Paul Bond at the Hollywood Reporter:

“Looks like “Land of the Lost” has earned star Will Ferrell the dubious distinction of being the most overpaid actor in show business, according to the list makers at Forbes magazine.

“Forbes looked at 100 top actors based on their widely released films over the past five years. It factored in the production costs of those movies against how much boxoffice, DVD and other revenue they generated in order to come up with an operating income for each film, which it then compared with the salaries the stars earned.

“In Ferrell’s case, the actor’s films earned just $3.29 for every dollar he was paid. That’s a pretty poor contrast to the $160 that Shia LaBeouf’s movies returned to the studios for every buck he earned.”

More names and the full story here.

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So, what’s a nice Catholic girl from Milwaukee doing in an ad like this? Graham admits, “My friends really wanted Obama to be elected so we all did a spell and then he got elected.”  Thanks for sharing.  Graham is a long way from that seemingly squeaky upbringing, having joined a coven of witches. But she becomes just the latest conjurer in a string of celebrity activists pushing ObamaCare.

The ad’s narrator is counter-culture hippie and actor Peter Coyote, and the message recalls another recent MoveOn ad starring Will Ferrell that lampooned insurance companies.  Ferrell, for his part, has a growing proclivity for turning up in more and more politically loaded advertising. Hardly surprising for a guy who owes his career to playing George W. Bush, but when asked to meet the President snapped, “I don’t want to meet that guy.”

The jury is still out on whether celebrities influence weighty issues like America’s health-care overhaul.  Surely, casting witches and clowns in ads won’t help.  Are these multi-million dollar campaigns that use comedy and sexual innuendo effective in persuading a skeptical public? If you’re George Soros, apparently so!  But then, “Track Meet” is a tortured ad that insults the very youth demographic it tries so hard to persuade.  An obvious play to Obama’s core of young followers, it contrasts the titillating, youthful Heather Graham against a pack of older suit-wearing health care big-wigs. But… is Graham supposed to be sexy or silly performing her ridiculous warm ups (or does it really matter)? Austin Powers might say: Oh, bee-have!

Most perplexing, the producers unwittingly put down the intended audience — one straight-laced woman villainously checks her e-mails and text messages… another executive eats a cheeseburger… another parties with champagne… more than a few go ga-ga over Graham — it’s like they were acting exactly like the age group they are targeting!

Until MoveOn grows up and gets serious, the kooky George Soros-financed outfit will be about as threatening as Doctor Evil in a room full of Mini-Me’s.

It’s gotta suck to be Will Ferrell and Adam McKay right now … when something called the CatholicVoteAction.org is funnier that you…?

Burn.

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Not every Hollywood Celebucrat is out rallying in support of a child-rapist. Some are using their money and influence to strip those of us who are not Celebucrats of our private health insurance. Last week, Will Ferrell and a troop of celebs released a MoveOn.org-funded pro-ObamaCare video for the website FunnyOrDie.com.  Several at Big Hollywood took issue with the video… 

Now, thanks to the digital democratization of filmmaking, some everyday folks are Speaking! Truth! To! Hollywood! Power!

Better still, this video’s actually clever.

Adam McKay

While Adam McKay has been so good at his job at times that he’s left me rolling on the floor unable to breathe, and I think Ferrell is funny as hell, I am astonished that a self-righteous multimillionaire like McKay would tell you that you have to do something by force that he won’t do by choice.

That is cynicism in its purest form. McKay presumes that people are inherently bad and that they must be forced to do what is “good” or “noble” or “decent.” He presumes that human beings are hardwired to be un-compassionate and uncaring. Cynicism is a lie and it’s easy to convince others to be cynics right along with you. You can go on hating your fellow humans and you can all be miserable together, searching for a villain to direct your hate toward (like a CEO).

In his Tweet, McKay says that my “argument” was “sub-moronic.” What a profound retort. Instead of addressing the issue I raised – which is basically, “Why don’t guys like McKay and Ferrell actually DO something meaningful like buy tens of thousands of uninsured Americans an insurance plan for a year or so, rather than simply bitching about evil insurance executives?” – McKay dismisses me as stupid.

I believe that people are good for the most part – even those nasty CEOs . But I’m so tired of people telling me they’re “fighting” for something they already have the power to change. Adam McKay doesn’t care about poor people needing insurance. If he did, he’d buy them insurance. He’s rich and he could actually do it if he wanted to. What Adam McKay clearly cares about is that people in his social circles THINK he cares about poor people who need insurance.

If he genuinely cares, there is NO EXCUSE for Adam McKay to not go out right now and buy people some health coverage.  I wonder how much he will contribute to the soon-to-be-formed Will Ferrell Health Insurance Trust. I would be so, so proud if my “sub-moronic” argument resulted in guilting a few very rich cynics into buying health insurance for a lot of people who could use it, but I’m guessing he’ll do nothing but Tweet about the crazy libertarian who trashed him in that right-wing Hollywood blog.

