MTV, Obama Astroturf A Town Hall

From ABC via Drudge:

BACKSTAGE: Actors Recruited For MTV Obama Town Hall; 'Casting Call'...

When President Obama sits down for his MTV town hall this Thursday, the audience of young people who will ask him questions will have been gathered by a casting call.

According to the casting call for the event from talent agency Backstage.com, first reported by National Review Online, the company requests applications for the event, asking what issues the person is “passionate about,” requiring a “short description of your political views,” and also asks for a recent photo.

First reaction....how far he has fallen...

Second reaction...aspiring conservatives, please check your acting careers at the door. Any casting call application that requires you to state a "description of your political views" probably equates to what we in the military call "self-initiated elimination" for those conservatives who want to get into the Hollywood scene...

Hollywood Is Finally Free to Speak Its Mind!!

Remember the bad ol' days of the Bush Administration, when artists were afraid to speak their minds, and Hollywood was forced to make pro-Iraq war movies? No? Thats probably because we weren't living in Bizarro America. However if you listen to some liberals at the time, the mere atmosphere emanating from the Bush White House crushed all dissent.

Well now that Obama is President, the morally superior artistic proletariat is free to express their rage against their most important target....Sarah Palin??

It has been just over a year since Palin was thrust onto the national scene, and has survived many a skewering by the artistic left on the perpetual motion medium that is TV. But I think we have what would be our first throw-away jab a Palin in a major Hollywood release (be sure to watch the trailer in Quicktime HD, I will explain why in a sec).

The film, staring Sarah Jessica Parker, is about an NYC yuppie couple wisked off into witness protection in Hollywood's stereotypical podunk town in Wyoming (look out for Dick Cheney and his shotgun!) There is one scene where a fine-looking brunette cowmama (Mary Steenburgen) racks a shotgun, and Parker's aghast yuppie declares, "Oh my God, It's Sarah Palin." Oh...so clever. I am guessing that line has been percolating in some writer's mind since before he was released from interment in the Ashcroft Artistic Gulags in late January.

This line is sure to elicit guffaws aplenty, and make all left-thinking patrons of this film feel superior at having laughed in the face of evil and survived! Congratulations Hollywood, you made it to safety after 8 years of purgatory. Let the smugness flow....

Now, if the left can be catty about Palin, I suppose its OK for us to be so in return as well. Thus I have one question...When did the 44 year-old Sarah Jessica Parker turn 60?!? Egads! HD is NOT kind to the SJP. Somebody call the Botox Emergency line....

Headline of the Day

I think that this *has* to be the headline of the day:

Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie

You can count me a unsurprised.

The corresponding money quote:

"I wrapped a movie called 'Zombieland,' in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character," Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

"With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie," he said.

Lay off the wacky weed there Woody...

Brothers at War

"Two Brother Went To Fight...One Went To Find Out Why"

After a spate of the to-be-expected left wing Hollywood tripe about the war in Iraq, we are finally starting to see some quality treatments of soldiers and their actual life (and death) in war.

First was HBO's 'Taking Chance', set to premiere next weekend. (Of course lets not forget Outside the Wire either...)

Now we have 'Brothers at War'



"With a desire to know his brothers better, and see the war in Iraq first hand, Jake Rademacher journeys to Mosul, Iraq to embed in his brother's unit."

From all appearances this appears to be a true personal journey of a film with no agenda. I hate to have to caveat this with 'appears, but as I alluded to above, Hollywood has me jaded on the subject. I have great hopes, since it gets a good review from Hooah Wife, and her West Point hubbie.

Go see it, and make up your own mind....

First They Came For the Executives...

Today Obama struck a blow for America's self esteem, and punished work that results in failure:

"President Barack Obama took on bailed-out Wall Street firms on Wednesday, setting a $500,000 annual cap on pay for top executives at companies receiving taxpayer funds and tapping popular anger over financial sector excesses."

Now, of all the ideas that have rolled out in the last 2 weeks, this is certainly not the most objectionable. But are there limits to this idea?

"This is America, we don't disparage wealth. ... What gets people upset, and rightfully so, is executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers," he said.

If this is the road that Obama wants to go down, the real question needs to be...how far is he prepared to go??

Will he be prepared to call for a limit on the salaries of professional athletes? Much of their exorbitant paychecks are due to ticket sales. Tickets to seats in many stadiums around the country that are subsidized by taxpayer funding. If they had to play in stadiums actually affordable to their team's owner's wallets, there would be no glut of money to pay them millions. New, shiny, tax-payer funded stadia/arena permit the owners to shower manna upon these athletes. And by definition, most of these players are failures, but still accept millions without shame. Thus I would expect Obama to call on the NFL, NBA and MLB to cap their salaries...or else they could feel some pain...Janet Reno style!

Better yet, and perhaps more relevant to this whole bailout/stimulus, will Obama call for a cap on salaries of actors/actresses/executives who get paid millions by studios who take advantage of a possible Stimulus tax breaks for movie project flops? If Hollywood is to benefit directly from the 'stimulating' generosity of future generations, should it not be treated like the executives of bailout slurping companies?? It would be painful to see our favorite starlets wandering around the Cannes and Sundance festivals asking..."Who is John Galt?"

Of course I will not hold my breath. What I am really waiting for is the arrival of the Equalization of Opportunity Act, soon to emerge from inner sanctum of the Speaker of the House...

(Hat Tip: Instapundit)

Taking Chance

I actually remember reading this moving 2004 post at Blackfive:

Taking Chance

The following is Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl's account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps. It's a long and beautifully written and it deserves to be read in it's entirety. It's about Valor, Honor and Respect....

On Feb 21, HBO will premier its new film "Taking Chance", starring Kevin Bacon as LtCol Strobl.



