White House Down lets director Roland Emmerich indulge in his favorite stunt–dumping ideological sludge atop his already bloated disaster films. Emmerich, who previously prayed at the altar of Al Gore with the global warming fright flick The Day After Tomorrow, outdoes
Writer Bill Kauffman says he and director Ron Maxwell agreed on one major concept while making the Civil War drama Copperhead–they both hate “message” movies. It’s why their new collaboration, a meditation on the cost of war on the home
Hollywood suddenly loves America, the White House and probably apple pie again, too. Consider the patriotic fervor sweeping through this year’s Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, the latter starring Jamie Foxx as a heroic American president. Both films
Deadline.com, one of the entertainment industry’s most powerful news sites, doesn’t have Jim Carrey’s back. The site slammed Carrey’s decision to stop supporting his upcoming film Kick-Ass 2 due to its violent content. Rather than the high moral ground he seeks,
President Barack Obama got plenty of aid from Hollywood during the 2012 election cycle in terms of both money and promotion, but he still needs their help. It seems his signature health care reform, ObamaCare, isn’t polling too well as
Questlove, the leader of The Roots, didn’t lose his job on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon even after he played a grossly insulting song to welcome Rep. Michele Bachmann on the show. When Questlove got into an oh, so mild
Jim Carrey already alienated a large swath of the movie going public by insulting Charlton Heston and mocking Second Amendment supporters with the callous music video Cold Dead Hand. Now, Carrey could be on thin ice with his Hollywood peers
Much is being made this weekend about the respectable box office performance of World War Z, and rightly so. The Brad Pitt zombie thriller cost more than $200 million, required reshoots and rewrites, and could have become the summer’s ghastliest
Far-left filmmaker Oliver Stone is mourning the loss of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as only the director can. He’s making a movie about the failed socialist leader. Chavez, who died earlier this year after a long battle with cancer,
Let’s pause and give The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill his due. The liberal war correspondent isn’t just firing off accusations from the comfort of his couch. He travels to the hottest spots in the world to file war dispatches, and with
Billy Crystal may not look like a grandfather, but the 65-year-old comic spends plenty of time these days chasing after his kids’ kids. Crystal tapped into those experience for his recent comedy Parental Guidance, a humorous clash between the generations.
The Daily Show isn’t letting up on President Barack Obama despite host Jon Stewart’s summer vacation. This week, fill-in anchor John Oliver torched Obama’s visit to Germany, daring to compare the president to a flailing, failing broadcast network. Oliver noted
James Gandolfini, who made Tony Soprano one of the most iconic characters across the television landscape, has died at the age of 51. The husky actor was in Italy at the time of his death. Deadline.com reports a heart attack
The Chinese bloggers featured in the new documentary High Tech, Low Life insist they are not breaking any laws. The reaction to their New Media reporting, however, casts a light on the country’s distrust of freedom as well as social and
Sick of all the sequels, reboots and remakes currently clogging theaters? You may be alone. The box office receipts for this summer’s movie slate are up more than 12 percent from last year, and the numbers put the season on
The Daily Show’s fill-in host John Oliver threw pounds of red meat at its liberal base Monday night. That meant insulting former Gov. Sarah Palin with an expletive-laced segment in which Oliver loosely compared the Tea Party favorite to excrement.
Barbara Walters grew up with a special needs sister, a family situation the reporter detailed with tenderness in her autobiography, Audition. Walters knows the hurt of hearing a loved one described in unflattering ways, yet she still rushed to Bill
Greed is good enough for a repeat performance this fall during the heart of Oscar season. The trailer for director Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street debuted this week, giving us a peek at another tale of corporate excess.