Adam McKay, I know you’re reading this, so this is a direct appeal to you. DO SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE! BUY THEM SOME INSURANCE! Take a measly $500,000 and start with one hundred families in Detroit or LA or Topeka. Buy them a quality plan that pays their medical bills for a year. Then get a few of your friends to do the same thing. If you want to truly help people pay for services, lead by example and change things. And if you’ve already done so, let us know you’re leading by example.

After calling me “sub-moronic,” McKay says that 20,000 people die every year because insurance companies deny their claims. That’s just bullshit. Maybe he is citing the Harvard study that showed a correlation to a higher early death rate among those with no insurance, but I read that study and the authors were very careful to say that it was a matter of people choosing to not go to the doctor because they didn’t want to pay for the services and that there was no causation and it had nothing to do with evil insurance executives denying claims. Adam McKay just pulled that statistic out of nowhere. Why not say insurance executives kill 50 million people every day?

If you want to claim that something is killing people, as you did in your tweet, look no further than government-run health care. Here’s a story that illustrates the point.

Vera Wescott was a single-mother who worked in a factory and sprinted home during her half-hour lunch break to check on her kids during the summers. She had no high-school diploma and late at night after making dinner, cleaning the house and putting the kids to bed, she worked and worked, until she’d earned it. She went on to have a nice quiet life, remarrying a man named John, and the two traveled together, eventually retiring. But as they aged, the two decided to return to Canada so that their health care would be provided for. In the summer of 2004, Vera slipped in her apartment and was taken to a Canadian hospital. While there, they discovered that she had mid-stage, but treatable colon cancer. But because the government of Canada has to “cut waste” (sound familiar?) to have enough money to treat people, Vera was told she would need to wait 6 months for treatment. She was sent to a Convalescent Home near Toronto where she died in September.

I was a pallbearer at Vera’s funeral. She was my grandmother.

In the United States of America, her cancer would have been treated, and the treatment would’ve begun on the day they discovered it regardless of her insurance or ability to pay.

Adam McKay has never had to lower his grandmother’s casket into the earth because the government, acting as the final arbiter of life and death, decided it was time for her to die so that they could worry about someone a little younger or a little more healthy. I don’t expect him to understand.

I’m a big fan of comedy. I’m a stand-up junkie, growing up on late-night HBO comedy specials (I’d seen everything Carlin had done by age 11). I got into film making because Kevin Smith made it accessible through foul, filthy and hilarious dialogue that has always hit me where I live. And I don’t believe anything is off limits. It just strikes me as strange that people with extraordinary talent like Ferrell and company would be so off-the-mark with a piece that dives into the political world so deeply.

The irony of the piece is so clear to EVERYONE who sees it. Aside from the unsupported and false claim that 80% of Americans support government-run health care, Ferrell and company decide to pick on the rich executives who clearly make their money preying on innocent victims and drinking the blood of babies without offering the world anything in return… except, of course, for a service that, when paid for (as all services should be) saves lives and keeps you from losing everything you own when you get sick. The irony here is that Will Ferrell earns $20 million a picture (yup, even for “Land of the Lost”). Donald Faison (”Scrubs”), Jon Hamm (”Mad Men”) and others join in the fun as well.

We’re talking about net earnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The actors and comedians in the PSA could literally buy health insurance for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of uninsured Americans. And they don’t even have to wait for the government to take their money at gunpoint. They can just do it. And they should. It’s clearly being positioned as a moral issue, so is it immoral for these folks to hoard money while children are suffering?

Well, the answer is “no.” It’s their money. And I think Will Ferrell should be able to keep as much of his dough as possible, even if he uses it to buy a mini-zoo in his back yard for exotic animals like a white tiger or Pygmy horses. If he chooses to buy me and a hundred thousand or so of my fellow uninsured Americans some insurance, it would go a long way toward establishing credibility. It would also prove that we don’t need government to force Americans to help each other.

Which, putting the bullshit statistics, hypocrisy, and not-so-funny execution of the piece aside, is what bothers me the most.

The President keeps talking about “service” when he really means “government forcing you to do things.” I have debated health care with every one of my liberal friends who is willing to engage. And I always ask them the same question when they support the government-run plan. It goes like this: “I don’t have health insurance. Will you buy it for me for just one year?” I ask the question seriously. I mean it. I’d happily accept the gift from someone who wants to help. But they always backpedal. They always refuse.

Why? Because they have mistaken compassion for force. They believe that government will force someone else to pay, that they will not be affected, and that it’s okay because “they” or “the rich” have more than “they” need. But “they” have earned what “they” have, and so have Ferrell and his FOD pals.

The question is whether the folks who preach the message of forcing you to “give” to others are actually willing to do it on their own. Do they really care about those with less or only about appearing to care? I’ll wait with baited breath for the Will Ferrell Insurance Foundation to send a check. But I’ll probably be waiting a while.

As many of you probably already know, Will “Elf” Ferrell is leading Hollywood’s latest band of Obama’s Merry Men, in a joint effort with MoveOn.org, in a satirical bid to tell you and me how grateful we should be for ObamaCare and how we should despise those dastardly insurance company executives who make millions of dollars by exploiting us.

