Monthly Archives: January 2010

Live-blogging Obama’s State of the Union Address

January 26, 2010
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Live-blogging Obama’s State of the Union Address

President Obama will be delivering his first State of the Union address on Wednesday night — and it should be an interesting address in the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle and the collapse of ObamaCare in Congress. Certainly, the speech-writers have been working overtime this week to make the proper (and, hopefully, humblng) adjustments. The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank peopled by scholars of a libertarian bent, is going to be live-blogging Obama’s speech. It will be using the “Cover it Live” program, which means you can join in the fun with your own comments as you watch the address on TV. Go to InfoTech & Telecom News to get an email reminder of the event, and/or just show up there (or at any of Heartland’s other publication sites) just before the speech starts at 9 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. PST. It should a good time as Heartland scholars show off their wit, wisdom and fact-checking skills.

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Hokey but Likable ‘Spy Next Door’ Emphasizes Good Values

January 25, 2010
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Hokey but Likable ‘Spy Next Door’ Emphasizes Good Values

Jackie Chan has always been among the most amiable and intentionally comical of action film stars, and his latest theatrical release, The Spy Next Door, exemplifies the movement toward a stronger comedy and “family” element his films have taken in the past couple of decades. To be sure, Chan’s movies have always been filled with comedy, with gags often suffusing the action scenes, and the values they convey have always been very positive. But in The Spy Next Door the trend toward more comedy and fewer fight scenes and stunt sequences has solidified, as indicated by his character’s name: Bob Ho. As he ages, Chan is becoming more of a general film actor and less of an action star. His difficulties in pronouncing English prevent him from taking on truly serious roles, for which we can perhaps be thankful, as there does not appear to be any shortage of actors willing and able to fill them adequately. Chan is immensely amiable and can still do impressive things as a physical performer. The Spy Next Door shows that even in his fifties he is willing to undertake action sequences other actors wisely avoid or leave to stunt doubles. His current film

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Citizens United v. FEC: A Great Victory for Liberty

January 25, 2010
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Citizens United v. FEC: A Great Victory for Liberty

There is a lot of ore to mine in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision last week that rightly (and finally) eviscerated the noxious and unconstitutional McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. But let’s start with the big picture: This is a tremendous victory for free speech rights. The Supreme Court reconstituted the public’s right to express its political opinions when it matters most, during the last weeks of an election — though it’s troubling that the decision was a bare 5-4 count. That said, even a narrow triumph for liberty is still a victory to be celebrated. But in all the hubbub, many have lost sight of the specific controversy in question. Before this decision, a single unelected federal bureaucracy (the FEC), declared it a crime for a conservative nonprofit organization to allow the public to see a film called “Hillary: The Movie.” Citizen’s United, technically a corporation (but a tiny one), wanted to express its view that Hillary Clinton would be a terrible president. Because Citizens United wanted to express that view when it would be most relevant — when Hillary was competing in the Democratic primaries — it could not be permitted. Let’s boil it

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Andrew Klavan’s Latest Novel and a Possible Film

January 23, 2010
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Andrew Klavan’s Latest Novel and a Possible Film

Andrew Klavan has announced the end of “Klavan on the Culture.” I’m not talking about his bitingly satirical videos he produces for PJTV. Nor is he stepping out of writing brief commentary on Al Gore’s invention. You can still find his opinion on cultural and political matters at the revamped AndrewKlavan.com. Rather, Andrew has stopped updated his Pajamas Media blog. His run among the Pajamas Media bloggers may be ending, but that does not mean Andrew is slacking. Far from it. On the fiction side of things, his second book in the Homelanders series, The Long Way Home, will be released in February 2010. I’m diggin’ the summary: Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn’t know whose side he’s one or who he can trust. With his pursuers closing in on every side, Charlie makes his way back to his hometown to find some answers. There, holed up in an abandoned mansion, he’s joined by his friends in a desperate attempt to discover the truth about a murder he

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TCM Thrillers (January 25 – 31)

January 23, 2010
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TCM Thrillers (January 25 – 31)

This week: * Monday—Alec Guinness kills ‘em with kindness. * Tuesday—Treachery in Stockholm—so what else is new? * Wednesday—My son, the Commie. * Thursday—Richard Widmark drives everybody crazy—even people he’ll never see. * Friday—Joan Crawford wears the pants, the gun, and a scowl. * Saturday—Miss Marple investigates a … cat? * Sunday—Tony Randall magically metamorphoses. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Monday—January 25th 4:45 AM—The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935) A British aristocrat’s effete facade masks a swashbuckling hero rescuing victims of the French Revolution. Cast: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey. Dir: Harold Young. BW-98 mins, TV-G 6:30 AM—Alibi (1929) A mobster kills a police officer and uses the victim’s daughter as his alibi. Cast: Chester Morris, Mae Busch, Regis Toomey. Dir: Roland West. BW-83 mins, TV-PG 9:45 AM—The Whole Town’s Talking (1935) A gangster hides from the law by trading places with a mild-mannered double. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Wallace Ford. Dir: John Ford. BW-92 mins, TV-G, CC 1:30 PM—The Long Night (1947) A veteran tries to free his former love from a sadistic lover. Cast: Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price. Dir: Anatole Litvak. BW-97 mins, TV-G 3:15 PM—The Ladykillers (1955) An eccentric bandit gang moves into a little old lady’s

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Feminist Thrillers by Vera Caspary

January 22, 2010
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Feminist Thrillers by Vera Caspary

