The Sorry State of Stand-Up in America

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BRAVE AS A COMEDIAN IN TODAY’S WORLD?

The Role Mark Hamill Was Born to Play

Hollywood Does Ukraine Reality Show

Hollywood & Israel

Investigation

The Israel Files: Wikileaks Docs Show Top Hollywood Producers Working with Israel to Defend its War Crimes

“We must make sure that never happens again”, insisted producer Ron Rotholz. Rotholz, however, was not referring to the death and destruction Israel imposed on Gaza, but to the fact that many of the entertainment world’s biggest stars, including celebrity power couple, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, had condemned Israel’s actions, labeling them tantamount to “genocide.”

See also:

Propaganda in the Cinema (101)

New Standard For State-Orchestrated, Pro-Military, Mass Indoctrination

Top Gun 2 Sets New Standard For State-Orchestrated, Pro-Military, Mass Indoctrination

Top Gun 2: Endless Propaganda Of Course

Hollywood is operating as its propaganda machine

Top Gun for hire: why Hollywood is the US military’s best wingman

“Productions love us because we provide authenticity and credibility. And also, they get substantial cost savings. …Applicants must submit their entire script for approval, and accept any changes required.”

According to estimates, recruitment across the US military jumped by 500% that year.

Also:

Propaganda in the Cinema

And, they ARE recruitng in movie theaters now (just like in my book!)

OMG you can’t make this up 😂 https://t.co/8cEni5wkpm pic.twitter.com/KQouoxMr5Q

— Ian TB (@ian_tb03) May 27, 2022

So…who’s gonna tell’em…?😆 #TopGun #aviation #pilot #FighterPilot pic.twitter.com/wCzHs7I1ki

— @miami_rick ✈️🇺🇸 (@miami_rick) May 28, 2022

Cult Classic: Wag the Dog

This film came out long before this blog existed, and so there was no entry for it. I was critical of the film for not going far enough, but it is required viewing today. Get it.

STREAM ONLINE

It is, of course, a satire about American propaganda and gullibility when it comes to WAR.

Utterly Insane Nuclear War Propaganda From Sean Penn

Another Hollywood brain turned to malignant mush.

“Hollywood is Full of CIA Agents”

Covert Action Quarterly:

“Hollywood is Full of CIA Agents,” Says Ben Affleck

Don’t Look Up at the Partisan Puppet Masters

This disjointed experience (experiment) is tonally inconsistent and jumpy. But the part I had trouble with was the politics underlying it. There seemed a battle of wills for control of the narrative, and the film suffered because of it.

They tried to tell three different movies in this thing, and two of them I’m fine with. The third was cheesy and frankly dishonest.

In the good columns we have a disaster movie, a truly satirical apocalypse tale. We also have a family drama and stardom, relationships and the strains beneath the media spotlight. Then we have the third movie: Orange Man Bad and everything is because of Trump–excuse me–Meryl Streep.

The crass dishonesty of painting one party as the problem and the other as the “science” brigade is a whopper. Since both parties are fully responsible for the global warming issue and metaphor that sparked DiCaprio in the first place. When both parties are doing it, you can’t just make it one party’s blame because that’s glaringly dishonest. People can see through that.

Let’s bring it back to facts right now:

Obama: "Suddenly America is the largest oil producer, that was me people … say thank you." pic.twitter.com/VfQfX1SR0x

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 28, 2018

The Biden administration said its drilling-lease spree in the Gulf was court-ordered. It wasn’t.

---

I think we all also remember that Biden’s son Hunter was fracking gas in Ukraine… for some reason.

In what way is this fossil-fuel industry simply the Republican party? When filmmakers refuse to even look at the depredations of their own team–oh wait–that’s the central plot of this film!

And now we’ve achieved some staggering hypocrisy. I do believe political hacks from the blue team were involved in shaping the story and making it partisan. Perhaps Adam McKay, or perhaps David Sirota, or perhaps the people with the large budget for filming this thing.

But, of course, I love Jennifer Lawrence and so all sins are forgotten, almost. DiCaprio was very good as well. It’s a mixed-up-bag.

I could have used more dark humor. We had a Strangelove event but no Kubrick. No Kubrick.

Why I Wrote It: Hell of a Deal, A Supernatural Satire

Joe Giambrone, publisher of Political Film Blog

Hell of a Deal was the first book I decided to publish, back in 2009. It is a satire of the “War on Terror” and Hollywood’s incessant propaganda to push empire, domination, torture, and war crimes. Hollywood, quite frankly, sickened me to my core and I had to respond in some way.

This book is more Gulliver than John Wick, more Faust than Charlie’s Angels. At the start, I wanted so badly to crucify the main guy, Executive Producer Al Smith. He was to represent the worst of Hollywood profiteering at the cost of all our souls. After hitting the movie lottery in the late 60s, his career evolved over the decades to promote more extreme degradation and nationalism, especially as we entered the Age of Terror. And that’s where Seaford stepped in.

The story needed a guy to push the envelope, to abandon the self-imposed limitations, which Hollywood had placed on itself, and to see how far these trends could go. So, as the title implied, it was literally about a deal–a movie deal. Only, nothing was what it seemed. The deal was not about money, and profit was the last thing Seaford cared about. It was all about the messaging, the propaganda, the final cut, the access into your brains.

By the time Seaford arrived on the movie scene, Al Smith was already old and on his last legs. He was dying. His time was over, almost. There was one thing that could possibly turn things around for him, and that was medical science. This was what Seaford brought to the table: “Youth.”

These pieces all fit together like a well-oiled machine. Just thinking on it, I knew I had something special here. Firstly, I had something to say. Secondly, I had a Faustian bargain plot like no one had ever seen before. In this Faustian story, things are meant to look one way, fairly normal even in the current normality. But things were far from normal.

As I said, I wanted Al Smith to suffer, but strangely that only brought the story so far. The story itself cried out for some kind of redemption. Could I flip everything and become sympathetic to Smith? What would he need to do?

In the end, perhaps some might think him redeemed. Others not. It’s potentially ambiguous, and with a big Hollywood ending.

Read:

Hell of a Deal

Rampant Theft of Screenplays in Hollywood?

Maybe. This guy says he was ripped off three times.