More on those Hollywood wizards and their knack for reading their audience:

Hollywood misreads response to War On Terror

Critics say the films' failure shows just how badly Hollywood has misread Americans' response to the war on terror, confusing "the public's war-weariness with their own carefully cultivated rage", as Jonah Goldberg, in the Houston Chronicle, put it.

"Hollywood and the left generally have misread this political discontent thinking there's a mandate for their trite Vietnam-era nostalgia for mass protest and Joan Baez specifying," he wrote.

"But few Americans are eager to spend their money to listen to the Jane Fonda set say, 'I told you so!' for two hours."

My personal fave:
Directors say war films make up for poor reporting

Brilliant! I know that if you are like me, you want to get your news by paying ten bucks to sit in a movie theatre and munch your popcorn while you get "real reporting" from people who are supposed to be paid to entertain you. No wonder these flicks are doing boffo biz.

"There is a very big difference between the Vietnam war, where we saw the pictures, and the Iraq war, where we don't," De Palma told Reuters at the Venice Film Festival, where "Redacted" premiered and where he won the best director award.

No pictures? What fucking rock have you been hiding under, Mr. DePalma?

Iraq Combat

or if you prefer (and I am sure many will):

Abu Ghraib

Haditha

Hollywood Asks

Why don't these stupid, disgusting, evil, criminal moviegoers want to go see movies about the evil, disgusting deeds of their criminal government and stupid troops?

Grosses

Rendition $9,664,316
Lions for Lambs $7,913,999
In the Valley of Elah $6,727,968
Redacted TBD

Here's a hint:

Movigoers speak out


Roger Simon provides the straight goods:

These people represent a fair percentage of the (absent) audience. For years Hollywood insiders would joke about the cluelessness of the “flyover people” between the two coasts. But reading these comments, the flyover people, whether foreign or domestic, seem so much more intelligent than the Hollywood wags quoted in the article, it borders on the pathetic.

In fact, the box office debacle should be no surprise to anyone who had been paying the slightest attention, so the question is: Why was and is Hollywood so clueless?

Simon, a screewriter himself, tells us about the Hollywood establishment:

These are not curious people because they are highly self-protective. They live a hugely privileged lifestyle, often based to a great degree on luck (and they know it), and this existence could only be threatened by contradictory information. Who wants that – particularly when it would alienate your colleagues, hurt your reputation and cause work problems?

Better to produce movies that validate the orthodoxy, even if they are economic disasters. Your colleagues will be impressed and you might win a prize (De Palma did – at Venice). Most of them are low budget anyway – a piffle. And the distribution system is rigged anyway. The antiwar swill won’t lose that much money because, boring as the films may be, they will be force-fed into the global entertainment machine, grouped in packages with other movies and sold to foreign television distributors to re-emerge as late-night reruns in Albania or wherever on into 2027 and beyond. A minor loss, if any.

Viva El Rey!

I just saw Hugo Chavez get told off by the King of Spain, and it was awesome:



It's really just fantastic to behold. Here we have a paranoid buffoon unaccustomed to being challenged finally getting a dressing-down in a public forum --and by a President and a King, no less! This is what happens when some two-bit leftist thug starts to believe his own press and steps out of line in an international forum.

First Prime Minister Zapatero --and I am no big fan, incidentally --rounded on the Venezuelan leader and objected to Chavez speaking ill of Aznar, his predecessor.

"Not that I am close to Aznar ideologically, but ex-President Aznar was elected by the Spanish people... and I expect you to show respect..."

And then, as he continues to interrupt, even with his mike cut off (class act, that Chavez), the King angrily chastises him...

"Why don't you just shut up!"

...well, needless to say, I'm sure he was startled by the tongue-lashing. Would anyone dare speak to the great Hugo Chavez in such a manner back home?

Zapatero went on to plead for a respectful dialogue, befitting the "elected representatives" (ha) of their various peoples, but the very idea of a reasonable debate is anathema to Chavez. He has no opponents with whom he can respectfully disagree, only enemies whose character he must assassinate through calumnies and wild accusations. The King, who is himself intimately familiar with the ways of the autocrat, treated this contemptible little tyrant with the scorn he deserves.

I'm a big fan of Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon-Dos Sicilias. He was Franco's longtime protege and designated successor, and could have tried to keep the authoritarian regime alive after el Caudillo de España kicked the bucket. Instead, he surprised everyone by working with reformers to bring democracy to my mother's homeland --a system I fear will remain foreign to the people of Venezuela for many years to come.

King Juan Carlos has proven to be an excellent monarch who remains popular in Spain today. He evidently has little time for phony-tough little Napoleons.

Don't worry though, Chavez was undeterred by the King's intervention, and went right back to spouting more of his drivel a few hours later.

*****

Why Is This Man Smiling?



Someone from the Daily Mail just did a puff-piece on him

"Rage Boy" indeed!Funny enough, he seems to me to be more amateur grievance-monger than frightening religious zelot... heck, if he managed to get over here, he'd feel right at home among the professionals like Jaggi Singh, Maude Barlow and their ilk!