Dirty Harry’s Place…

Thou Shalt Have No Little Messiah Before Me

Morally retarded.

There’s just no other way to describe liberal Hollywood’s latest sure-to-flop, excremental exercise in bad filmmaking and moral equivalence. You would think after a dozen of these Bombs For al-Qaeda someone someone! would cry uncle. But oh, no, not our never say die Hollywood. They just keep squeezing out the crapola knowing  it will  lose money but improve their cocktail party invites.

Worse than morally retarded, Traitor is boring. Gun to your head boring. Please Allah kill me now boring. Shoulda’ stayed a bill collector boring. But that’s what happens when your movie refuses to take a side … the audience won’t either, and then we lose interest as we pray for the sweet release of death. 

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My Traitor screening’s within the hour, so I’ll let you know. In the meantime, here’s a couple peeks:

Sonny Bunch of The Washington Times:

This is a movie sure to spark some controversy. Though one of the few films to portray radical Islam as a legitimate (if not existential) threat, it surely will madden some that the Jihadi terrorists whom Samir befriends are not cartoonish, cardboard cutouts. Their motivations are examined even as their behavior goes unexcused.

Mr. Cheadle exudes a calm, world-weary charm as Samir; his character is a devout Muslim who traipses around the world selling weapons even while hating to take a life. Mr. Pearce’s Roy, the son of a preacher-man, is also a finely shaded character. The same cannot be said of Roy’s partner, Max Archer; he is portrayed by Neal McDonough as a stereotypically oafish, ugly American. That writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff wanted to contrast the “good” and “bad” American is unsurprising — this is a Hollywood production, after all — but it feels a little forced.

AICN:

Don’t get me wrong, it is a fine, wonderfully constructed movie with its heart in the right place. The film makers took the time and care to remove every liberal sentiment, every pontifical speech about the current administration and then washed it several times in values of the red state idealism until it came out looking and feeling like a Conservative think piece. One of the heroes of the film is a southern Baptist terrorist hunting FBI agent played pitch perfect by Guy Pierce. The American government is very much the good guy – the intrusions on our freedoms never addressed as these guys do everything they can to stop one of the worst terrorist attacks of all time – which may or may not be carried out by Don Cheadle’s Samir Horn.

Fine reviews both, but both make the film sound like the trailer: messy. Whose side is so and so on? Who’s he working for? We’ll see, but on first blush I get the feeling that once again Hollywood blinked in the face of a firm stand against our enemy.

ALSO: Sonny Bunch has a terrific blog and later in the week I’ll be linking to a broader piece he’s written regarding Hollywood’s treatment of the terror issue. Look for that.

It’s so damn wintry, the Christmas tree’s up, the kids are home for a called snow day, you can hear the wind blow and the furnace a-workin’. It’s so damn wintry the windows are covered in frost and the hallway floor in wet, rubber boots. It’s so damn wintry you can smell wet mittens and cocoa on the stove. But no matter, you’ve got DVD and these flickers take you right into July.

1. Summer Rental (1985)
2. Anything by the great Tennessee Williams
3. The Sandlot (1993)
4. Badlands (1973)
5. Coffy (1973) — Whatever, I just know that regardless of the time of year Pam Grier makes me feel warm in my naughty regions.

As you can see, my Internets is up and humming.

Tomorrow is Charlton Heston Day. Forced to choose one…

8pm PST - Big Country, The (1958) - Feuding families vie for water rights in the old West. Cast: Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Charlton Heston. Dir: William Wyler. C-166 mins, TV-PG

This isn’t a knock on Gregory Peck, but there’s just no way around the fact that Heston steals the show (and then some) as the complicated antagonist constantly pushing the peaceable Peck into a fight which will finally erupt into one of the finest ever put on film.

Flawlessly shot and directed by the infallible William Wyler, this is a must-see in widescreen and I would personally crawl over glass for a chance to see this in a proper theatre. Charles Bickford and Burl Ives are especially good as bitter enemies in this Cold War allegory, and Chuck Connors more than holds his own in a stable of magnificent stars, including the criminally underappreciated Jean Simmons as the object of everyone’s affection.

As far as I’m concerned, The Big Country is an indisputable classic epitomizing what made The Golden Age golden: complicated characters, simple story. Today it’s the other way around because it’s much easier to cover story holes with silly complications and write lazy, one-dimensional characters. There haven’t been five films in the last five years with a character as nuanced and interesting and Heston’s Steve Leech. Steve Leech’s used to be the norm, not the exception.

