gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : Dog-Whistles: White House Decision On Bin Laden Photo Smells Like Islamophobia

Fri, 6 May 2011 01:21:52 +0000

Agreed - don't release them. It says something about us that the issue has even come up: nobody had to see photos of Hitler's body, did they? It was enough to know he was dead. Probably photos did circulate underground, where they should be. I think it says something good about this administration, and about us as a country, that they won't release the images. The terrorists and their visual impacts of horror and violence have already coarsened us too much. We don't need to do it to ourselves. Eventually the live stream footage that everybody in situation room was allegedly watching in the famous photograph will make it to the Net and people who have a need to see it will find it. It doesn't need to be released officially. That's a good point about a potential court case, too. As crazy as it is, such considerations have to be made; fortunately, though, in another case, the Spanish judge that was going to prosecute American soldiers based on an incident in Iraq got fired or something similar - maybe the world isn't totally completely crazy.

Big Hollywood : Ken Burns: What's This Nonsense About PBS and NPR Skewing Liberal?

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 01:32:11 +0000

Let's start with an example. I'm working through Burns' "Baseball", and in the fourth episode, he mentions that the Yankees were the first to put numbers on their players' uniforms, so fans could recognize them better (apparently fans were too dumb to notice a difference between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on the field...not!). I waited for the explanation of how groundbreaking this was, that earlier players had refused to wear numbers on their uniforms, insisting that they were people, not numbers (the reason Ty Cobb's number wasn't retired is because he never had one, nor did he, or any ball player ever need one). The significance of this numbering, for the first time in the long history of baseball, was never mentioned. It was just the story of where the uniform numbers came from...just an "of course" kind of thing. And it occurred to me that Burns and many of his intended audience couldn't even see this concept that once was so strong in America; it's just outside their world view that we once refused to be numbered. And that's a problem when you're doing history. It's a problem of blindness. And that is the problem with public funding of the arts: it makes blinders rather than opening up new vistas to artists. This is just the opposite of the point Burns makes in the article. I don't care that Ken Burns is a liberal -- I care that he couldn't see something important about his topic because of the uniformity of the culture he is a part of, and that a masterpiece like "Baseball" therefore became less than it could have been (but it's still better than anything else I've ever seen about baseball, and would be even if Burns hadn't had public funding to rely on). Public funding fosters uniformity in art as well as politics. Right now, only people who don't fit the profile can see that. We'll be well on our way back toward the high levels of our former greatness, in the arts as in other things, when NPR's demographic can once again see the truth in that, too. Liberals could, once upon a not too distant time. They can again, any time they really want to.

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread: #12 Bob Hope

Fri, 1 Apr 2011 23:25:24 +0000

Yes, that picture surely is interesting -- it's the meanest one I've ever seen of Hope: the sharpness of the eyes, the teeth showing in what could be a snarl, the shadowing on the face to make it sinister. I suppose the "Filth" button is to show how judgmental he is or some such thing. It only made sense to me when I compared it to the Obama "Hope" poster, which it parodies. Maybe this is way off base, but it seems both posters present facets of the Big Lie, or whatever today's left-wing propaganda is called now: Bob Hope=Mean. Barack Obama=Noble Intellectual. It's an interesting study of propaganda techniques. There's just a wee bit of truth in each poster, enough to run with for the designer's own purposes (Hope came up, like most of his generation, in tough times, and his humor was so excellent precisely because it had *a little* bite to it; Obama is an intellectual, and also [dare I say it here?] an ordinary human being, with a touch of goodness to him, same as the rest of us).

