1. 'Red Eye' Tops CNN Prime Time Last Week
2. Boston Herald: Why are Super Bowl ad execs so mad at women?
3. NOW president: Tebow Ad Celebrated Violence Against Women
4. ...5 Super Bowl Commercials About Women Emasculating Men
5. Christopher Guest Directs, Begley Jr. Stars in U.S. Census Ad Campaign
Here’s a new feature we’ll be posting nightly that allows you to see what’s been posted throughout all the Bigs over the course of the day.
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Appearing on television and radio is good for my career. Every time I show up in the media it sells books and further legitimizes me as a cultural and political commentator and answers a question that, alas, has been asked far too frequently of late: “Whatever happened to.”
Last week I canceled an appearance at the last minute in order to attend my youngest son’s gymnastics tournament and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I had originally planned to miss the tournament. I explained to my son that “Daddy had to work.” He was disappointed, but he understood. Early in the morning I changed my mind and I am glad I did.
During the team competition the top three teams battled back and forth through all six events. My son’s team was in second place going into the final round and spirits were high as the high-bar was our team’s best event and my son was the team’s strongest high-bar competitor.
My son went last. He looked good; toes pointed-legs straight, lots of height and then he stumbled. My son missed an element – an element he can do in his sleep. He finished with a decent score, but much lower than normal.
Anyone that has watched a televised Olympic gymnastics competition can tell you that a step on the landing results in a one tenth of a point deduction. That afternoon the difference between the first place team and the third was one tenth of a point; literally one step. There was a tie for first place between our team and a team from Redondo Beach. The other team won the tie breaker and our boys took their place on the second step of the podium.
Afterwards I gave my son a huge hug; he had performed well all day. He fell into my arms in tears. To his young (and competitive) mind the difference between his team taking first and finishing in second place was the missed element in his routine. (more…)
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As I am a foreigner, the first I ever heard about the Super Bowl’s tradition of mid-show entertainment was the now notorious Janet Jackson nipple incident whereby Justin Timberlake ‘accidentally’ unleashed Ms. Jackson’s breast upon millions of unsuspecting Americans. I was living in Moscow at the time and even the Russians were quite obsessed by the role of Ms. Jackson’s mammary glands in a sport none of them played or cared about.
Six years later and it is clear that the Super Bowl’s organizers are still terrified of Janet Jackson’s nipple, that it comes to them at night and haunts them in their sleep, threatening to embroil them in scandal and to lose them millions in sponsorship deals. For what else can explain the entertainment decisions made by the Masters of the Bowl ever since that fateful Sunday afternoon in February 2004?
Let’s take a look at who has played in the years since: (more…)
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Okay.
The video I’m about to show you is like a parking garage of creepiness: wrong on every damn level.
It’s President Obama at a Washington fundraiser last week. He’s soaring high on health care rhetoric, when he brings up a dead campaign worker. Well, actually he brings up himself. Pay attention, not just to him, but how the audience responds. If you’re a cow, it’ll turn all four of your stomachs.
It takes a lot to give me the willies. But you know what? That gave me the willies. And also scurvy, rickets and the bird flu.
Sometimes you come across something a politician says that is so beyond comprehension, you start wondering if he might be losing it. Now, I’ve never said that about Obama. Unlike the jeering libs who regularly devoured George Bush over his stuttering syntax, I always chose to focus on what Obama says, instead of how he says it. (more…)
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Super Bowl ads have become a competition themselves and are often better than the game. At a reported cost of over $3 million for a thirty-second spot it would be hard for me to imagine that any of the ads are cost effective but it’s not my money, so roll the tape! Judging from some ads there are either a lot of advertisers who don’t want conservatives to buy their products or a there are a lot of liberals making television advertisements.
Qualcomm’s combined leftist ideology and male bashing in its two ads featuring a guy who is “spineless” and a heavy political video montage by Obama idolater Will.i.am. I guess his stage name is supposed to be clever but it makes me think he was just raised on a little too much Dr. Seuss. Can you imagine the flack a company would get if it let Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck produce a video montage for its Super Bowl commercial? Watch the above clip for visuals of everything from Castro to Al Gore “winning” Florida.
