This is how it always works…

Obama’s Palace Guards at the race-baiting Washington Post create a phony racial narrative against Texas Governor Rick Perry. The truth comes out that proves just the opposite is true; that, in fact, Perry’s family merely leased a small potion of the land and were the ones responsible for painting over the offensive rock. But the MSM makes sure that information gets nowhere near the attention the original smear does. And so the false allegation lingers and now it’s time for liberal Hollywood to step in and cement the smear into popular culture:

Rick Perry isn’t going to live this one down for a long time: Sarah Silverman and several of her comedian cohorts are planning a live stand-up special — “Live From N—–head: Stripping The Paint Off Of Good Ol’ Fashioned Racism” — to raise funds for the NAACP.

The show, scheduled for Nov. 1 at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas [...]

The title of the show refers, of course, to the family hunting camp owned by Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry. The name of the camp — which was painted on a rock at the entrance for many years — sparked a media storm for Perry earlier this month, but Silverman thinks the furor died down too quickly.

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Last year, while we were still living in Los Angeles, my wife and I visited a number of the Catholic missions that dot the State of California’s coastline. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that none other than Bob Hope is buried at the San Fernando Mission in Mission Hills, California.  It’s a beautiful, serene and private spot with a plot right next to Bob’s reserved for his beloved wife.

Of course the passing of Dolores Hope is a sad occasion and our condolences go out to her loved ones. But there is some peace in knowing Bob won’t be all alone anymore and that he and his bride of 69 years are side by side once again.    

Washington Post

Dolores Hope, who throughout her 69-year marriage to comedian Bob Hope oversaw their charitable giving and played a key role in establishing the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., has died. She was 102.

Mrs. Hope died Sept. 19 at her home in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, publicist Harlan Boll said. No cause of death was reported.

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The artistic community is always ready to stand against censorship – and we know that because it constantly tells us so.  If you want to drape an American flag across a walkway to make a statement by letting goateed hipster art aficionados traipse across it, you’re a bold visionary.  If you want to write a novel about shooting a Republican president, you’re courageously speaking truth to power.  If you want to smear pachyderm dung on a painting of the Virgin Mary, you’re bravely facing down the forces of religious bigotry.

Hell, you not only have a right to do it, but you have a right to have it federally funded through the NEA by the very taxpayers whose collective mind you intend to blow by getting so darn real.   It’s right there in the Constitution, amid the emanations and adjacent to the penumbras.  Oh, but if you accurately depict the acts leading up to the murder of nearly 3000 Americans, you’ve got to be stopped.  After all, the artistic elite can’t let you upset the Krugman-esque party line that 9/11 was really about Bu$Hitler and Company’s wars for oil or something.

The artistic community is anti-censorship right up until the second it decides it wants something censored.  Then it piles on.

A little background.

Steve Reich is a Pulitzer-winning composer who lived a few blocks away from the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11, 2001.  He was out of town at the time, but his family was home.  They barely escaped, but the experience was so emotionally traumatic that it was only as the 10th anniversary of this monstrous crime approached that he was able to finally express his feelings through his art.  You would think the artistic community would praise him – well, you would think that if you had not been paying attention and still believe that it possessed the capacity for shame at its own rank hypocrisy.

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You know the problem with the arts these days? In case you didn’t know, Philip Kennicott will be happy to tell you. The problem with the arts, he says, is that they’re homophobic.

Quit laughing.

In a recent Washington Post column, Kennicott takes issue with “a litany of shameful events and grievances” committed against homosexuals in the arts, from “the ‘super-macho’ ethos of the American abstract expressionists” to the recent removal of an explicit exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum. Basically, he believes that despite the disproportionate contributions of homosexuals to the arts world, the arts world has failed to honor them appropriately. And he believes that the only way to do this is to make sure that museums are upfront about (1) the sexual proclivities of artists and their subjects, and (2) the subjects’ role, if any, “the iconography of same-sex eroticism.”

For instance, since Saint Sebastian has been appropriated as a homosexual icon, museums are supposed to mention this wherever they display paintings of him. Never mind that he was not himself homosexual.

