en-us http://www.intensedebate.com/users/565318 Comments by GlennDamato http://bigjournalism.com/jjmnolte/2011/08/30/politicos-is-rick-perry-dumb-hit-piece-is-just-a-taste-of-whats-coming-in-2012/#IDComment188247024 John's message is EXACTLY what I have been telling fellow conservatives for the last few months. Without exception, each of my fellow conservatives rejected the hypothesis as absurd and shot back to me the EXACT same words I heard over and over again in 2008: "There is no possible way Obama can win, no possible way." History repeating itself? Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:02:04 +0000 http://bigjournalism.com/jjmnolte/2011/08/30/politicos-is-rick-perry-dumb-hit-piece-is-just-a-taste-of-whats-coming-in-2012/#IDComment188247024 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/08/17/christian-toto-why-dont-conservatives-support-conservative-films/#IDComment184095187 There's a good reason why so many conservative films fail commercially: they fail artistically, they're boring, they lack dramatic impetus, and they're just plain lame. I did not pull this conclusion out of thin air - I'm basing it on countless conversations over many years. Conservatives do not like, or they do not understand, irony. Irony - particularly a strong character development arc - it what makes many lefty films so good. But conservatives do not want a character to develop - they want to START with bigger-than-life John Wayne types who chicken-choke terrorists with one hand while writing a letter to their seven-year-old daughter with the other hand. That imagery may cause conservatives to giggle in anticipation, but it would make a really bad movie. I have a story premise where my main character begins as a die-hard hate-America lefty, and after he arcs he loves his country and risks his life for America and for liberty. When I pitched the story to LIBERALS, they invariably love it. They get it. When I pitch the story to conservatives, the most common response (outside of a frown and silence) is, "STOP! I do not want to hear any more. I do not want to ever see a movie about such a person!" Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:52:31 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/08/17/christian-toto-why-dont-conservatives-support-conservative-films/#IDComment184095187 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/06/03/breaking-lionel-chetwyns-open-letter-of-resignation-to-caucus-for-producers-writers-directors/#IDComment159293485 You all are correct - the letter is a good thing, a battle cry as ISITC put it. I only wish this event would serve as a catalyst toward the formation of a bona-fide, open conservative film movement . . . one that actually produces films and TV/cable shows "for the other half." I live in LA and I've joined two different "conservative fellowships" within the entertainment industry, and the results have been disapointing. The people attending the meetings, lunches and dinners are great, don't get me wrong, but no one seems interested in creating a venue dedicated to actual projects . . . a pitch fest, for example. This seems to be a taboo topic. Instead, people seem interested in networking to set up the next gig, and they don't care if it's on a movie set or TV studion run by liberals. They just need to get the groceries on the table. Sun, 5 Jun 2011 00:11:26 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/06/03/breaking-lionel-chetwyns-open-letter-of-resignation-to-caucus-for-producers-writers-directors/#IDComment159293485 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/06/03/breaking-lionel-chetwyns-open-letter-of-resignation-to-caucus-for-producers-writers-directors/#IDComment159049256 Everyone is wasting their breath if they're trying to make the lefties feel bad. They won't. They see this stuff completely differently than we do. To us, it's about political opinions. To them, it's about good people versus bad people. And we're the bad people. In their eyes, anyone who is thoughtful, considerate, and has any feeling or compassion at all for their fellow human beings must, by necessity, be liberals and support left-wing causes. To be a conservative is to be stupid, mean-spirited, selfish, violent and bigoted. To a lefty, conservatives are the people who threw rocks at the faces of 1950's civil rights marchers. The question as they see it: "Why the hell should we offer jobs to despicable people?" If you believe for a minute that Chetwyn's letter will make them feel guilty (or feel anything at all) you've overestimated their capacity for self examination. Sat, 4 Jun 2011 04:30:12 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/06/03/breaking-lionel-chetwyns-open-letter-of-resignation-to-caucus-for-producers-writers-directors/#IDComment159049256 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/05/18/kirk-cameron-to-stephen-hawking-youre-not-so-smart/#IDComment153582001 A hundred years ago scientists ducked the "where did the universe come from" question by positing the Steady State theory: the universe didn't have to be created because it has always been here! Steady State "theory" was the leading cosmological theory right through the 