gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : Carolla, Prager Team for Night of Comedy and Politics

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:25:15 +0000

"Prager...would rather explore politics and the joys of marriage than complain about...our feminized culture." Actually, in the time I've listened to Prager, the feminization of our culture has been a recurring topic of his.

Big Hollywood : In HBO's 'Game Change,' McCain Tells Palin Limbaugh and Other 'Extremists' Will Destroy GOP

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:58:09 +0000

Ben Shapiro "Tina Fey made her career far more by imitating Palin than by writing a show nobody watches called '30 Rock.'” This trope ("Nobody watches '30 Rock'") is starting to become a little cloying. It's one thing when Nolte starts his little obsessions, like naming Meryl Streep America's worst actress, but when his rhetorical points are parroted by other writers on the site, it starts sounding like toeing the line of party orthodoxy. When the left attacks Sarah Palin viciously while simultaneously claiming she is of no importance, perspicacious observers on the right correctly point out that there is no need to attack the unimportant. Palin is attacked because the left fears her. The attacks themselves are evidence of her importance. There is a logical equivalency here.

Big Hollywood : 'Coriolanus' Review: Fiennes Directorial Debut Does Shakespeare Proud

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:38:12 +0000

I believe that the "event zero" that began the whole avalanche that we today know as outspoken leftist Hollywood was Vanessa Redgrave's "Zionist hoodlums" speech at the 1978 Oscars.

Big Hollywood : Daily Call Sheet: Julia & Meryl Violate the Geneva Conventions, CBS Embraces Streaming, and Leave To

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:59:14 +0000

This morning I submitted a post regarding the idea that bundling was not a new phenomenon and that it was not exclusive to cable/satellite providers. It apparently has been deleted. It contained no profanity or attacks on any person, place or thing. Does anyone have any insight into what might lead to a deletion? I'm not particularly upset, but I spent some time composing the post, as I do with almost all my posts and if I understand what might lead to its being deleted, I can avoid the waste of time that composing a deletion-eligible post would entail.

Big Hollywood : Gamechanger?: How Would You Like to Cancel Your Obnoxiously Expensive Cable Service?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:01:51 +0000

In 1988, I got cable TV. From 1979 until then, I didn't own a TV. For a decade, I hadn't seen a single episode of 99% of the shows that aired during that interval. The only television I saw was whatever was on when I visited a friend or went to a bar. Aside from missing out on some water-cooler talk ("Who shot J.R.? I don't know and I couldn't care less.") I didn't feel the least bit deprived. During those nine-plus years, I read voraciously and went back to school. Despite owning a business, I was able to earn a full-ride mathematics scholarship to Rutgers. I also became familiar with and started to love classical and bebop music. It was a very fulfilling time. Then I got cable. I was living in an apartment building at the time and my neighbors complained to me how shoddy the cable company's customer service was. There was only one cable company; it was an absolute monopoly. I had to sacrifice a day's work to wait for the installer to show up. (They told me he'd be there between 8:00am and 5:00pm. Naturally he showed up at 5:00. Who was the lucky stiff who saw him at 8:00?) Then, when I finally had cable TV, the problems started. I needn't go into the details of them, which, after over twenty years, are pretty hazy anyway. The point is that the cable company would barely lift a finger to address them and when the finger was lifted, it was entirely at their convenience and not at all at mine. I related all this to my friends and neighbors and they unanimously echoed my experiences with theirs. I told them that such a situation was intolerable. In no other business could such contemptuous disregard for the customer lead to success. I told them, especially those other folks who lived in my building, that if we all, en mass, canceled our cable service, that would send a clear signal that the cable service's policies would have to change or their business would begin to face failure. Everyone I spoke to agreed with me in principle, but they were lying to themselves. After only a couple of months of cable TV, I canceled my subscription. No one else I spoke to did. Their situation vis-a-vis the cable company was not intolerable. After all, one does not tolerate the intolerable, especially when there is a simple alternative. No, it was in fact the alternative that to them was intolerable. They would rather have the bundling, the terrible service and adjusting their lives to fit the cable company's schedule than to go without TV. That was their prerogative, but it was like the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I move my hand this way." "Don't move your hand that way."

