gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : Top 10 Power Pop Albums of 2011

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:11:47 +0000

The bands highlighted in this article demonstrate the problem with modern 'rock'. It is stuck in the everlasting repeat groove of the 1960s. Almost all the influences, both musically and lyrically, come from 50 years ago. It is like the 60s generation trying to imitate the music of the 1900s, strange and rather sad.

Big Hollywood : Why Businessmen Wear Black Hats in Today's Movies

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:22:08 +0000

Hollywood's demonisation of the white male goes far beyond its need to appease foreign markets. It is ideological. Evil white guys in dark suits are arbitrarily inserted into films even when it makes a nonsense of the story. Take The Fugitive for example. In the TV series, Dr Kimble spends his time chasing his wife's killer. The killer's motivation is purely robbery. But in the film, the chase ends a full 40 minutes before the end and the killer is shown as being a frontman to an evil white capitalist. Or in Lethal Weapon where the evil drugs sellers are the CIA. Or Matrix where the heroes are a multicultural band but all the villains are white guys in dark suits...led by a mr. Smith. In case we don't get the message, Lawrence Fishburne, "you guys all look alike to me." To Hollywood, business and white men are the source of all evil.

Big Hollywood : Gender Inequality Reigns Supreme in Hollywood

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:48:23 +0000

Topics like this are own goals for conservatives. We should support promotion on the basis of talent not gender quotas.

Big Peace : German Advice To Brits On Handling Riots? Stop Your 'Softly-Softly' Police Tactics

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:58:13 +0000

The "miserable social conditions" of these looters include wearing designer clothes and communicating using blackberries.

Big Hollywood : What Shoulda Won? 1993 Best Picture Oscar

Sun, 15 May 2011 20:07:01 +0000

For me The Fugitive was ruined by its third act, a text book example of Hollywood inserting its ideology -in this case, evil drugs company- and making a nonsense of the plot. It was fun up till that point though.

Big Journalism : The MSM Kowtows To the Brotherhood

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:35:50 +0000

Islamic "society is largely ignorant and unthinking" I agree but unfortunately after a half century or more of dumbing down the West is not in the position of superiority it should be. If we were now as we were in the mid twentieth century we could defeat these idiots without breaking into a sweat now I'm not so sure.

Big Hollywood : Whole Lotta Stupidity—Jimmy Page Visits Cuba, Honors Che Guevara

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:40:45 +0000

"If England were run like Cuba" We're getting there fast unfortunately!

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread

Sun, 5 Dec 2010 17:33:40 +0000

Interesting interview with Meatloaf on the BBC where he admits to being 'truly conservative' and wanting to cut Julain Assange's toes off: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11910605

Big Journalism : British Paper On "Right-Wingers," "Wikileaks," And "Mick Huckabee"

Sat, 4 Dec 2010 16:06:25 +0000

Absolutely bang on. Unfortunately much of the media narrative in the UK is set by the BBC, an enormous publicly funded leviathan with a politically correct anti-American anti-Israel pro-EU agenda (think of an all-powerful PBS subsidised by a compulsory tax). It is worth remembering that Orwell's 1984 is a partial satire on the BBC. Sadly too Britain is a part of the undemocratic and elitist EU and much of its ideology is being impose on Britain (and indeed all Europe) against its will. We badly need a Tea Party type movement here, but I cannot see it happening until the BBC is smashed.

Big Peace : Islamist Turkey vs. Secular Iran?

Wed, 1 Dec 2010 15:18:20 +0000

Wishful thinking I'm afraid Mr Pipes. Ataturk was only able to secularise Turkey using the extreme violence characteristic of the 20s/30s. Even so, Islamism did not go away. The Pahlavi family particularly Reza Shah tried much the same in Persia. The result was Islam took over in both lands, one through violent revolution and the other through the mechanism of democracy, a mechanism which will be slowly destroyed. If all you can point to as the 'forces of secularism' in Iran are the self-indulgent and self-destructive tendencies of drug-taking, pornography and prostitution, it shows how feeble these forces are. Frankly one would need the iron will and ruthlessness of another Atuturk or Reza to do anything meaningful. I agree however that Erdogan and co may be constructing an even worse form of Islamism. But I do not think that Iran is likely to ride to our aid at some future time on white Persian horses.

Big Hollywood : 'Daily Show' Interview Damaged Both Stewart & Obama

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 22:22:38 +0000

Why does king Lear come to mind? KING LEAR Are you calling me a fool? FOOL You gave away all your other titles. That one you were born with.

Big Peace : Jihad...Satire?

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:46:05 +0000

This was made by sneering liberal Chris Morris. The depth of the 'satire' is shown by him consulting the Muslim community over this to make sure they were not offended. He did not feel the need to consult the victims.