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Today the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is likely to file criminal charges against Dr. Conrad Murray. As of this writing specific charges have not been disclosed. However it is speculated that he will be charged with involuntary manslaughter for administering a combination of drugs that led to Jackson’s death.
On January 8th a search warrant issued in Houston for the office and storage facilities of Dr. Conrad Murray helps to confirm that the Los Angeles coroner’s office believes Michael Jackson died from an overdose of propofol.
Dr. Murray’s attorney, Ed Chernoff, is saying that his client didn’t do anything that would have killed Jackson. Of course that is what attorneys get paid for, but in this case Mr. Chernoff is likely to be proved wrong.
Dr. Murray has admitted to administering propofol to Jackson over a six-week period to treat insomnia. When that seemed to fail and Dr. Murray thought Jackson was becoming addicted he added other sedatives to the mix. Propofol alone is enough to cause respiratory arrest and adding other sedatives to it only exacerbates its danger. (more…)
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Those of you who have been with Big Hollywood from the beginning know that Stage — Larry O’Connor — Right has been with us from the beginning, as well. He started out as our “theatre guy” and has since branched out as an invaluable go-to guy at all three of the BIGS, writing on everything from The Madness of Howard Zinn to exposing how nepotism can help you to become The Most Dishonest Character Assassin IN THE WORLD!
Larry also does a nightly talk show on Blog Talk Radio, and while it’s on past my bedtime (9pm PST), after listening to the podcasts over the past few weeks I realized that “The Stage Right Show” is very much a part of the BIGS — so much so that we’re leaning on him to change the title to “The Big Stage Big Right Big Show.” Over the weekend I also leaned on him to do even more work and put together a weekly “Best of” show to post here at Big Hollywood for the benefit of our readers.
He’s agreed to take that on, and I thank him for that. (more…)
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On this week’s highlight show, we start with the hilarious”feud” between Andrew Breitbart and “TV’s Andy Levy” from Fox News’ “Red Eye” that began on Twitter and ended up on “The Stage Right Show.” They were arguing about Ben Shapiro’s Top Ten Most Over Rated Directors list which drove Andy Levy over the edge.
Next, we had Ben Shapiro on the show to respond. Also, Billy Hallowell came on to discuss the habit the left has of screaming “Racist” at any conservative they don’t like and to tell us about his last post at Big Hollywood about ‘Rock the Vote’.
Andrew Breitbart called in with a very unique anecdote about his travails in renting a car in Palm Springs. And Adam Baldwin was our featured interview in a wide-ranging discussion about Hollywood, politics, education and Twitter. (more…)
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Film blogger and sometimes Turner Classic Movies’ programmer,The Self-Styled Siren, came up with a terrific idea for a movie list: That which we love in filmdom that puts our cool credentials into question (And yes, I do have Cool Credentials. My mother keeps them with my badminton trophies). Siren describes the criteria for the list this way:
“As always, it’s best to define terms. By uncool, the Siren doesn’t mean “slightly offbeat” or “quirky” or “underrated.” She means “courting hoots of derision from critical colleagues.” Picking a lesser work of a widely admired auteur doesn’t cut it, because after all, even late Hawks is still Hawks. And picking a film that was once lambasted, but is no longer, is also not exactly what the Siren had in mind.”
I would also add that there are certain uncool films that are now cool to like. The work of Ed Wood, for instance. Those choices shouldn’t count, either. We have to go for what’s embarrassing to admit to, and lucky for you there’s plenty to clean out of my uncool closet.
1. Fox Musicals: Everyone loves those big lavish MGM musicals of the forties and fifties, and those triumphs do represent for me the highest level of artistic achievement we will ever see on film. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the hell out of the musicals Darryl Zanuck’s 20th Century-Fox produced to help Americans through a Great Depression. The name of the game was “simple”; simple stories, simple tunes… And not one true classic film emerged from the bunch. These films weren’t about that. They were about innocent, joyful escapism and to help you along were such stars as Sonja Henie, Carmen Miranda, Betty Grable, John Payne, Edward Everett Horton, Billy Gilbert, Charlotte Greenwood, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, and Cesar Romero. (more…)
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Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn’t know whose side he’s one or who he can trust. With his pursuers closing in on every side, Charlie makes his way back to his hometown to find some answers. There, holed up in an abandoned mansion, he’s joined by his friends in a desperate attempt to discover the truth about a murder he can’t remember-and the love he can never forget.