And if all this openness makes museums seem a little less “family friendly” to some, well, they just need to get with the times. “‘Family’ is now understood to include gay parents, married gay couples and people with gay children, and the absence of basic information about the role of same-sex desire in art history has become an overt sin of omission,” Kennicott explains. Because society is now more accepting of various forms of sexuality, clearly, kids need more sexual information shoved in their faces! (Since, you know, they’re not getting enough of it already from the culture around them.) (more…)

What the MSM and the White House did just a few minutes ago while asking and responding to questions about rapper Common being invited by Michelle Obama for a night of poetry is, as always, one in the same. Rather than focus on a 2005 interview where Common openly opposed interracial relationships, everything’s being couched in the safer (for Obama) arena of “artistic license” — as just another Right v. Left battle in the culture war.

Common at the NAACP Image Awards

While Big Hollywood reported on the Common story when it broke, there was no editorializing until I came across this particular interview. I do get that artists/rappers/singers create characters in their work and as a defender of artistic expression, I had no real energy towards the issue until I came across the interview. An artist using his or her work to express the unacceptable is one thing. An individual openly declaring opposition to interracial relationships is naked racism and something else entirely.

For obvious reasons, however, no one wants to talk about what Common the man said in an interview, they want to focus on Common the artist. Watch what both the Washington Post and the White House do here…

The Washington Post:

Common is one of many artists expected at the White House’s “An Evening of Poetry” Wednesday evening, but his invitation has started a minor culture war, in light of lyrics like “Burn a Bush ’cause for peace he don’t push no button.” And also stuff we can’t print here.

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Dare I say, God bless Ricky Gervais?

How many times have those of us in Middle America gotten all settled in for an expected evening of relaxing entertainment, be it at the movies, in front of the television, or in bed with a good book, only to get sucker punched by some cheap, out-of-nowhere sucker punch aimed at our identity, faith or country? You former “Law and Order” fans know especially of what I speak. And so last night Gervais gave the entertainment industry a little taste of what that sucker punch feels like. First, there’s the surprise; then there’s the disappointment and anger; finally, there comes the worst part: the waiting on edge for it to happen again.

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The Washington Post claims Gervais “crashed” last night and had a “meltdown.” The Guardian suggests Gervais toned down his act later in the show after being disciplined backstage. The New York Times declared Gervais “merciless” and suggests he will not be asked to return for a third time as host. The Hollywood Reporter is almost positive Gervais won’t be asked back after “bruising all those egos.”

No, Hollywood is not happy with Mr. Gervais for ruining their evening with cheap shots, ridicule and insults.

Well, how does it feel, Hollywood? How does it feel to be “blindsided” and trapped for a few hours not knowing when it might come again?

Kind of sucks all the fun out of the evening, doesn’t it? (more…)

The brilliant Humberto Fontova tells a story in one of his books (I believe it’s Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him), about guitarist Carlos Santana being confronted once about wearing the iconic Che T-shirt. After deservedly getting an earful about what a murdering coward Che was, and how the counterculture’s favorite revolutionary icon despised musicians and artists like Santana himself, an irritated Santana reportedly sputtered, “You’re just hung up on the facts, man.”

In a recent article entitled “Washington-Set Films May Fudge Facts, But Good Ones Speak To Larger Truths,” the Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday discusses how D.C. audiences composed of political insiders scrutinize Hollywood’s D.C.-based historical dramas for fidelity to the facts. “Myth or reality?” she asks. “That’s the question posed by movies based on true events, and it’s a conundrum that Washington officialdom seems to have a perennial problem in reconciling.” As examples, she references such films as Charlie Wilson’s War, Thirteen Days, All the President’s Men, and of course, Oliver Stone’s controversial oeuvre: JFK, Nixon, and W. (I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to use the word “oeuvre” in one of my blogs).

History buffs and D.C. insiders may nitpick about such films, but as Ms. Hornaday writes, “You don’t have to support Stone’s signature brand of revisionism to agree that overweening literalism can sometimes obscure a larger truth.” (more…)

Throughout the promotional campaign for “South of the Border,” director Oliver Stone has been loudly complaining about what he sees as the American media’s unfavorable bias towards the subject of his documentary, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Obviously this is a propaganda trick on Stone’s part – a way to shame the media into covering his film without challenging him on the facts or asking any hard questions. Judging from a recent interview the two-time Oscar winner granted to Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post, the trick appears to have worked.   

