Editor’s Note: Please welcome Kate O’Hare to the pages of Big Hollywood. As a longtime fan of her television coverage, it’s a real privilege to have her as part of the family. — JN

Perhaps the most direct TV reaction to 9/11 was the FX drama “Rescue Me,” starring Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin, an out-of-control member of the FDNY’s fictitious Ladder 62/Engine 99. It aired its finale on Sept. 7, but I wasn’t there.

I was there when the show began strong in 2004, with Tommy dealing with stress of 9/11, both the horror of the event and the guilt over surviving when his cousin and best friend, Jimmy Keefe, didn’t. It was irreverent, often profane (as much as ad-supported basic cable could bear), raucous and full of moments of dark humor and heroism. I once asked some Los Angeles firefighters about it, and they said it was tame – so I never doubted its veracity in portraying the secret lives of the FDNY.

But, as many Hollywood things do, it went too far, too weird, too vicious, too strange – especially in its portrayal of Tommy’s faith, which vacillated between “Father Ted” and “The Omen.” And it was way too hard to believe that women would fall that hard for Tommy Gavin, over and over again (they may fall for Leary, but he doesn’t just wear Denis Leary’s face, he IS Denis Leary, famous comic and actor).

Having been in New York in Oct. 2001 and seeing the memorials everywhere to the fallen firefighters and police, and then joining them again in Manhattan for the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade since the Towers fell, I wanted so badly to keep loving “Rescue Me.”

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What to make of this…? Something Alec Baldwin might enjoy…?

Via Comic Book Resources:

Rick Veitch wants you to think about things. Specifically, the writer/artist wants readers to think about the events of 9/11. Set to debut nearly 10 years after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, “The Big Lie” from Image Comics features a physicist named Sandra who goes back in time to save her husband from perishing in the World Trade Center buildings. Veitch teamed with longtime collaborator Gary Erskine on inks as well as editors Thomas Yeates and Brian Romanoff who got the ball rolling on the project and saw it through to completion. CBR News spoke with Veitch about what he wants readers to come away thinking after reading the miniseries, how Uncle Sam comes into play and the problems Sandra encounters in her quest to save her husband. …

“If you are an American of my age, 9/11 was a major event; emotionally and politically” Veitch said. “How can an artist not want to explore it? ‘Can’t Get No’ was a flutterball about the emotional side of 9/11. ‘The Big Lie’ is a fastball aimed straight at the politics.”

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Last night, from the actor’s verified Twitter feed:

According to yesterday’s Hollywood Reporter (more below the fold), even though actor James Brolin might have attempted to forever cement the world’s memory of Ronald Reagan as a “shallow thinker, indecisive, lost in the past and easily manipulated” through the incredible power of moving pictures via a disgraced mini-series, that was all just a big misunderstanding. In fact, Brolin’s a big Reagan fan! Now. Or maybe he always was. Or, as the Left always does, maybe he’s jumping on the history bandwagon that long ago left him far behind… Reagan was good, Communism was bad. Who knew?

Imagine how difficult it must have been for a fan like Brolin to portray his hero saying this of AIDS sufferers: “They that live in sin shall die in sin.” Of course Reagan never said any such thing and the line was eventually cut before the program aired. But Brolin loves the Gipper.

For those of you who don’t know, James Brolin’s Indian name is Creepy Truther Who Mocks 9/11: 

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And here here’s Creepy Truther Who Mocks 9/11 referring the “View” audience to a Creepy Truther website, which I’m sure fellow Creepy Truther, Rosie – fire can’t melt steel – O’Donnell, bookmarked immediately: (more…)

[Rosie] O’Donnell said she wanted to “build on what Oprah began and excelled at for 25 years, in my own style and with new adaptations and ideas.”

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[Rosie] O’Donnell said she wanted to “build on what Oprah began and excelled at for 25 years, in my own style and with new adaptations and ideas.”

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[Rosie] O’Donnell said she wanted to “build on what Oprah began and excelled at for 25 years, in my own style and with new adaptations and ideas.” (more…)

So Charlie Sheen recently penned a fictitious conversation between himself and President Obama – one in which he questions our Commander-in-chief on the big 9/11 cover up. Yes, the star of Scary Movie 3 – and Scary Movie 4 – believes that the Bush/Cheney regime were behind the attack, and feels that our current President should investigate immediately, in an effort to answer a “bottomless warren of unanswered questions surrounding that day…”

Now, never mind how insulting this is to anyone personally affected by the tragedy – or who saw it firsthand. Sheen is just awesome for illustrating the three key components to being a conspiracy theorist/loser:

-the egomania. In this “open letter,” Sheen actually uses Obama’s made up words to compliment himself. Yes, the President admits to enjoying “Two and a Half Men,” writes Charlie. And here I thought Martin was the delusional one in the family. (more…)

This is no youthful indiscretion, this is 2003. Will the ObamaMedia be able to ignore a Czar associated with lyrics like this:

The American way manufactured by white folk in office, by these rich men here to mock us. The United States; a piece of stolen land led by right-wing, war-hungry, oil thirsty… And when it’s all said and done still can’t [garbled] the wrong place cause they got people of color playing servant to do that shit for them; mother fuckers ready to wipe out soft targets on territories harboring terrorists?

Tragedy.

The true terrorists are made in the U.S.

Truther/Czar Jones himself at the 4:20 mark: (more…)

Too much information about an actor’s life breaks the ability for the viewer to believe the character the actor is playing. Daniel Sunjata is one of those actors I wish I knew less about. He’s one of the stars of the hit show “Rescue Me,” and after reading of his beliefs that 9/11 was an inside job, I find it difficult to see his character Franco, as real. Good thing for him the producers decided to write his conspiracy theories into the show so now his acting won’t be a stretch. In fact it won’t be an act at all; it’ll be his truth, which leaves me seeing just another vapid Hollywood actor looking to push the envelope of their stupidity instead of minding to their craft.

Two of the greatest actors of our time, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Daniel Day Lewis are the sort of actors that truly let me enjoy their work because I know next to nothing about who they are as people. And I don’t want to know about them, I just want to experience the joy of their craft.

Daniel Sunjata has been quoted as saying “There’s alternative theories about what really happened on 9/11,” he told TV critics in January. “They’re not discussed a lot in the press … I’m really gratified that they allowed that to be focused through my character, because I happen to subscribe to a lot of those theories and beliefs that 9/11 was an inside job.” Daniel, they’re not discussed, because they have no foundation in reality. (more…)