Hollywood
July 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward
On Monday Biden raged against the “elites” who want him to step aside. Today one of the elites stepped up, the premier representatives of the looney Clooney left: George Clooney himself. Clooney wrote in the New York Times: George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee. I’m a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that. . . I have led some of the biggest fund-raisers
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July 5, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
While Americans were celebrating independence on July 4, the great Eva Marie Saint turned 100. As fans may recall, back in 1954 she made her film debut in On the Waterfront playing Edie Doyle, sister of Joey Doyle, who was murdered by mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). Edie’s sometime boyfriend Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) must decide if he will testify against the mob. “There’s more to this than
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June 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I studied Latin at St. Paul Academy from eighth grade through graduation from high school. My Latin teachers over those five years were Lyman Hawbaker and David Sims. I loved Latin and respected my teachers. I feel a deep debt of gratitude both to Mr. Hawbaker and to Mr. Sims. In my junior and senior years with Mr. Hawbaker we studied Virgil’s Aeneid (“forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit”) and
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May 29, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday during closing arguments in the Trump trial, the Biden campaign presented actor Robert De Niro for an unhinged rant against he who must be named. De Niro’s performance took place outside the Manhattan courthouse in which the Democrats’ lawfare against Trump is in full swing, in a more unhinged form than De Niro’s rant. Speaking for the average show-business American, De Niro portrayed Trump as a dire threat to
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May 28, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Biden campaign staged a pre-celebratory event outside the Trump trial in Manhattan this morning. They publicized it in an announcement intended to attract the attention of their supporters in the press. The press conference was strategically located outside the courthouse where Trump is on trial. The Biden campaign is holding a press conference soon outside of the Manhattan courthouse, where Trump’s defense team is set to give closing arguments.
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May 2, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The documentary Rather made its appearance yesterday on Netflix. Directed by Frank Marshall, the film premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival. It now becomes generally available via the streaming service. I watched the documentary twice in order to comment on it here. As it turns out, Star Tribune media critic Neal Justin fairly describes it and nails its shortcomings in 114 words, but there is more to be
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April 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward
So I’m just going to come right out and say it: in the privacy of the voting booth in November, Bill Maher is going to vote for Trump. The only question is whether he will admit it directly, or continue, between rote Trump denunciations, to provide strong hints week after week, like yesterday’s rant about pedophilia in Hollywood. Along the way he says, “Governor DeSantis was right” about Disney. C’mon
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April 3, 2024 — Steven Hayward
You may have heard of the “Streisand Effect,” which Wikipedia describes as “an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires by increasing public awareness of the information. The effect is named for American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress a photographer’s publication of a photograph showing her clifftop residence in Malibu, California, taken to document coastal erosion
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March 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Tonight is the State of the Union speech. I know it’s hard to contain your excitement. Many Bingo and drinking games suggest themselves. We all know that Joe Biden is a pretend president, so just who in the White House thought it was a good idea to have him have a Zoom call with actual pretend presidents—Hollywood actors who have played the president, soliciting their advice on how to approach
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March 7, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Monty Python veteran John Cleese has been planning a stage production of Life of Brian, and several American actors advised him to cut the “Loretta scene.” Cleese said he had “no intention” of cutting the scene, which involves the Grumpy People’s Front of Judea: JUDITH: (Sue Jones-Davies): I do feel, Reg (John Cleese) that any anti-imperialist group like ours must reflect such a divergence of interests within its power-base. REG:
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March 6, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
The annual Academy Awards show, coming up on March 10, has defied satire for decades. Back in 1973, the Monty Python players had a go with “The British Showbiz Awards,” hosted by “Dickie” Attenborough, wonderfully played by Eric Idle: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, friends of the society, your dummy Royal Highness. Once again, the year has come full circle, and for me there can be no greater privilege, and
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February 29, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The comedian Richard Lewis died this past Tuesday evening of a heart attack at the age of 76. The New York Times has posted a good obituary by Clay Risen here. Variety’s obituary is posted here. Richard told the story of his personal struggles in The Other Great Depression: How I’m overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and dysfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life. Lewis
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February 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
There’s nothing wrong with the picture Network (1976). The talent on display in the film is formidable. With a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, and others, it’s an irresistible satire of television news as show business. I’ve had the opening scene playing in my head over the past week. “Don’t do it, buddy!” In the opening
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February 14, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
Steve finds fearful symmetry to Biden in Frank Sinatra’s description of Raymond Shaw, one of the most “repulsive human beings” he had ever seen. Other movie characters might also apply to the allegedly “sharp” and “focused” 81-year-old Democrat from Delaware. Consider, for example, the take of Louise (Ruth Attaway) on Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Sellers), when she spots him on television. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with
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February 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I recorded Shane off TCM and watched it for about the tenth time last night. The film was directed by George Stevens with a script by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. Alan Ladd plays Shane, the gunfighter with a mysterious past who is looking for a new life in Wyoming circa 1889. A variety of currents and undercurrents run through the film. Some of them conflict. Indians have been cleared from the
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February 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I wrote the post below when the film Lincoln was released in 2012. I thought some readers might find it of interest today. My purpose here was to take up the movie in the context of Richard Hofstadter’s famous essay on Lincoln — an essay which is all that bright high-school students may ever learn about him. I have inserted links to the publisher’s pages of the books cited. We
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February 2, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
As Steve notes in his piece on American Fiction, Academy Award nominations now attach a “diversity requirement.” As film fans should know, long before this woke nonsense black actors were turning in performances that should have gained nominations. Consider, for example, Roscoe Lee Browne as Jebediah Nightlinger in The Cowboys, from 1972. When the ranch hands of Wil Andersen (John Wayne) run off to search for gold, the rancher hires
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