The 'Selma' Controversy And What It Says About Race In America

The Oscars this year are mired in controversy.

Many blacks involved in the industry (and others whom aren't)are highly upset that this years' nominees in the major categories are all white. And especially that  there weren't any Oscar nominations for director Ava DuVernay or lead actor David Oyelowo for the motion picture 'Selma'.

The new, trendy hashtag is #Oscarstoowhite, and of course, the cause has to be racism, since obviously blacks have never been nominated for Academy Awards, let alone won.

Much is also being made of the lack of diversity in the Academy and the film industry in general, even though the Academy's President is this woman,Cheryl Boone Isaacs:



She happens to be black, of course, but that doesn't matter. Never mind that she worked her way up through the ranks at Paramount to a position of Executive Vice President of a major division in the company, has a decades long career of accomplishment, has worked on a number of huge box office hits and was even inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame last year.

She's obviously just a token the industry put up there to cover for its racism. Because that's what serves the narrative just now.

Being that her role has a large public relations component, Ms. Boone Isaacs made the expected remarks about how Hollywood is seeking increased diversity in an attempt to call the dogs off, and it remains to be seen how well that works. But the fact that this became controversial at all shows us that as usual, a nation's popular culture reflects what's really going on.

What we're seeing here, essentially, is an attempt at special, race-based pleading. That's especially ironic in view of the who the film at the center of the controversy, 'Selma' is supposed to be lionizing.

So let's take a look at the film in question.

'Selma' is purportedly a film about the famous civil rights march in Alabama by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies, which included a number of whites, particularly Jews, whom also were instrumental in creating and financing the entire civil rights movement.

The actual founders of the NAACP were whites Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling, Henry Moskowitz, and black lecturer and author W.E.B. Dubois. Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise served prominently on the organization's board. Kivie Kaplan, a vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations actually served as the national president of the NAACP from 1966 to 1975

Another Jew, Stanley Levison was one of Dr.King's closest advisers and his speechwriter. And the key funder of civil rights organizations, among many others, was Julius Rosenwald, chairman of Sears Roebuck. Aside from his major contributions to civil rights organizations, twenty black colleges (including Howard, Dillard and Fisk universities) were established in whole or in part with his money.

And the Jews were definitely on the receiving end of racial violence because of their championing of civil rights.

In just a single year, from November 1957 through October 1958, synagogues and other Jewish communal centers were bombed in Atlanta, Nashville, Jack­sonville, and Miami, and undetonated dynamite was found under synagogues in Birmingham, Charlotte, and Gastonia, North Carolina. Out of the three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 for registering black voters, the incident portrayed on the screen in the film ' Mississippi Burning,' two of them, Michael Schwerner and An­drew Goodman, were Jews.

Without that help, the civil rights movement would have been delayed and possibly much less successful than it ultimately was for quite some time.



There were a lot of whites in Selma for the march that day, whom put their bodies on the line and faced the same brutality.

 

 

 



For instance the bearded man on your right next to Dr. King is Rabbi Abraham Heschel, one of King's chief supporters, who was by his side during the entire march. But you would never know that from watching "Selma."

Not only is he not mentioned or even pictured in the film he is literally erased, and so are Dr. King's other white allies, particularly Jews. And so is their role in what led up to Selma and to the march itself.

The film is deliberately slanted to avoid the reality. Instead of allies, almost all whites in the film are portrayed as demonic racists or cheering on the brutalizing of blacks at worse or as very occasional window dressing or tepid fence sitters at best, noticeably then-President Lyndon Johnson.

Ava DuVernay, the film's director openly told Rolling Stone in an interview that this was deliberate. “I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie,” she said.

So instead, she turned it into a racialist tome, even admitting to changing the script to portray LBJ as an obstructionist rather than the ally of King and the civil rights movement he actually was. And that's basically the entire view of the film. Rather than showing how decent people of all races united to defeat evil, it features graphic scenes of white on black violence and shows black triumph over the Evil Whites in a racialist scenario.

So, did 'Selma' rate any Academy Award nominations? Maybe, maybe not. But it definitely wasn't entitled to any Oscar nominations simply on the basis of the race of its director and lead actors, which is exactly what those angry at the Academy and its 7,000 members are livid about.