Once upon a time the Washington Post was a reliable newspaper with ethical investigative reporters. That of course was before Woodward and Bernstein elevated the Fourth Estate denizens to deity wannabes who could bring down a president. Now the once vaunted daily allows amateurish, star-struck reporters to give entertainment celebrities a pass in lieu of professional journalistic coverage. 

I’ve written for three newspapers in the past twelve years and endured the critique of numerous editors who’d never let me get away with the one-sided article that Ann Hornaday wrote about Oliver Stone. She allowed Stone to make the following statement without challenging his resources:  (more…)

The same weekend “Sex and the City 2” hit theatres, the email copied below (which was leaked to Big Hollywood), titled: Is Sex & the City 2 Bad For America’s Brand?,‏ made the rounds in the obvious hopes of kicking up and furthering the narrative that SATC2 was not only racist but also stereotyped Americans in a way that reinforced why Islamists hate us (as though the motivations of pure evil matter). 

This email was disseminated to various media publications on behalf of  Adam Hanft, a “branding and marketing expert,” eager to offer his important self up for interviews in the hopes of tarnishing and “branding” as racist a film that strayed from the Liberal Plantation — a cinematic fairy tale that dared to indulge in materialistic luxury and display an open defiance of Islamic Nazism.

And would it surprise you to learn that this same Adam Hanft is a HuffPoster?

From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: Fri, May 28, 2010 at 12:24 PM
Subject: Expert Avail: Is Sex & the City 2 Bad For America’s Brand?
To: XXXX@XXXXXXXX

Hi XXXXXXX,

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One of the most enjoyable parts of both “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2” is the hero at the core of the two films. Played by a charismatic Robert Downey Jr., Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) is both egotistical and immensely likable. Although he has some personal flaws, he is a hero worth believing in. However, in a review of “Iron Man 2,” one Washington Post critic recently denounced Tony Stark comparing him to a well-known criminal: Jack Abramoff.

Tony Stark, left; Jack Abramoff, right

In the second “Iron Man,” Tony Stark is the same cocky hero that we know from the first film. Towards the beginning of the film, Stark is asked by an elected official to give up his Iron Man suit. Not only does Stark refuse to give it up, he openly cracks jokes with the official and makes him look like a fool. Even when his life is threatened, Stark does not lose his self-assuredness. However, despite his overt cockiness, Stark remains a strong hero that people can relate to. He may be arrogant but he is still a hero who fights against the villains in this movie and he uses his suit for the good of man. (more…)

So a friend asked me to explain the whole mess in Greece, and I tried to make it simple. You know those people who keep spending money, even though they don’t have any? They have tons of crap, but their credit cards are maxed? That’s Greece.

Now they have to cut back, but they don’t want to. Remember the phrase, “taking candy from a baby?” Well, imagine this baby is unionized, and prone to arson.

But if you really want to puke, Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum points out what Greece must do, in exchange for its massive bailout. To cut the deficit, Greece must reduce Easter and summer bonuses for its civil servants.

Easter bonuses? Summer Bonuses? They get bonuses because the weather changes? (more…)

No one should take any pleasure when someone else loses their job (Dan Rather being the exception), not even elitist, left-wing newspaper critics. At one time or another, most of us have had the employment rug pulled out from under us. It’s a traumatic experience to say the least, one that transcends politics. We all have a monthly nut to crack and a family to support. That said…

I’ll tell you what I could do without, though: all the self-important lamenting that spreads throughout the critical community each and every time another critic loses his or her job. When Todd McCarthy was let go at Variety, if you didn’t know any better you would have thought the Pope died. And now that “At the Movies,” or whatever they were calling it this year, has been put down, we get 1600+ words from one of the show’s co-hosts, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott.  

