Video clip of the day

This one’s a laugh-riot for which we think you will agree and for which we tweeted a summation:

Celebrities at the epicenter of gun violence demanding an end to gun violence or something.

3-1/2 minutes of Hollywood actors and actresses pensive, head-cocked moralizing mashed-up with their greatest cinematic shoot-outs.


(NSFW though we wholeheartedly agree with sentiment expressed at the end of the video)







Yes. That was Jamie Foxx right out of the gate. Foxx is starring in Quentin Tarantino’s over-the-top violent neo-Spaghetti Western, Django Unchained.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, some of those folks might look familiar from also appearing in the creepiest and most sycophantic campaign video of all-time, the “I Pledge” video. This is not merely coincidental.


Alas, heartbreak: 2:33: Rich Eisen of the NFL Network. Noooooooo……



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They don't want "active participants", they want zombies

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From the Washington Examiner:

The Obama campaign has launched its “For All” campaign, encouraging supporters to take pictures of themselves with their hands on their hearts and a note explaining why they support President Obama.

Actress Jessica Alba uses the Pledge of Allegiance as an example of the campaign in an email to supporters.

“Growing up, my classmates and I started every day with a ritual: We’d stand up, put our right hand over our hearts, and say the Pledge of Allegiance,” explains Alba. “To me, that gesture was a promise. A promise to be involved and engaged in this country’s future. A promise to work for liberty and justice — and for affordable education, health care, and equality — for all.”

Alba joins Hollywood actresses Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson by photographing herself with her hand on her heart pledging to vote for Obama.

Taking a pledge to vote (ostensibly for Obama) is not cool, it’s not cute and it’s not hip. It’s undemocratic but we suppose that’s the point. It’s downright creepy but totally in keeping with a voting bloc that went completely nuts when three people were water-boarded during the Bush administration but support a President who granted himself the power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without cause and who casually dials-up drone strikes because he can’t be bothered with the messy business of intelligence-gathering.


It’s also the same voting bloc that sees no contradiction in supporting a civilian trial for Club Gitmo detainees but doesn’t bat an eye when the President and Attorney General tells us not to worry because people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed would never see the light of day even if he were convicted.


This is all not the result of “active participation”. It’s all good, you see, because it’s our guy.

Hooray, our guy!

Your #Occupy update

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As predictable as the sun rising in the East, rich Marxists who have attained their wealth via the capitalist system in this country go native:

Saturday, Occupiers held a rally for "artists, musicians, writers and activists" midway between downtown LA and Beverly Hills. The website announcing the event promised a keynote speech by Van Jones and hinted at appearances by Hollywood celebrities. Yesterday, Variety reported that Hollywood did turn out:

Edward Norton, Elijah Wood, Marisa Tomei and Jason Alexander turned out for "All in for the 99%," an effort to engage artists and actors in promoting the "99% Spring," a plan to train 100,000 volunteers in nonviolent action, including protests at corporate shareholder meetings. Van Jones, founder of Rebuild the Dream, has been promoting the plans, and addressed the group.

The event was sponsored by Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream, MoveOn.org, and SEIU among others. MoveOn produced a video showing the celebrities who were on hand including Jack Black (as part of Tenacious D) and Moby.
LA Weekly has a few additional photos including Jason Alexander shaking hands with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. There's also a shot of performance artists acting like corpses wrapped in American flags. LA Weekly notes that the event raised money for Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream group.

In reading this, we could not help but be reminded of Tom Wolfe's classic Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers from 1970 and its documenting the rise of the New Left and in particular Wolfe's recounting of a cocktail party on Park Avenue in New York for the ostensible purpose of raising money for the Black Panthers. Wolfe wrote:

I just thought it was a scream, because it was so illogical by all ordinary thinking. To think that somebody living in an absolutely stunning duplex on Park Avenue could be having in all these guys who were saying, 'We will take everything away from you if we get the chance,' which is what their program spelled out, was the funniest thing I had ever witnessed.

