TEN MEMORABLE NON-COMEDIC PERFORMANCES BY COMEDIANS Jon Stewart? Really? Pretty spotty list (“Southland Tales?”), but credit is owed for at least grabbing one film pre-1980 film, Jackie Gleason’s truly memorable turn in “The Hustler.” My votes go to (in no
Mark Duplass took everything he learned in film school and poured it into his art. Except Duplass’ art, by his own admission, wasn’t very good. Duplass and his filmmaking brother Jay came to that awful realization during their mid-20s, a
What happens when you look at the facts involved with Issue 2 instead of basing your decision on the emotional hysteria coming from unions bent solely on preserving their power? You find out that the need for reform is real,
SIX-MINUTE ‘ DARK KNIGHT RISES’ PROLOGUE ATTACHED TO NEW ‘MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE’? Whoa. I’m there. This might be the best idea Hollywood’s come up with since, well… since offering Christopher Nolan the Batman franchise to begin with. And I dig the
Tonight on Secure Freedom Radio: Is Iran contracting with the drug cartels in Mexico to kill people in the United States? Weekly commentator at Secure Freedom Radio and Visiting Fellow at AEI, Roger Noriega offers his insight on this topic,
From an article titled “Box Office Shocker” at the Hollywood Reporter: Early on, there was a debate within Paramount and Marvel as to whether having Captain America in the title would be off-putting to international distributors, and so the studio
AFP: For many people, the images of commercial airliners hitting the Twin Towers, and of Manhattan engulfed in a huge dust cloud as they collapsed, looked like a Hollywood apocalypse-style movie. But despite that — or maybe in part because
Co-authored with Trey Kovacs Until recently, union bosses–not elected representatives–have been in control of the government employee compensation process. Using taxpayer dollars they obtain through mandatory dues, they elect the management they later negotiate with. However, across the country in
***UPDATE: This post has been updated and corrected. On December 11, 2009 – just over a month after the shooting rampage that left thirteen dead and over thirty wounded at Ft. Hood – Aaron Lewis (lead singer of Staind) performed
Washington Times: Jeremy Jackson auditioned for the lead role in the “Conan the Barbarian” remake, which opened Friday. But the part went instead to hulking “Game of Thrones” actor Jason Momoa. “They told me I was neither big enough nor
One of the most dishonest theories anti-American Hollywood asks Americans to swallow is that the reason there are so few pro-American films produced is due to profits not politics. That is the biggest, fattest, provable lie to come out of
—WOODY ALLEN FINALLY LETS DOWN HIS GUARD FOR PBS— Heaven help me, I love Woody Allen. And not just his “older, funnier” stuff. I hung in there straight through to 2003’s “Anything Else.” It wasn’t until “Melinda and Melinda” that
One year ago today John Nolte reported in this space that “Captain America: The First Avenger” director Joe Johnston said the film based on the legendary comic book hero is “not about America,” and I can finally confirm that he
Many on the left would have you believe that the world hates America, but I humbly disagree. An alternative school of thought–one to which I subscribe–is that the world’s left hates America. That’s a lot of people, to be sure,
My love affair with movies began with Sergio Leone. Sure, I watched movies before I saw The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in high school, but I was a changed man after I saw Leone rebuild the American western
… Geert Wilders made his final statement in court yesterday where he is still on trial for telling the truth about Islam. This, as often noted, is a judicial outrage, a public nightmare, and an existential threat to liberty as
I would like to introduce my new film, “The Last Eagle Scout,” a social satire independent film produced in Utah, focusing on how political correctness can interrupt the very fiber of Americana. Cliff Elliot is close to getting his Eagle
On Wednesday, April 5, our client, the Arizona State Legislature, was granted permission to intervene as a defendant in the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit against SB 1070, Arizona’s get-tough illegal immigration law. Judge Susan Bolton granted Judicial Watch’s
Senator Jon Kyl and a group of Senators – including Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) have introduced critical legislation that seeks to protect the doctor and patient relationship
No actor has ever represented the drama, power and dignity of ancient times on the big screen like Academy Award-winner Charlton Heston. Now one his two greatest films of Biblical times, Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) has
(Warning: Spoilers abound) Politics make strange bedfellows and movies can make strange politics… They might not necessarily further the political ideology of the filmmakers because, when good filmmakers do their jobs and serve their story, agendas you wouldn’t anticipate crop
As you no doubt recall, the Obama administration has sued the State of Arizona over its get-tough illegal immigration law, S.B. 1070. Judicial Watch has been representing Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce in court against this shameless legal assault.