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread: #15 Spencer Tracy

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:23:14 +0000

Happened to watch him in "Northwest Passage" recently (thought it was only available on TCM reruns but it can be rented on iReel), and of all the performances I've seen Spencer Tracy give, his work in "Passage" is the best (and that's saying something). The bigger-than-life, blustery Major Rogers would have been a caricature in the hands of many actors (including some good ones), but Tracy turns him a complex human being. It's a performance well worth watching. Yes, back in the Golden Era, real men did cry...and then they got on with their job. Also the human bridge across the river, including Tracy (first in and last out, a leadership point in different circumstances Mel Gibson emphasized in "We Were Soldiers"). Anyway, in "Passage," they actually did that stunt just as it was filmed! You wouldn't see many actors of any sort doing that today, let alone the star. Pity that movie's sequel didn't pan out -- might have been pretty good.

Big Hollywood : 'Paul' Review: Amusing Adventure Despite Christian Stereotyping

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:56:16 +0000

Simon Pegg bowled me over with his performance as Scotty in "Star Trek" (2009). I'll watch this for that reason alone. The trailer is pretty interesting, too. As for the question posted, @TyrannyHater, "if God created the most intelligent creature (man) in the universe in his own image, how do we explain Paul," that's easy: J. R. R. Tolkien explained it quite well in his "On Fairy-stories." Paul isn't real--he (it?) is a secondary creation of Man, who is acting like the primary Creator in whose image Man was formed, according to Christianity (am Theravadan Buddhist myself, just for reference). That Paul himself poses the question, as well as the apparent inclusion of religion here, is interesting - wonder what the film's makers were doing with that (nothing much? addressing deep issues through a veneer of comedy?). Will watch for it in the movie.

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread: #27 Frank Sinatra

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:42:49 +0000

That man could act, and I'm talking about "Suddenly" here: a riveting performance, one of the best I've ever seen from anyone. Also, he got Martin and Lewis talking to each other again. I understand he could also carry a tune and enjoyed parties.... My favorite tale about him may be apocryphal, but supposedly one night John Wayne was staying in the same hotel, on the floor above Sinatra. The noise got to him after a while, and he went downstairs. Sinatra was agreeable, but people being people, it got rowdy again and the Duke ended up downstairs again, not a happy camper. One of Sinatra's bodyguards stood up to him, and Wayne ended up breaking a non-breakaway chair over the man's head, not seriously injuring him, fortunately, but that was the end of the party for that night. Don't know if it's true or not, but you know, the world wasn't a bad place when it was big enough to hold the likes of Frank Sinatra, John Wayne and a few other men and women back in the day.

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread: #37 Michael Caine

Tue, 8 Mar 2011 01:56:42 +0000

For such a tough business, there should be a special award for someone who can maintain a career like Michael Caine's, both for longevity and sturdiness. Not all the films he has been in have been major hits (think "Kidnapped," for example), but they've always been good films, worth the price of admission at least, and usually much more than that. The man has worked a lot. Real life works a bit differently from Gotham, at least for him: "...you live long enough to become the classic film star."

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread: #40 The Boys

Fri, 4 Mar 2011 22:56:05 +0000

In their prime, they were perfect...just perfect, especially in that incredible year for them, 1941. They made 36 films between 1940 and 1956 and raised lots of money in war bonds (Abbott had epilepsy and Costello, occasional bouts of rheumatic fever, so presumably that's why they weren't drafted). I think their brand of cerebral humor was even better than the Marx Brothers'. But though they made us laugh, they should have paid their taxes. Then the memory wouldn't have that slight, and inescapable tarnish.

Big Hollywood : Announcing Big Hollywood's Countdown of the Top 25 Greatest Christian Films

Sun, 6 Feb 2011 04:51:14 +0000

A postscript here, because no one else has mentioned this, but--seriously--"Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie." Just watched it tonight. It may not qualify among the greatest, considering the great movies out there, but I would include it as a great Christian film for kids today, and there are so few. Other people's comments: I thought of "Gods and Generals," too, but decided against it even though that excellent and very underrated movie explores belief and faith of all sorts and in conflict, because the Christian part is explored really to illuminate the character of Thomas Jackson rather than Christianity. Now, "The Life of Brian" could be seriously considered, as it stays respectful of Jesus, but it is nowhere the top of the list of great Christian films.