What's even worse and what bothers me the most is the film's hypocritical stance. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. devoted his entire life and ultimately sacrificed it for the idea that blacks and whites could live together in peace, and that people could be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

A film like 'Selma' could have been a tool to help that dream along and bring people of all races together, something that's badly needed just now.Instead, it was deliberately crafted to push people further apart along racial lines, and perhaps even to justify in some of its audience's eyes the current epidemic of black on white violence.

I'm sure that stance on the film didn't occur to most of the Academy voters minds, at least not consciously. And certainly no mainstream film critic would dare say it in today's hyper- racialized climate.

But that was indeed the message of the film 'Selma', and I'll leave it to you to decide whether it rates any kind of award.

Res ipsa loquitur...the thing speaks for itself.

J.K. Rowling Is Writing A New Harry Potter-inspired Movie Series

The Harry Potter author is returning to the world of witchcraft and fantasy again.

The first book in the new series is called  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which Rowling will adapt for her first-ever screenplay:

The film will center on Newt Scamander, who explored the wizarding world long before Harry's exploits. The press release adds that some of the new film's wizards and witches "will be familiar to devoted to Harry Potter fans."

In a statement, Rowling explained how her return to the Harry Potter universe came together:

It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them into a film. I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of Fantastic Beasts, realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood.

As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.

But Rowling also cautioned audiences against treating Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as a full-blown extension of the Harry Potter universe:

Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry’s gets underway.

It sounds like a prequel to me, but with Hollywood desperate for hits, it sounds like a winner, especially if the book sells. It probably will, since J.K. Rowling is one fine storyteller.

Top Obama Fundraiser To Release Bin Laden Film 2 Days Before The Election

What a coincidence, eh?

Harvey Weinstein, a prominent Obama fund raiser and bundler is going to release a film dramatizing the Osama bin-Laden raid that is scheduled to air - wait for it - November 4th, 2 days before the election:

A film dramatizing the death of Osama bin Laden is set to debut next month on the National Geographic Channel, two days before the presidential election.

“Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden,” from The Weinstein Co. and Voltage Pictures, will air Sunday, Nov. 4, the channel said. {...}

National Geographic Channel chose the film’s debut date to help promote the start of its fall season, channel President Howard T. Owens said Thursday.

“Harvey obviously doesn’t schedule our network,” Owens said. He added that the channel is “not political. We are opportunistic from a programming perspective.”

National Geographic Channel did take into account Weinstein’s desire to get out ahead of a competitive movie about the U.S. Navy SEALs’ hunt for the al-Qaida leader, Owens said.

“Zero Dark Thirty,” from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who won Oscars for “The Hurt Locker,” is scheduled to be released in theaters at the end of the year.

“Seal Team Six,” directed by John Stockwell (“Into the Blue”), also was intended for a big-screen release until the channel made what it called a “preemptive bid” for it. The film will be available to Netflix U.S. subscribers a day after its premiere.

Owens said he and Weinstein have a previous business relationship: Owens represented Miramax Television while working at the William Morris Agency.

Now it just so happens that Howard T. Owens is also an Obama supporter and donor. Just a coincidence of course.

So let's replay this scenario.

One Obama donor goes to his old agent, who's also an Obama donor. The first Obama donor has a first run movie ready to roll that he's spent millions (borrowed from one of the banks, actually) to make, but makes a deal to shelve his plans for a lucrative theater release in favor of a small screen debut on a relatively small cable network 'because he wanted to get out ahead of a competitive movie' that's not being released for 3 months...even though Weinstein obviously has his film already made and ready to go.

And just by coincidence, it airs the Sunday before the election!

Just for giggles, let's go Hollywood on this one.

A major, well connected donor to the campaign of a sitting president has a movie in the can that's ready for release. But instead of going to one of the majors for distribution, he contacts his pals working on the president's re-election campaign, shows them an advance copy of his movie and tells them, "I have a connection to get this released on cable the Sunday night before the election in prime time through my old agent. But I can't do this one as a freebie. I spent money on this, I need to at least pay the banks off and make a little profit. You wanna help each other out here?"

So the campaign pays of the major donor via the major donor's old buddy, now head of a small cable network. The donor's buddy, who also supports the president, is happy to help because not only does he assist the re-election campaign, he gets a first run movie to boost his ratings. And the donor gets his money and a major favor to call up in the future should he need it.