From The Washington Times: The big issue in Wisconsin today is whether or not public sector workers should have collective bargaining rights. In an Aug. 16, 1937 letter to Luther Steward, the president of the National Federation of Public Employees,
Slash film: Sacha Baron Cohen will indeed reunite with his Borat and Bruno director Larry Charles [Ed. note: both pictured above] for The Dictator, a new comedy in which the actor will play both a dictator and a goat herder.
Recently New York Times blogger and humanities professor Stanley Fish referenced my Big Hollywood review of the Coen Brothers’ remake of John Wayne and Henry Hathaway’s True Grit. Though I have reviewed a film or two for various publications I’ve
When big-spending politicians in Washington pontificate about “deficit reduction,” taxpayers should be very wary. Crocodile tears about red ink almost always are a tactic that the political class uses to make tax increases more palatable. The way it works is
Glenn Beck had some nice things to say about newly announced ABC President Ben Sherwood today describing him as “fair.” The Freedomist notes that the Ventura Tea Party includes Sherwood’s book on its reading list. The announcement: After an extensive
Behind the Scenes The final installment of this series is a detailed summary of the rally for free speech in Amsterdam and the events leading up to it. It was written by Timo, one of the founders of the Dutch
Yesterday I walked into my local supermarket to find they already had a massive Christmas tree up ornamented with gift cards. Yes, it’s quickly approaching “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and that means gifts to buy, preferably before
An October 26th headline of BBC Persian read, “آ …ریکا: …ساله …ا نیروگاه بوشهر نیست” This translates to “America: The Bushehr plant is not our problem.” Now the headlines on the BBC English site were much less harsh than that,
The Chosin Reservior campaign is one of the finest moments in American military history. Marines from the 1st Marine Division, and an attached regiment of Army troops (the 31st Infantry Regiment), fought their way out of being surrounded by a
When in October 2009 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about the constitutionality of the individual health insurance mandate, her response was a question, twice asked, “Are you serious?” Are you serious?” Lest one think hers was a
The brilliance of Edward Jay Epstein’s “The Hollywood Economist” is that it takes existing “common knowledge” and turns it on its head, revealing ways we’ve all been duped by Hollywood into believing that studios are always nearly broke and thus
Vignettes from my new book Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes About the Stars and Legends of the Movies! Don’t Practice What You Preach Warren Beatty was fired up to direct and star in the 1981 drama Reds, which told the
The man on the podium was short and stocky, grizzled and growling, with a chewed cigar in one hand and an elegant conductor’s baton in the other. One contemporary newspaper described him as looking “more like a fight promoter than
Fresh from the recess appointment of former SEIU lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, President Obama has nominated another controversial figure to a key post in his administration. In May, Obama nominated Paul Tiao for Inspector General
A Los Angeles Times article I read recently made me chuckle. It began by wearily tossing an exhausted barb at the 3-D phenomenon sweeping Hollywood: “With sighs of relief, critics last week took off their Polaroid glasses and looked at
They call the early half of the twentieth century the Golden Age of Hollywood, but it might more aptly be called the American Age. In those days, the American people had a great love for Hollywood. On an average week,
One of George Stevens’ filmmaking maxims was: “The camera is not the instrument. People are always the instrument.” Nowhere in his oeuvre is this more evident than in Shane, perhaps the most peculiarly cast A-grade Western in Hollywood history. It
Death and journalism have always maintained a delicate and sometimes weird relationship. During my days as a news writer for the old United Press International, my first lesson on the subject involved events with death tolls. Any time the death