Chapter One
The Killer In The Mirror – Part 1
The man with the knife was a stranger. I never saw him before he tried to kill me.
I was in the Whitney Library when it happened, about seven miles from my hometown of Spring Hill. I’d been there for about forty-five minutes. I had come with a plan—a plan to clear my name, to get free, to get home to my family and out of danger. Now I had to leave. It wasn’t safe for me to stay in any one place for very long.
I was in the main research room on the library’s second floor. I went down the hall and pushed into the men’s room. I took off my black fleece and hung it on the door of one of the stalls. Then, wearing just my jeans and black t-shirt, I stood at the sink and splashed cold water on my face. (more…)
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People have been saying to me for months, “Joe, where’s Tío Chano?” Referring, of course, to my Uncle Luciano.
Well, the short answer is, I didn’t know. For as long as I have known Tío Chano, that is to say, for my entire life, Tío Chano has disappeared for months at a time. Nobody in the family knows where he goes, and we have learned not to ask.
At the end of August 2009 Tío Chano asked me for a ride to LAX. I dropped him off at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at 2:30 AM on August 30th. We heard nothing from him until less than a week ago. (more…)
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Continued after the jump. (more…)
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A lesson in why it’s important to read the whole story; because after reading the first two paragraphs my blood was at full boil:
But director Joe Johnston and the team at Marvel Studios have a plan for “The First Avenger: Captain America,” which is due in Summer 2011: They’ve added a new wrinkle to the classic mythology to explain why a scientifically enhanced super-soldier would venture out in the WWII battlefields in a costume that leans a bit heavy on the old Betsy Ross imagery.
“The costume is a flag, but the way we’re getting around that is we have Steve Rogers forced into the USO circuit. After he’s made into this super-soldier, they decide they can’t send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He’s the only one and they can’t make more. So they say, ‘You’re going to be in this USO show’ and they give him a flag suit. He can’t wait to get out of it.”
Captain America “can’t wait to get out of” wearing the American flag? Captain America’s too cool for the American flag?
Because we all know how stripping Superman of his Americanism (and masculinity) worked out for that franchise, right? Before you explode like I did, read on… (more…)
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…And sometimes they’re down right exceptional.
Paging Mr. Schlichter…paging Mr. Kurt Schlichter. You see, while reading the recent article, “Top 10: Lead Performances of the Last 25 Years” I stumbled across these words: ”And you film snobs out there are out of luck. This list completely ignores foreign language films…”
Film snobs? WTF!? Movie lovers who enjoy foreign language films are artistic snoots in the eyes of Mr. KS? Nah, I don’t think so. Not me.
While I could appreciate the article and some of the choices of lead performances by actors over the past 25 years, I do believe KS missed out when he decided to exclude performances by actors in foreign films.
As reader J.B. stated in the comment section: (more…)
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Marc Almond is best known as the singer for Soft Cell, a duo that had a huge hit many moons ago with ‘Tainted Love’* although metal-oriented readers may be more familiar with the version recorded by the mediocre Alice Cooper impersonator Marilyn Manson. But whereas Manson’s interpretation was characteristically both overblown and juvenile in its attempt to conjure up an atmosphere of depravity, Soft Cell’s clinical electronic backing and smooth vocals were effortlessly decadent.
Tainted Love was the beginning and the end of Soft Cell in the USA as far as I’m aware, although in the UK the group had a string of hits while Marc Almond acquired a reputation for mind-bending excess. After that, he went on to pursue an eccentric/eclectic solo career that saw him duet with Gene Pitney, record the songs of Jacques Brel and join the Church of Satan, founded by tedious baldy Anton LaVey, AKA the most boring man in the world.