Badda-bam, badda-bing!

Now there's a script for you. After all, Weinstein obviously sold it once already.

Ambassador Susan Rice Pushes Obama's Failed Mideast Policy

America's UN Ambassador Susan Rice beclowned herself today talking to Jake Tapper on ABC's 'This Week':


U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told me this morning on “This Week” that the United States is not “impotent” in the face of violent anti-American protests sweeping the Muslim world.

After showing Rice a map of protests in 33 countries around the world in recent days, I asked Rice, “President Obama pledged to repair America’s relationships with the Muslim world. Why does the U.S. seem so impotent? And why is the U.S. even less popular today in some of these Muslim and Arab countries than it was four years ago?”

“We’re not impotent, we’re not even less popular, to challenge that assessment,” Rice said in response. “What happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi and many other parts of the region was a result, a direct result, of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting.”

Rice also claimed that the attacks in Libya were spontaneous, not pre-planned. And that there were no Marines stationed in Benghazi.

Let's examine this in a little detail. Our embassies in Tunis and in the Sudan have already been evacuated, and the Sudan refused to allow Marine forces into what is supposedly U.S. sovereign territory to defend our diplomats. Even our embassy in London was attacked. The security forces at our embassy in Cairo put there by the Muslim Brotherhood government the Obama Administration helped put in power in Egypt melted away at a precise time when the original Cairo attack occurred, and that government's original response was that the invasion of our embassy was 'regrettable' rather than an apology.

None of the Egyptian security guards who disappeared have been arrested, nor have any of the Libyan security guards who were supposed to be guarding our consulate in Benghazi. They not only fled without making any effort to defend our diplomats, but there's significant evidence they may have even told the mob where they could find the safe house the Americans were stashed in.

The Marine contingent guarding our embassy in Cairo was disarmed per the State department no matter how the Obama Administration tried to spin this. Anyone hear any reports of warning shots being fired or any casualties among the rioters?

And in Banghazi, in spite of what Ambassador Rice said, there were a handful of Marines present. They were likewise disarmed, and two of them were dragged to their deaths from the safe house and torn apart by the mob. Again, there are no reports of any casualties among the rioters, as there would have been if the Marines were armed.

The idea of not taking extra steps to protect American personnel on the anniversary of 9/11 after Osama bin-Laden's death was an intel screw up of monumental proportions.

I don't know what Ambassador Rice calls it, but I call it pretty impotent.

As for it not being preplanned, that beggars the imagination. All of these 'spontaneous' attacks occurred pretty much on the same date,the anniversary of 9/11. In Egypt, eye witnesses verified that the Egyptian security guards all vanished at the exact same time, leaving the embassy open to attack. Not one of them stood his ground to protect the embassy, nor have any of them been disciplined for not doing so.

In Libya, not only did the perpetrators admit this was pre-planned, but the coordinated attacks were obviously planned in advance.

The idea that this was sparked by a poorly made YouTube video is an insult to our intelligence. Not that I blame Ambassador Rice for that. Like White House spokeshole Jay Carney, she was ordered to open wide, take a bite of the crap sandwich and keep repeating 'it's the movie,the movie, the movie...'

Okay, fine, if it's a YouTube video cause all this mayhem, than one thing the White House needs to do immediately is pressure Sony not to release what amounts to a multi-million dollar campaign ad for President Obama, Director Karen Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," which celebrates the killing of Osama bin Laden.

As John Nolte over at Breitbart writes:

Think about it: if the poorly produced and laughably bad trailer for "The Innocence of Muslims" results in chaos, murder, and the burning of foreign outposts all throughout the Middle East, how much rioting and mayhem is a big-budgeted, slickly produced, Oscar-bait blockbuster celebrating the death of the leader of al-Qaeda going to cause?

Moreover, an excuse Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not be able to use in the case of "Zero Dark Thirty" (as she did with "Innocence of Muslims") is the cowardly and self-righteous claim that the federal government and the Obama White House had nothing to do with "Zero Dark Thirty."

Because the federal government and the Obama White House had everything to do with "Zero Dark Thirty."

