Over at Pajamas Media, John “Dirty Harry” Nolte is like a kid on Christmas Eve, trembling and giddy in anticipation of David Zucker arriving to lay waste all of Hollywood with jokes about Michael Moore’s unhealthful BMI.
In just this past year, counting both narratives and documentaries, we’ve seen nearly a dozen, high profile anti-Iraq War films and not a single one has made a profit or argued the other side.
Any decent anti-war movie is going to give equal time to promoting the pro-war side, because drama is conflict. (Note: Equal Time provisions do not apply to AM Talk Radio.) Besides, if Americans really hated the Iraq War, they’d eschew escapist fare like Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and spend their summer entertainment dollars watching movies that remind them how hateful the war they hate is. And 7-Eleven would have offered its Rendition Big Gulp in the 64 and not just the 32 ounce size.
Unless it’s to inspire their annual cinematic treatise to all things them — the annual film decrying the 1950s blacklist which forced a few screenwriters to use a pseudonym –
Bunch’a babies. John uses a pseudonyn when he blogs, and you don’t hear him whining about it. Anyway, I’m probably not qualified to comment, since I missed this year’s big studio film decrying the blacklist. And last year’s, too. In fact, the most recent movie I can remember that even used the blacklist as a plot point was 2001′s The Majestic, but it’s entirely possible that the anti-Blacklist propaganda inThe Hottie and the Nottie flew right over my head.
— present-day liberal Hollywood doesn’t much care for the word “blacklist,” especially when it’s them being accused of doing the blacklisting. Their defense is to hide behind the literal and claim there is no actual blacklist or organizedconspiracy to keep openly conservative filmmakers from getting work.
They hide their reluctance to produce Dirty’s movies behind feeble, transparent euphemisms like “trite melodrama,” “steaming, witless ejecta,” and “Good grief, how is it possible for any single person to suck this much without the assistance of a Shop-Vac?!”
Fine.
Okay, then. Dirty goes on the recount how Hollywood leftists conspired to stop Mel Gibson’s (pre-Sugar Tits, and ante-anti-Semitic tirade) masterpiece, The Passion of the Christ.
…the goal was therefore two-fold: to hurt the movie financially (which obviously failed), but also to launch a pre-emptive strike against any filmmaker thinking about following Gibson’s lead and scampering off the liberal Hollywood plantation.
I thought that problem was settled by the Supreme Court in Dredd Scott v. Columbia/Screen Gems Home Entertainment.
The Passion may be the only film to make over a half-billion dollars and not create a me-too phenomenon.
Not one other major star belonging to a splinter Catholic cult run by his father, the Pope of Malibu, opted to spend millions of dollars of his own money to make an Aramaic language fetish video about beating up Jesus. If that’s not a blacklist I don’t know what is.
A more tolerant industry, or at least one driven by financial considerations, would’ve quickly greenlit a serious-minded sequel based on the Acts of the Apostles.
If only Hollywood was more focused on the bottom line, we could be in a movie theater right now, enjoying Sister Acts of the Apostles II: The Cock Crows At Midnight.
Reasonable people would call this a form of “blacklisting,” but liberal Hollywood isn’t reasonable and rather than have an honest discussion on the matter they instead wrap us ’round the axle of specificity when it comes to the word “blacklist. ”
They also insist on inflating the Tires of Proper Definition.
So let’s use another word: Passioning.
Well, the metaphors weren’t working out, so I guess we might as well try neologisms. But let’s start by defining our crappy, made-up terms:
“Passioning” is what happens when the leftist Hollywood establishment, using whatever power available, demean, dismiss, diminish, and defame those they consider an ideological apostate. In 2004 it was Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ; today it’s director David Zucker andAn American Carol.
According to Dirty, various bloggers have reacted with muted enthusiasm to The Passion of the Zucker, implying that a film in which Michael Moore “finds political clarity at the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center while the admonishing ghost of George Washington (played by Jon Voight) hovers nearby” may not provide the sort of rollicking, laugh-a-minute thrill ride that readers of internet spoiler sites legitimately expect.
Thus, like Red Channels, the Army-McCarthy Hearings, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, the iron heel of CHUD.com and Ain’t It Cool News grinds another artist into the dust for the crime of standing up and declaring, “I am not a number! I am a free man!… By the way, how’re the weekend numbers?”
Posted by scott on Thursday, August 21st, 2008 at 5:28 pm.
23 Responses to “The Hollywood TenOne”
The Passion may be the only film to make over a half-billion dollars and not create a me-too phenomenon.
Yeah, Hollywood has always shunned biblical films like the plague, haven’t they?
Of course by “biblical” I really mean period melodramas filled with breasts, sweaty beefcake and tons of violence. What I can’t figure out is why cretins like Nolte want the Hollywood exploitation machine within a light year of Jesus. Have televangelists not crapped on Him enough for him?