Big Hollywood : Announcing Big Hollywood's Countdown of the Top 25 Greatest Christian Films

Sat, 5 Feb 2011 01:49:52 +0000

Not in any order, except #1, which absolutely must be that version of "Ben-Hur." And a caveat: these aren't my selections of 25 favorites out of all the Christian movies I have watched--haven't seen some of them, and found it challenging to find 25 well-known Christian movies!! ** means it's going in the Netflix queue, if available. 1. Ben Hur (1959) 2. Ten Commandments (1956) 3. Jesus of Nazareth (1977) 4. Fireproof (2008)** 5. Elmer Gantry (1960) ? 6. Lilies of the Field (1963); for Homer's line "I'm a Baptist"--just so typically American, that. 7. Godspell (1973); actually, I'm basing this on the play, which was okay; didn't see the movie. 8. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) 9. Song of Bernadette (1943) 10. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) 11. The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) 12. The Passion of the Christ (2004) 13. The Cross and the Swtichblade (1970) 14. Rooster Cogburn (1975) - for Hepburn's performance, esp. when she stands up to Richard Jordan (and when she slips and takes a swig). 15. The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) 16. The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) 17-??? A number of Christmas movies 18. The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John (2003)** 19. King of Kings (1961) 20. The Informer (1935): for the very last scene, in the church. Wow! 21. The Mission (1986) 22. Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)** 23. Letters to God (2010)** 24. Mary Mother of Jesus (1999) 25. Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002)**

Big Hollywood : TCM's Documentary On Hollywood History Wildly Misses the Mark

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:17:54 +0000

Excellent thoughts, though I'd like to see the series, too. To confirm the idea that sometimes the old-fashioned kind of movie censorship that they had in America could promote quality, look at "Gone With the Wind": they had to pay a fine for using a cuss word on screen, and they accepted that because it worked for artistic reasons. "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a darn," just wouldn't have worked. If entertainers nowadays had to pay money to swear, it wouldn't end swearing...but it would make it much more entertaining. Re: Wayne. Every time people bring up the WWII service issue, I've learned to respond, "George O'Brien." After the usual moment of confused silence, I add, "that's my point." Few really remember O'Brien now (he was the man in "Sunrise" and starred in Ford's "Iron Horse," if that rings any bells), but John Wayne makes people feel patriotic. O'Brien served in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam (the latter two on active reserve duty; he was a beachmaster in the Pacific during WWII, and a stretcher bearer for the Marines in WWI). After the big hits in the silent movies, he found a niche in Westerns during the sound era; when war broke out, they didn't dare tell his fans that he had volunteered for service again -- it was only admitted after fans got irate and started demanding where he was. So, George O'Brien served his country the traditional way and may have sacrificed stardom for it (and peace of mind: he was in some of the big, terrible battles on Pacific islands, and his wife said that it changed him forever). Why don't we even recognize his name nowadays? Why does John Wayne stir our patriotism instead? It's complicated and fascinating. Too bad that an indepth look at Hollywood History by a source like Turner Classic Movies doesn't delve into it more. I'm so tired of simplistic history lessons. The reality was always so much more interesting...trouble is, they don't want to do real history. All they want is their version of a morality tale.

Big Hollywood : 2010 in Music and Movies: Not the Worst Year Ever

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 19:58:04 +0000

Heck, I don't even like rap and I'd pay to see a Snoop Dogg/Toby Keith concert! Just two things regarding movies: 1) Watched again "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (Ultimate Edition) for Christmas, and really hope such a quality film is only a rare bird, always arriving unexpectedly, and not a thing of the past (also...if Flight 19 disappeared in 1945 and returned in 1977, then Roy Neary is overdue; I'm just saying....). 2) In the future, they may remember 2010 as the year of the overlooked movie: so few people seem to have even heard of "Aftershock." I stumbled it across its trailer by accident, and immediately had to get the movie. I don't care if it's made in Communist China (and that sort of thing usually is very important to me). The trailer is that good. It has had a few screenings nationwide (still going on). The movie is on reserve on Netflix; Amazon VOD doesn't have it, and there were only a couple of DVDs on sale at Amazon. There's one less now, as I snapped it up. I haven't even seen the whole thing and will still call it one of the best films of 2010. Watch. The. Trailer. If you're lucky enough to live in an area where it's being screened, I envy you.