The makers of the upcoming CBS series Under the Dome figured they could add a splash of verisimilitude to their drama by dropping in audio of President Barack Obama. The network is now having second thoughts, and CBS editors have trimmed
Women showed they could be just as raunchy–and hilarious–as the men with the 2011 hit comedy Bridesmaids. Can women similarly crash the horror genre? If American Mary is any indication, a Bridesmaids-style breakthrough isn’t in the cards yet. Sisters Jen
Director Tim Burton had plans to shoot a remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory while doing the promotional push for the 2003 film Big Fish. This reporter, who considers the original Wonka a classic not easily duplicated, asked
A group supporting an open-borders policy on immigration is trying to use the nationwide release of Man of Steel to further its cause. We Are the American Way, a project from Define American, has a new site dubbed “Superman Is
Even those horrified by eco-terrorists might be curious to know what makes these radicals tick. The East, a new film from screenwriter/actress Brit Marling, barely scratches what could be a pretty interesting surface. Instead, the so-called thriller skimps on motivation,
Several A-listers are banding together to beg President Barack Obama to keep his word about seeking a world of nuclear weapons. Apparently, they’ve been cycling through the Superman movies to ready themselves for Man of Steel and stumbled upon Superman IV: The Quest
Dennis Prager chose Andrew Roberts to teach the latest Prager University course, in part, for the British historian’s moral clarity. “Some people and regimes and ideologies have inflicted unspeakable suffering on people and he knows that,” Prager says of the
The director of the new documentary Dirty Wars, a film detailing America’s secretive military tactics against Al Qaeda, says the country’s moral standing in the fight against terrorism is history. “We’ve lost every shred of credibility around the world, from
The slogan “Made in the U.S.A.” is far more than a patriotic platitude. It’s a rallying cry for the rejuvenation of the middle class. So argues filmmaker Josh Miller in Made in the U.S.A.: The 30-Day Journey, a new documentary
Will the fabled Tonight Show, once home to legendary host Johnny Carson, become a vehicle for Democrat-approved politicians? Future Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who famously allowed President Barack Obama to push his agenda via a “slow jam” news segment,
Is Jim Carrey’s penchant for insulting huge segments of the movie-going audience finally taking a toll on his career? The comic rocketed to fame with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and for a good decade rattled off comedy hit after hit
The 2012 documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry captured a Chinese activist whose ability to frustrate his country’s freedom-clamping policies made him a hero. Ai knows what it feels like to live in an oppressive state, which is why his new
Will Munny. Philo Beddoe. Walt Kowalski. Josey Wales. “Dirty” Harry Callahan. Clint Eastwood: 20 Film Collection, just released on Blu-ray by Warner Home Video, captures Eastwood in some of his most memorable performances as well as his best directorial efforts.
The new Man of Steel doesn’t shy away from the character’s American roots–despite our hero’s alien DNA. The film embraces it. That wasn’t necessarily the case with the 2006 film Superman Returns, a movie which mangled the character’s iconic line, “Truth,
When we last left heroic, truth-telling Republican anchor Will McAvoy he was telling viewers the Tea Party was the American Taliban. Just another day in the office for liberal storyteller Aaron Sorkin and his HBO drama The Newsroom. The trailer
Who knew Americans wouldn’t be eager to laugh about an Internet company at a time when our cyber-secrets are increasingly at risk? The Internship, the reunion of Wedding Crashers stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, debuted with a soft $18
Judd Apatow, the man behind such R-rated hits as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad, is as reliably left of center as most Hollywood denizens. The current headlines surrounding the National Security Agency’s aggressive domestic spying program have Apatow
The left thinks it may have found a way to stop Jay Leno from mocking President Barack Obama on a nightly basis from his Tonight Show perch. Thursday night’s Tonight Show episode found Leno cracking wise about the Big Brother-style
President Barack Obama’s name isn’t mentioned once during The Internship, a new comedy re-teaming Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn of Wedding Crashers fame. The message regarding the Obama economy, however, comes through loud and clear. It isn’t pretty. The film casts
Was it really more than five years ago when a charismatic senator from Illinois promised the most transparent administration ever along with many other lofty vows? For some Hollywood celebrities, 2008 might as well be last week to hear them
Famed screenwriter Paul Schrader is best known for penning Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but his contribution to the vigilante genre deserves special attention. Rolling Thunder, now available via a new Blu-ray release, expertly showcases a warrior’s return home that