Big Hollywood : Big Movie Flashback: 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three' (1974)

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:46:46 +0000

What I really like about this movie and other movies from the era is the straightforwardness of the story. There are no laboriously contrived twists; there's no protracted mano-a-mano face-off; the villain doesn't come back from the dead for a last-second jump scare; there's no coincidental connection between the villain and the hero (can't you just hear it in a current movie: "Hey, my daughter's on that train!") or any of the other nonsense that passes for story in today's movies. Movies in the 70's were compact; they began, developed and got the hell out. I'm reminded of the differences in storytelling on television between then and now, as well. Today's style relies on intrigues, subplots, twists, improbable subplots, coincidences, ellipses, ridiculous subplots, self-conscious technique and distracting subplots. Contrast a show like "Combat" with, say "Person of Interest." I'll take "Combat" any day, just as I'll take the original "Pelham" over any of its remakes.

Big Hollywood : Daily Call Sheet: Why We Love Denzel, Streaming Advances...Again, More Wolverine

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 18:26:04 +0000

Regarding "This Means War," I haven't seen it, but when we saw the commercial for it, I turned to my wife and said, "I'll bet the big twist is that she's a CIA agent, too."

Big Hollywood : Spike Lee Blasts Media for Glorifying Gangsters, Tells Blacks to Embrace Education

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:46:10 +0000

Both Cosby and Lee are late to the party (though welcome.) Larry Elder has been banging this drum for over fifteen years and has been called every loathsome racist name in the book for his efforts. The times are finally catching up to his ideas.

Big Hollywood : Marvel Studios Now Making the Lazy Comic Cash-Ins It Was Founded to Replace

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:28:58 +0000

Zachary Leeman - ”The studio also dumbly...replaced [Norton] with Mark Ruffalo. Here was their explanation: We have made the decision to not bring Ed Norton back...Our decision is definitely not one based on monetary factors, but instead rooted in the need for an actor who embodies the...collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members...who thrive working as part of an ensemble... I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I can read between the lines. Basically, they needed someone who was more of a puppet than Norton and whose voice would not interrupt theirs. I can read between the lines, too. They needed someone who could, in the famous words of Quincy Jones, check his ego at the door. Norton wouldn’t. Therefore, good-bye Norton. Where is the evidence that Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johannson are “puppets?”

Big Hollywood : Marvel Studios Now Making the Lazy Comic Cash-Ins It Was Founded to Replace

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:33:00 +0000

Zachary Leeman - "The same guy [to direct 'Captain America!' ] who was quoted time and time again wanting to downplay the patriotic side of Captain America. What? I thought these guys were trying to be more faithful to the characters they showed on screen. His name is Captain America! The film was awful. The special effects showing Chris Evans as a scrawny pre-Captain America were just sad and awkward. The action scenes were so cardboard that the film felt like it had no personality. And it all just felt like one big rush to the setup for 'The Avengers' at the end." Virtually every point made here is wrong. While the director did make some pre-release comments that had conservatives' antennae extended, the movie itself proved that the worry was unwarranted. There had similarly been much talk of the scrawny Steve Rogers effects being distracting and unconvincing. I went into the movie prepared to overlook them for the sake of my suspension of disbelief. To my surprise, I found them absolutely naturalistic and convincing. I can only conclude that those who found it otherwise were so aware of Chris Evans's actual physique that seeing him in the scrawny state was in-and-of-itself bizarre and distracting, regardless of the quality of the technical effect. The acting was uniformly character-driven in precisely the way that Mickey Rourke described it should be in his rant. Additionally, the characters' attitudes and positions were consistent with a 1940s verisimilitude, not naive in the way that young people always believe previous generations were but innocent in a pre-"post-ironic" way that is not steeped in the strong tea of cynicism of today. The story was perfectly functional, having both to tell the origin of the character and to set him on an adventure and to do so with comic-book abandon. We take impossible characters like Cap and Red Skull on faith and ask only that their inherent impossibility be handled in as earthbound a way as possible. This movie did that. Likewise the action sequences were exciting and character-driven, most notably the early chase scene which had Cap diving into water after a submarine. This scene established forcefully, excitingly and humorously how absolutely determined Steve Rogers was. His determination to join the army was not a one-off trait that was disposed of after his transformation, but was shown to be part-and-parcel of his being. It was an expertly conceived and executed sequence. My disappointment with "Thor" is another story.