As we now know, in an effort to get this glitzy in-kind contribution (tens of millions of dollars) up on the screen in time to affect the election, it was the Obama Administration that gave the filmmakers tons of encouragement and a troubling amount of access to all kinds of classified material.

Indeed they did.

Since it's movies that cause terrorism if you swallow the Obama Administration's narrative, then I expect the President and the Secretary of State to publicly call on Sony to shelve this movie. Because we wouldn't want to injure the sensibilities of Muslims and cause more mayhem, would we?

The Obama Campaign's October Surprise - With An Assist From The Hollywood Left

"Yeah, I got bin-Laden. Me, myself and I."

The Obama campaign has an October surprise planned for us. And among other things, it involved providing unprecedented access to classified material and giving access to a major special ops planner and commander to people without even a glimmer of a security clearance.

Documents acquired by Judicial Watch from the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA show that they were instructed by the White House to meet with Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of The Hurt Locker, and screenwriter Mark Boal (both Obama donors) provide them with access to classified material as well as the identity and access to a special ops planner and Commander of SEAL Team Six for the purpose of assisting Bigelow and Boal in finishing their upcoming Hollywood movie on the assassination of Osama bin-Laden.

Just by coincidence, that film, which will undoubtedly feature the president's 'gutsy' decision and portray him as a courageous leader is scheduled to hit the screen on..wait for it..October 16th, 2012. A couple of weeks before America goes to the polls:
“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”

It's bad enough that this is essentially a Hollywood produced campaign ad, and amounts to a multi-million dollar contribution in kind, forbidden by FEC rules.

Even worse, neither Bigelow or Boal have any kind of security clearance, nor does anyone involved in the making of this film who might have access to the classified information that was revealed as well as the identity and location of the SEAL commander. They could fall into the hands of the wrong people with distressing ease.

This president has said repeatedly that America is 'at war with al-Qaeda'. If you grant him that premise, can this be seen as treason, legally defined as aid and comfort to the enemy in war time? It could most assuredly be treason if it involved an enemy we'd had Congress declare war on as the Constitution mandates.

That aside, it's obvious we are dealing with people who care very little about the country or its security and everything about retaining power.

They will say or do anything to retain it.

Again, this is another story that ought to be a screaming headline for every news source in the country. Instead, it's been buried.

Sascha Baron Cohen As General Aladeen on AustralianTelevison - Absolutely Hilarious

Sascha Baron Cohen's new film 'The Dictator' where he plays a Middle Eastern tyrant premiers shortly, and he's in top form here as he appears in character on Australia's 'Today' show. Lots of very adult humor... ( h/t Aussie Dave)


Oh, and here's the trailer, which is hysterical in its own right.

Bill Maher Shows 'Welfare Queen' Video HBO Refused To

Last week, HBO ran a controversial video showing white Mississippians who essentially fit the Leftist stereotype of 'toothless,racist rednecks' saying inflammatory things about President Obama. The video was made by Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter.

She then made another video showing multiple welfare recipients in New York City proclaiming they were at the welfare office to get their "Obama bucks" and that they supported Obama because he "gives me stuff."

According to Ms. Pelosi, HBO balked at showing the second video. Nevertheless, to her credit and Bill Maher's, they pushed back and showed the video anyway, and Ms. Pelosi had a number of intelligent things to say about the entitlement culture that goes with it.

As expected, the majority of the recipients were black, and made the predictable remarks about it being reparations for slavery, and also as expected, Maher recognized that as 'more authentic' than the white Mississippian's 'chip on their shoulders' he put it. He obviously needs a few history lessons, but he's certainly entitled.

But again, they did show both videos. And the reaction of Maher's audience, largely Lefties was interesting, catcalls and laughter during the clips of the white Mississippians and dead silence after the welfare recipients video underlines what both Pelosi and Maher said.

We've gotten to the point where the extremes, manipulated by cynical politicians, are driving the narrative to the detriment of the majority.

It's a pity that neither Pelosi nor Maher were willing to look at a lot of the divisive and even racist rhetoric the Obama Administration and its surrogates are using as one of the prime culprits, but let's take the small victories where we can.

