In today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern Joe Lima of Big Hollywood talks about El Curioso Caso de William Morgan.
Chat’s open at 10:45AM and the podcasts are archived for your listening convenience.
William Morgan, the movie
Joe Lima has the amazing story, El Curioso Caso de William Morgan
The Hero stands in front of a firing squad. By most accounts, the new dictator and his younger brother are present at the execution; by some accounts, so is a rather creepy, long-haired fellow who speaks in the sing-song accent of a faraway country.
The executioner orders the Hero to kneel; the Hero answers:
“I kneel before no man.”
They riddle one of the Hero’s knees with machine-gun fire. He staggers but props himself up on one leg. They riddle the other knee with machine-gun fire, and only now does the Hero fall to his knees.
They fire at his shoulders and knock him onto his back.
The executioner, carrying the pistol with which he will deliver the kill shot, approaches the dying Hero and taunts him, “See, we made you kneel.”
The Hero’s last words: “I didn’t kneel.”
You must go read the rest.
And yes, it’ll make a fantastic movie!
Andrew Breitbart on Hollywood, conservatism, and CPAC
Andrew Breitbart wants ‘And now for something completely different, please’
As CPAC begins in the nation’s capital later this week, the conservative movement has much to contemplate as it attempts to reestablish itself as a dominant force in American political life.
Actually, “relevance” may be a more reasonable short-term goal.
The timing of the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference could not be better suited for evaluating the strategies of the standard bearers of free markets and limited government as free-spending and nanny statist Obamaism runs amok with nary a media check or a legislative balance.
Attendees of the wonky three-day forum should pay close attention to what their ideological counterparts had to say earlier in the week at their annual get-together in liberalism´s capital, Hollywood.
Breitbart points out,
The movie stars and the powerful creative minds congratulating each other Sunday night wield a greater role in shaping the political landscape than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid combined. Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and William Jefferson possess less power to sway the minds of the electorate than Brad Pitt, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Kate Winslet and even the late Mr. Ledger (James Dean continues to sway the public imagination).
Yet the public relations protection received by elected Democratic officials from the Hollywood media collective – who incessantly mock traditional American values and attack by name their Republican counterparts – allows for the corrupt and the contemptible to pull the lever in perpetuity for any cause the Hollywood elite holds dear.
Unchecked, Big Hollywood´s lobbying power only continues to grow. Mr. Obama has David Geffen and Oprah Winfrey to thank for his presidency – ask Hillary.
What to do?
If “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan formulated 45 years ago in “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,” then Hollywood-style liberalism is America´s current and future message. And conservatives have no one to blame but themselves for not investing their collective efforts in the pop cultural and the greater media experience.
Art, music, film and new media must be at the center of a reborn conservative movement. Hollywood should not simply be ignored, reviled and condemned by detached intellectuals, talk radio and elected officials caught in her crosshairs, but taken on head-on.
Breitbart is correct, but Dan Riehl is very skeptical, to put it midly:
It isn’t that I disagree with Breitbart. But in case he hasn’t noticed, the people he would prod to start launching movie studios and distribution networks haven’t even had the foresight and good sense to fund a single on line effort in the form of a group blog or some such in the past few years. They haven’t even managed to shift some small amount of dollars into advertising on Right-leaning blogs to at least encourage their best messengers in a new media age. Somehow I think the whole Hollywood thing is presently a real stretch.
Unless and until true capitalists who are conservatives are willing to come forwards, we will, as Breitbart said, be among the legions at CPAC rearranging the furniture.
I hope I’m wrong.
I Pledge Not To See Anything With Ashton Kutcher In It
The celebrities pledge…
…to be a servant to our president:
MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge
Excuse me, but that is exactly what’s wrong with places like North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe and all the other hellholes in the world. Their people are, indeed, servants to their presidents.
The text of that video must have been written by not very bright sixth-graders who don’t understand what the hey are the implications of pledging to be A SERVANT to a head of state means.
Nothing is more insulting to the American public’s intelligence than to have this self-absorbed uneducated self-deluded fools telling them to be “servants to our president.”
Why don’t they, instead of nauseating us with their vacuous platitudes, go and visit the men and women who are serving our COUNTRY in our all-volunteer army, and thank them for their service?
I’m with Andrew Breitbart, who came out and said, I Pledge to Ridicule Celebrities Who Refuse to Recognize We Are At War With People Who Want to Kill Them, Too:
Missing are pledges not to kiss the ring of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other pledged enemies of America. Nor are there pledges not to make movies that glorify these tyrants. Nor are there pledges to take seriously that we are at war, will continue to be at war under President Obama and that our precious and under-appreciated military is fighting an avowed and evil enemy — so that, among other things, Hollywood can continue to make decadent crap that actually motivates our enemy to fight us harder!
Go read the rest of that post.
Chris Muir joins Big Hollywood
The fabulous and talented Chris Muir joins Big Hollywood. Excellent!
Don Surber is also posting about it.
Hmmm…Would Chris make a cartoon of me and make me look like Sam if I slip him a $20? Or would it take a $50? (Making me look like Sam would take a miracle, but never mind that part!)