAM UP FOR DOCUMENTARY SERIES

STELLAR SCIENCE-FICTION ‘STACHES

COMING TO BLU-RAY IN 2012: WILLIAM WELLMAN’S ‘WINGS,’ THE FIRST BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNER

NEW TRAILER FOR PIXAR’S ‘BRAVE’

WHAT ‘THE CROW’ REBOOT MIGHT’VE LOOKED LIKE

“NI!” 20 FACTS ABOUT ‘MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL‘

ARE SOME CONCEPTS JUST TOO SILLY FOR MOVIES?

FILMMAKER LYNNE RAMSEY DISCUSSES HER UNFILMED VERSION OF ‘THE LOVELY BONES‘

THE TRAGIC HISTORY OF THE BEATLES’ MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

6 AWESOME USES OF CAMERA RIGS

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17

TCM:

11:15 AM EST: Ice Station Zebra (1968) –  A sub commander on a perilous mission must ferret out a Soviet agent on his ship. Dir: John Sturges Cast:  Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan.  C-152 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Men. Commies. Submarines. Any questions?

--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

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IMBD description:

A nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist, searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks.

But of course he’s a nine-year-old pacifist. And according to Wikipedia, he’s also a nine-year-old vegan. Why would he be anything else? So precious.

Hard to get behind a protagonist in desperate need of a good slap.

But maybe by the end of the flick, the kid sees the light…

… He joins the Marines, heads off to Afghanistan, and mows down jihadists with a fully automatic machine gun while chomping on a chicken leg.

Could happen.

We’ll find out January 20th. Or after it hits Redbox.

However, President Barack Obama’s latest fundraising report cites an “A-list of Hollywood stars, with donations from some of the top celebrities in the entertainment industry.” Apparently, left-coast liberals want to see to it that the best script reader since Martin Sheen has another shot at practicing lines on set while acting the part of President.

It’s not surprising that Hollywood is smitten with the “Yes We Can” man’s refusal to admit he can’t.  Those in the acting profession are impressed by amateurs like Barry Soetoro (stage name Barack Obama), who has proven to have a professional-level ability to make believe he’s something he is not. Heck, for a season, even Paul Giamatti was convinced he was John Adams.

What could be better for Hollywood than a President who swims around in a policy cesspool similar to the one they refuse to empty in Tinsel Town, overflowing with the squalid water of loose morals, abortion rights, angry feminists, racial indignation, class warfare, and overall elitist hypocrisy?

By and large, actors, comedians and entertainers pride themselves on being pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-free Mumia, pro-promiscuity, and pro-anything non-traditional. Hollywood is full of left-wingers whose “Hope [is to] Change” America into a nation where the likes of Bill Maher and Jane Fonda are symbols of empathy and truth.

The fact that big name stars contribute to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection bid proves once again that ideological liberals lack intelligence and common sense.  Little do they know that if Obama gets another four years, it’s certain he’ll drive a stake through the heart of the nation that has bestowed fame and fortune on ignorant people who like to play pretend.

It doesn’t take Will Hunting to figure out that people who can’t afford gas and groceries aren’t likely to drop $10 on a movie ticket to watch Julia Roberts fake-giggling while riding on the back of a moped driven by a middle-aged Tom Hanks in a leather jacket.

Yet, despite the inevitable looming catastrophe if Obama is reelected, according to the latest Federal Election Commission report the list of Who’s Who of Obama aficionados includes usual suspects such as Darfur defender George Clooney, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest Gump, and cancer survivor Michael Douglas – a man who would have already succumbed to throat cancer had Obamacare already kicked in.

Campaign contributors also include Schindler’s List director Steven Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw. The Spielbergs, despite their supposed brilliance, fail to realize they’re supporting a president whose feelings for Israel are at best questionable and whose lack of action could result in the need for another list if an unrestrained Iran eventually has its way.

Another contradictory campaign contributor is newly discovered country singer and proud part-time Londoner, the multifaceted Mrs. Chris “Coldplay” Martin, Gwyneth Paltrow.  Gwyneth likes living in England better than the US, which may be why she decided to punish the colonies by contributing to Obama’s “We Bent the Air Hose in 2008 – Let’s Pull the Plug in 2012” campaign.

Also in the mix is political scene newcomer Jennifer Garner, wife to one of JLo’s many former fiancés, Ben Affleck. When not speaking before Congress on behalf of Save the Children, Garner supports the reelection of a radically pro-choice threat to the lives of millions of unborn children who, thanks to Barack Obama, truly need saving.

Other Obama star contributors include: Monk star Tony Shalhoub, Glee’s Jane Lynch, 24’s president Dennis Haysbert (a man who knows firsthand how to pretend to be a president), and sci-fi star Scott Bakula.  The eclectic group joins cantankerous political wannabe (who should also be in the sci-fi category), 30 Rock actor/über-liberal aspiring NYC mayor Alec Baldwin, who prides himself on being diversified in every area except liberalism.

