Category Archives: Hollywood

UPDATE II: Clint Eastwood Keeps it Local, Lively and … Liberty-Oriented

Democracy, Film, Hollywood, Human Accomplishment, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Political Correctness, Private Property, Propaganda

If it were Yoko Onanism who jousted in public with a (symbolic) empty chair, the left would call it performance art.

Clint Eastwood is not a member of the pack animals on the left. For this reason, he has become the focus of terribly unkind cuts, following the “12-minute discourse” he delivered at the Republican National Convention.

In response to the rabid responses to his Empty Chair routine—and characteristically—Eastwood spoke first not to the country’s moron menagerie, but to a local, award-winning, libertarian-leaning newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone.

Seceding from the palsied haters is classic Clint Eastwood.

More interesting than the rather quotidian details Eastwood furnished in the interview is the background of the TCPC’s editor. PAUL MILLER was clearly entrenched in the establishment (CBS and NBC), before breaking away to focus on “the [local] struggle between property rights and environmental regulations, the machinations of the California Coastal Commission, and on the epidemic of ADA lawsuits against small businesses.”

The vaunted vote Miller has exposed too for the farce it is “in a series of reports, ‘Voter Fraud: Simple as 1, 2, 3,’ [which] involved registering a fictitious person to vote. That story was featured on the CBS News program, ’60 Minutes,’ on November 1, 1998.”

Yes, there are a LOT of people here in the US who vote for a living—for dibs on the livelihood of those who work for a living—a topic CBS will not be exploring anytime soon, and certainly not before the election.

Anyhow, to hate Clint Eastwood is to hate the best of America. I begrudge Eastwood only two things: The first is “Invictus,” a “reverential biopic” about the sainted Nelson Mandela.

The second is that he made too few Dirty Harry films.

UPDATE: Readers can be fabulous. Writes “RandHaf” under “Top Comments,” following Yoko’s Onanism:

wtf is wrong with this cunt
RandHaf 2 weeks ago 27

Why, wasn’t she giving voice to modern-day ennui?

UPDATE I (Sept. 9): Gran Torino is hackneyed rubbish. I had never intended to watch it. It came on today, and I, well, sat. What schmaltz.

Eastwood is also guilty of making on-screen love to Meryl Creep, but that I most certainly did skip. (I never watch chick flicks.)

UPDATE II (9/10): Gran Torino is packed with PC cliches, which, quite stupidly, seem to confirm the un-PC, unmentioned truths, such as what do-or-die diversity does to neighborhoods and neighborliness.

And worse: No wonder older, white men can’t get work! Have all you older white men considered how the protagonist is portrayed in this film?! Why, he has to die for his sins before gaining the respect he deserved from the get-go.

The only realistic lesson once can take away from Gran Torino, a horridly PC effort, is that you don’t owe your relatives a dime if they treat you like dirt. I liked that message (because I’m generally a sucker).

Blending In With The Girls

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Conservatism, Hollywood, Intellectualism, Media, Pop-Culture

BARACK OBAMA IS. So says one of Bill O’Reilly’s resident junk-science experts. For once, Bill’s body language bimbo makes sense. In demeanor (and dentition), Obama is one of the girls. He’s blending in, said Tonya Reiman, down to the way he crosses his legs, lady like.

O’Reilly, who devotes a large part of the program to recounting his many appearances on mindless forums like The View—and is among the conservatives who considers batty Bawbawa Walters worth courting—pointed out that he seldom crosses his (very long) legs when he visits the ladies. And he always leans in aggressively.

No doubt, O’Reilly, who is über-manly, has swagger. Obama, more of a metrosexual, saunters.

Rex Murphy, easily Canada’s finest political writer, has furnished us with the best description of the Bill O’Reilly Show: “the Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest.”

O’Reilly is intellectually incurious, chronically so. For scary, however, nothing beats a president who knows the ins-and-outs of the Kardashians, the most rear-ended reality stars on American TV.

BHO has more than once demonstrated—and made excuses for—how closely he watches a family that is repulsive, freaky, morally rudderless, inappropriately sexual and depraved. In the past, he had also entertained the big-boned sister (please don’t me make Google her name) and her basketball husband at the White House.

