Hollywood
January 31, 2024 — Steven Hayward
If you follow the Academy Awards. . . okay, stop right there! I know what you’re thinking after just six words: Who is their right mind would give a tinker’s cuss about the Oscars any more? I get it, but indulge me a bit. If you follow the Academy Awards, you’ll know they have instituted a “diversity” requirement to qualify to be a nominee for Best Picture, by which is
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January 25, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-going on here? I hired you people to get a bit of track laid, not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots! That was railroad boss Taggart (Slim Pickens) in Blazing Saddles, which opened on February 7, 1974, a full 50 years ago next month. The Mel Brooks film would not be made today, more reason to revisit
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January 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Lloyd Billingsley draws on Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971) to trace the outline of a mania — the mania of Democrat orthodoxy. I was thinking about Bananas over the weekend as I revisited Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) and reread Kenneth Lynn’s (great) Charlie Chaplin and His Times. Early in Bananas Allen pays tribute to Chaplin and Modern Times. Allen plays Fielding Mellish, a “research tester” for General Equipment. In the
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January 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
When the Rathergate movie Truth was released in 2015 — with Robert Redford playing Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett playing Mary Mapes as the heroes of the story — I turned to Edward Jay Epstein for advice. Ed has devoted three books to the assassination of JFK. I asked him how he had dealt with the likes of Oliver Stone and his film JFK, in which New Orleans district attorney
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January 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Before Eddie Muller took over the Saturday night/Sunday morning niche on TCM with his Noir Alley, I was only familiar with a few classics of film noir such as Double Indemnity (directed by Billy Wilder, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (directed by Tay Garnett, starring John Garfield and Lana Turner). Whoever loves well-made movies with a kick must love those films. Following Muller’s
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December 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Cliff May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliff’s current column is “The lessons of ‘Casablanca'” (at FDD, where it is posted with links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his column on Power Line. He writes:
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November 8, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
As Steve observes, “there’s not much comedy to be had from the ugliness of the current outburst of anti-Semitism in the aftermath of October 7.” As it happens, there was a time when an outburst of anti-Semitism brought on a rapid comic response. In 1984 the Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for president. During a conversation with Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman, Jackson referred to Jews as “Hymies,” and New York City
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November 1, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
With lines such as “the dumber I behave the richer I get,” Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction does sound like cinematic dynamite. What this film does for the literary world, Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle, from 1987, has already performed for the movie industry. Townsend plays aspiring actor Bobby Taylor, who finds that Hollywood prefers to cast blacks in gang movies. Script in hand, the eloquent Bobby must rehearse lines such as,
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October 31, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Even before the horror of October 7 blew the lid off the anti-Semitic rot on our college campuses, it was starting to look like the “social justice revolution” was starting to come apart. Think of how Ibram X. Kendi’s famous center for anti-racist research at Boston University hit the wall, as was easy to predict when it launched, along with the obvious corruption and self-dealing of Black Lives Matter that
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October 30, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
Another month has passed without full release of Audrey Hale’s manifesto, which could reveal her motive for the murder of nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, daughter of Chad Scruggs, senior pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Hale, a woman who thought she was a man, also shot dead schoolmaster Katherine Koonce, 59; substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; and custodian Mike Hill, 61. On March 29,
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October 17, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
Fair to say, few if any episodes of “Three’s Company” and “Step by Step” are worth recalling. To remember Suzanne Somers, who has passed away at 76, dial it back to her first screen appearance in American Graffiti, released 50 years ago and directed by an upstart named George Lucas. Somers plays a “blonde in T-Bird” and through the window she mouths the words “I love you,” to Curt Henderson
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August 16, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Whenever I am down in the LA area, as I am today, my mind runs to ordering French fries “animal style” from In-n-Out burgers. (IYKYK.) But today, opening up the Washington Post, I discover the origins of a possible new sect of conservatism: Animal-House conservatives, who naturally do things “animal-style.” Yes, the Post really does suggest that the 1978 comedy blockbuster Animal House bears some responsibility for the Reagan era
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August 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I geared my comments on Sound of Freedom to the story I saw on the screen. That’s what I reacted to. I thought the story was full of transparent fakery — the superhero story of former DHS agent Tim Ballard, not the phenomenon of human trafficking depicted in the movie. My comments on Sound of Freedom elicited a torrent of personal abuse akin to the torrents that John unleashes when
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August 7, 2023 — Announcement
Steve writes: I noted this morning that “Barbie” seems to be dividing everyone, and not all readers agreed with my suggestion that some conservative critics are overdoing it in the same way the left would never tolerate “Blazing Saddles” today. (Of course, I’m the guy who thinks “Cloud Atlas” is a *conservative* work of great genius—both the novel and the film, so as I say, your mileage may vary.) Emina
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August 6, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I ventured out to a movie theater for the first time post-Covid for the annual Grateful Dead meet-up in November 2022 (here) and again this year in June (here). I wrote up my assessments for the benefit of commenters who can’t enjoy displaying their superiority with their derision. It is my privilege to share my enthusiasms on Power Line. The Grateful Dead is certainly one. It took the Dead to
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July 17, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Hollywood’s actors’ and screenwriters’ unions have both gone on strike. The divisions between these employees and management apparently are deep, and some think the strike could go on for a long time. This would prevent the movie studios, etc., from producing any content for a while, which would be fine with me. Barry Diller, head of the media conglomerate IAC and former CEO of Paramount and 20th Century Fox, worries
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July 8, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Like most of corporate America, Hollywood has fallen prey to the “DEI” delusion in recent years. Far from being a good thing, corporate “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” measures generally represent a poisonous brew of racism, leftism and anti-Americanism. The sooner this fad fades from the scene, the better. In the Telegraph, U.S. Editor Nick Allen sees signs that the entertainment industry is moving back toward sanity: Hollywood is suffering “diversity
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