The July quarterly report for the President’s reelection campaign touts $47 million in donations, while the Democratic National Committee raised $38 million through Obama’s joint committee. According to Barack Obama’s campaign, about 40% of the President’s record-breaking take came from “big-money bundlers” and top Hollywood heavy hitters like Rahm’s sibling Ari Emanuel and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Obama continues to practice governing the nation with the finesse of a jackhammer operator doing a kidney transplant. Yet, never once have Fruit of the Loom grape man Wayne Wilderson or Brenda Strong of “Desperate Housewives,” colleague of esteemed “brainstorming” border security adviser Eva Longoria, questioned the craven cynicism of demonizing the rich while stuffing Hollywood capital into his campaign coffers.

Seems that even after chastising Americans for failing to “share the wealth,” a selectively philanthropic Barack Obama is more than willing to accept the “additional income” of well-to-do Hollywood supporters, if doing so finances his glitzy billion-dollar bid for reelection that should be coined: Take two.

So once again, America is witnessing the unbridled ignorance of affluent individuals who choose to support a President who decries prosperity but has little trouble siphoning off the wealth of a community too clueless to understand who they’re really supporting and too committed to liberal ideology to really care.

(Reuters) – Quoting from “The King’s Speech,” the Oscar-winning movie about his great-grandfather, Prince William projected his royal voice to woo the Hollywood power crowd in a bid with wife Kate to promote young British talent.

He in black tie, she in a pleated lavender Alexander McQueen gown, the young newlyweds on Saturday night set a tone of classic elegance for the most high-profile event in their three-day visit to the United States.

Hollywood royalty — from actors Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Barbra Streisand to studio mogul Harvey Weinstein — turned out for the couple of the moment at the $25,000 a table gala organized by British Academy for Film and Television (BAFTA), of which William is president.

“I would like to thank Colin Firth for my perfect opening line — I have a voice,” William joked with the crowd, quoting one of the most famous lines in the 2010 movie about King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth who overcame a stammer.

Alas, Oscar winner Firth was not there nor were many established British actors. William and BAFTA instead wanted to introduce 42 emerging British actors, producers, writers and videogame designers to the movers and shakers of the entertainment capital of the world.

“Please give them the opportunities that you have always extended to some of the brightest and best that Britain has to offer,” William told the gathering at the Belasco, a restored theater in downtown Los Angeles.

“When American and British creative talent gets together, magic happens. Let’s continue the winning formula.”

British actor Stephen Fry praised the idea to promote Brits in Hollywood while fascination with the royal couple was at its height following their April wedding.

“Royalty creates a glamour, prestige and luster that trumps anything Hollywood can produce,” Fry said.

Full article here.

Tom Hanks, who also directed the film and co-wrote the story with Nia Vardolas, stars as Larry Crowne. Crowne is a “valued” employee at a UMart retail store who is fired early on in the story by a managerial committee. It seems the “U” in “UMart” might stand for university because Crowne is terminated because he didn’t go to college. He had enlisted in the Navy immediately after high school but the company doesn’t care about that.

To ensure that he would never again be fired for not going to college, Crowne enrolls in a local community college.

In college, he enrolls in a class entitled “The Art of Informal Remarks,” which is taught by Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts). Tainot is a mildly disgruntled professor who celebrates canceling her classes when there aren’t enough students.  She is unhappily married to a writer (Bryan Cranston), who spends much of his time looking at online porn. The scenes of Tainot’s desperate home life drag down the story but fortunately, there aren’t too many of them. In a story that is meant to be lighthearted and fun, the slow destruction of their marriage provides unnecessarily dramatic moments. Cranston, who previously showed off his comedic abilities in “Malcolm in the Middle,” is completely wasted here.

The film comes alive during its numerous classroom scenes. Along with a few laughs provided by the motley crew of characters that compose the “Informal Remarks” class, there are a few laughs provided by George Takei, a slightly off-kilter economics professor. Early on, there are several short scenes from both classes that make the film feel like a mish-mash of short “SNL” sketches but most of these short scenes are quite funny.

There is a nice little sideplot involving Crowne’s friendship with a free-spirited college student named Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who helps Crowne see how “cool” he can be. Talia’s boyfriend (Wilmer Valderrama) doesn’t like the budding relationship though. Valderrama, previously known for his work on “That 70’s Show,” proves that he can be funny here and, along with Takei, steals the show.

The focus point of the story is the relationship between the two leading characters who find what they are looking for in the other person. This main plot line, though, feels weak compared to some of the great characters in the supporting cast. Still, “Larry Crowne” is worth watching for a few laughs and a decent story at its heart.