(h/t,Breitbart.com)

Rep. Alllen West Roasts A Black Hollywood Lefty

Oooh, this is a good one. Actor Samuel L. Jackson decided to take a shot at Republicans and the Tea Party, saying essentially that President Obama's race was the name of the game. Watch how Rep. Allen West gives it to him:

“Samuel L. Jackson, I guess, disregards the 16.7 percent unemployment rate in the black community, a 20 percent unemployment rate for black adult males and a 45-46 percent unemployment for black teenagers,” the Florida Republican said. “I think the racism that he is talking about is coming out of the White House and this administration.”

( hat tip Breibart's Big Hollywood via long time Joshua's Army member Louie Louie)

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Bristol Palin Faces Down Heckler Calling Her Mom ' Whore', 'Devil'

( warning: NSFW language)

Bristol Palin was filming some footage for her reality show and riding a mechanical bull at the Saddle Ranch bar and restaurant in West Hollywood when one of the patrons began cursing her and her mother out.

"“Did you ride Levi like that? Your mother is a whore! Your mother is a f***ing devil!” he shouts.

Governor Palin apparently didn't raise any cowardly children, because she strides over, confronts this low life and asks him point blank why he would say that about her mother. "Because she's evil...if there's a Hell she's f**king going there" he yells at her.

Palin asks him, “Is it because you’re a homosexual and that’s why you hate her?”

“Pretty much … and why’d you say I’m a homosexual?” he responds.

“Because I can tell you are,” Bristol says.

(For the uninitiated, West Hollywood's nickname among L.A. residents is Boys Town, because of the large and aggressive homosexual community there. Gays of a certain type are not that hard to spot in that neighborhood)

“You’re f***ing white trash from Wasila!” he screams as she leaves with her production crew. “F*** you, you f***ing b***h!”

Of course,it should be said that if Ms. Palin is going to cruise the sewer filming her reality show, she's going to run into cowardly rats - like this one.He must have had a lot of beer to get his courage up to the point where he could shout obscenities at a young girl about her and her mother who was doing him absolutely no harm whatsoever.

Classy.

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Quote Of The Day....

Hollywood wasn’t AWOL in the War on Terror. In fact, just the opposite is true. Hollywood summoned every ounce of financial and star power at their disposal to fight this war.

Unfortunately, they chose to fight for the other side.

- John Nolte, 9/11/11, writing in Andrew Breibart's Big Hollywood

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Margaret Thatcher Film Bio - Inaccurate, Revolting And Heartless

The new film bio of former British PM Margaret Thatcher has been screened, and friends of Baroness Thatcher are outraged.

Friends of Margaret Thatcher last night expressed their revulsion at a new film that shows her having nightmares about the miners’ strike and the Falklands War, while her late husband Denis appears as a ghost in a pink turban raging at her -‘insufferable’ selfishness.

Viewers invited to an early screening of the film, The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as the former Prime Minister and Jim Broadbent as Sir Denis, were aghast at the way that it mocks her frail condition in recent years.One called it ‘insulting’. Another said: ‘I didn’t come here to see a film about granny going mad.’

Apparently the film shows Baroness Thatcher as a hallucinating, crazed old lady tortured by visions of her supposed 'mistakes' and by her dead husband's cruelty.

As the Mirror points out, in real life,the Thatchers were a devoted and loving couple.

Friends of Lady Thatcher are also furious at the timing of the film, which is due to be released in January. The former Prime Minister has been forced to give up ¬public appearances following a series of strokes and is so poorly she was unable to attend the unveiling of a statue of her political ally Ronald Reagan in London last month.

Conservative MP Conor Burns, one of her closest confidants, said last night: ‘Any portrayal of Margaret Thatcher that does not show her as one of the titans of British politics in the 20th Century will be a travesty.

‘The idea that Denis would ever have been cruel to her is twisted and untrue. They were devoted.’

Not only does the film mischaracterize her personal family life, but it's riddled with historical inaccuracies as well if reports from the screening are accurate. It's one thing to do this to someone when they're dead, but its the height of insensitivity and cruelty to torture someone like this when they're infirm and incapable of fighting back.

They would never have dared to do it back when Baroness Thatcher was in her fighting trim, a warrior queen who scared the pants off of Britain's socialist establishment by pointing out loudly and clearly what they were doing to her country and where it would ultimately lead. She was entirely right about them. They've never forgiven her for that.

As Baroness Thatcher herself once said: "I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Embroiled in Scandal Over Love Child With Employee

Ah, well.