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #25 - 'The Day After Tomorrow' (2004)

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:48:32 +0000

Well, somebody's got to stick up for Irwin Allen. Besides being a top-notch businessman, he had imagination and a keen sense of what popular entertainment is...from "Lost In Space" all the way up to tying high-caliber stars like McQueen, Newman, Astaire, and Holden to props, setting off unexpected explosions nearby and dousing them with firehoses, while filming their reactions. Maybe we could use an Irwin Allen these days. it was a lot of fun. So some of his sequels were pretty bad, and he wrung every last cent out of the disaster craze, but people were willing to pay for it, so why not? It wouldn't be the first or last time drek has financed good stuff. Then there is this: the man's treatment of Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us," not only won him an Academy Award, it also so enraged Carson (for some reason) that she never allowed her work to be filmed again. That's a real service to humanity, that is. Think of the propaganda venue it denied to environmental extremists. Heh. And finally: I haven't seen his "Story of Mankind" (1957), but would like to give it a run alongside "The Day After Tomorrow" (which I also haven't seen) and judge which was better. Odds are good it would be Allen's film. That's too bad about Emmerich: I really liked "Independence Day." You know who else I suspect made a bad movie in response to Hollywood criticisms of his earlier work? John Ford, with "Cheyenne Autumn." Just my opinion, but that is what this reminds me of. (Though "Independence Day" was an commercial cartoon compared to much of Ford's earlier work--no comparison intended there.)

Big Government : Tuesday Open Thread: Infamy Edition

Wed, 8 Dec 2010 01:57:31 +0000

I don't know about the human dimension of it, but a lot of people aren't familiar with some of the things going on in America at that time. Seems to me that the nation was still split informally again along the general lines of the major upheaval that had happened several decades before that. It was so bad that the president had to include this whopper in his January 1941 State of the Union speech: "Today, thank God, 130,000,000 Americans in 48 States have forgotten points of the compass [North and South] in our national unity." Actually, the date of Thanksgiving was a political issue from 1939 onward, with 23 states celebrating what was referred to as the "Democrat Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Unit..... for details) and 22 states celebrating T-day on another Thursday in November, what was called the "Republican Thanksgiving." It was that petty and bitter in the USA back then. Ten days after 1941's "Republican Thanksgiving," the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. United we stand, divided we fall. Why do we latter-day Americans only learn that lesson *after* the tragedy, and then remember it so briefly?

Big Government : Tuesday Open Thread: Infamy Edition

Tue, 7 Dec 2010 12:02:00 +0000

Even 40-some years ago, when I was growing up, it was hard to get an idea of the human dimension of this event, that thousands of people were killed and injured; coverage was all about the things that got blown up and images of the explosions and stuff. The dehumanization (and diminution of memorializing this national tragedy) has continued apace, though it certainly took longer than it did for some media outlets to issue their calls for less flag-flying, etc., after 9/11. As a whole, we need to come to grips more with war and peace. This attack brought us into the war back then, and we won it. We are now allies with Japan, and the importance of this right now, with the North Korean situation as it currently is, really needs to be stressed today. We mourn those killed on December 7, 1941, but given the way things have turned out, this day is also a reminder that the way to real peace (as much as it can actually be obtained for a while in this imperfect world) is sometimes, though hopefully rarely, through war...won. War is hard for some to grok. Wired.com, for example, chose today to issue its support for Wikileaks (and they *really* don't like Wikileaks, if you have followed their coverage of it recently): http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileak... . It's a good op-ed, and totally wrong, because governments need to have secrets sometimes, and especially at war. That's been true from the get-go: West Point never actually changed hands during the American Revolution, but that didn't change the fact that Arnold was a traitor. Today we are at war with an enemy who wears no uniform (and lack of uniform is exactly why we executed John André in 1780), has no country, and is sworn to destroy us. The idealistic type of just and fair defense Wired is calling for here will just hand the enemy everything they need to hurt us more. Civil rights are important, even in wartime, and America's court system hasn't been suspended yet (as they can do in crises, during the period of martial law, although retroactively abuses can be and have been punished). Nonetheless, common sense is always in season. Even Wired recognizes that Wikileaks "...owes allegiance to no one government, and its interests do not align neatly with authorities," including the elected representatives of the American people. Supporting such an entity would be morally questionable even in peacetime; it is unthinkable in wartime, and especially in a war declared against us by an entity that also owes allegiance to no government and whose interests most certainly don't align with duly elected authorities. The sad thing is that Wired probably didn't even give a thought to the date on which its op-ed would be read by most people (it came out late on the 6th).

