en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/915497 Comments by mosomoso http://c4ss.org/content/20650#IDComment698067031 I'm a conservative who's wandered into your site, but what I've read above chimes with a conversation I had last night with friends, father and son, who are plasterers here in rural NSW. Both are excellent and in demand, yet we all agreed that, without the wife's extraordinary ability and patience with paperwork and bureaucratic tangles, their business would not exist. In fact, they would be better off right now as employees of another tradesman, who would himself be better off as an employee etc etc... Everything, especially the extended and abstract secondary education foisted on canny and energetic young males who want to use their hands, points us toward the Corporate, whether it be government or the Coca Cola Company. It's getting harder and harder to distinguish our vaunted free enterprise culture from old Mother Russia. I'm a conservative, and a pretty typical one. Obviously, I'm not going to agree with all that's in the article - but it's an article worth the writing and the reading. Well done. Mon, 12 Aug 2013 00:37:24 +0000 http://c4ss.org/content/20650#IDComment698067031 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/adelgado/2011/12/28/hollywoods-mean-girls-when-feminist-actresses-attack-female-conservatives/#IDComment250312334 "It wasn't rape rape." The tolerance and even active support for Polanski tell the final story about Hollywood feminists. It was pleasing when Emma Thomson took her name off a Polanski supporters' petition...but why did she need to think twice about it? Aren't these "strong" women equipped with a special "nurturing" instinct, as well as their supposed strength? Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:08:43 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/adelgado/2011/12/28/hollywoods-mean-girls-when-feminist-actresses-attack-female-conservatives/#IDComment250312334 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2011/11/20/top-ten-most-overrated-actorsactresses-of-all-time/#IDComment225513690 Sean Penn would have to be the most over-rated. His mock-intensity constantly distracts the viewer to no end. Be still, Sean! Curiously, I think Michael Douglas, as highly regarded as may be, is the most under-rated actor. He gives such clear and flavourful performances without affectation; he serves the script and the story with humility, but never misses a chance to inject some fun or some insolent humour. Above all, he is never DEEP. He does what Robert Donat did. Of course, I'm not comparing Michael Douglas to Robert Donat, who had much greater range. But Hollywood stars don't need range: they only need to know if they don't have it. Do we want to see Cary Grant as Mr. Chips? Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:29:05 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2011/11/20/top-ten-most-overrated-actorsactresses-of-all-time/#IDComment225513690 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdeangelis/2011/10/27/madonna-feels-the-same-intrusion-she-foisted-on-parents-for-years/#IDComment213175904 Is it possible that all the sensationalism has been necessary to distract us from certain shortcomings? Madonna has enormous talent and energy, but she is essentially the Eddie Fisher of the nineties: a rhythmless cornball. Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:10:37 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdeangelis/2011/10/27/madonna-feels-the-same-intrusion-she-foisted-on-parents-for-years/#IDComment213175904 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aprice/2011/10/10/top-20-horror-films-you-absolutely-must-see-before-you-die/#IDComment205539423 The Uninvited! You get real malevolence, a hit song, and a twist ending. No mock-medieval music, no staring, no humping, no mumbling, no blue-and-sepia-against-shadows cinematography. No bloat! (Confound it, movies are so bloated these days. Seems like every director got his start in those mythic, deep-and-meaningless beer commercials.) Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:04:55 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aprice/2011/10/10/top-20-horror-films-you-absolutely-must-see-before-you-die/#IDComment205539423 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aprice/2011/08/16/child-molestation-allegations-against-hollywood-must-be-investigated/#IDComment183815415 Whoopi will assure us that it isn't pedophile pedophilia. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:26:42 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/aprice/2011/08/16/child-molestation-allegations-against-hollywood-must-be-investigated/#IDComment183815415 http://www.seraphicpress.com/jews-commit-all-rapes-in-norway-2/#IDComment168508855 I speak of Jews as a religion-based culture of many bloodlines rather than as a branch of the Semitic race; so I'm hardly implying racial superiority when I reflect on their role in the world's material development. From Cyrus the Great to the early rulers of Castile, Jewish immigration has been used deliberately as a no-brainer tool of societal improvement by practical policy makers. Jewish persecution, on the other hand, has always been a resort of phobic, desperate and dogma-driven authoritarians. At present in Australia, the Left has been picketing Max Brenner chocolate shops on behalf of Palestine. Max Brenner! It seems some people won't rest until all of the Middle East is a strife-torn backwater. Israeli democracy and prosperity make a blot on the otherwise harmonious map of contiguous tyrannies. So untidy. Scandinavia has been wealthy only for a very short period, its version of social democracy may yet expose many flaws. When Norway has to come down from its oil-funded high, let's hope that they look to Israel to see what one can achieve with the only permanent, unlimited resources: clever people and faith. Fri, 1 Jul 2011 02:04:08 +0000 http://www.seraphicpress.com/jews-commit-all-rapes-in-norway-2/#IDComment168508855 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2011/06/20/someone-needs-to-tell-jon-stewart-hes-lying-to-himself/#IDComment164824651 When television came to Australia in the fifties, I was able to watch the work of great Jewish American comedians like Jack Benny and George Burns. Regardless of the strength of the gag, they had the restraint, the control and the timing to make it all work. Jon Stewart cackles at his own jokes (in advance), pulls faces (ineptly), and couldn't time a boiled egg. If he were a Goldwater Republican, and I still couldn't watch him. Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:14:58 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2011/06/20/someone-needs-to-tell-jon-stewart-hes-lying-to-himself/#IDComment164824651 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/12/07/announcing-big-hollywoods-countdown-of-the-top-25-greatest-left-wing-films/#IDComment114375198 I'd have to say "Z". Letting the story unfold through the eyes of Trintignant, playing the only-good-conservative, was a masterstroke. Yves Montand, as a dreamboat socialist leader, keeps it plausible. It's talky, but the talk drives the plot. And the simple gag with the door deserves a place among cinematic gems. I don't much like Costa Gavras, and I really hate commies...but "Z" works for me. Political movies of the last few decades are just expensive bloat. Philadelphia, There Will Be Blood, and Avatar were particularly risible, but more because they were recent A movies than because of their politics. The supposedly conservative Black Knight, for example, with its mumbled dialogue, enervating plot with multiple climaxes, overdone tech and stylistic excess, was no better than its leftist equivalents. Shifting values to the right won't help. As a conservative, I enjoy the economy and plotting of recent B movies like Red Eye and Cellular. When B movies don't rely on gore and sex for effect, they fall back on plot, aided, one hopes, by adequate sketching of character. A case of poverty generating new wealth, while established wealth just bloats...and bloats! Of course, one recent major movie makes the grade as a conservative triumph. But "The Incredibles" is the product of discipline and imagination that belong in the old system of the Goldwyn era. If only Sean Penn was a cartoon character! Tue, 7 Dec 2010 23:39:43 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/12/07/announcing-big-hollywoods-countdown-of-the-top-25-greatest-left-wing-films/#IDComment114375198 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blomborg/2010/11/07/what-conservatives-and-everybody-else-could-learn-from-new-film-cool-it/#IDComment113093664 Harry, you can't think. Wed, 1 Dec 2010 09:51:57 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blomborg/2010/11/07/what-conservatives-and-everybody-else-could-learn-from-new-film-cool-it/#IDComment113093664 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blomborg/2010/11/07/what-conservatives-and-everybody-else-could-learn-from-new-film-cool-it/#IDComment108481232 Sadly, Bjorn, you and moderates like Judith Curry are the biggest danger. You are the warmists who will keep their jobs. I appreciate that you didn't make a niftily executed turnaround like Curry, and your sincerity is undoubted. But a warmist who is not discredited continues to promote the three scourges of AGW: carbon taxes, inferior energy, and, worst of all, emissions trading. This makes you an unconscious extremist, far more admirable than the likes of Hansen and Gore, but likely to be as dangerous and for a longer time. The damage that is being inflicted on Australian life and industry - not to mention our actual environment! - by computer modelling urban greenies is not to be forgiven. Anyone who believes in the efficacy of a computer model applied to something so utterly complex and variable as climate is not capable of thought. I repeat: you can be the smartest guy in the world, with Nobel Prizes sticking out of your sock drawer...but if you believe in computer models of climate, you are not capable of using your intelligence. You can't think. Mon, 8 Nov 2010 05:06:54 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blomborg/2010/11/07/what-conservatives-and-everybody-else-could-learn-from-new-film-cool-it/#IDComment108481232 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/10/26/taiwanese-animators-mock-jon-stewart-as-obama-loving-political-hack/#IDComment106262528 Don't know if Stewart is one of those Jews who's betrayed Israel. But, with his smugness, inept face-pulling, lack of comic timing and tendency to cackle at his own jokes (often in advance), he's certainly betrayed the legacy of Milton Berle and Jack Benny. Tue, 26 Oct 2010 22:33:10 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/10/26/taiwanese-animators-mock-jon-stewart-as-obama-loving-political-hack/#IDComment106262528 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/10/04/social-network-scribe-sarah-palins-an-idiot/#IDComment102464137 That Sarah Palin sure is dumb. She thinks that Tina Fey's Prius runs on petrol, and she thinks you have to drill to get the petrol. She thinks Alaska is adjacent to Russia, and believes in slaughtering turkeys at Thanksgiving. And she as good as confessed that she doesn't read the New York Times, where she could read lots of articles about how stupid she is. She's so dumb she even locked up a bunch of crooks...and it turned out they were Republicans. That's like a Hollywood liberal turning against a great European director just because he drugged and anally raped a child. I wonder if Palin has any conception of such loyalty... Tue, 5 Oct 2010 12:38:02 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/10/04/social-network-scribe-sarah-palins-an-idiot/#IDComment102464137 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2010/09/22/jon-stewart-stephen-colbert-to-everyday-americans-drop-dead/#IDComment100446761 I can forgive Stewart for chortling at his own jokes, often in advance. Mediocre comedians have always done that. But as for saying "reacting for our own catharsis"... Jack Benny, where are you? Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:54:43 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2010/09/22/jon-stewart-stephen-colbert-to-everyday-americans-drop-dead/#IDComment100446761 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2010/09/14/democrats-use-tickets-to-jon-stewarts-daily-show-for-fundraising/#IDComment98790980 Living in the bush in Oz, I haven't seen much of Stewart. Catching bits of him on the internet, I'm struck by how he constantly grins and laughs at his own jokes. Isn't that a supposed to be a comedy-killer? Kills it for me. Stone dead. Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:07:06 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2010/09/14/democrats-use-tickets-to-jon-stewarts-daily-show-for-fundraising/#IDComment98790980 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/13/kevin-mccarthy-dead-at-age-96/#IDComment98695434 Yes. Well remembered! Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:41:38 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/13/kevin-mccarthy-dead-at-age-96/#IDComment98695434 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/07/thr-ronald-reagan-biopic-planned/#IDComment97604912 Just on the subject on Reagan and the movies: I remember, in the sixties, seeing him play a heavy in The Killers, and being impressed. After that, I watched out for him in secondary roles and B movies and found him to be a crisp, serviceable performer. Perhaps he was underrated because of his easy charm and athleticism, much like Tom Selleck nowadays. When Reagan got a good role, as in The Killers and Kings Row, he didn't waste it. I can think of another gig he got, outside the movies, which he certainly didn't waste. Wed, 8 Sep 2010 12:33:57 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/07/thr-ronald-reagan-biopic-planned/#IDComment97604912 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/05/todays-open-thread-93/#IDComment97183465 Quoting myself here: "In the past, movies such as Come and get It and Dodsworth were able to offer admiring, if critical, portrayals of capitalists and entrepreneurs. By the sixties, if you saw Lee J. Cobb with a cigar in his mouth and his eyes narrowing, you knew all you needed to know about factory owners or ranch bosses. Heaven help Jane Fonda! A strange exception to the trend is the disguised portrayal of Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada. The movie, a bit better than I expected, manages to exhibit the extraordinary nerve and verve of its unhappy subject. Perhaps the Left Coast drew the line at completely savaging a heroine of Manhattan high-consumption. She’s no Che Guevara, guys, but… Nowhere is the theme of business=plunder expounded more earnestly than in There Will be Blood, a huge critical success of 2007. The movie also rates very highly on IMDB. It stinks. After a promising opening, where the handsome photography and historical detail absorb the viewer, it settles into a lengthy drama which manages to stay flat, even in its most hysterical moments. Scene after long, listless scene is made “significant” by caressing camera work and loud bursts of classical music. Acting from behind his bizarre Robert De Niro face-pull, Daniel Day Lewis projects little more than loopiness – if that’s the director’s message about oilmen, he should have hired Jerry, not Daniel Day. The climax of There Will be Blood is an attempt to get us to understand, if we haven’t already, all that right wing, er, stuff. A psychopathic oilman murders a fundamentalist Christian (who’s after money!) in his own private bowling alley. With lots of blood. Get it? The blood-oil-money-Christianity nexus? Or are you one of the unlettered slobs who voted for Bush? The hamming of Paul Dano as the preacher and the face-pulling of Day Lewis take it close to the top…then a volley of Brahms takes it over the top. This is The Green Berets for the Chattering Left. After the show is over, nobody heads for Havana or Pyongyang. People continue living lavishly in a world fashioned by the likes of Rockefeller, Woolworth, Ford, Carnegie and Bill Gates…but reserve their praise for dictators in impoverished backwaters. Or Al Gore." Sun, 5 Sep 2010 19:29:08 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/09/05/todays-open-thread-93/#IDComment97183465 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2010/08/13/where-did-all-the-grown-men-go/#IDComment93057509 Bitchy Facebooking boys, Andrew Sullivan beards... Greg, should you be so quick to alienate the demographic for your new bar? Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:42:23 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2010/08/13/where-did-all-the-grown-men-go/#IDComment93057509 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/08/09/screenplay-review-meryl-streeps-trashing-of-margaret-thatcher/#IDComment91881650 Wilson was a repellent individual elevated to the status of philosopher-prince because of his internationalism and egg-headedness: two favourite fetishes of the left. What a contrast with the noble Calvin Coolidge, a staunch supporter of civil rights against - you guessed it! - Democrats and their filibusters. Here's an idea for you Yanks: Garry Sinise as Silent Cal! Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:58:41 +0000 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/08/09/screenplay-review-meryl-streeps-trashing-of-margaret-thatcher/#IDComment91881650