For those of you wondering what happened to the Schwartzenegger's 25-year marriage, it's apparently surfaced that the Gubernator had a child with a longtime member of his household staff.

Apparently his wife, Maria Shriver Schwartzenegger, moved out of their Brentwood mansion earlier this year after she found out about it, confronted Ah-nold and he admitted that the child was his.

Apparently Governor Schwartzenegger spilled the sauerkraut himself:

"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said Monday night in a statement issued to The Times in response to questions. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.

Apparently the Gubernator did the proper thing, acknowledged paternity and contributed financial support for the child right from the start. I can't imagine how he kept this quiet for so long.

Hopefully they'll patch things up, but it looks dicey.

Ann Coulter, of course, has the last word: "It's official. Arnold's a Kennedy."

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Chuck Berry Falls Ill During Chicago Show

The brown-eyed handsome man may finally be winding down.

About an hour into a New year's Eve show at the Congress Theater in Chicago,Chuck Berry had to be helped off stage after he simply ran out of gas and collapsed over his accompanist's piano.

He apparently signed a release and declined to be hospitalized. The last report is that he's resting comfortably at his St. Louis home.

Chuck Berry at 84 is in semi-retirement these days, but he still plays out regularly and had just finished two shows in New York City the night before. That legendary vitality of his may finally be wearing down.

I hope not..almost all of the old rockn'rollers have passed on to that Great Concert in the Sky, and when they're gone something unique will have gone with them.There's always been an ageless quality to Berry, something about that old spine and leg catharsis that still seems young, powerful and ageless.

Two personal memories of Chuck Berry...two sides of the same coin.

A hot, humid summer night on the road, checking into a hotel in the Midwest, the name and exact place lost in the memory banks. Not a roach hole or a five star, but the sort of moderately priced place you stay at if you're on tour and trying to keep the costs down.

And who should I see checking out and headed towards the door with a guitar case and a small, black, travel bag in hand than Chuck Berry.

I walked over, ascertained that it really was him, introduced myself politely, told him what band I was playing with and made a remark about how much I loved his music. The response? "Thanks, kid" and then out the door..no smile, no chit chat, no handshake, no nuthin'. It was as if I had insulted him somehow, it was that detached and frigid.

I shrugged, and went back to the hotel desk.

Take two...a night at the Aquarius theater in Hollywood, at a filming of the old TV show, 'In Concert'. I was there courtesy of a backstage pass from the manager one of the eminently forgettable bands set to be filmed that night, some of them with actual records on the radio and in the charts.

Loads of roadies and plenty of heavy duty equipment, Marshall stacks, huge drumsets, big hair, flashpots and pyrotechnics, nubile young ladies checking out the bulges in the spandex, a slight smell of marijuana in the air, schmoozing and those little white lines laid out backstage...a typical concert scene for the times.

One by one, the bands came on, did their shtick, and all got a nice, enthusiastic response from the crowd.

And then out walked a fifty-ish Chuck Berry...one small Fender Twin amp, one guitar, and an obvious pickup band consisting of a bass player and a drummer, probably hired for scale from the local union for that night's show.

What happened next was sheer magic.

Chuck checked his tuning..and then he did one of those metallic signature intros to 'Johnny B. Goode', and the left foot came down.

Within ten minutes, he had the whole theater shaking, literally.

Most of that night's audience were probably still in diapers when most of the songs he played that night first came out, but there was something magically seminal about it that just connected.

Security tried to keep people from crowding the stage and dancing in the aisles, but it was a losing battle and they just gave up after awhile. And me, I just stood in the wings and marveled.

This was the true, anarchistic spirit of rock 'n roll unleashed and it didn't sound like an oldies show in the least..it sounded new, wild and untamed, and I could catch a glimpse of how it must have hit the teenyboppers at places like the old Brooklyn Paramount right between the eyes back when Chuck, Jerry Lee, Buddy and Elvis laid it on them in the fifties.




One guy, a guitar, an amp and a two man rhythm section. It was perfect.

The band that appeared after Chuck finished with the crowd looked positively ill by comparison, and seemed glad to just get the whole ordeal over with. A real, actual case of the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu perhaps, and I betcha it wasn't the first time Chuck Berry gave that particular version of the disease to somebody scheduled to follow him on stage.