Big Hollywood : 'Unstoppable' Review: As Usual, Denzel Washington Brings the Awesome

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:22:37 +0000

I'm really looking forward to seeing this, both as a Denzel W. fan and also because of your description of it keeping the foul-mouthing and morally questionable stuff down. However, and while I surely don't want to come across as a feminist, the coolest thing about Bullock's performance in "Speed" was her concern for the wounded driver (that look they shared as he was carried off the bus was priceless) and her emotional reactions to Reeves. Please don't let her driving of the bus conceal where the true female energy was in that picture. And it's hard to think of a better tribute to the really thankless roles women play in heroes' lives than the portrayal of female characters in Gibson's "We Were Soldiers Once and Young" (the only bloody movie of his I can watch, and in my mind today because it's Veterans Day). Awesome. I hope "Unstoppable" doesn't fall back on the cliches for the roles of wives and daughters. This really does sound like a good movie--looking forward to seeing it!

Big Hollywood : The Loser

Tue, 9 Nov 2010 11:17:06 +0000

Seriously well done. Only...what if it's not failure that has disenchanted them? What if it's something else that the 2010 election results made easier (for us all) to overlook - that Mr. Obama is taking his job seriously and doing it as well as he possibly can (difficult, given his background)? Hardly palatable to us, given the policies he supports, but pure poison to the Hollywood elite described here. Surely Hollywood must understand failure well, and bad audiences (that's us, for not understanding them); but to try to serve America? Pure treason to some, and not just in Hollywood, either. It's not easy to grok. Can any of us get our minds around the idea of a leftist community organizer discovering America for possibly the first time...in the White House? And then trying to serve it as best he can? It's a scenario so improbable for our dichotomy-conditioned minds that we reject it automatically; Disney himself would reject it and turn to something more believable like "Rudy" or "Cool Runnings." I mean, if something like that happened, the leftists would predictably start reacting with propaganda and you'd start see things like "American Thinker" blog posts turning up on page 1 of unrelated Google News searches. Like the one I found this morning, while trying to find the latest on the Merapi eruption: The article: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/misst... (hardly friendly to what we normally expect from Google News, which I stopped following generally a long time ago) The hit (my screen print of it done about 10 minutes ago): http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4110/5161103218_d0... Or it could just be an awesome display of savvy SEO writing by those to the right of the political dividing line (which is really a wide area where most of America resides, as President Obama probably knows quite well now) that Google will somehow quietly "correct" ASAP. Just pointing out that there's a whole lot of stuff going on that we're all much too close to to really see clearly right now.