42 years on, apparently, irony is dead as there is indeed a Occupy Hollywood sentiment:

It's time to stop paying Johnny Depp "stupid money." Celebrities make too much -- and we can do something about it

It goes without saying, perhaps, for these SAG members and proponents of intellectual and creative property rights, that this is all just window dressing as these very same people faced with real change as proposed by #Occupy would be the staunchest defenders of the status quo.

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Awww... Hollywood still (hearts) Obama

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After much angst and hand-wringing with respect to Hollywood's supposed flagging support for the President, we can call off the suicide watch - Hollywood's got Barack's back!

Despite complaints about his failure to support Hollywood's position on online piracy, President Obama does not appear to have lost his fundraising base in the entertainment community.

As Obama arrives in Los Angeles on Wednesday, local campaign fundraisers said there has been no drop-off in Hollywood donations to his reelection bid since the D.C. demise of long-sought anti-piracy legislation. Hollywood's chief lobbyist Chris Dodd suggested last month that Obama and his fellow Democrats could pay a price for not representing the industry's interests in Washington.

But there was no evidence of that in the run-up to Wednesday's fundraising events. A dinner and a reception at the Holmby Hills home of "The Bold and the Beautiful" producer Bradley Bell and his wife, Colleen, co-hosted by actor Will Ferrell and his wife, Viveca, sold out faster than any fundraiser in the last several years, according to Ken Solomon, co-chairman of Obama's Southern California fundraising committee.

You can read more about the 1 percenters support of the President at the link but there were a couple of quotes that stood out to us.

First this:

The robust turnout underscores the ties that bind many in the entertainment industry to the Democratic president on topics such as abortion rights and the environment. Because much of Hollywood political giving is ideological, campaign donations are not usually tied to short-term legislative items, fundraisers said.

"Hollywood money for the most part is actually quite pure," said veteran Los Angeles Democratic fundraiser John Emerson, the other co-chairman of Obama's Southern California finance team. "It's given by people who really believe in the issues. They're not writing the checks because they're after some regulatory change."

Then this:

Producer and former MCA Inc. President Sidney Sheinberg said Newt Gingrich once asked him why Democrats got so much Hollywood support and the Republicans did not: "I told him the reason is that most people in Hollywood vote their conscience, not their pocket book."

Allow us to translate: Hollywood 1-percenters can afford to be liberal, the rest of us can't.


Things like CARB, high-speed choo-choos and the budgetary 3 card monty as currently practiced in Sacramento are probably big hits with these folks as they won't feel the consequences of their job-killing results. There is, quite simply, no skin in the game for these people.

It's the same sort of mentality shared by Warren Buffet and his hyprocritical "Patriotic Millionaires" clowns who allegedly want their income taxes raised (for what exact purpose, we are not quite sure). What's a few more dollars out of their paycheck? It's of no real consequence other than some perverse self-serving smug satisfaction that they believe they are actually doing something to boost the economy or cure the scourge of income inequality.

Indeed, the rich aren't at all like the rest of us. They can afford the negative impact of horrible legislation and executive fiat while everyone else suffers.

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Quickies

A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.



6 things the film industry doesn't want you to know about'




Awwww... a progressive White House really just a good ol' boys club after all.





From "scandal-free" to "scandal fatigue in 3 weeks!

On August 30, concerning President Barack Obama’s reelection prospects, Allan Lichtman, an American University history professor and author of The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Guide to Predicting the Next President, told US News: “I don’t see how Obama can lose.”

Lichtman’s presidential election success formula, which has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every contest since 1984, requires that the party currently holding the White House prevail on eight of thirteen “keys.” Lichtman contended that Obama was winning nine of them, with a tenth, whether the economy is in recession during the campaign, pegged as “undecided.”

Then came Solyndra, Gunrunner and Lightsquared.

Here's the chief hack of one of the hackiest groups in all of D.C. on standards, ethics...

Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

"If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

... and bigotry.




Even liberals know it's over... or never really existed in the first place.

Ezra Klein of the WaPo sticks a fork in Hopenchange.

Satellite photos of North Korean death camps..?

... on Google Earth?

Another great moment in the history of crony capitalism:

President Barack Obama will raise money in early October with a Missouri businessman whose company benefited from a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state.