Big Hollywood : My Chemical Romance: Upcoming Album Something to Anticipate

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:58:52 +0000

Herein lies the problem with your whole review Mr Devore: the cult of the "instant classic". I expect this hyperbole from the lamestream media but I hope for more here frankly. It is invidious to cite "hey Jude" to shore up your argument; that was the outro of a well constructed song. No one has ever cited "Na Na Na Na Hey Jude" as an example of fine lyric writing, and musically that part has always had its critics. 40 years on, the outro has become the main body of the song and is taken very seriously by music critics, itself a sign of the decline of the art-form. I wonder how many listeners from the 50s/60s would have put forward "Blue suede shoes" as great literature or making some 'profound' point about life? Everyone knew, back then, this was enjoyable good time dance music but its lyrics were not to be taken seriously. As far as the lyrics to "Na Na Na" go ( and I've looked up the whole lot online to see if I was not judging too harshly- although I was merely commenting on those quoted in your article), they are the usual hotch-potch of tired pop culture references, bad adolescent poetry and nihilist narcissism which constitutes 90% of all lyric writing these days and is taken VERY seriously by the music press.

Big Hollywood : My Chemical Romance: Upcoming Album Something to Anticipate

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:15:43 +0000

I think throwing around words like "profound", "genius", "enormous talent" along with a lengthy description of the composer's struggles counts as a hagiography. I'm not really sure which of the lyrics I should read which will enlighten me to what I'm missing. The ones you have quoted ie Wanna try? Wanna try? Wanna try? Wanna try? Wanna try? or the rhyming of 'mad man' with 'batman' do not inspire me to use phrases like "profound talent". Perhaps there are better lines elsewhere. As I say, I would have no objection if you wrote this was a silly, fun but ultimately disposable piece of music which you enjoy (we all have our guilty pleasures), it is the over-the-top and extravagant language for a song that will be completely forgotten in a few years time.

Big Hollywood : My Chemical Romance: Upcoming Album Something to Anticipate

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:56:16 +0000

Popular music does not have to be held to a higher standard than popular movies but when a song like this is described as the work of 'profound talent' there really is a problem. No one considered the Batman theme anything other than a disposable throwaway, but now a very dubious 'homage' to it (if that's what NA NA NA is) is debated in lofty terms? Does that not signal a decline in cultural standards? There is a difference between seeing (and hearing) something as disposable chewing gum entertainment, enjoyed but not taken seriously, and engaging in the type of hagiography that the author of this article does.

Big Hollywood : My Chemical Romance: Upcoming Album Something to Anticipate

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 00:34:28 +0000

Gosh, what a load of gushing over a such a slight piece of work. If one needs to know how infantalised our society has become, we need look no further than this article, written apparently without irony. A song entitled NA NA NA (one step down from a playground chant), exceedingly repetitious and featuring a comic book writer and grown adults dressed up as superheroes firing toy guns at each other is touted as "profound talent", "creative genius" (!) and "something to anticipate" on a CONSERVATIVE blog? Sheesh. Lines of this ditty NA NA NA are admiringly quoted as though it were THE WASTELAND and its writer subjected to a hagiography, in hushed and reverential tones, which cites his literary awakening from 9/11, a journey which leads to the sublime masterpiece which is NA NA NA. Please tell me this is a joke.

Big Hollywood : Street Clowns, Enlightenment Secularists and the Jesters of Late Night Television

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:19:47 +0000

I find the comparison with the French revolution a poor one too. That was organised by a bunch of intellectuals out of the leftwing Jacobin club and was actually a proto-Marxist takeover. (Marx himself was much inspired by Rousseau) Revolutionary France was the world's first totalitarian state. One of the most insightful commentators on it at the time was Edmund Burke who had supported the American revolution but rightly opposed the French one.

Big Hollywood : Today's Open Thread

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:55:27 +0000

RIP Mr Curtis. You'll be sadly missed.

Big Peace : Swedes Shocked as 'Far Right' Party Springs from Nothing in Election

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:48:41 +0000

This is the worst article I've ever read at a Breitbart site. The meaningless tag 'far right' is thrown about, along with scarewords 'xenophobia' and 'racism' and the whole modern generation of swedes are frankly slandered by the author by being compared to Nazis when they legitimately oppose Islam, WHICH IS THE CURRENT VERSION OF NAZIISM, Which is like calling the British conservatives who opposed Hitler in WWII xenophobes.... This is the sort of drivel I expect more in the Huffington Post or The Guardian. Perhaps the author, rather than rely on 'trends' and smearing the good name of Sweden, could check up on what's actually been happening in Europe over the last decade. Perhaps he would find an explanation there and not the WWII generation dying off. Just a thought.

Big Peace : Voting Burqas and Burning Books

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:49:18 +0000

The English Defence League is NOT a "far right" group, but a group of fairminded people dedicated to fighting against the spread of the fascist theology of Islam, something which the mainstream parties should, but will not, do. Its members include Gays, Hindus, Sheiks, feminists and those who are waking up to the reality of Islamisation.