Universal - Page 32

At the risk of earning my place in The Masters of the Obvious Hall of Fame… I gotta say it. They’re not ‘freedom fighters’, they’re not ‘brave Jihad warriors’, they’re not ‘overseas contingency operators’…they’re terrorists. And they’re evil. True, they

Krugman Paul Krugman is so adorable when he’s delusional. Today the bearded boob lays the blame for the Holocaust shooting and the Tiller murder on the conservative media and Republicans in general. Meanwhile, the AP broadens the scope to basically

The new Will Ferrell comedy, Land of the Lost, based on an astoundingly bad mid-1970s children’s show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, is typical of Farrell’s films–it’s funny, imaginative, action-filled, nonsensical, and essentially well-meaning. Unlike most of his comedies,

John C. Calhoun, father of the confederacy, said about the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “there is not a word of truth in the whole proposition, as expressed and generally understood.” These sentiments were echoed by Chief Justice

On March 26, I was watching the Kids’ Choice Awards with my 8-year-old twins on Viacom’s Nickelodeon, which for 30 years has been the No. 1 entertainment brand for kids. It was dedicated to the Big Green Help environmental campaign

Robert Avrech’s lovely paean to the patriotism of Old Hollywood reminds me, by way of contrast, of a blink-and-you-missed-it scandal from seventeen months ago. Even in a cultural arena rife with liberal outrages against military families, it marked a new

In the beginning there was the word, and it had form. Homer wrote his two great works, The Iliad and The Odyssey, in dactylic hexameter. Not for arbitrary reasons was it so organized – in pre-literate Greek society, epic poetry

I give up. I knew there’d be a tipping point eventually, but I didn’t expect it to involve little red and white plastic pegs and my 4-year-old Godson saying, “B6…Hit!” I surrendered to the idea that there is very little

He is a man with a gun. He is a killer, a slayer. Patient and gentle as he is, he is a slayer. Self-effacing, self-forgetting, still he is a killer. . . All the other stuff, the love, the democracy,

A lot has happened in fourteen days — since Friday, the 24th of April — when the wires started buzzing 24/7 about the “Swine Flu.” Oh wait, my bad. Now it’s the much more politically correct, H1N1 (Dems can’t offend

“Wax on, wax off.” “He slimed me.” “Fortune and Glory, kid.” “I’ll be back.” “Don’t get him wet. Keep him out of bright light. And never feed him after midnight.” It’s hard to believe that a quarter century has passed

The great twin tragedies of the fate of silent films in the modern era is indifference and ignorance. And for those who have seen clips from silent films, they invariably view muddy, degraded prints projected at the wrong speed, hence

It’s no surprise to anyone that the Obama administration is attempting to distance itself from and discredit the Bush administration’s War on Terror. What may be shocking to some is its brazen Audacity of Scope. The euphemistic change of “War

She has a hit TV show on the Disney Channel, a pair of albums that have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, a concert tour with 69 sold-out arenas in North America, and now a second #1 movie in

Easter weekend 2009 will almost certainly be an all-time record-breaker for Hollywood with a pair of new releases that could be among the top six bunny holiday openings of all time. Although neither Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) or the

A week ago, a horrendous crime took place in a nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina. Seven innocent lives were taken by an unhinged dirtbag apparently upset at his ex-wife. Fortunately, a brave police officer answered the call, engaged the

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Bloomberg: “Fast & Furious†is the first film from General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal to open at No. 1 this year and is the fourth in the series

With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way

Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise. The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction

Some interesting news on Team Oscar in Iran. It seems both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (he of the murdered blogger and post-Obama video Death to America rallies) and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are actually using Team Oscar’s visit to Iran as

Jeffrey Katzenberg has been the film industry’s strongest proponent of 3-D over the past few years, and this weekend his advocacy will start paying dividends for Dreamworks Amimation. Monsters Vs. Aliens will debut with 4,104 playdates. That makes it the

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The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend

It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a

Early box office returns are pointing to a weekend win for Knowing from Summit, but I will put my money on I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) to generate more in US ticket sales over the long haul. The Nicolas Cage

For the last few weeks, Summit’s Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, has appeared to be the likely winner of the upcoming box office weekend. But, my sources tell me that I Love You, Man, the new comedy starring Paul Rudd (Role

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo. Beliefnet: Hamid Tehrani at Global Voices Online brings the tragic news that a jailed Iranian blogger, Omid Reza Misayafi, has died. It seems that he may have committed suicide. Apart from

The way that liberal politicians and Hollywood celebrities carry on over the plight of poor people, you might easily get the idea that they actually know some. They don’t. Why would they when they only hang around with each other?

As Watchmen (Warner Bros) falls, “The Rock” appears to be racing to a weekend win. Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is off to a solid start with $6.8M or so on opening day, and, with

Mainstream media coverage of crucial issues gives us plenty to complain about around here. Much like aerobic exercise, it jacks the heart-rate and makes me cranky (though if I’m going to spill my drink anyway, I’d rather do it while

[ed. note: a number of you have written requesting I invite T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII back for another analysis of the sad state of the conservative movement. After some cajoling and a bottle of VSOP, he agreed.] T. Coddington

Hollywood is off to a staggering, record-breaking start in 2009 led by Clint Eastwood’s most successful wide opening ever, a French action import and a chubby guy on a Segway. Hot on the heels of the biggest January in history

President Barack Obama is sending Congress a budget that would boost taxes on the wealthy and slash Medicare to make way for a $634 billion down payment on universal health care. Obama’s first budget predicts the deficit for this year

National Review’s 25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years did what all good lists do, ignite debate and discussion. Last week, NRO’s own Kathryn Jean Lopez jumped in to make a solid case in favor of “Rocky Balboa,”

In my never-ending quest to 1) tell the truth, and 2) amuse myself to distraction by thoroughly pissing off the Left, I’d like to say a few words about the upcoming Signing of the Stimulus Bill. Considering the expense involved

Glenn Beck: When he [Chavez] doesn’t like what a station says about him, he shuts them down and puts people in jail. Exactly how many steps away is that from the Fairness Doctrine? Those who know their history understand one