Tom Carnahan, a scion of Missouri’s most prominent Democratic political family, is listed on Obama’s campaign website as a host of a $25,000-per-person fundraiser to be held in St. Louis on October 4.

His energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, was helped by a sizable credit authorized in the stimulus, for an energy project in northwest Missouri.

Republicans argue that it’s inappropriate for the Obama campaign to raise money from a donor who has benefited directly from the Recovery Act.

Missouri Republican Party executive director Lloyd Smith compared the situation to the Solyndra affair, in which the Obama administration reportedly rushed federal support to a green-energy firm that subsequently collapsed.

How many more of these types of cases are floating around out there and are going un-reported due to apathy, covering for the administration or scandal fatigue? They play, we pay.



The Party of "No" .

Calling for a weekend to “cool off,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set up a Monday vote on replenishing the almost-empty federal disaster relief accounts as all sides race to beat a deadline to keep money money flowing to disaster-stricken states and to keep the federal government at large running.

“Cool off a little bit. Work this through. There’s a compromise here,” Mr. Reid said Friday, minutes after the Senate blocked back a bill drafted by House Republicans that would have replenished the disaster fund accounts through Nov. 18.

Without an agreement, the government could shut down in a week, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency could run out of money even before then.

The House, on the strength of Republican votes, passed a bill early Friday morning that directs an additional $3.65 billion to FEMA, with some of the spending offset by cuts to a clean-energy program popular with Democrats and the Obama administration.

... and Obama donors.


That's all for now. We'll be back at it tomorrow.

Wait, what?

One in a series where we take a look at the unusual, the absurd and certainly the unexpected.



Perhaps you've heard by now that actress Mila Kunis has accepted an invitation to the Marine Corps ball in November. The video invite sent by Sgt. Scott Moore can be seen here. Pretty cool, huh? And her reaction to the reaction of her accepting the invite (first link) was pretty darn cool as well.


OK, let's call it a wrap shall we and let this golden and heart-warming Hollywood moment live on in our memories unsullied for eternity.



What's that? You say you're intrigued by this lovely young lass and would like to know more about her? C'mon, do you really want to take that chance? Can we just leave well enough alone?


Alright, then...


GQ: Your new movie is called Friends with Benefits. Ever been in one of those relationships?

Mila Kunis: Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism—good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?



Wait, what?



Now regardless of whether you actually agree with her judgement of either FWBs or communism, ponder the fact that this 28 yr. old actress took multiple unrelated concepts and strung them together in a single coherent thought, completely unrehearsed.

Kunis as a young girl and her parents emigrated here from the Soviet Union back in 1991 escaping what they saw as persecution against Jews. Knowing that, it's easier to see how she just might have a different perspective on things than the average American-born twenty-something.

Having said that, please count BwD as official fan-boys of Ms. Kunis.

Wait, what?

One in a series that takes a look at the absurd, unusual and certainly unexpected.


Ben Shapiro released a book on Tuesday claiming Hollywood's liberal bias and which is based upon, in part, 39 taped interviews he'll roll out during the next three weeks.

Another video has Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — saying that liberalism in the TV industry is “100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.”

Shapiro asks if politics are a barrier to entry. “Absolutely,” Goldberg says.

When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN, that “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, he responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.”

Wait, what?


We're not sure what Hollywood this guy is talking about because all the smartest people we know tell us that Hollywood is a bastion of tolerance, diversity and understanding. In fact, people from Hollywood have told us the same thing. And Hollywood was against black lists or something.

We're really confused, now.


(go to the link for some of the aforementioned interviews)

And now for the movie review we've all been waiting for...

P.J. O'Rourke weighs in on Atlas Shrugged and though he didn't particularly care for it, he isn't going to pan it, either.

“Atlas Shrugged–Part I” has to be praised just for existing, for keeping the premise available. Perhaps Hollywood progressives — inveterate takers — will take it. Many another movie could be made about a labor action by those who perform life’s actual labors. Maybe it’s a slacker comedy where Zach Galifianakis shaves, loses weight and refuses to speak in non sequiturs. Maybe it’s a sci-fi thriller where the Internet has gone on strike and mankind must face a post-apocalyptic world without Twitter. Or maybe it’s a horror film set at my house, “Wife on Strike!”

