gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : 'Broadcast News' Predicted Journalism's Collapse

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:19:29 +0000

I think an argument could be made that the standard of "unbiased" reporting is unattainable. Can there ever be a non-opinion on anything? Thanks to the Internet, people can choose who they want to listen to. People can also find news that use their own beliefs as a starting point. Some of of the people who call for unbiased reporting, are ones who want to hide their beliefs as fact (to whit I point to the deluded Michelle Maddow) or who are denial that the world has moved on without them ( to whit i point to Tom Brokaw and his cohorts who called the internet a sewer for reporting the Van Jones petition).

Big Hollywood : HuffPo Slams 'Act of Valor': Not Anti-Military, Anti-American Enough

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:41:15 +0000

Reminds me of how Slate.com once complained that "300" didn't have a token peacenik to remind the audience of the evils of war. The problem is that audiences would have seen that for what it was. A peacenik would have been very out of place in a movie like that. Not to mention that it was a tired cliche was as old as the hills. And it would have damped the movie experience every time the peacenik was on screen.

Big Hollywood : HuffPo Slams 'Act of Valor': Not Anti-Military, Anti-American Enough

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:21:00 +0000

Let me get this straight. We are living in an age where movies seem to be formulaic and repeats of the same old crap they've been releasing for generations. It gets so bad that even movie critics start to complain. But then somebody comes up with a movie with new ideas that throws out old Cliches an old conventions and what do the critics do? They complain about how the new film is not following the old dynamic. The author of the Huffington Post piece admits this. He blatantly requests that filmmakers go back to how films portrayed the Vietnam War. It's been the standard for a while (see "American Gangster." It's time for change. So I say, "yes!" Get the Pentagon off the sidelines and into the movie game.

Big Hollywood : 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Lies Revisited: Leftist Filmmakers Split Profits from Defaming President Bush

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 02:42:07 +0000

And I'm sure others in entertainment (comedians, TV show writers, and news organizations), looked at the success of F911 and thought the gloves could finally come off. So they stepped up their own rhetoric and kicked off the most sanctimonious period in entertainment history. As to how effective it was in the long run? Well, Bush did get re-elected. The anti-war movement went in to hibernation when Obama came to power. Guantanamo is operating. And as a backlash to what happened above, the right started to organize so they could counter what was being thrown at them. Breitbart being one example. We're not big yet. But we can force the left to confront questions they were never used to be confronted with.

Big Hollywood : New Sci-Fi Comedy Features Sarah Palin as President

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:44:02 +0000

It looks like Europe got the script to Gene Roddenberry's "Patterns of Force" and decided to spruce it up a bit. WOW!

Big Hollywood : Halle Berry Takes VOD Express in 'Dark Tide'

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:34:28 +0000

What do you mean "these days?" The Oscar was NEVER a guarentee of employment. Ask Louise Fletcher how her career went after her Oscar for Nurse Ratched.

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:16:25 +0000

*cough* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Due_(St...

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:01:57 +0000

Imagine if "Patterns of Force" was used as a plot line in a current science fiction show. It would generate a lot of irksome questions like: "Why would a historian introduce such a ideology to a developing planet?" or "Why would someone tempt fate by using the Nazi model?" The reason why they could do this back then was because most media and entertainment didn't take the Nazis to task for the suffering of their victims. As I've said all along, it wasn't until the 70's when they started to be portrayed as perverse and amoral. Between the 40's and the 70's the main argument against the Nazis was that the security they offered was not worth the price. Secret Police, army patrols in the streets, flagrant racism was too high a price to pay for a "efficient and secure" society. What profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul. "Patterns of Force" was a variation on that theme. Today, we now know that the Nazis had NOTHING to offer. Good riddance. And the point, I have been trying to make is that this was the best arguement they could offer back then. No attention was paid to the great suffering they caused in their quest to make a fairytale society.

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:39:18 +0000

asking LOADED questions. You mean

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:53:53 +0000

Speilberg uses a similar arguement to hide behind his anti-Israel movie "Munich" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw8sDJtGaqI

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:51:53 +0000

The only ones that do are the ones that have the benefit of hindsight. Two that come to mind are "K-19: TheWidowmaker" and "Enemy at the Gates." Both show the Soviets as either too bureaucratic or ill led by their superiors. But I can't think of any film that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany. "2010: The Year We Make Contact" posited the Soviets still being around. Think anyone will make a movie about China falling? Or North Korea?