My friend Kitty’s thoughts on the video: “I’m sure O’s supporters will think it’s hilariously creative, but I honestly thought these people could do better. There’s nothing subtle about the video, and satire needs subtlety. All politics aside, I was disappointed.”

The creative juices of Hollywood keep on flowing, folks!

I suppose since Obama has Hollywood’s back – he’s continuing to cheapen the office of the President by shilling for George Lopez’s new show on TBS – it’s their turn to “give back.” And since it’s been eight long years since they’ve been proud to be Americans, it’s not surprising that all of that choked back patriotism is coming out in a rush.

I have to admit, I’m really pleased to know that Will Ferrell and his pals are concerned about my access to health care. And yet…and yet…I can’t get around the irony that a man who makes up to $20 million per film – which is what, a few months’ work or so? - is wagging his finger at “greedy” insurance company executives. At least the insurance execs provide a service – although the quality of that service is obviously what’s up for debate here.

What does Will Ferrell have to offer his fellow man? Movies like “Land of the Lost,” aimed at children that cash in on – and trample - their parents’ childhood memories for a cheap and vulgar laugh. Not to mention being so bad that it didn’t even come close to breaking even, let alone make a profit. Yet his decision to be in that film didn’t hurt him one little bit – he got paid, didn’t he? Like high-paid executives at a corporation, big time actors like Will sign contracts. He gets paid no matter what. Moviegoers who watched it most likely regretted the decision that put them back $10. The producers and the studio probably have more than a few regrets.

Insurance companies give people access to health care. Will Ferrell gives people access to sophomoric humor.

Here’s a thought: Isn’t Hollywood full of film studios that are corporations? Is Will Ferrell a corporate puppet? Does he stop to think about those greedy studio execs who line their pockets off the sweat of his brow? He’s a union guy, right? Is “the man” somehow holding him back? Are they making more than the $20 million he pockets? There ought to be an investigation. Call Barney Frank and Chris Dodd! It’s time to get a Hollywood Pay Czar in the White House!

If Will is really worried about pay inequities, what does he think about the fact that the average police officer who would come to Will’s aid in an emergency, the average nurse who would tend to Will’s needs in the hospital, the average firefighter who would risk his life to save Will’s burning mansion, and the average soldier who risks his life around the world so that Will can shoot off his mouth about whatever, make so much less than he does?

But then, Will doesn’t get paid to think. He gets paid to spout out memorized lines that someone else wrote and play the buffoon in front of the camera. All for a cool $20 million a pop. And he thinks his celebrity means that, like the Star Bellied Sneetches, he can tell those of us without stars what’s what.

Hey, where do I sign up?

Hollywood superstar Will Ferrell is surrounded by eight “celebrities” in a satirical defense of the health insurance companies.

And I use the term “celebrities” loosely. One is the only recognizable character from the cult series “Heroes,” another is a star of a popular cable series that was recognized at Sunday’s Emmy Awards, another is a star of a cable series that nobody ever watches, one is from Comedy Central’s Reno 911, another is his best friend, one is the star of the hit movie franchise “Scooby-Doo,” and to give the clip credibility, two of the “celebrities” actually play doctors on TV.  I will give a prize to anyone who can name all eight without using Google®.

Is this the best Hollywood can come up with? Other than Ferrell, most of these people don’t even have a Q score high enough to make it on “Dancing with the Stars,” or “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here!”

So where are the A-listers? It seems like most of them have been trying to rebuild their careers. People who were stars in the early part of this century saw their earnings take a nose dive as they learned that a lot of conservatives watch TV and buy movie tickets, CDs, and DVDs.

As for the video, it seems a little hypocritical that Will Ferrell is complaining about insurance company profits since he made scads of money just for wearing tights and doing pratfalls. Meanwhile, health insurance companies do a lot of good for people by providing life saving health care most people would never be able to afford otherwise. They also cite unfounded statistics like 80% of America supports a “public plan” and that insurance companies have denied claims based on spelling errors.

Oh yeah, and it’s supposed to be funny. The clip is posted on the site “Funny or Die”… In the immortal words of Patrick Henry, “Give Me Death!”

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The question none of these elites will ever answer is whether or not they’re willing to give up the Cadillac health benefits they currently enjoy through “evil” insurance companies, and accept the government-run ObamaCare they’re so eager to condemn the rest of us to.

When the  ”public option” puts our non-Cadillac plans out of business, when the “public option” makes the penalty for not providing health insurance cheaper for employers than providing it… Those of us who aren’t millionaires, celebrity and otherwise, will all be on rationed ObamaCare.

Which, by the way, is the Master Plan. And I know this because my President told me so. And so did Barney Frank.

If Will Ferrell’s willing to join us on the “public option” he’s so excited for … great!

Until then, he and his rich, privileged ilk are nothing more than the newest generation of Useful Idiots lobbying to hurt our families and strip us of our freedoms.