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Greatest Halloween Films: #2 – The Universal Studios' Monster Collection (1931-1954)

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:22:56 +0000

That's a crucial point about "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." I had never seen it, and thought you were mocking us (well, how else could I imagine it fitting into a list with something like "Near Dark"?). Watched it tonight and everything you said was absolutely spot on. They made a real horror movie (and Chaney gets a lot of screen time, fortunately) and inserted A&C into it at the top of their form: and it worked. As for #1, well, I'm wondering if it might be the movie I felt compelled to watch after A&CMF, probably because it was another, though very different, combination of humor and horror that worked very well; won't name it now (as that would be a spoiler, if correct), but will drop this dialog clue: "I will not be threatened by a walking meat loaf!" Also, the dedication at the very end, from the perspective of time, now seems pretty horrifying, too--this was not the film to honor them with, but who could know that back then. Edit: Sorry! "American Werewolf in London" came in already at #17. I missed that somehow. Now what possibly could be #1???

Big Hollywood : Top 5: Actors We Trust

Sun, 3 Oct 2010 04:09:28 +0000

I'm defining "trust" as being the deciding factor about a movie I'm unsure whether to watch, and the type for that was "Pursuit of Happyness," so #1 is definitely Will Smith (and Jaden Smith, too -- I might watch the new "Karate Kid" on the strength of the reviews of his performance in it). After that, in no particular order (and I don't even know the politics of some of these people): -- Jeff Daniels -- Tom Selleck -- Michael Gross (the man became Burt Gummer in "Tremors" the day after his role as Steven Keaton in "Family Ties" ended - think about it) -- Ernest Borginine Jet Li might be in there, too, but that's only based on one performance, in "Hero" (2002), so I don't know for sure yet. I tried and could not easily think of an actress to go in there, at least one who met the criteria. Perhaps Maggie Cheung, but again that's only based on one movie, and again it's "Hero." It was impressive the way she conveyed the believable character of a martial arts expert (and a pretty maniacal, single-minded one, too), even though she had never done martial arts before AFAIK. If the whole field were opened up since the get-go in the early 20th century, I would have brought in Mary Pickford (for many reasons, but in summary: "Stella Maris"), Lucille Ball, Flora Robson (watch her Queen Elizabeth I in "Fire Over England" and then try to remember who Helen Mirren is) and Angie Dickinson. Actors in that widened field would include the man formerly known as Marion Morrison, Raymond Massey (watch "Fire Over England" again, and then his performance in John Ford's "Hurricane"; he may have just been walking in his sleep during "Dr. Kildare"), Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Karl Malden. Also any of the Beery's. I'll put this down at the bottom so people won't tune out prematurely (BG). Harrison Ford would have been in my list, too, in spite of his silly politics, if he hadn't made "Crystal Skull" (is he retired?). Anyway, the man can act and has a rare power to incorporate body language and dialogue; in his prime there was much more to him than Solo and Indy.

Big Hollywood : 'Glory' and Col. Shaw: What a Real 'Post-Racial' Man Was All About

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 23:45:55 +0000

"Glory" just blew me away when I first saw it, and it is still a good movie, but it's not real to me any more. Read Leon Uris's "Battle Cry" and tell me there isn't some heavy sampling going on there, particular in the brutal way the unit's commander trains his men, which they don't appreciate until they get into battle, as well as the ending as it is portrayed here - the commander goes down, the men react altogether with a single cry, and charge and mostly get slaughtered. It's close enough to what I've read happened at Fort Wagner, too, of course, but they left out the best part of all, not just that there were survivors, but also that the actions of one of them, Sgt. William Harvey Carney (who I like to imagine as the Thomas character in "Glory"), made him the first black recipient of the Medal of Honor (although the system being what it was, several other black soldiers got theirs before Carney did, but his action predated theirs by 1 year, 1863). For details, see http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofheroes/1st_floo... Had I written "Glory," I would have built it around this fact, and at the end, made the New Yorker who offered to carry the flag be one of ringleaders of the whites who had heckled the black soldiers, lending special meaning to Carney's reply: "No one but a member of the 54th should carry the colors." It's still a good movie, though - just wanted to point that the reality is even better. Or as Morgan Freeman said to Mike Wallace in a YouTube clip that BH posted here a while back (here is the link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uxRcxzbPM ), "Black history is American history." We need to learn this history; all of it, not just the bad parts. There were good parts, too.