Though we have yet to see the film, O'Rourke's point is well taken. The one about the mere existence of Atlas Shrugged, the movie, that is.

When we heard the buzz a few years ago that Angelina Jolie was rumored to play Dagny Taggart, we thought there was no way in hell that she'd take the part because there was no way in hell that movie was ever going to get made. But here we are, in the year of our Lord, 2011 and Atlas Shrugged is a god-forsaken multi-plex reality.

O'Rourke obviously pens our sentiments better than we as win, lose or draw, how can you not admire a movie and the folks who made it for running directly counter to the over-bearing maternalistic and collectivist impulses of Hollywood and the culture of this nation's political class, in general?

Not so random thought of the day

Our buddy KT, while noting that Barry Bonds was denied showing the jurors nude pics of his mistress in his perjury trial, lamented the lack of class, dignity and grace in modern popular culture and hearkened back some fifty years ago.

Crackers.



One of KT's commenters rebutted that everything is relative and nostalgia is a by-product of time... nothing in the present is as good as we will remember it in the future.


Perhaps, but consider...

Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world and performed with notable leading men such as Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Fred Astaire, James Garner, Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney.

(italics, ours)

In this respect, at least, name us a line-up of comparable Hollywood leading men.

Good lord... that's the Dudes' Dudes Round Table.

Who are you going out and grabbing a beer and steak dinner with... that crew or James Franco, Russell Brand, Robert Downey Jr., Johnny Depp and Jesse Eisenberg? Thought so.

Strange business

From Reason.tv:



For an industry that absolutely obsesses over the box office and the bottom line, Hollywood sure does have an odd view of capitalism.

Is it self-loathing? Or is it a peculiar statist disorder that sees its own profiteering as somehow more pure than other capitalist endeavors. Who knows?

Just keep making those movies, guys and maybe one of these days we'll get around to enduring the soul-crushing experience of the multiplex to watch one.

Link of the day

Plot: Lone figure works to uncover a nefarious government-sponsored conspiracy that involves the environmental and economical fate of millions of Californians.

For those of you waiting for the Hollywood blockbuster on order of Erin Brockovich/Silkwood/China Syndrome, we would suggest not holding your breath.

Temple of Mut has the details, here.

Craig T. Nelson is a racist

Actor Craig T. Nelson appeared on Leno this past week and starting April 15th, he can expect to be audited by the IRS for pretty much the rest of his life.



We've always kind of liked Nelson. Too bad the guy is never going to get a paying gig in Hollywood again after that unhinged and irrational screed.

Note the audience reaction. Deferring to whatever the guest says is pro forma on the late night talk show circuit but these folks seem generally enthused by Nelson's proposition which means, of course, that all Leno's fans are racist, as well.

H/T: Big Hollywood via ThirdWaveDave

Some friendly advice

Courtesy the L.A. Times totally rockin’ blogs...

Does one have to be a knuckle-dragging reactionary to be repulsed by Roman Polanski and his whole sordid namesake ordeal or does the Tinsel town literati just make it seem that way?

For the Times, the drugging and forced sodomy of a 13 yr. old = long-ago personal transgression.

The mere mention of Polanski is bordering on Hitler territory where any rationalization of anything even as benign as say his interpersonal management style (I am against everything Hitler ever did or stood for, however, he did….) makes one look like a complete imbecile.

The current tack of the Hollywood liberati is to defend Polanski by attacking the right-wingers for their attacks on Polanski, reminiscent of Cold War anti-anti-communists: Though we are somewhat troubled regarding what he did to an underaged girl over 30 years ago… he’s like a really good director or something.

Memo to Hollywood: Stop it. The man and everything about him is toxic. You stumble right into the briar patch with your righteous indignation concerning conservatives’ treatment of the man, looking the fool while doing it while re-enforcing the image of Hollywood as a relativistic cesspool.

We hereby declare this site as a Polanski-free zone.

Quote of the day...

... and some not-so-random thoughts

"People are receptive to this message of anti-corporate imperialism," Thompson says. "But they're receptive to it precisely because of a big corporation's brilliant marketing machine."