I have a soundboard tape of what went down that night, and it's one of the things I still listen to when I want to remember what real live rockn'roll sounds like.

Get well soon, Mr. Berry.

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George Lucas - Use Digitally Recreated Dead Actors For New Movies!

Star Wars producer George Lucas has a new project - he's buying "the film rights to dead actors" so he can resurrect them virtually for upcoming movies.

It's an interesting concept, although I'm sure SAG will co absolutely ape-poopy.

Imagine a film out starring James Dean or Humphrey Bogart, with their digital images created by CGI 'acting' in Hollywood's latest garbage output and moving and mouthing the dialog put into their mouths by the latest generation of filmakers...

Or even worse, imagine remakes and sequels using classic actors instead of today's....could you picture Liz Taylor or Ava Gardner in Laura Croft: Tomb Raider or Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable in Brokeback Mountain? Yeeech!

Your thoughts on any particularly funny pairings?

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A Factual Smackdown For The New Valerie Plame Movie - From The Washington Post!

The final end to the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame scam comes from, of all places, the editors of the Washington Post, who dubs "Fair Game" the new movie that attempts to make heroes out of them, 'Hollywood myth-making':

Joseph C. Wilson IV and former spy Valerie Plame, claim that it tells the true story of their battle with the Bush administration over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Ms. Plame's exposure as a CIA agent. "It's accurate," Ms. Plame told The Post. Said Mr. Wilson: "For people who have short memories or don't read, this is the only way they will remember that period."

We certainly hope that is not the case. In fact, "Fair Game," based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson's reporting did not affect the intelligence community's view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush's statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

The British investigation the Post mentions was the Butler Commission, which still stands resolutely by it's findings.

The Post also debunks the story pushed in "Fair Game" that Valerie Plame's 'exposure' was the result of a White House conspiracy. Aside from the fact that her employment with the CIA was known to her neighbors and was not covert in any sense of the word, the investigation by a special prosecutor the Post dubs 'lengthy and wasteful' not only found there was no conspiracy,but that the person who leaked Plame's identity was Richard Armitage, who worked for the State Department - not the White House.

And then, there's this surprising finish:

Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; "Fair Game" is just one more example. But the film's reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth - not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife - the myth endures. We'll join the former president in hoping that future historians get it right.

Sort of pops the 'Bush lied, people died' balloon quite nicely no? A pity it took so long.

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Even Hollywood Eventually Gets It - New Reagan Biopic Planned

And the outward signs are that it's not going to be the usual Leftard hit job.

The feature film, tentatively titled "Reagan" reportedly has a $30 million production budget and will be set for release late in 2011. It's going to be based on two best-selling biographies of the 40th U.S. president by Paul Kengor: "The Crusader" and "God and Ronald Reagan."

Jonas McCord is slated to write the script. His credits include "Malice" and "The Body". While he claims not to have been a fan of President Reagan's, he claims to have been won over as he researched the former president's life.

Too bad my friend Robert Avrech wasn't given the gig...we'd be talking Oscar for best screenplay.

The film reportedly begins with the 1981 assassination attempt on the president and then tells his life in a series of flashbacks.

The last attempt to tell Reagan's story was a sleazy mini-series entitled "The Reagans" miniseries which starred Babs Streisand's husband James Brolin as Reagan and was done by CBS. Once people found out what a left wing hit job it was, it was relegated to Showtime, where it flopped.

Mark Joseph, who optioned the books four years ago, is co-producing with Ralph Winter.

Winter's producing credits include four "X-Men" movies, two "Fantastic Four" movies and the 2001 remake of "Planet of the Apes." Joseph, a marketing and development executive, worked on "Ray," "Holes," "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "The Passion of the Christ."

"Only in Hollywood could you make an insulting, condescending movie about a much-loved historical figure, hire an actor who loathes the man, watch it flop and then somehow conclude that Americans don't want to see a movie about him," Joseph said. "I watched Americans line up and wait for 10 hours for the simple privilege of passing by his closed casket. They love this man."

"This is a great story. I'm just glad no one else in Hollywood thinks so, or they'd have made this film by now."

Can Hollywood make a suitable picture about a great president and an American hero? We'll see.

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