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 04:17:48 +0000

Wasn't that Michael Moore's arguement about his opposition to the Iraq War? He was "just asking questions"

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:12:08 +0000

I refuse to forget the skirt. In fact, I'm glad they kept that in the last movie. But what the heck would YOU call the messaging in Star Trek? I will grant there were times that the series didn't take a direct stand on things. Like the episode "A Private Little War" was allegory about the Soviets arming Warsaw countries and the United States arming the NATO countries and it causing tensions. The episode took no stand on the issue. It did consider that state of affairs sad but necessary to keep peace.

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:56:54 +0000

You are correct that the bigger point of the episode was that no matter how benevolent the dictator the temptation will always be there to knuckle down on a populace. My rant is about how Hollywood seems to take the power monolithic governments have FOR GRANTED. So we get films about how efficient and technically superior they are. And the reason why these governments are unacceptable is because they have a bad tendency of hauling people off in the middle of the night. And from the 40's to the 70's they didn't seem to care what happened to those people. Schindler's List changed that, but I digress. Movies like Hitchcock's Saboteur, Firefox or Rocky 4 seem to throw a bone to our adversaries. They say that "yes they're evil, but darn it they can sure build something when they put their minds to it." But I have yet to think of a film that suggests that it was all smoke and mirrors. The Nazi and Soviet Regimes fell when they couldn't keep up the illusion anymore. And I castigate Roddenberry for falling in to the same trap.

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 02:17:13 +0000

What the hell are you talking about? From the implications of racism in the episode "Let that be your Last Battlefield" to the Cold War analogies in "The Omega Glory" and "A Private Little War" and the perils of peace movements during the times of great evil in "The City on the Edge of Forever," all meant to stir discussion in to the philosophy and politics of a particular episode. Even the multi-racial makeup of the crew was a comment on the folly of racism. Viewers are SUPPOSED to see messages in the programming. Roddenberry designed it that way. YOU MORON!!!!!

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:49:05 +0000

There was something on the History channel in the 90's. It was a documentary about why the New York Times didn't report on the Holocaust during World War 2. The reason given is that the New York Times thought the stories were so fantastic that they might lose credibility and gain a reputation a propaganda rag. When the war was over everyone wanted to put the war behind them and didn't do any reflecting on what had happened and why a force like the Nazis would rise. Actually, we can credit Big Hollywood's own Michael Moriarty for helping to bring the holocaust in to the public consciousness. His mini-series "Holocaust" cemented Nazi's reputation and opened the door for Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:26:29 +0000

Now we know they weren't all that efficient. They made so many mistakes during the war. They never developed A semiautomatic weapon until it was too late. They never came up with a long range bomber. They sent too many of their troops to Italy. And they put too much faith in their codes and espionage networks. The bottom line is that the Nazis had no check on reality. Most of the successes that Germany took credit for, including the military, were in spite of the Nazis. Not because of them. And this Star Trek episode seems to want to perpetuate the myth of the efficient NAZI state.

Big Hollywood : The Politics of 'Star Trek': 'Patterns of Force'

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:26:17 +0000

I thought this episode exposed what people thought Nazism was in the 60's. Remember, the holocaust was not a subject that was in the public consciousness until the seventies. People seem to regard the Nazis as a political party that somehow, someway got out of control. The reason for this was because news organizations were not too keen on reporting the holocaust. Mainly because they felt a lot of people wouldn't be able to believe it. The news media were able to portray them as brutal and as totalitarian. But they were never able to portray them as vicious. The compromise they reached was that the Nazis were willing to trample on the human spirit for efficiency's sake.

Big Hollywood : William Shatner Dishes on Khan, George Takei and El Rushbo

Sat, 4 Feb 2012 16:44:13 +0000

I recently saw a television doc that compared all the Captains on Star Trek. From how many women the Captain Bedded to fist fights. In every category, Kirk came out on top. I was a little peeved with the doc' s attitude toward this. The explanation they gave was that times had changed and such 60ish concepts of manhood had changed. People wanted to negotiate rather than fight. Responsibility took precedence over relationships. blah!!! On the other hand, considering what a whipped society Hollywood envisioned in the 80's and 90's. Maybe times in HOLLYWOOD had changed.

Big Hollywood : Box Office Predictions: 'Chronicle' Takes the Movies, Pats Take the Super Bowl

Sat, 4 Feb 2012 06:02:46 +0000

HELL-uary has begun. Hollywood's dumping ground for movies they think won't make any money and are now recouping costs.