Bookworm Room

What do you get when you cross a Bratz doll with a Smurf?  A Na’vi.
Yup, folks, I finally caught up with my pop culture and went to see Avatar last night.  Seeing it made me realize why I so seldom bother to catch up with pop culture.  The movie was a snoozer.  The first two [...]

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You’ve got to see this one.  It’s so right — and it really resonates with me because I work so hard educating and inoculating my children against the omnipresent Leftist pop culture.  I think the video also works for me because, as a history major who has always rejected Marxist and deconstructionist approaches to history, [...]

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There’s yet another movie coming out about the way in which the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq destroy lives and turn young men into pathetic losers:
There is a grim timeliness to the release of “Brothers,” Jim Sheridan’s movie about the effects of war on the family of a Marine serving in Afghanistan. Whatever the other [...]

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The big buzz is about James Cameron’s Avatar, which is supposed to be to modern movies what The Jazz Singer was to the silent film:  It will remake movies.
I don’t know about that, but having seen the preview a few days ago when I took some boys to the movies, I can tell  you that [...]

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Back in 2006, I wrote an optimistic article for American Thinker in which I saw some hope in Hollywood’s approach to manliness.  I’m going to quote here at some length from my earlier article, because I want to make the point that I was lauding an enormously successful movie because it celebrated traditional male virtues:
The [...]

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Hollywood and the media establishment as a whole are inescapable parts of American and, indeed, world culture.  It’s fascinating, therefore, to think about the type of patriotism our American media now espouses and that which it embraced in the past.   Depending on how one defines patriotism, whether as love of country or love of a [...]

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I went to NBC’s site looking for something else entirely, and got waylaid by a link to Hollywood brainiacs.  I found it somewhat interesting, at least initially.  Before I begin, though, let me say that I’m absolutely certain a lot of the actors and actresses profiled are indeed really, really smart.  Having said that, there [...]

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As you all know, over the years I’ve been fascinated by male and female roles in America.  As the mother of a very manly little 10 year old, I take male role models in this culture very seriously.  I’ve therefore noticed (and commented upon) the way in which our society consigns boys to perpetual adolescence.  [...]

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In my Friday Open Thread, I promised that I’d blog about Zac Efron.  First off, let me clear the air here and explain that I haven’t developed some pathetic “middle-aged woman/teenage boy” obsession with him (although he does bear an uncanny resemblance, girlish hair and all, to the teen idols of my youth).  What makes [...]

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Check out Ed Morrissey’s suggested list of worst political movies and see what you think.  I agree with him.  Indeed, I was savvy enough even in my pre-neocon days to recognize how awful some of them were, especially Oliver Stone’s JFK, which I thought was one of the stupidist, most paranoid, ill-informed movies I’d ever [...]

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Sadly, Hollywood isn’t only a mirror of culture but it’s also a cultural leader. During WWII, it took the lead in promoting American values and urging American victory. In the past decades, and with increasing energy in the current decade, Hollywood has taken the lead in hostility to American values and, in the [...]

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I’m buried up to my whatsis in work this morning, so can’t blog.  Before I turn this post into an open-thread, though, I wanted to suggest that you read William Katz’s article, which looks at the way in which the movies that showcased the wonderful Van Johnson (who died the other day at age 92) [...]

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As this Reason.tv video explains, while Hitler is appropriately reviled, something that occurs because he is wrongly associated with the Right, despite the fact that his politics were to the Left, Hollywood and pop culture just love Leftist mass murderers:

This video reminds me why I was so horrified when I saw a sweet little baby [...]

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The other day I was speaking with a man who commented that the proliferation of Obama bumperstickers on luxury cars (not to mention the fact that the very rich in blue communities had flocked to the Obama banner) comforted him that Obama would not destroy the US economy by trying to nationalize it.  After all, [...]

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WWII was a dreadful time, with about 400,000 American military deaths suffered during those four years.  Just for perspective, we’ve been in Iraq for almost six years and, thank God, have sustained only 4,200 deaths.
Nevertheless, there’s a tendency to look back with nostalgia on America’s time during WWII, and that’s in part because the entertainment [...]

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I hadn’t missed the fact that Paul Newman died of cancer this weekend.  I always admired him, not for his screen presence, but for his off-screen decency:  a fifty year marriage to the same woman and a twenty year commitment to children’s charities.  As for his on-screen presence, I too admired his unusual good looks, [...]

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Many years ago, courtesy of Turner Classic Movies (my favorite TV station), I watched The Farmer’s Daughter, a 1947 film starring Loretta Young and Joseph Cotten.  Over the years, I’ve carried a strong memory of liking the movie a great deal, and no memory at all of the plot.  So, when I saw that The [...]

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Even thought I didn’t and couldn’t post yesterday, it didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention.  I have a whole bunch of links I want to share with you.  I won’t take too much time on any one link, because I have only a short time before the Mom stuff starts again (summer, you know), but [...]

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It was Aristotle who first stated that man is a social animal.  He was right.  Humans define themselves by their allegiance to their family, their community and their country.  The ancient desert rule condemning a thief to lose his hand (an idea that Mohammed co-opted), was not intended simply to cause physical pain and suffering.  [...]

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Andrew Breitbart has written an upfront, in your face demand that Hollywood open the door to the last remaining closet in that company town: conservatism.  In it, he points out that Hollywood finds everything forgiveable except for a failure to conform to the prevailing Progressive political orthodoxy:
But in this land of superficiality and augmented assets, [...]

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I’m a huge fan of Hollywood musicals, and one of my favorite numbers has long been “Dancing in the Dark,” from the Band Wagon (with Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire).  Turns out it was her favorite too.  Here it is for those of you who haven’t seen it before or haven’t seen it recently:
Those were [...]

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Hollywood just came out with another movie that relentlessly demonizes the enemy — which would be a good thing if the Hollywood types had figured out that America’s enemy is radical Islam, which has been very open about its desire to kill our citizens and take over our government. The problem with Hollywood — [...]

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Paul Newman has managed to emerge from Hollywood as one of the good guys.  Ridiculously handsome in his youth, he aged into an equally good looking old man.  In a milieu characterized by disposable weddings, he’s had one wife.  He’s raised millions for charity, without making a big political statement about that fact.  He started [...]

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In a comment to my earlier post about talk with an ideological foe being dangerous, Gringo mentioned a classic anti-Nazi piece of Hollywood propaganda (made when Hollywood viewed America as the ally, not the enemy).  I found it at YouTube (of course), and share it with you.
And for those of you who are I Love [...]

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In a delightful essay, which he sets out as the antidote to the grim news out of Jerusalem and the world at large, Robert Avrech examines hair in early Hollywood, from Mary Pickford’s romantic curls, to Colleen Moore’s perky bob, to Louise Brooks’ slinky helmet.  If you like old Hollywood, you should check out all [...]

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