He asks himself (and us): Is criticism still important? Do critics still matter? Does anyone care? Should they care? But the fact that Scott spends 1600+ words in the New York Times asking those questions makes them all but rhetorical. Oddly, most of the blame seems to be directed at the Internet as though it’s impossible for writers to find success and a living online. (more…)

Critics seem to use every opportunity they can to attack former Governor Sarah Palin and her family. Even though she is no longer in elected office, some seem unable to control their disdain for Ms. Palin, even when their criticisms of her are without credibility and lacking merit. One such example occurred in a recent Washington Post book review about a book that seemingly has very little to do with Ms. Palin.  

 In a Washington Post review of  Debbie Dana Stabenow’s book “A Night Too Dark,” which reportedly focuses on Alaska and revolves around a character named Kate Shugak, WaPo book critic Patrick Anderson took a swipe at former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In the first paragraph of his “review,” Anderson wrote the following about the book:

If you’ve never visited Alaska, it’s also an intriguing introduction to that big, brawling, rather bewildering state. Once you’ve met the strange characters who inhabit the Shugak novels, Sarah Palin becomes easier to comprehend.

If that’s not enough, Anderson saved his harshest criticism of Palin for later in the piece. At the end of the article, Anderson referenced an interview in which Stabenow is quoted as saying that she met Sarah Palin several times but that Palin never spoke to her about her books.  (more…)

Last week I posted an article from the Washington Post asking… “Hollywood Gets More Religious?” When the author of that piece used the planet-worshipping “Avatar” and Christian-ridiculing “Invention of Lying” to back his point that Hollywood’s suddenly jumped on the Religion Train I was skeptical, but left that one up to the readers to decide.

Agenda? What agenda?

Daniel Krandall over at “The American Culture” took a look at the same piece and smelled a different rat, but a rat nonetheless:

The only explanation I can come up with to explain those who deny Hollywood’s left-wing agenda is that they want to remain on the “Above the Line” cocktail party invite list. Either that they are lying to themselves, and are nothing more than useful idiots to left-wing ideologues.

The Washington Post recently reported on Hollywood’s turn toward films promoting spiritual themes. The litany of spiritual themed movies includes Avatar, The Road, The Invention of Lying, The Lovely Bones, The Blind Side, The Book of Eli, Legion, and The Last Station. While many might pause at the “spirituality” the Dream Factory promotes in some of these films, I was struck by this opening quote from Greg Wright, editor at HollywoodJesus.com:

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If there is one overriding theme coursing through reviews of Smokey and the Bandit, it is superficiality. Read through the mountain of pieces out there, and you’ll continually be assaulted with adjectives like “silly,” “mindless,” “breezy,” “fun,” and “stupid.” Taken together, they blend into a gargantuan wall of polite derision. Even those who genuinely adore the movie scoff at efforts to peek under the film’s thematic hood. Burt Reynolds himself has stated that “Anybody who would take that picture seriously needs a psychiatrist.”

Well, I disagree. A movie’s effect on the culture is often independent of intellectual considerations. The passage of years highlights a film’s vintage regardless of pedigree or awards. Father Time has a sneaky way of giving even erstwhile pop-culture artifacts a rich patina of nostalgia and meaning. And so it happens that light-footed entertainments like Smokey sometimes have lessons to teach, if only we can muster the wisdom to listen.

Let’s return for a moment to the film critic Gary Arnold, who in the summer of 1977 penned a lengthy appreciation of Smokey for The Washington Post. Along with Star Wars, Hal Needham’s film was dominating the domestic box office, especially at the drive-in theaters that were still fairly common in rural America. Given the movie’s success and the CB phenomenon, an article about the picture was a no-brainer. But what’s interesting about Arnold’s essay is how he goes beyond mere cinematic merit and expands his analysis into the realms of culture and politics: (more…)

In a year when a “balloon boy” became a media sensation, it is bizarre that some networks are thinking about giving more credibility to reality show contestant wannabes. The Salahis, the other high-profile ”celebrity” couple that seemed  more interested in gaining publicity and fame than following the law, are getting even more attention because of the party they crashed several weeks ago at the White House. The network Bravo has seemingly furthered their careers by polling people about giving the party crashers their own show. These are the uninvited guests who, after invading the White House party, want to invade your living room.