1960's. Unfortunately for the many atheists promoting Steady State, the evidence favoring "sudden creation" kept piling up through the 20th century. Atheist and Steady State advocate Fred Hoyle even coined the term Big Bang to mock the notion that the universe was suddenly created. But that's where all the evidence points: sudden creation from nothing. Current science tell us that before the Big Bang, there was not even time or space. Wed, 18 May 2011 20:32:22 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/05/18/kirk-cameron-to-stephen-hawking-youre-not-so-smart/#IDComment153582001 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aim/2011/04/03/interview-with-john-aglialoro-producer-of-atlas-shrugged-part-i/#IDComment139723411 That's a good question, Jack, but if you really want an answer, the answer is there are much safer investments. It's almost impossible to make a profit on any type of passenger rail (or public transportation) system in the US - that includes city-wide, local, and long distance. A high-speed rail from LA to Vegas would not be able to benefit from all the tourists flying in from out of state or the Bay area, so it would have to divert existing air passengers. The airlines would respond by lowering the fare to $10 until the rail company is ruined (they can make it up on other routes). This is why the only way someone could build a high-speed rail system in the US is to rely on the government, which doesn't care about profit (they can milk the taxpayer). Sun, 3 Apr 2011 21:08:08 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aim/2011/04/03/interview-with-john-aglialoro-producer-of-atlas-shrugged-part-i/#IDComment139723411 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aim/2011/04/03/interview-with-john-aglialoro-producer-of-atlas-shrugged-part-i/#IDComment139722337 Don't be surprised if the Blu-Ray/DVD release is mysteriously "delayed," either indefinitely (like "The Road to 9/11") or until, oh, mid-November 2012. Sun, 3 Apr 2011 21:00:55 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aim/2011/04/03/interview-with-john-aglialoro-producer-of-atlas-shrugged-part-i/#IDComment139722337 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138510052 Members of your generation are called millennials. Millennials were raised in an age of GROSS over-protection and what strikes me as “child worship.” During the 80’s and 90’s it was very much “in style” to be a kid. Contrast that to the 60’s and 70’s, when children (I’m talking preteens) were considered the spawn of Satan (look at all the “demon child” movies so popular in that era). When I was eleven, I would ride by bike literally ten or more miles (no exaggeration) and back in URBAN New Jersey, and no one thought anything of it (and my parents were not strung out on drugs or alcohol). When I was in high school, my father’s “plans” for me were described thusly: “When you turn eighteen, you get your ass out of the house.” That’s it – no “college fund,” nothing. For a lot of us Gen X, that was our world. That’s a large part of the reason my out-of-state tuition plus room and board at the University of Iowa was only about $440 a month! Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:17:08 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138510052 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138449560 Great comments, Matt. I guess Easy Rider is the "Catcher in the Rye" of movies - all the Boomers say you gotta see it, it's awesome, but when they see it people say, "WTF is all the fuss about? This is kinda lame." I was born in 1960, so my cohort were the "prototypes" for Gen-X - too young to have experienced the counterculture rage as teenagers, but old enough to remember when there were Real Heroes and Positive Role Models in the world (astronauts, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan through much of his term, etc). Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:41:51 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138449560 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/laborunionreport/2011/03/29/first-look-atlas-shrugged-dagny-confronts-the-union/#IDComment138371589 To we Atlas fans, and to die-hard conservatives, this is mana from heaven. But I question how this film will come across to the average person (assume a political moderate) who has no prior exposure to Atlas or Rand. I believe it will be unintelligible. Look at the line, "I would never force a man to do anything." To we Atlas affectionados, that one line has a tremendous backstory to it. We know what it means. What will it mean to the average moviegoer? Nothing. I predict we're going to have a lot of moviegoers baffled over what the fuss is all about. Our only hope is if every Atlas fan goes to see it ten times - otherwise, there will be no part two. They blew it by 1. Breaking it into three movies, 2. Sticking with the railroad when they should have updated it to an airline, and 3. Being true to Rand's dialog style, which is just not going to work for today's audiences. My sincere hope is that I am totally wrong. Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:37:01 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/laborunionreport/2011/03/29/first-look-atlas-shrugged-dagny-confronts-the-union/#IDComment138371589 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138289416 Just going by personal experience. There are lots of "highly rated" movies that a fair amount of ordinary people, outside the film industry, generally don't find watchable much less enjoyable - Easy Rider comes to mind. I was eight years old when 2001 was in the theaters, and I didn't get to see it. My parents went to see it and they didn't like it. I read the book in 1972 and I was dying to see it but it was never on TV. Finally, I attended a Star Trek convention in NYC in 1975 and they screened it at night - for a lot of the teenagers there, it was the first time they saw it, and at least for my teenaged buddies, it was a disapointment. Not for me - I loved it. I tried to explain to people what the long sequences "meant" (such as why it took so long for Poole to change the AE-35 unit) but they didn't get it. "Parts were way too boring, and I did not understand the end" was the concensus. Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:03:44 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138289416 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138245852 2001: A Space Odyssey is much maligned, but it's one of my favorite movies. It's meant to be watched on as large a screen as you can manage, in a dark and quiet room, in one sitting with one intermission only. If you do that, I promiss that when it's over, you will feel as if you have personally taken a voyage. I doubt that anyone will really get it unless they read the novel first. One last thing: in this 1968 film, the astronauts on their way to Jupiter are watching the news on iPads. I am not making that up . . . the astronauts watch the news on iPads while eating their space food. In a 1968 film. Now how cool is that? Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:26:12 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/28/is-there-a-better-film-critic-than-father-time/#IDComment138245852 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/03/28/video-what-did-people-think-of-the-atlas-shrugged-movie/#IDComment138185516 I don't doubt that people who see this movie who have PRIOR EXPOSURE to the novel and Rand's pro-capitalist Objectivist philosophy will totally "get it" and love it to death. But what about the people who did not read the novel and who do not know the basics? My instincts tell me they will not "get it" at all. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, this may be a movie that people "get" only after it is explained to them. But it doesn't have Kubrick's amazing special effects and symbolism to sustain it. I still think they should have made a three-hour epic with the whole story, and used a futuristic airline and jet engine in place of the railroad and Reardon Metal. Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:13:55 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/03/28/video-what-did-people-think-of-the-atlas-shrugged-movie/#IDComment138185516 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lmnorton/2011/03/25/battle-los-angeles-review-american-exceptionalism-on-the-big-screen-1-film-overseas/#IDComment137566223 In the Submarine Service, it's "Pass the ketchup." MM2(SS) Glenn Damato Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:36:26 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lmnorton/2011/03/25/battle-los-angeles-review-american-exceptionalism-on-the-big-screen-1-film-overseas/#IDComment137566223 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lmnorton/2011/03/25/battle-los-angeles-review-american-exceptionalism-on-the-big-screen-1-film-overseas/#IDComment137519027 If the Marines had located the civilians, shot them up a bit for fun, then raped them and their puppies, the "liberal" film critics like Ebert would have liked this movie much better, describing it as nuanced and thought-provoking. I saw it last Monday, and it was outstanding - ough rah! But I kept thinking, THIS is the style in which they should have re-made Red Dawn. The teenaged rebels could have joined forces with a Marine platoon to fight the Chinese occupying the southwest US. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:27:43 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lmnorton/2011/03/25/battle-los-angeles-review-american-exceptionalism-on-the-big-screen-1-film-overseas/#IDComment137519027 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/21/digitial-streaming-can-ultraviolet-save-hollywoods-bottom-line/#IDComment136660336 This sounds a lot like the way iTunes, iBooks and Kindle work now. A couple of months ago I was upgrading my iPad's operation system from 3.2 to 4.2. The upgrade failed, and the iPad was left in an unbootable state - I had no other option but to "reset" it, which returns the entire device to the same state it was in when I first opened the box. ALL content was gone. iTunes only backs up the settings, not the content. This is the equivalent of loosing your CD collection when your house burns down. But I was able to restore all content, quickly and for no cost - because it all still "existed" in the cloud - iBooks and Amazon Kindle easily let me download dozens of books at no charge because the system remembered I had previously purchased them, so I still "owned" them. Same for Apps from the App Store. This is 21st century stuff. Tue, 22 Mar 2011 06:12:11 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/21/digitial-streaming-can-ultraviolet-save-hollywoods-bottom-line/#IDComment136660336 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmandaville/2011/03/20/the-digital-heyday/#IDComment136283238 I think what mjpthree is saying is similar to what I'm trying to say. When 20,000 feature-length movies are produced each year, each with a micro-budget or no budget and a first time director, the vast, vast majority of them will be unwatchable - literally not worth the time it takes to sit through them, even if the viewing is free. Remember 1997? All of a sudden everyone realized that it was possible for ANYONE to open a "storefront" on the web. It was possible for ANYONE to "hang a shingle" on a web site, accept credit cards via a third party, and compete with the big guys! All of a sudden, "the playing field had been leveled" and regular folks could "compete" against Wal-Mart, Sears, and TJMax. Well, no. In 2014 someone will make a cool movie about dragons or something and it will make $23 million and everyone will announce that the age of the indie streamer movie has dawned, Lionsgate watch out. But no one will have the time to sift through tens of thousands of net movies, and the shear volume of all the new movies will guarantee this. Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:18:52 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmandaville/2011/03/20/the-digital-heyday/#IDComment136283238 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmandaville/2011/03/20/the-digital-heyday/#IDComment136278622 The economics of entertaining has changed, but not in the way most people on this blog assume. For all practical purposes, the "money price" of books and movies is now free. Both novels and movies today "cost" around $10 to consume, with variation based on timing and format. But that is not the TRUE cost. The true cost is TIME - and that will not change. The cost to consume a novel or a movie will remain around 3 - 12 hours. It is the TIME cost, not the DOLLAR cost, that puts a FIRM LIMIT on the total volume of entertainment that can be consumed. If movies become cheaper to produce and the number of movies per yer climbs, that does not mean people will watch more movies. Don't you see? They HAVE NO TIME. Internet publishing of novels? Video streaming? THERE IS NO TIME TO CONSUME IT ALL. This means that most arguments about "the new age" about to dawn are quite false. Hate to be a party pooper, but we will end up with 20,000 "movies" a year and only 1/10th of 1 percent of them will ever be watched by anyone besides friends and family. Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:48:55 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmandaville/2011/03/20/the-digital-heyday/#IDComment136278622 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/16/the-new-production-code-mgm-scrubs-china-from-red-dawn-remake/#IDComment135416010 What's not feasible about it? The PRC has the largest standing army in the world - and they are well-outfitted and well-trained - not hundreds of thousands of peasants as some people may imagine. It is a professional army. They are quite capable of invading the US with a million soldiers should they so desire. WHY would they desire to do this? Historically, the Chinese have been very difficult to fathom. They may justify such an act as removing the United States from the world stage as a superpower. This would enable the Chinese to take an active role in "managing" the world's economy to China's favor. They would probably not occupy the US for long - just the destruction of our military bases and hardware would be sufficient. They would probably also take maybe 500,000 of our best scientists, engineers, professors, and businesspeople to China with a promise of a comfortable life in exchange for their knowledge and skills. This would guarantee the 21st century as the Chinese century. Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:00:25 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/16/the-new-production-code-mgm-scrubs-china-from-red-dawn-remake/#IDComment135416010 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/16/the-new-production-code-mgm-scrubs-china-from-red-dawn-remake/#IDComment135411226 I'm just please and surprised that someone actually re-made Red Dawn in 2011 with a Chinese invading force. I sort of expected the script to be changed at the last moment to a story about fighting against a "invading force" of RIGHT WING religious fanatics - home-grown Nazis, something like that. Someone involved in the project should secure an unaltered copy of the original and post it on the internet for streaming. This will likely be done by someone, at some point. Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:37:28 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/16/the-new-production-code-mgm-scrubs-china-from-red-dawn-remake/#IDComment135411226