Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
The conservative side of the internet has been enjoying the fact that Americans have rather consistently been rejecting the anti-War films oozing out of Hollywood. There’s a flip-side to this story, which is that Hollywood is slowly figuring out the wholesomeness sells: The family values era is dead – with
Continue readingHe died at 92, and he’d retired long ago, but I still feel a sense of loss that Michael Kidd, the brilliant choreographer, has died: Michael Kidd, the award-winning choreographer of exuberant dance numbers for Broadway shows like “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Guys and Dolls” and Hollywood musicals including “The Band
Continue readingDid you hear the story about Irving Berlin’s lunch with Winston Churchill during WWII? It’s a very funny story, it’s true, and it’s part of the larger and very wonderful story of Irving Berlin’s musical This is the Army. Berlin wrote This is the Army both to boost American morale
Continue readingI wrote generally about the gap between critics and the rest of us. Patrick has taken one critic, deconstructed his criticism, and explained precisely why that gap looms so large.
Continue readingRotten Tomatoes is an aggregator that assembles movie reviews and then, depending on the number of positive or negative reviews, assigns any given film a “freshness rating. ” The higher the rating, the more favorable the majority of reviews are. For example, as of today (11/25 at 18:06 PST), Enchanted
Continue readingI’ve seen two movies over the past couple of days, one that was newly released on DVD and one that just opened in the theaters. Both are being sold as family fare, but I think the first movie has some problems in that category, while the second movie is truly
Continue readingIf you have time to read only one post today, read this one that Laer wrote about Hollywood’s abandonment of America — and America’s abandonment of Hollywood.
Continue readingWhen former President Calvin Coolidge (aka “Silent Cal”) died, the witty Dorothy Parker cruelly asked “How can they tell?” I had a slightly similar question when I heard about the screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood: “Why should we care?” I know that the strike is not a good thing for the
Continue readingThe LA Times has a story today that has just an incredibly funny title: Polls don’t reflect Obama’s star power. Maybe, if the polls don’t reflect Obama’s star power, it’s because he doesn’t have any. In other words, what makes a star a star, at least in the Hollywood world
Continue readingI like to tweak NY Times movie reviews (heck, any MSM movie reviews), because of the relentless Progressive punditry that characterizes them, regardless of the movie’s actual content. With a movie about Jimmy Carter on the table, I was therefore prepared for a full frontal case of anti-Bush commentary in
Continue readingI can take or leave Halle Berry. I consider her a phenomenally pretty women, but otherwise don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about her. She popped up in the news, though, for making a catty comment on the Jay Leno show about Jewish people’s noses: The Oscar-winning actress
Continue readingThe video quality is abysmal, but it’s still one of the great unknown songs from the golden age of Hollywood musicals: Fred Astaire and Jane Powell, in Royal Wedding, singing “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My
Continue readingMy paying clients continue to give me work in vast amounts, which is severely curtailing my ability to blog — especially in the morning, which used to be peak blogging time for me. If it weren’t that my clients are such great people, the projects (for once) interesting, and the
Continue readingJane Wyman, a lovely and classy actress whose career spanned fifty years, died at 93. AP has written a nice obituary. This is my favorite part: After Reagan became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence about her ex-husband, who had married
Continue readingBrian De Palma had no problem getting a ferociously anti-military film worldwide play. That might be because he was just going up against the wussy Bush crowd in the White House. If he’d been challenging the Clinton world view, things might have been entirely different, as they seem to be
Continue reading