The Murder in the Stork Club and Other Mysteries by Vera Caspary (1899 – 1987) Edited by A. B. Emrys Crippen & Landru Publishers Paper: 237 pages ISBN (cloth): 978-1-932009-3-85-9 … (paper): 978-1-932009-86-6 $29.00 (cloth) … $19.00 (paper) Through lowered lashes she studied the handsome face, thinking how little she knew of the mind behind that splendid façade. With all of the intimacy and compassion, she had never understood him, never dreamed of the scheming and deceit concealed by his facile charm. “You said that you could kill me, remember?” Vera Caspary is remembered nowadays primarily for her novel Laura, which became the basis for an enormously popular motion picture in the 1940s. In common with Laura, the stories in this fine Crippen & Landru collection feature ambitious young women struggling to make it in what used to be called a man’s world. Caspary’s feminism (the word itself even appears in one story) seems to have been informed by her political outlook, which worldview pervades her fiction. For her, women are constantly in a class struggle with the male power structure. Moreover, any wealthy person, man or woman, who didn’t start at the bottom and work their way to the

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Fiction Friday’s focus on Robert B. Parker

January 22, 2010
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Fiction Friday’s focus on Robert B. Parker

On Monday, Janaury 18, 2010 Robert B. Parker joined Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane in that great heavenly mystery writer’s group. A massive heart attack struck Robert Parker down while seated at his desk working on his latest novel. This week’s issue of The Culture Alliance’s Fiction Friday newsletter focused on Mr. Parker’s work. Tom Nolan, editor of Ross Macdonald’s The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator, notes that Parker “revivified the P.I. genre” building upon aspects of the genre’s greats: he bantering dialogue of Raymond Chandler, the concern for young people expressed by Ross Macdonald, the swift action of Dashiell Hammett, even the violence of Mickey Spillane. Nolan continues: He wrote dialogue that at once informed, amused and gave a sense of character; and he conjured characters a reader wanted to spend more time with—especially Spenser, a fixed point in a footloose world, take him or leave him. A pragmatist whose ethics were situational. A tough and decent type who did what needed to be done in the service of a moral cause, affirming the worth of the individual regardless of race, sexual orientation, social status, age or occupation. He

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‘Air America’ Bankrupt, Shutting Down

January 22, 2010
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‘Air America’ Bankrupt, Shutting Down

Radio audiences give loud ‘no’ to progressive politics.

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New ’24′ Season Exemplifies Show’s Strengths

January 21, 2010
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New ’24′ Season Exemplifies Show’s Strengths

The Fox Network’s venerable action-drama series 24, now in its eighth year, has always had to perform a very difficult balancing act: trying to surprise viewers who expect to be surprised, while somehow staying sufficiently connected with reality to sustain viewer interest. In addition, the showmakers have to try to remain somewhat near the extremely high standard established by seasons 2 and 3, in which they expertly blended political relevance, suspenseful drama, theater-quality action sequences, and vivid characters who continually surprise us with their choices without ever bogging down in unnecessary pretensions to psychological depth. This latter characteristic is a key element of the show’s success. Like real human beings, the characters in 24 are motivated largely by present concerns while filtering them through their individual experiences and personalities. In conventional suspense literature and filmed dramas of our time, the central characters typically are given some traumatic events in the recent or distant past which they are trying to work through and over which they agonize as the present narrative events remind them of it. Of course such things do happen in real life, and they are present in 24, but the use of it as a convention becomes more

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New Eps of ‘Top Gear’

January 20, 2010
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Fast cars, crazy challenges, and merciless mockery of statism and elitists: the UK series Top Gear airs on BBC America Mondays at 8 EST.  Click here for more info.

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DeMille on Rights, Liberty, and the Right to Work

January 19, 2010
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DeMille on Rights, Liberty, and the Right to Work

The late Cecil B. DeMille was not only an underappreciated master filmmaker but also a very serious thinker. In fact, the latter was what caused the former: his devotion to free markets, individual liberty, and opposition to communism incensed film critics during the 1950s and thereafter, and in a predictably petty way they refused to accord full recognition of his accomplishments as a filmmaker. A very good example of DeMille’s social and political thought is now on display at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website. “The Right to Work” is a reprinting of DeMille’s testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor in 1948, and in it DeMille makes a strong case that the federal government’s favoritism toward labor unions denies people their inalienable right to work. DeMille begins with a strong statement of support for the classical liberal concern for the rights of the individual : My concern is for the individual. . . . The touchstone for any law—or any government, anywhere in the world—is the question: How does individual freedom fare? In many parts of the world, the freedom of the individual has been set back by centuries. Mussolini is dead, but his fascist idea lives—the

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Book of Eli: A Powerful Glimpse at a Godless World

January 19, 2010
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Book of Eli: A Powerful Glimpse at a Godless World

The Hughes Brothers, Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman just might have created the anti-Avatar. The Book of Eli is an incredibly dark yet moving film. It is a powerful exploration of how far one man would go guided by an indomitable will and an unwavering faith. Albert and Allen Hughes pay homage to the classic Western in their post-apocalyptic vision. Denzel Washington is the man with no name, dubbed Eli because inside his backpack is a name tag that reads, “Hi, My name is Eli.” We never know whether that’s his real name. We do learn, however, that he is traveling West with the last known copy of Bible. Mobs destroyed all others because they believed the Bible caused a war that ravaged the planet. America is a nightmare landscape filled with cannibalistic gangs. On his journey, Eli wanders into a town controlled by the ruthless Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie, however, is not your average thug. He is a book-loving thug with a mission. His greatest desire is a copy of the Bible, which he’ll use to “run the hearts and minds of the weak and desperate” as he rebuilds civilization in his image. Outstanding performances, brilliant film work and

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