Ben Shapiro

Last week, I stirred some folks up with my Top Ten Most Overrated Directors of All Time. To recap, they were: Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, David Lean, Darren Aronofsky, Mike Nichols, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and

It’s been a year since George W. Bush left office. Do you miss him yet? I do. For all his foibles – utter inability to explain his policies to the American public, bending over backwards for bipartisanship with Democrats, foolish

Ever since the advent of the modern motion picture industry, critics have praised directors as the key to great film. The auteur theory of cinema is idiotic, since writing is truly the key – no director could make a masterpiece

Where’s the ACLU when you need them? On Sunday, the New York Post reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art “quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition

I’ve criticized the show House in this space before. House is a main character who is beginning to cross the line from likable to crotchety, despite Hugh Laurie’s greatness. His sidekick, Wilson, is far more interesting dramatically. And the show

All instructional materials approved by school boards and used in California schools must comply with the Standards for Evaluating Instructional Materials for Social Content (2000). It’s an idiotic set of standards, radically liberal in orientation. It states that materials must

It’s hard to say this, but say it I must: one of the reasons that so many current conservative films don’t get distribution or gain success is that they stink. You heard that right. Many of them simply suck. Yes,

What do you call it when the federal government pays a private company some money so that the private company will stump for the federal government’s agenda? Payola. Under the FCC rules and regulations, “When a broadcast licensee has received

Yesterday, the White House announced that it was removing Alma Thomas’ plagiaristic piece “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from its walls. The White House announced that the painting was moved “because it didn’t fit the space right.” The Washington Post pointed out

Today, the Washington Post reported that a painting by artist Alma Thomas entitled “Watusi (Hard Edge)” was being removed from the White House’s East Wing. For those who don’t remember, Thomas’ painting is a plagiaristic copy of Henri Matisse’s “The

**UPDATE 11/5** Obama drops painting, throws Alma Thomas under the bus. Want to know the Obama Administration’s idea of what constitutes art? There’s no better place to look than the newly-reconstituted White House art collection. So what’s there? How about

Over the last week, Big Hollywood and Big Government have been extensively covering the August 10 conference call between the National Endowment for the Arts and a group of artists – a call on which the artists were encouraged to

In the aftermath of the revelations that the NEA sponsored a conference call with artists across the country in order to promote President Obama’s political agenda, the NEA and White House are running scared. Yesterday, Yosi Sargent, the NEA Director

Yesterday, I posted about the NEA conference call’s clear and obvious violations of the Anti-Lobbying Act (19 U.S. Code 1913), which explicitly provides: “No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express

In the aftermath of the Andrew Breitbart/James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles-broken ACORN scandal, President Obama and his allies in Congress have distanced themselves from the community organizing goliath. Congress has cut off funds, and Obama has refused to speak about the matter.

For forty years, GI Joe has been a bellweather for America’s view of the military. If the new GI Joe movie is any indicator, we’re headed for a dry spell for pro-military sentiment under President Obama. Originally launched in 1963

I received Michael Covel’s new documentary, Broke: The New American Dream [trailer – website] in the mail about a week ago, and watched it in one sitting. The film describes itself as “a vivid, honest, often humorous and always insightful

Perez Hilton aka Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr. is the worst. I’m not just referring to his much-publicized hit job on Carrie Prejean during the Miss USA contest. I’m referring to his entire career. His website, PerezHilton.com, is a parade of

Hollywood has, for the last thirty years or so, made military members the butts of jokes – they’re either crazy Vietnam vets (Rambo) or corrupt institutionalists (The Hulk). But most of all, they’re victims (see Platoon). They’re victims of uncaring

The Supreme Court has authored many, many stupid opinions. Perhaps the stupidest line in Supreme Court history, however, came from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concurrence in Texas v. Johnson (1989). That case invalidated 48 state laws prohibiting the burning of the