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Michael Moriarty

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Mamma Grizzly and the Colonel: Heaven On Earth

Apparently both Red China and North Korea appear to be – and I stress the word appear – as unreasonable with President Obama as Obama has become blatantly unreasonable with the American people. Some might call it, in the case

The Professor Attacked Me with Zombies

It is with great satisfaction yet hoped-for humility that I feel myself obliged to introduce to BIG HOLLYWOOD a flowering expert on ZOMBIES. His visit here is, perhaps, not entirely of his own free will. Life and art, ahhhhh, art

Hollywood's Soviet Story

When will Hollywood even begin tell the true story about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin and its subsequently more successful imitators such as Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Il? Obviously some hopefuls for similar success, George Soros, Barack Obama –

Call In the Washington Post!

Now don’t get me wrong! I’m aware of my knee-jerk reactions to almost anything coming out of the Washington Post or the New York Times. I usually say to myself, “I told you so.” But this new series?! Investigative reports

The New Black Panthers & American Robespierre

If I remember correctly, George Buchner’s 19th Century play, Danton’s Death, actually opened The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College. Though my memories are now understandably vague, I was actually in that production. Why my amnesia is understandable would necessitate a

Our First American Chairman: America's Blind Fuhrer

My friend, Jim Kouri, vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, writes a wide-ranging, daily column and frequently breaks news from his extensive and fully informed sources. Here, in particular, is one such: “ObamaCare-for-prosthetic-medical-devices.” He broke this news

America As Job

Time Magazine of 1961 had its own, surprisingly spiritual commentary and conclusions to make about some hefty Old Testament offerings on Broadway: Archibald MacLeish’s J.B. and Paddy Chayefsky’s Gideon. Two of the world’s greatest theater directors, Sir Tyrone Guthrie and

Progressive Trolling and … The Real McMurphy?

I have, for weeks, had a mercifully short but accurate metaphor to deliver as an editorial titled America As Job. However, my last two columns had to take precedence over America As Job. Recent headlines demanded I postpone any Biblical

Catholics vs. Communists

The Great Catholic Scandal! Hmmm … does this really have to do with child abuse or, to use the Reagan perspective, are these arrests and possibly further imprisonments of high level Catholic authorities “bargaining chips” to convince the Catholic Church

The Damned Don't Cry: Blind Political Ambition

Made on the heels of the more successful Mildred Pierce and based upon a similar but, in this case, true life story of Virginia Hill and Bugsy Siegel, The Damned Don’t Cry may, in my opinion, completely mirror the foundations

Lady Gaga: The Empress of Blasé

Lady Gaga’s Alejandro is mesmerizing in its decadence, shamelessly in debt to Christopher Isherwood’s Cabaret, Rudolf Valentino, any number of tales about Latin Lovers, Alexander the Great and, finally, that unbeatably hypnotic premonition: the triumphal return of Nazism. Gaga’s eternal

The Hoosiers Nation: Elaine, Dennis and I

A sports film that is almost entirely about losers?! About that oft forgotten and abandoned piece of real estate called Indiana?! It’s shot in a landscape-portrait, documentary style that memorializes a smaller than small town high school, basketball team?! A

Two American War Films

The Best Years of Our Lives was on TCM today. Even when the Good Guys and Bad Guys all seemed incontestably defined, World War II still created a certain amount of what we now call “post-traumatic stress” … and, of

Ordinary Miracle: Leonard Bernstein

This is what a commenter offers to a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Make Our Garden Grow: “It’s so beautiful, it makes my heart want to explode.” I met Leonard Bernstein only once, at a Christmas concert in the Cathedral of

An Olden Spell

Ogden Nash My son Matthew wasn’t all that impressed by the Ogden Nash poem, Roundabout. Aside from Nash’s slapstick turn on human divinity: You may think of yourself as an immortal creature But you’re just a cartoon Between a double

Teachable Tyranny

The Obama White House, so filled with Harvard graduates, is obviously more interested in teaching than in learning. “Teachable moments,” remember? Why the Obama Nation should retain so many slow-learners, spoiled brats refusing to recognize, amidst their Marxist Mania, the

Ordinary Miracle V: The Hollywood Sphinx

It is perhaps a radical view of the Sphinx and its mystery, but if the impenetrable reality is a human being, two Hollywood legends that qualify as our unanswered questions are Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich. Beginning with Ms. Monroe,

Ordinary Miracle: Simone Signoret

The other night I saw Ship of Fools again. Today, as what I hopefully trust is evidence of the power within Oscar Werner’s acting, I feel as tired as that great actor’s character feels near the end of the film.