Is the irony of preaching anti-corporate imperialism from Hollywood’s seat of power of cultural-corporate imperialism lost on directors like "Avatar’s" James Cameron? Maybe. Maybe not.

We haven’t decided on whether or not to go and see “Avatar” but whether we do or not won’t be informed by any political slant the movie may have.

If politics guided our music listening, a scarce collection of CDs, err, iPod selections it would be. Some Kinks, some Rush, maybe some George Harrison and that would be about it. No Dylan, no open border lefties like Calexico and certainly no straight-up commies like Rage Against the Machine… which is having its own bout with irony as we have heard/seen their music tied-in with a Tea Party video.

After the Presidential innauguration last January, we joked with an ultra-liberal friend of ours when would be the best time to perform a bumper sticker swap.

It just seems that politics in pop culture or on the back of a car tends to be amorphous enough to be used by either side given the context and some message-tweaking.

Nope. The biggest thing “Avatar” has going against it at this point is actually having to submit ourselves to the abjectly dehumanizing experience of going to the multi-plex.

Time for some "Skunkies"

While wrapping up '07 we had some fun with year-end awards. General malaise prevented us from doing it last year but because of the nature of things, we want to hand out one or two this year.


This is why you wait ‘til the very end. This is why you don’t pull the plug on the worst article of the year until the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31st. We didn’t think we’d be able to say it but Mark Whicker’s horribly inappropriate and lame “Congratulations, Jaycee (Dugard). You’ve left the yard” column has been bested(?).

Jeff Norman writing for the HuffPo works himself into a righteous lather over the righteous lather worked up by critics of director Roman Polanski. This Polanski is indeed to be confused with the self-confessed drugging, raping and sodomizing director Roman Polanski who is currently doing hard time in his Swiss chalet.

The floor is yours Norman:

Demonstrating the same lack of self-esteem as prisoners who beat up child molesters, noisy segments of the American population continue to hyperventilate over Roman Polanski as if the sexual abuse of minors were not already sufficiently condemned by our society.

We actually do feel like the moral equivalent of prisoners beating up child molesters or something. However, as free men, we would love to take a few cracks at Polanski, himself.

The offense for which Polanski's extradition from Switzerland is sought is barely considered a crime in Europe, where the age of consent is as low as 13.

So he drugged and raped the 13 yr. old in his Swiss chalet? We missed that part (Commenters to article jump on the fact that Spain is the only country in Europe with an age of consent as low as 13 and we're curious how Europeans feel being equated with a child sodomizer).

Regardless of how one feels about Polanski or his confessed/alleged crimes, guilt or innocence should be determined by actual evidence, not mere perception.

We feel about Polanski the way we do because he, uhhh… confessed to the deed.

Just because a lot of pathetic people need to dwell on the director's supposed indecency to make themselves feel decent in comparison, doesn't mean that normal evidentiary standards should be abandoned in the Polanski matter.

(italics, ours)

Hey, we don’t condone physical violence in any manner but as proud (and pathetic) uncles of several young nieces and nephews, were this creep Norman to be in the general vicinity of them, we’d beat the living crap out of the guy just to be on the safe side.

Congratulations, Jeff Norman! You’ve left your senses (were you to possess any in the first place).

H/T: Big Hollywood

Quickies

Jaw-dropping headline of the day (Huffington Post):

Actor Matthew Marsden Hides Right-Wing Political Views.

Bounce this against: Coming Out In Hollywood Not Always Easy… which, you may be shocked to find out, is not about right-wingers. Ah yes, how the liberal-Left really feels about tolerance and differing opinions.


Conserva-babe Michell Malkin catches NYT columnist Nicolas Kristoff peddling lies in and advocacy-journalism piece in support of Obamacare.


Deadspin breaks down some of the pros and cons of an 18-week NFL regular season schedule. Personally, we’re against it and think it’s a moot point anyway as the hurdles to make this happen are too high to overcome. By employing this logic, expect to see an 18-game schedule two CBAs from now.