It is also an "Official Selection" for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Given this, and the record of Hollywood films on portraying anything to do with the war in Iraq, I was at first wary. However, a viewing of the trailer for this film would seem to show a production that is true to the intent of Strobl's original writing. In the words of the Sundance Festival programmer, "...its potency comes not from melodramatic or political statements but simply from its reality and execution." Let us hope this is true.

Echoing Blackfive's words from 2004, the USMC and the Army, who have taken the brunt of the pain over the last several years, need this film to be all about "Valor, Honor and Respect", and not the usual melodramatic political staement that Sundance is used to.

"Yes We Can" Move On....

I am not sure I have seen so many people succumb to peer pressure so thoroughly in an attempt to be as cool as the new 'in' crowd since I was in High School. Granted that was long ago, when cool meant trying to look like Don Johnson wearing pastels and no socks...

Back in this century, in an effort to leech off of the 'uber-cool' status of our incoming celebrity-in-chief, everyone is getting on the band-wagon and appropriating the divine slogans of The One.

Today Evan Coyne Maloney points out how Pepsi is rolling out some legalized trademark infringement, and doesn't mind if anyone notices the blatant similarities to some other recent advertising.


(Photo: Evan Coyne Maloney)

Hmmm....seems familiar....

Well, Pepsi ain't the only offenders. The People's Choice Awards, and event marketed as uber-cool in its own right, are looking to steal a little of the magic as well.

Their current advertisement with Queen Latifah has the following dialog:

"When the people vote, Change happens. And this January, history will be made right before our eyes."

Hmmm....I wonder what they could be referring to???

Wait, before you shout out an answer, Queen Latifah says:

"You know I am talking about the People's Choice Awards, don't you?"

Ha-ha, ROTFL...

Of course, the ad ends with this smug reassurance...

"Can we pick the winners? Yes. We. Can."

Wonderful. I can't wait to see what slobbering tributes get rolled out at this event...

Well, it it not like I was going to watch this or any other celeberity self-congratulatory love-fest anyhow.

Now, I may need to move fast, as I notice that yeswecanmoveon.org has yet to be appropriated....

Copyright...blah,blah, blah

A couple of weeks ago there was a dust-up concerning the Associated Press and their rather selective interpretation of the Copyright laws of these United States. It seems the AP had been very hostile to a blogger who had been posting and commenting the AP's news photos, and then had almost immediately turned around and mis-appropriated the personal photos of one newly famous call girl that had been posted on a personal blog.

As usual Instapundit has a good synopsis: "WHEN A MEDIA ORGANIZATION DOES IT TO AN INDIVIDUAL, IT'S NOT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT"

The best part is that if you check out the Spitzer article in the March 24th print edition of Newsweek, you can again find one of Ashley Dupré's personal photos, but Newsweek is kind enough to give photo credit to "AP". I guess there is honor among thieves...

Now I related that copyright story to bring up another one.

Many years ago, the U.S. Navy stood tall and shot down some Libyan MiG-23s. I remember it distinctly as I was a High School military geek, and even got the first CNN airing of the Pentagon release on videotape. This was before videos of military action were commonplace, and I remember the pilot's audio comms vividly.



So why would I bring this up after an unrelated story about copyright?? Well, some audio from that actual Mediterranean dogfight (some of which is at ~1:00 of the video above) can be found in the movie "Under Siege" in the scene when an F-18 does a flyby of the USS Missouri.

So my question is, if you are a member of the U.S. military, and your likeness/voice/etc is used by the media or Hollywood in a commercial venture, are you entitled to any royalties from that venture??

Should the pilot of that F-14 be owed royalties for his 'performance' in "Under Siege"?

Ché is OK!

Comrades, I have great news! Just the other day I was outraged by the display of a Ché Guevara flag at a Barrack Obama campaign/volunteer office.



But just today, I have found out that it is OK! You see...Ché was really a great guy.

I now know this because I have found out that Hollywood is putting out not one, but two movies about comrade Ché this year! Lets break out the popcorn and get ready for "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla". Finally the record can be set straight!

I also had no idea how many movies had been made about Ché. I mean, if he were such a terrible guy, there is no way that Hollywood would produce glowing bio-pics about him, right?

Sarcasm off.......now back to our regularly scheduled message:

Whereforartthou Bruce Willis??

It has been two years since I read with great anticipation, Michael Yon's ongoing saga of embededment (Hey, new word!) with the "Deuce Four" in Mosul, Iraq. Better vivid depictions of men and battle cannot be found in any other media source, IMHO.



Upon their return home, I was excited to read that none other than Bruce Willis (an ardent supporter of the military) wanted to turn their story into a major motion picture. Given the dreck that passes for "war films" in present day, that would have been a much welcomed addition.

Alas, two years have passed and doing a brief search I can find no evidence that any "Deuce Four" movie project is on Willis' radar scope.

Instead, I read today that one thing that Willis will be doing is starring in an Oliver Stone picture called 'Pinkville', a 'drama' about My Lai. Yeah...because that's just what we need right now. A rehashing of a decades old anti-war cudgel of the left.

C'mon Bruce. Lets get things in gear! Produce an inspirational military movie (and factual to boot) for a time that needs just such positive inspiration.

Are you that hard up that you must help make an anti-war themed film before you can make a pro-military story of courage?

Or is it that no one in Hollywood wants to join you in that endeavor?

If that is the case Bruce, act like Michael Yon from whom you took your original inspiration. Break out on your own, to get the story told.

UPDATE: Here is some related good news from our friends at OPFOR, a movie (with Harrison Ford) to be based on 'No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah':

"One year after a shotgun blast full of Hollywood anti-war films tank at the BO, we get a nitty-gritty Blackhawk Down style flick that will (presumably) focus on the individual heroism and ultimate nobility of US Marines."

Amen!