oldOzymandias

Oscars Schmoshcars

Whatever. Can I get a “who cares?” Can we, all of us, the general public, the combined citizenry of our grand republic come together, friends, countrymen, as a nation of free minded human beings, and collectively agree to just not give one half-acre of horse manure about the bloomin’ Academy Awards? Can we do this? I think we can. In fact, I think we’re almost there. Despite the millions of dollars that Hollywood spends promoting itself, we may just be at a critical divergence of human development, when the light started to dawn. “You know, Bob? There just really isn’t anything worth seeing right now at the theatre. Maybe we could just watch that John Wayne on DVD?” Eureka!

Ask yourself. Besides the gay cowboy movie, can you name (without googling it) any movie nominated for Best Picture? Besides the Johnny Cash biopic stars, can you name two actors or two actresses nominated? Besides Steven Spielberg, can you name a director nominated? Can you name a single screenwriter? Of course not!!! Why? Because you are that rarest of things in Hollywood – you are normal. You are a normal American with a normal life and normal friends. You work for a living and pay bills and take the kids to dance class and soccer practice. Americans from sea to shining sea are realizing, one crappy movie at a time, that the problems of little rich people in California don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

The same people who think we are hanging on baited breath wondering, worrying, wasting away at the thought of whether so-and-so will be passed over again – oh, the horror! – the same people who think we desperately want to know about the latest anorexic 19 year-old ‘actress’ in drug rehab or what God-forsaken nonsense Britney Spears committed over the weekend – these are the people who hope against hope that they can convince everyday Americans that the Oscars are something more than the gobsmackingly audacious sickening parade of self-worship that they most obviously are.

Here’s my theory: we don’t actually want to know celebrity gossip; it’s just that of all celebrity news, 85% is gossip-level nonsense. We Americans actually do like good films. We don’t actually care about “issue films” where Hollywood tries to ‘educate’ the madding crowds. We actually do like and will pay to see good, entertaining films.

Take a look at the five Best Picture films: “Brokeback Mountain,” the gay cowboys thing, “Capote”, a film about the eccentric alcoholic and drug addicted author, “Syriana,” a wholly unintellectual film ‘proving’ through the absence of fact that America is actually a force of evil, “Good Night and Good Luck”, a film that lumps all conservatives together in a morass of corruption and all media into heroic champions of liberty. The filmmakers actually seem amazed that people actually think there were Communists in the government (regardless of stunning Venona Papers evidence proving exactly that). We then add “Munich,” a disgraceful revisionist version of the terrorist attacks of the 1972 Olympics that focuses on humanizing terrorists, and “Crash,” about how Los Angeles is (still) full of racist white people. These were the five “best” films of 2006.

But the New York Times is shocked, shocked that movie sales have plummeted.

The combined total box office take of the above five films is around $200 million, which doesn’t sound too bad until you discover that Chronicles of Narnia’s opening episode, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” by itself grossed $287 million, not including upcoming DVD sales. Good film, good story, great characters – $287 million dollars. Who knew?

Here’s a better night for you. Get Howard Hawks’ El Dorado, 1966, with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum – the only movie they did together. Wayne returns to the scene of his crime to help his friend the sheriff (Mitchum), now doubling as the town drunk, to prevent a war between two families over water rights.

See James Caan as a near-blind gunfighter-in-training getting lessons from the Wayne’s world-weary cavalryman. See Charlene Holt (briefly) do things with 1960’s lingerie you didn’t think were possible. See Robert Mitchum rise out of a two-month hangover to fight the good fight, and see the crotchety sidekick Arthur Hunnicut play “Marchin’ to Georgia” with a Winchester on church bells.

Ed Asner and Michele Carey have bit parts and Christopher George is the villainous Nelse McLeod. It’s great flick, with good men and strong women and the classic smalltown noble struggle that marks so many good westerns.

And best of all? It didn’t win a single Oscar. Wasn’t even nominated.

Will be returning shortly - revamping site, etc.

check back later.

 

 


Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com

Craven Hack of the Year

Also nominated for Craven Hack of the Decade:

Dan Rather, the overtly biased, scheming, insipid, malicious Bush-hating anchor of the Communist Broadcasting System Evening "News".

He had this to say about the coverage of Reagan:

"There is other news, like the reality of Iraq," said the "CBS Evening News" anchor. "It got very short shrift this weekend."

Meaning of course that he had to post-pone another gloom and doom session of report-only-the-bad-side-of-Iraq that is standard in every network on television except Fox. Rather is a coniving liberal elitist coward, and is hearby awarded the Craven Hack of the Year award for obscene leftist politics masquerading as journalism.