Big Hollywood : 'Manhattan' (1979) Blu-ray Review: It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:25:28 +0000

One will notice that the decline in Woody Allen movies coincided with the departure of Marshall Brickman as his collaborator.

Big Hollywood : Daily Call Sheet: Do We Trust Spielberg with Moses?, Russell Brand's a Creep, Why the Netflix Reboun

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:33:17 +0000

"...a group of' 'concerned citizens' who enact vigilante justice..." That would be "exact" justice, thereby proving that writers from sites other than the Bigs also don't know the tools of their trade.

Big Journalism : USA Today’s Obama at Three-Year Mark Report Reads Like One Long DNC Talking Point

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:40:11 +0000

Just as mainstream-media reports on guns are cost-benefit analyses that disregard benefit, their reports on Obama are cost-benefits analyses that disregard cost.

Big Journalism : Obama Plagiarizes Himself in SOTU, MSM Fails to Notice

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:35:23 +0000

To echo the poster Steve Miller, it is not possible for a person to plagiarize himself. He may repeat himself, revisit his themes or rebottle his own old wine, but he plagiarizes only if the original author of the ideas is other than himself. Joe Biden, for example, is a plagiarist.

Big Hollywood : Daily Call Sheet: Why Studios Hate Streaming and America Doesn't Care About Sundance or '30 Rock'

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:43:42 +0000

"The problem is that most movies don't need 3D to tell a good story story." Most movies don't need color or sound to tell a good story, either, and the argument could have been and was made against those innovations when they were in their cinematic infancy. All the terrific stories that were told before the advent of CGI testify to its non-necessity as a story-telling device. Nonetheless, any technique whatsoever can be used by talented practitioners to enhance the medium and will be used by mediocre practitioners to detrimental effect. The ease of the technique's implementation will determine in which direction the scale will tip. CGI is fairly easy to implement. As a result, we see lots of crummy CGI that takes us out of the movie instead of immersing us further in it. I don't know how relatively easy 3D is to use, but 3D imposed on a 2D movie after the fact by bandwagon-hopping directors or producers has left an unfairly bad taste in the mouths of moviegoers. Good 3D, like that in "Up," is an immersive experience. Excellent 3D, like that in "Avatar," can make an essentially dopey movie somewhat watchable. In any event, 3D is here to stay and will over time become as organic to movies as sound and color are today.

Big Hollywood : Big Movie Flashback: 'Natural Born Killers' (1994)

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:00:10 +0000

Toto - "Even violent criminals can pick up celebrity cache..." They might even pick up some cachet.

Big Hollywood : 'Justified' Review: It's Good Vs. Evil When FX's Own Dirty Harry Returns For Third Season Tonight

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:43:53 +0000

Amen to that. Less Natalie Zea, more Joelle Carter.

Big Journalism : RT/Russia Propaganda Makes Up Loesch Quote In Comical Smear

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:35:21 +0000

What had me flummoxed from the very first time I ran across RT was why an American television channel - any American channel - would run a frankly and obviously anti-American show such as this one. What could the motivation be? Unless the management of the channel were themselves anti-American, I still can't grasp why they would run such programming. It's perplexing.

Big Hollywood : 'Contraband' Review: Smuggled Cliches by the Dozen

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:30:41 +0000

Toto - “'...Contraband' might be 90-plus minutes worth of Deja Vue." Or "Deja Vu." Just sayin'. That is, just trying to smooth out the speed bumps on the road of enjoyable reading.

Big Hollywood : The Top 10 Conservative Lessons of 'Rocky IV'

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:15:15 +0000

Regarding whether James Brown was a conservative, well, that may or may not be true; I don't know. What I do know is that Al Sharpton was his manager.