The Washington Post recently reported on the Bravo poll that gave the Salahis the spotlight once again. The article noted that Bravo ”decided to poll viewers for their thoughts on Michaele and Tareq Salahi. This included asking whether you’d think less of Bravo if it gave the Salahis their own reality series.” The Post article noted that “the poll, which was being conducted by Research Results — a company that says it’s affiliated with NBC Universal” asked repondents if  “it would be in poor taste to give them [the Salahis] their own reality show. ” The answer to that question seems obvious.  The Salahis got publicity for breaking into a White House party. If that activity helps to earn them a reality show, that will only lead to future White House incursions by publicity-hungry celebrity wannabes. (more…)

In an industry notorious for wasteful pretentiousness — directors shooting a hundred takes, crews taking all day to light a single shot, gazillions spent on the latest effects — Hal Needham was a rebel. Directing? “There is no magic to it, you know. All you have to do is look through the camera and see if it’s got the lens on it that you want. . . I don’t really think it’s that tough.” Cinematography? “We’re not doing Gone with the Wind or Fiddler on the Roof. It’s action/comedy. . .don’t give me none of this artsy-fartsy stuff, just shoot the film.” Expensive locations? “I like to get outside whenever I can. I think it gives a film energy to be outside. . . and beauty.”

And so Smokey and the Bandit was made fast and loose, outside, on a low budget. In Reynolds’ words, they worked “lightning quick,” with first-time director Needham “reigning over crew and camera with instincts that made him, in my humble opinion, the best action director in the business.” The entire film was shot on location in the South. “We moved all over Georgia. . . It was a screwy chase picture, but Hal’s fun, outlaw, hell-bent-sensibility made it sparkle.” (more…)

Yesterday, Washington Post columnist and former Bush II speechwriter Michael Gerson played a long slow violin solo over the death of the mainstream media. There’s nothing new in his piece. Dazed with panic as the circle of financial ruin closes in, we’ve heard this song many times before from our ink-stained dinosaurs. And true to form, Gerson can’t break the mold. It’s all there, the rose-colored glasses, denial, and a heaping helping of rationalization.

Once again, from that familiar MSM perch where one can look down their nose at the great unwashed who just don’t understand the magnificent tradition of journalism they’re about to lose, Gerson blames We the People for no longer wanting  to pay for our news and choosing partisan sources “that reinforce and exaggerate … political predispositions.”

How absurd. (more…)

Nidal “Gary” Hassan – All-American boy was haunted by memories of Gitmo, ‘Nam, Hiroshima INEVITABLY, ANOTHER SOLDIER SNAPS Distraught pacifist conscientious objector tormented by horrors of war, as far as you know Newsroom experts: stress, violence, stupidity, tragedy a way of life for GIs Former M*A*S*H stars say it’s finally time to disarm the military Hollywood insiders: Sean Penn early favorite for lead in planned Oliver Stone biopic

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Yesterday, the White House announced that it was removing Alma Thomas’ plagiaristic piece “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from its walls.  The White House announced that the painting was moved “because it didn’t fit the space right.”  The Washington Post pointed out that posters at FreeRepublic.com had examined the similarity between “Watusi (Hard Edge)” and Henri Matisse’s “The Snail” (1953), ignoring the fact that Big Hollywood actually broke the story.  The Washington Post covered for the White House, explaining, “Stephens’s explanation makes sense because it is inconceivable that the White House’s art experts would imagine Thomas’s painting was fraudulent or a copy … Elaborations on earlier artists’ work, even full appropriation, have been common practice in art for hundreds of years.”  

Andrew Breitbart immediately emailed the author of the piece, Blake Gopnik, to point out that Big Hollywood had not been properly attributed on criticism of the piece.  Here’s Andrew’s email: 

“Ben Shapiro at Big Hollywood broke this story with a legitimate report. Not blog opinion. To credit Free Republic or conservative opinion sites is either bad journalism or… bad journalism. Even at Free Republic they cite Shapiro and Big Hollywood. The story was cited properly all over the Internet, why the Washington Post breach? We have been at the forefront of reporting on what the MSM won’t regarding this admin. We had the ACORN story, the NEA propaganda conference call. All hard news stories. And so is this. Shapiro is a Harvard law grad. He is hardly worthy of this kind of brush off. We’d like to see a correction as soon as possible.” 

And here is Gopnik’s response:   (more…)