Rather's win marks a departure from the three time winner, Maureen Dowd, and puts Rather in the illustrious company of former winners Molly Ivins, Susan Sontag and Peter Jennings.





Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com

The Real War - the one you are not hearing about.

For all their claims to “support” the troops, the media continues its anti-military tirade over the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Everyday there is a new editorial, a new batch of pictures, or a new talking head wrapping the entire military system in the actions of a few. The New York Times has run a front page Abu Graib story for 28 straight days despite very little new information coming to light in the last two weeks. Senator Ted Kennedy set a new standard in cravenness, even for him, saying, “Saddam’s torture chambers have been reopened – reopened under U.S. management.”

Ignoring the obvious distinction between what happened at Abu Ghraib and Saddam’s gang rapes of political opponents or their children, random amputations, and mass murder, a real review of what has happened in Iraq under U.S. management is a great idea.

The U.S. military is the most honorable military organization in the history of the world – this was actually proved at Abu Ghraib, but more on that later – first, consider what our military has done over the last few years.

Thanks to Our Military, the U.S. led coalition has overthrown two tyrannical regimes, rescuing two nations, liberating some 50 million people from horrific brutality and daily fear. We have captured or killed close to two-thirds of the known senior Al-Qaeda operatives. We have captured or killed 46 of the 55 most wanted regime leaders in Iraq, including Saddam Hussein himself.

Thanks to Our Military, Iraqi oil production and power generation have both surpassed pre-war levels. Iraq’s dilapidated power plants were rotting under Saddam. What electricity was produced was diverted to Baghdad in order to reward Saddam’s cronies and punish Saddam’s enemies. Today, overall power generation has surpassed prewar levels and is more evenly distributed, and new, modern power plants are being built.

Thanks to Our Military, all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges in Iraq are open. Iraqi primary and secondary schools that served as propaganda factories for Saddam’s cult and fascism have a new curriculum. Today, 64,000 secondary teachers and 5,000 school principals and administrators have been retrained in modern teaching methods, and 72 million new textbooks will be distributed before the end of the school year. Our coalition forces have rehabilitated, to date, more than 2,500 schools. In every part of Iraq school attendance this year has already surpassed pre-war levels.

Thanks to Our Military, all of Iraq’s 240 hospitals and more than 1,200 health clinics are open. In fact, the health care budget in Iraq is increased 30 times, that’s 3,000 percent over its pre-war levels, and children now receive crucial vaccinations for the first time in years.

Thanks to Our Military, 90% of Iraq is peaceful and stable; the Iraqi economy is on the path of recovery and prosperity. Unemployment has fallen, inflation has dropped to a quarter of the pre-war rate, and the New Iraqi Dinar has become the most heavily traded currency in the Middle East and has increased in value. The entire northern Iraq region – an area only slightly smaller than the state of Illinois – is policed by less than 300 U.S. troops.

Thanks to Our Military, 1.1 million Shi’a Muslim adherents conducted a holy pilgrimage across the south, a rite banned for 35 years under Saddam, all in safety and without violence.

Thanks to Our Military, 170 new independent newspapers are currently published in Iraq, and the Iraqi Media Network reaches more than 80 percent of the Iraqi population.

Thanks to Our Military, more than half of the Iraqi population is active in community affairs and one in five belongs to a non-governmental organization. Ninety percent of Iraqi towns and provinces now have local councils. In southern Iraq, seventeen towns have held local elections – their first genuine elections in history – and in almost every instance, secular independents and non-religious parties did better than the Islamists.

Thanks to Our Military, Iraqis have an interim constitution that is the most liberal governing legal document in the entire Arab world. The current law guarantees equal rights for all citizens of Iraq regardless of ethnicity, denomination, or gender. It acknowledges the Islamic character of the majority of Iraqi society and, at the same time, affirms the right to freedom of religious belief and practice for every Iraqi.

And thanks to our major media, most of what you just read is probably news to you.

So, on the subject of honor, you decide whose actions were more honorable:
The Army twice announced the charges publicly in January, immediately removed several key players from duty, reprimanded others, announced a full criminal investigation, sent its best investigator to the scene for a full report, began courts-martial proceedings against the perpetrators of abuse in mid-March. The first conviction handed down a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a bad conduct discharge, to a young and apologetic Army specialist, just for taking the pictures.

The media utterly ignored the story for three months, then exploited the pictures as blanket condemnation. Fully a month after the initial photo release, the press continues to act as if nothing has been done.

Thanks to Our Military, we can be assured the U.S. Army applies standards of conduct and honest reporting far above those of its accusers.




Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com

Moved to Illinois! Will be back up with daily postings in June.


Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com