Thank God for DVD and TCM.

This is from a television show, probably in the mid-fifties.

At dinner, after the McCain event last night, a buddy of mine summed it up perfectly, ”If you’d have told me a year ago that today I’d actually admire Hillary Clinton and consider John McCain the second coming of Reagan… But that Barack Obama.”

Yup. That socialist, friend-of-an-unrepentant-terrorist, sitting-in-a-racist-church-twenty-years, abandon-the-Iraqis-to-slaughter Barack Obama.

Well, today, that Barack Obama is behind in the polls for the first time since clinching the nomination, and we haven’t even released our BARACK IS A SCARY BLACK MUSLIM ads yet.

McCain was in good form. He thanked the stars for risking their careers and then went into what I’m sure was his normal stump speech. After coming off a long day of campaigning and an appearance on the Jay Leno Show, he was plenty energized but obviously more than a little bored with a speech he’s given 250 times. Surprisingly, he didn’t mention The Little Messiah even once. He talked only about his vision for the country and a little bit about his bio.

The place was packed, The Hot Little Number I Call Mrs. Harry was all dressed up and looking especially hot, and there were stars all over the place. But, sorry, I’m not Dalton Trumbo and won’t be naming names.

The best part was the vibe (and the free beer). We’re excited. What looked like a sure loser is now looking possible. McCain’s done a helluva job deconstructing Obama’s strength which has exposed the radical beneath —  and anyone who follows politics knows that even during a good year we should be down ten-points, not tied or better.

McCain’s done a good job ginning enthusiasm in the base. He’s done a good job of reminding us of how much there is to like about him: his bio, grit, service, and tenaciousness. Oh, and that’s he’s not a socialist, friend of a terrorist who sat in a racist church twenty years.

Of course, what I really mean is that I won’t be voting for Barack Obama because he’s black.

Tim Daly (the actor who if you look up “television actor” in the dictionary it will say “see Tim Daly”) was not struck by lightening on MSNBC while claiming the Creative Coalition is non-partisan.  

 Movies you can watch in the dead of August — in the dog days of the dog days when the sun’s high and the blacktop sizzles — when the bugs buzz and courtesy of a warm breeze you hear boys playing and the *pop* off an aluminum bat  — but no matter, because these films create such a winter scene you’re sure when the credits roll there’s snow on the ground and a car in the driveway in need of some scraping.

1. A Simple Plan
2. Chilly Scenes of Winter aka Head Over Heels
3. The Thing (both versions)
4. The Pledge (with Jack Nicholson)
5. Die Hard 2

Sorry, no links. Still on dial-up. By the time I gathered the links it would be time to shave again. 

Tomorrow, we’ll do: Top Five Most Vindictive Ways To Get Revenge On The Telephone Company.

Today, I was on hold an hour before they told me I wouldn’t have DSL until the 29th. Charter’s coming out tomorrow. I’ll be gleefully firing AT&T the moment the cable guy’s out the door.

  Quick, set your Tivo’s!

3:30pm PST - Act Of Violence (1949) - An embittered veteran tracks down a POW camp informer. Cast: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh. Dir: Fred Zinnemann. BW-82 mins, TV-PG

This is terrible. I’m AWOL yesterday and can only offer a few hours notice to catch this little gem of a chiller. Fred Zinnemann, who would move on to much bigger and better projects, directs this teeth-cutter and shows why he would move on to much bigger and better projects.

Big themes, great actors, and an incredibly tense story all told in a quick 82-minutes. They don’t get much better than this.

 It was a very simple request:

1. Install a second number.

2. Transfer my DSL access from the old number to the new number.

I get home yesterday and have no Internet. After 90 minutes 90 minutes! on the phone with these idiots, they actually had me do rewiring of my own phone box, you know, the one on the outside of the house… 

After that doesn’t work, they figure out that my decision to switch my DSL from one line to another is a big problem — as though I’m the first customer in the history of AT&T to request such a thing — and now I’m on dial-up until they figure this BIG PROBLEM out.

This is the long way of explaining why posting will be lite and photos non-existent.

But I do want to pass on this bit of information: It’s not true when the dolt on the other end of the line tells you SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS isn’t helpful. Actually, it is. Never once did I not feel better. 