Yeah, Hollywood has always shunned biblical films like the plague, haven’t they?
Of course by “biblical” I really mean period melodramas filled with breasts, sweaty beefcake and tons of violence. What I can’t figure out is why cretins like Nolte want the Hollywood exploitation machine within a light year of Jesus. Have televangelists not crapped on Him enough for him?
The Passion may be the only film to make over a half-billion dollars and not create a me-too phenomenon.
yeah, I can see it now. Jeebus II: 8 Days Later, The Legend of Doubting Thomas.
yeah, I can see it now. Jeebus II: 8 Days Later, The Legend of Doubting Thomas.
The Passion may be the only film to make over a half-billion dollars and not create a me-too phenomenon.
It’s worse than he says! Why wasn’t there ever a sequel to Titanic, huh, liberal “Hollyweird”? Why haven’t we been able to enjoy “Independence Day II: Guy Fawkes Day,” or “The Seventh Sense,” or “301″? Passioned, all.
It’s worse than he says! Why wasn’t there ever a sequel to Titanic, huh, liberal “Hollyweird”? Why haven’t we been able to enjoy “Independence Day II: Guy Fawkes Day,” or “The Seventh Sense,” or “301″? Passioned, all.
Someone should tell Thick Nolte that the Book of Acts doesn’t have a third act.
Of course, I’d bet dollars to the donuts that Nolte makes at his full-time job that he hasn’t even read Acts.
Of course, I’d bet dollars to the donuts that Nolte makes at his full-time job that he hasn’t even read Acts.
You’re being generous, Roger. He probably hasn’t read “The Cat In the Hat” either.
if Americans really hated the Iraq War, they’d eschew escapist fare like Iron Man
Wait. Was this sarcastic, scott? I thought the whole point behind Iron Man was that Stark sees what he hath wrought and destroys his most terrible weapon ever so it can’t be used against the nameless South Asian country (whose initials are Iraq)?
Apart from that, the louder conservatives whine about something, the more you can bet that it is precisely what is going on and that these whines are pre-emptive strikes against dissent from the meme.
Take the “liberal media” trope. It has about as much validity as a lobster running a talent agency (Esther Newberg notwithstanding), but if you hammer it home enough times, even we liberals take it as common wisdom, even if we take it that way in the breach.
Now, there have been plenty of successful antiwar movies since our invasion of Iraq. “Syriana” leaps to mind, as does “Valley of Elah” which garnered Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar nomination.
I’m still waiting for a pro war movie to even be made, and don’t tell me, Thick Nolte (nice one, Roger!), that they can’t get made, because guess what?
Someone makes all those soppy America-glorifying movies that the entire world never watches because they are too jingoistic, like, say, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, “Rambo IV: Losing My Overbite”
Wait. Was this sarcastic, scott? I thought the whole point behind Iron Man was that Stark sees what he hath wrought and destroys his most terrible weapon ever so it can’t be used against the nameless South Asian country (whose initials are Iraq)?
Apart from that, the louder conservatives whine about something, the more you can bet that it is precisely what is going on and that these whines are pre-emptive strikes against dissent from the meme.
Take the “liberal media” trope. It has about as much validity as a lobster running a talent agency (Esther Newberg notwithstanding), but if you hammer it home enough times, even we liberals take it as common wisdom, even if we take it that way in the breach.
Now, there have been plenty of successful antiwar movies since our invasion of Iraq. “Syriana” leaps to mind, as does “Valley of Elah” which garnered Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar nomination.
I’m still waiting for a pro war movie to even be made, and don’t tell me, Thick Nolte (nice one, Roger!), that they can’t get made, because guess what?
Someone makes all those soppy America-glorifying movies that the entire world never watches because they are too jingoistic, like, say, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, “Rambo IV: Losing My Overbite”
Of course by “biblical” I really mean period melodramas filled with breasts, sweaty beefcake and tons of violence.
I’ve known some of those breasts.
I mean that in the Biblical sense.
I’ve known some of those breasts.
I mean that in the Biblical sense.
present-day liberal Hollywood doesn’t much care for the word “blacklist,” especially when it’s them being accused of doing the blacklisting.
Indeed. We prefer the term “africanamericanlisting”…
Indeed. We prefer the term “africanamericanlisting”…
Scott,
This is like the third wingnut piece I’ve read this week with regards to this obviously hideous Zucker film.
Do you get the sense there’s a whole “please don’t hurt us” meme rising here? As if, to immunize the movie from criticism, they’re lashing out in a sort of “Llap Goch” fashion?
This is like the third wingnut piece I’ve read this week with regards to this obviously hideous Zucker film.
Do you get the sense there’s a whole “please don’t hurt us” meme rising here? As if, to immunize the movie from criticism, they’re lashing out in a sort of “Llap Goch” fashion?
WHAT is LLAP-GOCH again?