UNRELATED UPDATE: To Nick: BAB is a low- or close-to-no-budget operation, written and “programed” by me, with the help of donations from a few generous readers. Unless our fortunes change here—not least that this scribe is no longer the sole “programer”—we’ll have to make do with the BAB format as it stands, I’m afraid.

Don’t Go Changing, ‘Mad Men’

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Education, English, Feminism, Film, History, Hollywood

Why of course “Mad Men” is superb television. It is produced in Canada, by Lionsgate Television, whose studios I’d pass almost daily when I lived in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Canada makes quality, understated films.

“Mad Men” is a “cable period drama” about an advertising agency on Madison Avenue, Manhattan (New York), easily the most magnificent place I’ve ever been to.

The nostalgia the production triggers is a nostalgia for the days when women did not look and sound like Meghan McCain—had soothing, soft voices, spoke in complete sentences, and seemed so much smarter and refined than their modern-day, emancipated shrew sisters. Men were men, unapologetic, bold, unafraid and purposeful.

Don Draper fell in love with just such a lady. Or so its seemed. It was all so dreamy and romantic.

But all is not perfect. The lovely Megan Draper has begun to sound whiny and silly. Like her 2012 sisters, a good deal of sibilance has crept into her once pleasant voice.

Cringe factor rising. The not-to-be-mistaken current usage, “I feel like,” has crept into the dialogue.

HELP!

Bitchy Betty Draper (otherwise played by a very convincing actress) said, “I feel like something or another” in the course of a weight-loss coven. Others on the show have repeated this linguistic barbarity. I’m listening to the tapes of that great First Lady Jacky Kennedy in the car. Believe me, no one said “I feel like” in the 1960s.

Another recent, Mad-Men English abomination which gave me the shudders: “Like [a pregnant pause follows], I know that…”

Oh, and Peggy Olson holds her pen as do members of America’s much younger Idiocracy. And that includes our president, BHO, although footage of this sign of illiteracy has been removed from the Internet (something that happens all too often).

Adults of that era were taught as kids to hold a pencil on the first day of school. You graduated to a pen after perfecting your cursive in pencil.

Don Draper is, of course, still divine.

UPDATED: A Toilet Flushed; Kim Kardashian Flashed a Smile

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Hollywood, Journalism, Media, The Zeitgeist

In a spoof on the president’s hot-mic malfunctions, BHO engages in weak banter with an aide in the next room. A toilet flushes, and it becomes clear that Barack Obama was supposed to have been relieving himself during the “witty” repartee, which was overheard by the rapt crowd attending the 2012 annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

A repulsive sequence, befitting a revolting crowd: Jimmy Kimmel was seated with the First Couple; porn star Kardashian crowed in the crowd. The press itself is minimizing the cringe factor. After all, practically every anchor person on the networks began his broadcast by brandishing a personalized gold-embossed invitation. “See what a top dog I am?”

During the sickening specter, some of the most pretentious, worthless people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—get together to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us. The annual pimping of the office is nothing new. This low culture has been cultivated by successive administrations

Those gathered at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner are not the country’s natural aristocracy. Rather, this is a bunch of people who make their living pretending to be something they are not. Poseurs and parasites all.

Granted, actors do not coerce the citizenry to patronize their (mostly) lousy flicks. However, when they use their celebrity to push unconstitutional, naturally unlawful policies—then they are acting as enemies of the people. (Every time I turn around a “celebrity” is preaching and propagandizing for the leftist cause du jour.)

Like nothing else, the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a mark of corrupt politics. The un-watchful dogs of the media have no business frolicking with the president and his minions. This is co-optation. And when did the phonies of Hollywood become a fixture in this event?

The toxic “tradition” began in 1920, and, as far as I know, is sponsored by THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION, which was formed in 1914 as a liaison between the press and the president.”

The event and the invited tell a great deal about the Association, its ethics and code of conduct.

UPDATE: Some of Kimmel’s jokes were really good. He was not as offensive as Wanda Sykes, who, in 2009, began her routine with some good material and then descended into vulgarity and sheer spite.