I should totally be drunk now, but I had to DVR Michelle Obama’s speech while putting the kids to bed and I forgot.  Here’s what I wrote over at our site:

“An Obama drinking game. One shot every time he says “Change”. A double-shot every time he says “Hope”. I’d add an extra special beer bong if Michelle (my belle) says “Whitey”.

Change “he” to “she” and I would’ve put down about 8 shots in a row near the end there.  She looked good, delivered well — but “the world as it should be” is code for “Utopia”.  I’m not fooled.

Come see us.

Maybe we’ll drunkblog the Obama speech.

Live action Simpsons

I’m pretty much gonna go with the whole collection. They stink. How bad do they stink? My lovely generous and forgiving wife uses stronger language than I do to describe these books. At $3.98 they are a waste of money. Stay away from these books as they will make you want to move to France and find a restaurant that serves horse. I am only basing this on the two that have been given to my kids (and that I’ve read) and the multiple talks I’ve had with my daughter about why we don’t intentionally buy crappy books. This totally blows my “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson.

I’m sitting here watching the DNC.  No one wishes Teddy Kennedy a quicker and fuller recovery than me.  But let’s be real about who he is and what he’s done.  I hope he gets well and has a long retirement.

I gotta say though, he looks pretty good.

The Mighty Sean Connery is 78 today. He could probably still throw an Apathetic a fair distance.

Here’s a story about how the Dems have found religion in this convention since voters of faith helped Bush steal win the election in 2004. On balance — this can’t be a bad thing especially if it moves Obama to the right — you know where even Ted Kennedy would support a doctor saving a baby who survived an abortion attempt.

One reason religion is playing such a prominent role at this week’s convention is that Obama has made faith outreach prominent in his campaign.

“People of faith are being engaged in the convention in a new and robust way ,and it’s because of Senator Obama’s acknowledgment that people of faith and values have an important place in American public life,” said Joshua DuBois, the Obama campaign’s religious affairs director.

The campaign is giving a platform to people who otherwise would not have been invited to or attended a Democratic convention. One example is Joel Hunter, a moderate evangelical megachurch pastor from Orlando, Fla., who will offer the benediction Thursday, the night Obama accepts the nomination.

“Now there’s a genuine interest in speaking with groups and religious groups who were previously considered enemies,” said Rachel Laser, who works on culture issues for the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way.

…..

Despite all the effort, there is little evidence religious votes are shifting. A Pew poll released last week showed the political preferences of religious voters, including highly sought Catholics and white evangelicals, have scarcely budged since 2004.

Why is that? Perhaps because his outreach efforts have been tepid (not to mention his underperformance at Rick Warren’s forum). Most folks can smell a johnny-come-lately and there is that pesky racist church he attended for 20 years. He joined the church that would get him elected in Chicago. When that church was a hindrance — he dropped it like a prom dress. Most devoutly religious people see right through that. He’s shifted some evangelicals — some of my brethren have become squishes on war and abortion (as if killing and murder were the same thing), but enough to win the election? Depends on what McCain does with his VP pick.

On her way to Georgia that is. How much does John McCain value his principles? His wife goes to Georgia — the exact whys and wherefores are unknown, but what a message to the Georgians. It will get nary a whisper tonight on the mainstream media I’m sure. Other discussions on the Georgian situation over at Rufus vs. Daily Headlines.

Comedian, Tonight Show host and auto mechanic extraordinaire, Jay Leno has advice for the American auto industry:

(from portfolio.com)
Jay Leno’s Serious Advice to the U.S. Auto Industry
By Jay Leno, for Portfolio.com

The type of vehicles America makes best are, unfortunately, not the type of vehicles that people really want anymore. Nobody builds better trucks than the Americans do. Not even the Japanese build as good a truck as the Ford F-150 or the Chevy Silverado. It’s the same with performance cars. The Corvette Z06 has 505 horsepower, comes with a big warranty, and can hit 200 miles per hour. It weighs almost exactly the same as a half-million-dollar Porsche Carrera GT and gets higher mileage—26 miles per gallon.

Where we seem to lose it is in… Continue Reading »

Apple iTunes has partnered with the makers of “Tropic Thunder” on an iTunes only site featuring tons of cool, behind the scenes footage from Tropic Thunder.  Co-writer Justin Theroux stars as a faux German documentarian, Jans Jürgen, and interviews Jack Black and Robet Downey Jr.  Well he interviews their characters.  Well, his character interviews their characters.  Well, it’s all “This is Spinaltappy,” and hard to explain.

Check it out!  Rain of Madness site