And yet in spite of that last affiliation (shared with Marilyn Manson) Almond is a genuinely bold artist, willing to take great risks, even if they don’t always pay off. A few years ago he released the hardly commercial Heart on Snow, an album of English versions of popular Russian songs. Almond knew the subject matter well- he had been performing regularly in Moscow since the early 90s, perhaps attracted to the city’s atmosphere of 1920s Weimar style madness. Even so, Heart on Snow is an uneasy mix of rock, folk, pop and soviet ballads, of electronic arrangements and military choirs. As Russian music emphasizes lyrics over melody the songs also seemed a bit amorphous, even though the translations were not terrible. Heart on Snow is certainly an interesting curio, but hardly necessary. (more…)
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The Fox Network’s venerable action-drama series 24, now in its eighth year, has always had to perform a very difficult balancing act: trying to surprise viewers who expect to be surprised, while somehow staying sufficiently connected with reality to sustain viewer interest. In addition, the showmakers have to try to remain somewhat near the extremely high standard established by seasons 2 and 3, in which they expertly blended political relevance, suspenseful drama, theater-quality action sequences, and vivid characters who continually surprise us with their choices without ever bogging down in unnecessary pretensions to psychological depth.
This latter characteristic is a key element of the show’s success. Like real human beings, the characters in 24 are motivated largely by present concerns while filtering them through their individual experiences and personalities. In conventional suspense literature and filmed dramas of our time, the central characters typically are given some traumatic events in the recent or distant past which they are trying to work through and over which they agonize as the present narrative events remind them of it.
Of course such things do happen in real life, and they are present in 24, but the use of it as a convention becomes more than a little ridiculous in today’s dramas as nearly all crime and suspense writers employ it, making it appear that no one but disturbed individuals gets involved in the good work of preventing violence toward innocents. That’s clearly not the message the creators of these narratives intend to send, and it conflicts with their desire to create plausible central characters. (more…)
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When King Vidor first stepped onto the set of The Champ, he was filled with a rare sense of freedom. Frances Marion’s script was unusually simple, focused squarely on a pair of immensely sympathetic protagonists and their relationship. All the key moments, plot twists and emotional climaxes were spelled out on the page, with no false conflicts or manufactured drama to complicate the works. Vidor realized that having such a tight screenplay “would relieve me as a director — now I didn’t have to worry about the story, worry about how I will wrap this up and keep it all together. I could concentrate on little details, touches and things.”
Touches and things. As we learned last week, Vidor equated silent films to ballet: operatic makeup, overwrought facial expressions, stylized movements, and the action punctuated by an enormous symphonic orchestra that — because the players and their instruments were live in the theater — sounded as amazing as today’s very best surround-sound systems. With the advent of synchronous dialogue, all of this vanished — people now wanted to hear actors talk, of all things! Now, rather than mounting a sort of grand operatic ballet, Vidor found himself helming something more akin to a stage play, and the change was jarring and disheartening. How could a director recapture the emotional magic of old, using mere dialogue?
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Tonight, a delightful show for our third anniversary! (more…)
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When I heard that Jon Stewart was going to sit down for an interview with Bill O’Reilly, I had to tune in. As a comic I have a great respect for Stewart. We couldn’t be further apart on a number of political issues but along with Lewis Black and Will Durst he is a left-wing comic who isn’t afraid to skewer his own side when it needs it. He’s not exactly an equal opportunity mocker but at least he’s willing to admit his side has a few dunderheads too. He cut his comedy teeth on the club circuit and has great writing and performance chops.
Bill O’Reilly is a sharp interviewer and most of the times willing to ask the tough questions and not worry if the guest will be coming back. I think it will be a long time before President Obama grows the cajones for a round two with Mr. O’Reilly. John McCain didn’t even have the spine for round one.
It’s also obvious that Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Stewart have a mutual respect and a good relationship. I think a few times during the interview it kept Mr. O’Reilly from following up with Stewart and let his lay down a few years of liberal rubber in the “no spin zone.” At times it seemed more Leno Show than a news interview. When Stewart accused Fox News of being a “cyclonic perpetual emotional machine that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…” it didn’t seem that O’Reilly had his new buddy, Glenn Beck’s back as much as I would have liked him to, but hey that’s just me. That is my only criticism of this otherwise funny and enjoyable two-day interview. It was excellent television. (more…)
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Judging from the reaction a couple weeks back to my Happy Birthday open thread, there aren’t many Big Hollywood readers out there who share my hero worship of Muhammad Ali. When Breitbart starts Big Boxing, I’ll explain all of that but know that one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life occurred on October 2nd, 1980, as I watched my 38 year-old idol and shadow of his former self come out of a two-year retirement and take a terrible and humiliating beating at the hands of Heavyweight Champ Larry Holmes.
