I, too, am tired of being sucker-punched by television shows that take cheap shots at the right. The latest episode of The Good Wife, a decent lawyer show, had a storyline involving what? An obnoxious right-wing, lying, over the top talk show host. (Fill in the blank, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Levin etc. etc. For liberals they are all interchangeable) This character has become such a tedious cliche repeated in numerous left leaning shows. When was the last time you saw an openly liberal talkshow host portrayed as an obnoxious jerk? They just can't help themselves.

Keeping in mind that Casablanca was made before Pearl Harbor, thus before America entered the war, Rick's line "I stick my neck out for nobody," is in fact symbolic of America's attitude at the time. Rick is America. Another clue to this is the scene where Rick is alone with Sam at the piano and Rick says, "They're asleep in New York. I'll bet they're asleep all over America." Lines like that are not written by accident. It's clear double meaning is that they're asleep in America to the fact that tyranny is sweeping across Europe. That is the whole point of this pre-America-entering-the-war film. And just as America is destined to get into the fight, so is Rick.

Nowhere do I see Lazlo as a Commie. Isn't he introduced as a freedom fighter. That fact that he is Czech should not be an automatic indictment. Plenty of Czechs hated Communism but they were sold out by Neville Chamberlain.

Beautiful piece by John on this.

Matt Damen brags that he read the Columbus portion of Zinn's monsterpiece when he was ten to his grade school class. Clearly Damen's political evolution and maturation stopped right then at ten. He uses little boy insults against Palin and and other conservatives like an immature kid who read a radical book once and thinks he is so cool for being, 'radical.'

Grow up Hollywood.

What I don't see mentioned in the article is that many of the high budget A-list star driven movies are not very good movies no matter who the star is. It is hard to make good money on bad movies; especially high budget films which require a broad appeal audience to recoup their investment.

Back in the days of DIRTY HARRY'S PLACE we discussed who should play MItch Rapp should the Vince Flynn character be brought to film. At the time I suggested John Hamm. I hearby retract that suggestion.

Rathbone actually served in the same unit along side Claude Raines, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Coleman and they saw real action.

Stewart vs Scott in a courtroom. Can there be two more different actors? Each are fascinating to watch in their own way. An acting tour deforce. The supporting characters are all extremely strong as well. The judge was a real judge, not an actor, and ran the court just as he would have for real. If you haven't seen it, you must.

My admiration for Ditko is expressed in my blog name Mr A.

One of my favorite Cagney quotes (maybe not exact but as as best I can remember it having read his autobiography 30 years ago,) "When I went into that scene I was five foot six and the other fella was six foot four. By the end of the scene he was five foot six and I was six foot four."

Alec Baldwin is one of the best actors we have today. period. However, acting, like most of the arts, is usually rooted in emotion more so than in reason and calm thoughtfulness - as is liberalism. Liberalism is almost never truly about solving problems but in the liberal's emotional need to feel good about themselves. That is why they can create ridiculous failed government policy and still think they have accomplished something good simply because of the good intentions they felt when they enacted it, and actual results be damned.

Actors like Baldwin are all about the drama. That's why Baldwin and Penn and Sarandon and so many of these talented people use such hyperbolic, stupid and overly dramatic language when they talk politics. For them it is really all about creating the drama.

Of course there are great conservative actors, but most of them prove to be more thoughtful, less likely to pop off emotionally and do not feel the need to emote politically and make fools of themselves with overly dramatic and silly political statements.