Category Archives: Hollywood

Live Free or Die Hard: Geeks As Gods

Film, Hollywood, Objectivism, Technology, The Zeitgeist

I enjoy Bruce Willis, but even he can’t be expected to make a pathetic script and characters come alive in the latest “Die Hard” flick.

“Live Free or Die Hard” is studded with familiar Hollywood clichés:

The future of the US—and hence the free world—lies in the capable hands of unkept, dirty-looking, young 20-something computer geeks.

Older men like Willis may be muscular and heroic, but they are essentially dumb—devoid of the young’s brilliance, something they keep chanting. What’s more, everything about them is so yesterday—the music they like, the sort of parents they are; it’s all just crap, deserving of the hissing contempt of the young.

The shallow progeny has no idea dad’s daily drudgery includes many a heroic feat. Only when dad nearly dies rescuing the young bitch’s worthless behind does bitch decide to take on his last name.

This admittedly is the staple Hollywood pabulum. You’ve seen it in every single film and TV series: youngsters sneering at their parents, dishing out dirt, telling the parent—dad predominantly—how worthless he is. For his part, instead of cutting off the viper’s funds, dad grovels on his belly begging for some crumbs from the imperious offspring’s metaphoric table.

Yes, these are undying Hollywood themes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not as sick-making each time they’re encountered.

I watched the film with two technologically savvy “older” men (aged 42 and 52 respectively), who’re rather competent at problem solving. As much as they (and I) love action films, nothing about the special effects was believable.

Perhaps most ludicrous is Hollywood’s mythical, infantile conception of computers. Seat a PC savvy type—provided he’s young, of course—in front of a random monitor, and, evidently, there’s no end to the information he or she can squeeze from the thing, including to intercept a fighter aircraft flying above.

Don’t these people consult anyone who actually works in the business?

The usual useless idiots will try and extract heroic symbolism from this sorry script. Resorting to symbolism is subjective—to project one’s own infantile projections onto a cultural product is certainly an intellectual cop-out. Objective merits are what ought to count first and foremost in the assessment of all such products.

Consider a good review of “Live Free or Die Hard” as the litmus test for the stupid reviewer.

Update # II: ‘Redacted’: De Palma Tells The Truth

Film, Hollywood, Media

“There’s one pesky problem with all the indignant huffing and puffing” over the film “Redacted”; it’s “based on a true story. It’s a docudrama. Moral grandstanding notwithstanding, our mighty mediacrats have failed to mention that minor detail.”

“De Palma has, at least, bothered to commemorate the vanquished young victim at the center of ‘Redacted.’ To Rupert Murdoch’s protégés in Mainstream Media, Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi is redundant, a castaway. The same broadcasters who won’t quit braying when an American youngster is harmed pan De Palma for widening his lens to include an Iraqi girl’s ghastly demise at the hands of American soldiers…”

The complete column is “Redacted: De Palma Tells The Truth,” now on WorldNetDaily.com.

Update #I: I’m pro-truth, not anti-troops. For those who can’t Google–or rely on Michelle Malkin to verify facts for them–this case is well-documented. The culprits are sitting in jail, one for 90 years. The idea that individuals should shut up to serve what the mediacrats and their masters in Washington declare to be best for the fictitious collective is … fascistic.

Update #II: Americans don’t want to see a miserable film about a war most don’t support and aren’t able to bring to an end, thanks in no part to the lapdogs that lap up the propaganda perpetrated by what I’ve dubbed the Media-Military-Congressional-Industrial-Complex.
Said offenders have surmised Americans won’t see the film because they want the army to continue mucking about in Iraq. Who’s to say Americans are not simply avoiding a miserable film, about a miserable reality they can do nothing about? Wake up lapdogs! The likes of Ann Coulter are getting rich off the war; you ordinary suckers are paying for it—some with their lives, and all with a devalued dollar and depreciated assets.

As for those who would like to decide what narrative will power a De Palma film: Why can’t De Palma tell any sorry story he likes? Why must he do what these collectivists think he should do? Since when must a director be directed in the choice of his subject matter? So much for our dwindling freedoms. Live and let live.

Asking “what is De Palma’s motive or justification” for producing his film is like asking me why I inveigh against injustices as I see them. I’m a political and cultural commentator. If you want to read non-controversial nonsense, then read Cosmopolitan. Similarly, filmmakers are like novelists; the one writes about things he thinks are important and have touched him; the other depicts them on celluloid. (Personally, I like films like “Dressed to Kill”—thrillers. As I say in the column, Hollywood no longer entertains me.) This reminds me of the foul attacks I got when, starting in 2002, I protested the unjust, illegal, unconstitutional Iraq war. It’s no different.

Desperately Seeking Bollywood’s Brangelina

Christianity, Ethics, Hollywood, Morality, Religion, The West

What happens when the pale, patriarchal, penis people, in the words of the inimitable art critic Robert Hughes, are finally dethroned?

Who will fix stuff? Who will man Doctors without Borders? Who will do the world’s charity work? Who do you think does it now? Arabs? Africans? Indians? As much as I despise Brangelina, where is Bollywood’s equivalent of these naïve, giving do-gooders?
I’m afraid those maligned pallid patriarchs and their likeminded women do the world’s good works.

The largest charities by revenue in the US (which means the world) are Mayo Clinic, Salvation Army, YMCAs, United Way, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, American National Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Goodwill Industries International, and The Arc of the United States. By whom were they founded?

Mayo was founded by William Worrall Mayo (hint: he’s not an African). The Salvation Army by William Booth (another Englishman). Ditto the YMCA (George Williams). Two ministers and a rabbi midwived the United Way. Drs. George Crile, Frank Bunts, and William Lower founded the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1921, and Clara Barton the Red Cross (you don’t need to see their mugs to guess their origins). And so it goes for the rest.

Updated: ‘2 Movie Gems Amid A Lot Of Hollywood Hooey’

Film, Hollywood

“Hollywood no longer offers entertainment. Instead, activism has replaced acting, and sermons have supplanted stories. Instead of a good yarn, you get a yawn. To fully appreciate what afflicts Hollywood—and the presidency, the academy, and the media—watch ‘Idiocracy.’ The film is a product of Mike Judge’s genius (Beavis and Butthead, anyone?), and was backed and then spiked by the idiots at 20th Century Fox. It is easily one of the smartest and darkest satires…”

Read the rest in “2 Movie Gems Amid A Lot Of Hollywood Hooey.”

Update: With respect to Prof. Benaroya’s points in the Comments Section: There have always been more stupid than smart people. However, PC, populism, egalitarianism, anti-intellectualism, mass immigration of the poor and uneducated, coupled with affirmative action—these have combined to catapult the congenitally stupid into power. The worst are in control of intellectual and political life, as well as the media.