More Ft. Hood good news. Andrew McCarthy, the man who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and Zacarias Moussaoui has this:

Worse, last evening, Safi was apparently permitted to present a check (evidently on behalf of ISNA) to the families of the victims of last month's Fort Hood massacre. A military source told the blogger Barbarossa at the Jawa Report: "This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now."

Hey, gang, believe it: Green really is the new Green. Bret Stephens follows the money trail and details just how much jack is being shelled out in the name of, uhh… climate change research.

We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.

Charles Krauthammer shares our concerns regarding a Commander-in-Chief who lacks a certain fire in the belly.


And finally, the L.A. Times has photo gallery here of their favorite Holiday beers. Remember, folks, stay away from the fruit.

Hollywood being given (another) golden opportunity to expose themselves as horses' asses. (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom for update)

President Barack Obama is enlisting Hollywood celebrities including actress Rosario Dawson and musician Will.I.Am to draw attention to his health care overhaul agenda.

The performers will act as celebrity judges for a TV commercial contest set up by Organizing for America, the Obama political organization that's part of the Democratic National Committee.

Organizing for America last month invited supporters to create and submit 30-second ads in support of remaking health care. The winning one will be aired nationally.

After soaking all these $250 K plussers it’s the least they could do but it also gives us an opportunity to re-air what is quickly becoming one of our favorite videos of all-time: The one the started it all… the veritable “Birth of a Nation” celebrity endorsement video and the one that is so sublime in its craptastic-ness, we cannot avert our eyes once it gets rolling.

Is it the childish and imbecilic idolatry? Is it the pompous self-importance that suggests any one of these tools actually thinks we care what they say? Maybe it’s the creepy prostration before The One? Or is it the supremely self-serving nature of the pledges… like they couldn’t be bothered with charity and good deeds before Obama was in office? You know what? It’s all of the above and suggests what we're in store for with the Obamacare Idol winner. Enjoy.



(UPDATE #1): We believe we have a front-runner. Please check it out, here.

Because nothing says sexy like Communism

So what do you do when you think your propaganda piece marking the 60th anniversary of Communism in China may fall flat with the young hep cats in your country? You bring out the stars.

There has never been a movie quite like Jiangguo Daye. The blockbuster features nearly 200 of China's top movie stars, including action heroes Jackie Chan and Jet Li plus a host of directors, comedy stars and even journalists. There is Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Stephen Chow of Kung Fu Hustle, and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau. Imagine a Hollywood film featuring the entire celebrity audience at the Oscars and you get the idea.

But The Founding of a Republic – the title in English – is not just an A-list extravaganza. It is a stirring propaganda epic, a tale of how 60 years ago, when Chairman Mao's scruffy band of revolutionary warriors overcame Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Kuomintang in the civil war to establish the world's most enduring Communist revolution.

Actually, we believe the vast majority of Hollywood is stung by not being requested to participate in this grand undertaking.

We don't know the ideological slant of The Independent (U.K.) to which this article is linked but one can make some general assumptions when "stirring propaganda epic" is used without a hint of irony.

Color us disappointed, though, that actors like Jet Li and Jackie Chan who made their fortunes in the West and have enjoyed the liberties and freedoms of this country would return to China to participate in this bit of Chi-comm self-gratification.

P.S. No word on whether Michael Bay is available to direct The Great Leap Forward: a glorious ode to the people's famine and pig iron.

...doth protesteth too much?

Here's my problem with this, I'm just going to come out and say it. If I have anything to say against Obama it's not because I'm a racist, it's because I don't like what he's doing as President and anybody should be able to feel that way, but what I find now is that if you say anything against him you're called a racist,"

Angie Harmon, nearly apologetic, yet mustering an awesome amount of courage to speak out in that veritable marketplace of ideas and hothouse of diversity of thought and opinion known as the entertainment industry.

We're ready for your closeup, Mr. Del Toro

With the Oscars this evening we’re wondering if any of the assembled will provide us with any blog fodder. Reason.tv shares our fascination with Hollywood’s fascination with Che.

Dig this:



If embed no worky, click here.

And the band heard in the backround? It's The Clap, of course, performing "Che Guevara T-shirt wearer"