At that point Ali was beyond past his prime and had absolutely no business being in the ring with any heavyweight much less the Champion of the World. It was hubris and the lure of a quick payday and believing in his own press that caused The Greatest to embarrass himself in front of millions – which brings me to what it feels like to watch the latest theatrical releases* from these five (in order of my personal disappointment). (more…)
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A controversial new documentary film, “Generation Zero” which provides a unique perspective on the causes of the recent financial meltdown and the economic debacle it triggered, will be premiering in a special screening at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville today.
Andrew Breitbart will provide introductory remarks concerning the film. Breitbart will also be introducing keynote speaker, Gov. Sarah Palin the following evening.
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Featuring more than 40 leading experts, authors, and pundits from across the political spectrum, “Generation Zero” exposes how the mindset of the “Greatest Generation” — to not let their children suffer through the same economic hardships that they did during the Great Depression and WWII — led to the “Me Generation” and ultimately the Clinton/Bush era of trading campaign contributions for government “cover” in the form of guaranteed bailouts of Wall Street’s speculative investments, thus sowing the seeds of economic disaster that would be reaped by coming generations. (more…)
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Obama’s Eleven (Scene 1: Framed from the back, bathed in the glaring kleig lights, a lonely lounge crooner stands at a microphone with a trenchcoat slung over his shoulder.)
VOICE-OVER
This is it. The big time. The main room at Uncle Sam’s Capitol Dome Casino. It took 20 years working every fleabag state bar and legislative lounge from Cambridge to Hyde Park, but now this singer is finally grabbing that little ol’ brass ring they call stardom.
That overnight sensation belting out the State of Union? None other than me, Barry Obama. Just a scrappy skinny kid from the mean streets of Honolulu with a silky baritone and a pocketful of dreams. Now I’ve got those high rollers eating straight from the ever-lovin’ palm of my hand. Little do they know I’ve got another dream — the craziest heist the D.C. strip has ever seen.
BARRY
Spend me to the moon, and let me play around with TARP,
Give the folks some stimulus so they can all buy cars.
In other words, cut the debt.
In other words, fiscal re-spons-i-bility.
Yeah!
Appropriate that cash, just like you’re Johnny Maynard Keynes,
We need jobs and health care and some light rail urban trains,
In other words, tighten belts.
In other words, ef-fic-i-ency.Spend meeeeeee (hit it boys) to the moooo-oooo-oooooon!
Look-out-Old-Barry’s-back!
(Crowd cheers) (more…)
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I am sick of speeches, I am sick of promises, I am sick of hearing the same old rhetoric: The State of the Union with all the applause and heads nodding in agreement or disagreement — the ping pong of politics, the white noise that drones on until we’re numbed and anesthetized with everything but the truth… Then there’s the opposition’s rebuttal — which is about as exciting as eating hot watermelon. I watch the good-old slaps on the back and think, “How can they all forget about Fannie and Freddie? The CRA? That THEIR policies created this mess!?!”
For too long the American people have been bamboozled and lulled into a false sense of This Is The Greatest Nation On Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is, but my mother used to tell me as a kid, “Self-praise stinks.” When I asked her why, she explained that it can intoxicate you into laziness. I’m not saying the American people are lazy, but our elected officials get up, give a speech, and somewhere say, “Greatest Nation On Earth” and we all feel better and go on about our day not paying attention, enough attention, to what’s going on, and trusting that the latest line of shit we’ve been fed is the truth — no matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on.
Then the marketing machine starts selling to the public … a pile of dung. Haven’t you heard for years the same old issues over and over and over ad infinitum? Well, the patient is bleeding to death and we do not need a tourniquet, we need amputations: Get everyone out of office who does not have America’s and the American people’s best interests at heart. (more…)
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How could I not post this? The Tea Party convention’s about to get underway and the video is a perfect smash-up: 1776 meets 1983 — which just happen to be my two favorite years.
Enjoy!
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