It is an ANCIENT Welsh ART based on a BRILLIANTLY simple I-D-E-A, which is a SECRET. The best form of DEFENCE is ATTACK (Clausewitz) and the most VITAL element of ATTACK is SURPRISE (Oscar HAMMERstein). Therefore, the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU… Or BETTER… BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!
George W. Bush. President of the United States of America. Master of Llap Goch.
It is an ANCIENT Welsh ART based on a BRILLIANTLY simple I-D-E-A, which is a SECRET. The best form of DEFENCE is ATTACK (Clausewitz) and the most VITAL element of ATTACK is SURPRISE (Oscar HAMMERstein). Therefore, the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU… Or BETTER… BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!
George W. Bush. President of the United States of America. Master of Llap Goch.
I’m not sure, Carl, but I think it’s a combination of good old fashioned flackery (the kind of over-the-top, “see this to give our enemies the finger”-type promotion that blanketed CBN and the Trinity network just prior to the release of The Omega Code), and the natural, once bitten, twice shy skittishness of people who previously went on record insisting that The Half Hour Comedy Hour was funny.
The Passion may be the only film to make over a half-billion dollars and not create a me-too phenomenon
But it did–a couple of Christmases back we had a movie about the Virgin Mary’s story (forgot the title). Or doesn’t Mary count any more?
But it did–a couple of Christmases back we had a movie about the Virgin Mary’s story (forgot the title). Or doesn’t Mary count any more?
Damn, I was reading my dog-eared copy of “The Brand New Monty Python Paperbok” not too long ago, including Llap Goch. A classic.
Scott, I see we’re in agreement about Bush, except I thought he was a miserable failure even at that.
…we’ve seen nearly a dozen, high profile anti-Iraq War films and not a single one has made a profit
Right, because profitability equates to quality. We all know how profit machines like Walmart and McDonald’s are known for the high quality of their products.
If only Hollywood was more focused on the bottom line, we could be in a movie theater right now, enjoying Sister Acts of the Apostles II: The Cock Crows At Midnight.
I’m still waiting for the 2-in-1 sequel, “Snakes on a Soul Plane.” Coming soon to an inner city near you!
Right, because profitability equates to quality. We all know how profit machines like Walmart and McDonald’s are known for the high quality of their products.
If only Hollywood was more focused on the bottom line, we could be in a movie theater right now, enjoying Sister Acts of the Apostles II: The Cock Crows At Midnight.
I’m still waiting for the 2-in-1 sequel, “Snakes on a Soul Plane.” Coming soon to an inner city near you!
I’m still waiting for the 2-in-1 sequel, “Snakes on a Soul Plane.” Coming soon to an inner city near you!
Magic Johnson Theaters, Inc.
Magic Johnson Theaters, Inc.
I for one am waiting for “Shakes on a Plane” (the sequel to Shakes the Clown).
– Alternatively, a documentary about Air Force One.
A sequel to the movie where Christ was tortured and killed?!? Good grief, where could you possibly go from there?
A gigantic cruise ship slowly crashing into a dock, perhaps?
A gigantic cruise ship slowly crashing into a dock, perhaps?
Well gosh, it’s not like there aren’t a zillion Catholic martyrs who were killed in gory, disgusting, torturous ways. If Mel Gibson hadn’t blown his credibility and bankability, what with the crappy movie about natives and the anti-Semitic tirade after his drunken driving arrest, he could have headed the most endless, lucrative film franchise ever.
Honestly, conservatives of all stripes, people are sick of listenting to your obviously well-fed, expensively-dressed, fully-employed, ridiculously lionized selves moaning about how nobody listens to you. For a while now we’ve let you whine on just to be nice, but now you’re basically dancing on America’s last nerve. Quit while you’re behind.
Honestly, conservatives of all stripes, people are sick of listenting to your obviously well-fed, expensively-dressed, fully-employed, ridiculously lionized selves moaning about how nobody listens to you. For a while now we’ve let you whine on just to be nice, but now you’re basically dancing on America’s last nerve. Quit while you’re behind.
I forgot to add that while reading the linked article, I got a good laugh out of the writer’s insistence that a film based on A Christmas Carol is “thoroughly original.” They just don’t seem to understand what words mean sometimes.
I for one am waiting for “Shakes on a Plane” (the sequel to Shakes the Clown).
Left by herr doktor bimler on August 22nd, 2008
– Alternatively, a documentary about Air Force One.Left by Herr Doktor Bimler on August 22nd, 2008
Bush’s campaign slogan should have read “Hand Jobs For All”.
Left by herr doktor bimler on August 22nd, 2008
– Alternatively, a documentary about Air Force One.Left by Herr Doktor Bimler on August 22nd, 2008
Bush’s campaign slogan should have read “Hand Jobs For All”.
Actually, I’m morbidly curious to find out how bad it is. If the trailer’s any indication…
Well, I hope the ghost of Stephen Stucker shows and starts slapping David Zucker around.