he movie AMERICAN SNIPER opens up another definition of the word “hero” – a sneaky prick who shoots you in the back. And it got me thinking: Just what is this American fascination with the term “hero?” The word is bandied about like a stray volleyball, encapsulating foopball players, ath-o-letes, musicians, actors, to people who are merely doing their job … Read More
THE INTERVIEW 2014
The Propaganda Never Starts… Two American talk show numbnuts score an interview with the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, and try to assassinate him in the process. It’s THE INTERVIEW, banned by everyone gutless enough to believe the threats of North Korean nationalist hackers who said they would bomb theaters that screened it. How they planned to do that … Read More
Crime DOES Pay. Always has.
here did this notion spring from that “crime doesn’t pay”? People say Crime Doesn’t Pay as if it’s an alternative profession you can choose to pursue, and as if that profession is the only profession in the world that doesn’t pay. Implying that every profession other than “crime” does pay. Like a job at McDonald’s pays. Like a job as … Read More
SUDDENLY
Suddenly Moral Ambiguity. An assassination attempt on the president of the United States – by Ol’ Blue Eyes! In a bucolic American town named SUDDENLY, three men posing as FBI take a residential family hostage, using the family’s house as a vantage point to assassinate the president. Frank Sinatra (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, 1953) is John Baron, the crazy-eyed leader … Read More
INVASION U.S.A.
Cold War Mongering. INVASION U.S.A. is made for one purpose. The government will tell you it’s to promote the draft, but the draft is only a euphemism for domestic terrorism. What else would you call spreading fear through media; terrorizing the populace into bowing Head Down Ass Up to the American government, or their lives would be ended by Russians? … Read More
FAIL-SAFE
Failing at Safe. Bombing Moscow: the dream of every American chickenhawk politician during the Cold War. Bombing New York: the dream of every other country. In FAIL-SAFE, a grim parable about a war triggered due to a computer glitch, everyone’s dreams come true. Released in September 1964, only a few months after Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE (Jan 1964), Sidney Lumet’s … Read More
MODERN TIMES
The Future Back Then. Little Tramp meets Little Trampette, and all Industrial Revolution breaks loose! It’s MODERN TIMES in 1936! The machines are taking over; industrialization is cutting jobs, and those jobs that remain are repetitive, drudgerous tasks that drive men batty. Such is the case with the Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin), whom we meet working a “modern” assembly line. … Read More
AIR FORCE ONE
Air Force Dumb. Russians hijack the American President’s plane, AIR FORCE ONE! Oh my! Whatever is going to happen now? Can I have a serving of foregone conclusion with my helping of blockbuster actioner? Two great actors. One dumbass movie. Harrison Ford is American President James Marshall (because the name President Privileged Whiteman was taken), and Gary Oldman is Russian … Read More
A FACE IN THE CROWD
Empty Vessel, Most Noise. He went from being a radio personality to a TV superstar, with his hate-speak and political lies, ultimately driving the course of political movements with his disinformation, empty rhetoric, and outright falsehoods, until he was brought down when his redneck public discerned his ultimate snake-oil shallowness. If you think I’m talking about Glenn Beck, I am. … Read More
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN
DIE HARD in the White House. OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN but don’t worry – John McClane is there to– I mean, Gerard Butler is there to pick it back up again. North Korean terrorists take over the White House, and Secret Service Black Ops Special Forces Seal Team Ninja Mission Impossible Flames-Comin-Out-De-Side Agent Gerard Butler is the fly in the ointment, … Read More
DEATH RACE 2000
Disco Death. David Carradine can always claim that he once beat up Rocky! Grasshopper versus Balboa in a battle to the ketchup. After Carradine’s KUNG FU and before Sylvester Stallone’s ROCKY, the two renowned pugilists would clash in this DEATH RACE 2000 where arts were not martial, the most famous boxer was still Muhammad Ali, and acting was optional. It’s … Read More
DENNIS MILLER: AMERICA 180°
The Comedian Formerly Known As Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller is smart. I used to record THE DENNIS MILLER SHOW on VHS (that’s an olden-days DVR, chillun) and marvel at the way his mind spiraled headlong into esoteric references to rail against ignorance. In his 2014 standup special, AMERICA 180 DEGRESS (a one hour routine, filmed in Irvine), Miller is now … Read More
WHY WE DID IT
Illicit President, Illicit War. The short answer: Oil. The long answer: Oil, money, prostitutes. First of all: Who’s “we,” sucka? WHY WE DID IT, an MSBNC documentary, narrated by master journalist Rachel Maddow, details the deep background on why president George W. Bush and his slavemaster VP Dick Cheney took the United States to war in Iraq in 2003 under … Read More
METROPOLIS
Fritz Lang and Karl Marx had a nightmare-child… METROPOLIS, Fritz Lang’s stunning 1927 masterpiece on class warfare, is an ancient German expressionist film set in the future – but its message is as current as bank bailouts destroying the world economy. As soon as mankind aggregated into social groups, class warfare arose, and continues – from hunter-gatherers to Utopian futures … Read More
JFK
Conspiracy Clearly. To sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards out of men. –Ella Wheeler Wilcox. When it comes to 9-11, or John F. Kennedy, or Jesus Christ, no one cares what you think. They know what they know. And no one’s gonna tell ’em otherwise. Oliver Stone doesn’t care what you think. He directs JFK with the … Read More
2016: OBAMA’S AMERICA
Fooling the Fools again. Who we foolin’ here? All one needs to glean a perspective on this documentary’s Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) is to read the opening lines of any of its “sensible” “unbiased” “objective” reviews; all the waterheads who feel the need to proclaim, “First off I want to say that I based this documentary on the content rather … Read More
MITT
On Planet Mitt, no one can hear you fake-laugh… Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is. They are addicts, and they are guilty and they do lie and cheat and steal – like all junkies. And when they get in a frenzy, they will sacrifice anything and everybody to feed their … Read More
THE DICTATOR
For To Make Democratize in America. In the grand tradition of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting Columbia University in 2007 and denying the Holocaust, claiming Iran has no gays and lets women roam free with equal rights, so too is Wadiya’s dictator Hafez Aladeen, granted all courtesies when visiting the United Nations to extol the virtues of his oppressive Middle … Read More
THE IDES OF MARCH
Et Tu, Gosling? Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics. — Tina Brown, “The Daily Beast.” THE IDES OF MARCH opens with campaign manager Steve Meyers (Ryan Gosling) at a podium, spotlit, declaring, “I’m not a Christian, I’m not an atheist. What I believe in is the Constitution of the United States of America.” He is reciting from prepared notes for … Read More
THE CHALLENGER DISASTER
Hubris Greed Politics vs. Genius. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman, “Report to Congress on Challenger Investigation 1986.” Indepth chronicle of Dr. Richard Feynman’s investigation into the Space Shuttle Challenger’s 1986 explosion. When I first heard about the TV movie, THE CHALLENGER DISASTER, I shrugged it off, … Read More