Dayton Tribune » Entertainment

Socialism and big government constantly need more money – yours

Ian McDonald — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:23:04 +0000

Socialism and big government constantly need more money - yours

The pitfalls of socialism and the Obama Administrations big government policies are confronted in a new political documentary film called “I Want Your Money” which will be released later this fall by director Ray Griggs.

Griggs’s who also directed “Super Capers” in 2009, and is in pre-production of the movie “Wind in the Willows” is putting together a politically charged film that critiques the Obama Administration and the Democratic congress’s massive expansion of government.

I Want Your Money will also take a look at other former big government presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter as other past presidents with policies geared toward socialism. Those policies transformed the United States from a ‘can do anything’ mentality into a welfare dependency society, until Ronald Reagan took office during the cold war era and revered the trend.

With Obama at his lowest approval ratings since he took office and Congress with its lowest approval ratings ever this movie just may help those who thought big government was a good thing, have a better understanding of what’s really at stake. The Obama Administration and the current Democratic led congress has now transformed America again from free market toward socialism bringing with it ‘Hope and Change’ that most American’s are now having buyer’s remorse over.

Griggs’s film will make use of some rather humorous animated sequences of Obama and former President Ronald Reagan. Of course political commentary and interviews from some high profile conservatives and libertarians such as Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, John Stossel, Steve Forbes and many more will fill out the film’s star studded cast.

‘I Want Your Money” will probably not be viewed by many liberals, but small government conservatives and libertarians who already understand the threat of socialism and big government are to the very existence of America should find themselves nodding their heads in agreement often as they view the movie later this fall.

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Inception shine in first week

Ian McDonald — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:24:53 +0000

Leonardo Di Caprio and Inception shine - Photo By: Craig Grobler at http://www.theestablishingshot.com/

Director Christopher Nolan’s dream-bending thriller Inception staring Leonardo DiCaprio was well received by audiences taking in $62 million in it’s opening weekend and experts feel it should easily break the $100 million dollar mark overall.

At its core Inception is a mind-boggling thriller about thieves who infiltrate the heads of the wealthy and powerful and steal or plant new ideas into or from their victims minds by creating elaborately manipulative dreams.

DiCaprio’s character (Dom Cobb), for example, is a dream who’s haunted by the menacing presence of his wife in the dreams he shares with the other members of his team of theives. A number of Cobb’s crew confront issues that have plagued them for years as they set about their main task – a job that requires them to create four dream states.

“My character and a lot of the characters in this movie have a cathartic journey of while we’re going deeper into the dream state, we’re going closer and closer and closer to who we are. Certainly my character comes to terms with his own nightmares. That was what immediately intrigued me to the movie that I think Nolan pulled off incredibly well,” explained DiCaprio.

“Obviously, this is a huge concept,” Leonardo DiCaprio told MTV News. “But what director Christopher Nolan does do, which is so clever, is he makes you, as an audience, engage in characters that are attempting something for the first time. So you understand the rules and the planning and all the pitfalls that may come with this idea of implanting an idea in someone’s mind.”

Inception is not something the audience should just sit and watch as a typical action movie where it’s all about special effects. In fact Nolan specifically wanted to reduce the amount of computer generated effects as much as possible. Inception will gain a much higher appreciation by those who delve deep into each character.

Chances are you’ll need to view this movie more than once to fully grasp what can be described as an ingenious action based and suspenseful brain twister.

While Leonardo DiCaprio and Inception easily took the number one spot last weekend at the box office, everyone’s wondering how it will fare this coming weekend when Inception will be up against the new Angelina Jolie movie “Salt”.

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Glenn Beck diagnosed with macular dystrophy

Ian McDonald — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:57:46 +0000

Glenn Beck diagnosed with macular dystrophy - Photo By: David Shankbone at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Shankbone

At the American Revival event this past Saturday Glenn Beck while talking to a crowd of around 6,000 announced that he was suffering from eye problems that made it difficult to see and could lead to blindness.

In his speech Beck said, “Yes, I have a problem with my eyes,” “A couple of weeks ago, I went to the doctor because I can’t focus my eyes. So I went to the best doctor I could find, he did all kinds of tests, and he said I have macular dystrophy.”

Macular dystrophy is a condition that affects a tiny portion of the retina called the macula which is the part of the eye responsible for seeing sharp details and recognizing faces.

There are several different versions of macular dystrophy with some worse than others. In Beck’s case it was not known type he is suffering from or whether it would ultimately lead to becoming legally blind which is 20/200 or worse or not. There is no known cure for macular dystrophy.

On the Glenn Beck Show on Fox News he said “I plan on dealing with it with a smile and dignity, and quite honestly, at least I’ll be able to get away with a blind joke from time to time,” Beck said.

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Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Disney offers buy-one-get-one-free ticket

Ian McDonald — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 16:28:25 +0000

Nicolas Cage - Sorcerer’s Apprentice - Photo By: Kirk W (Kirk Weaver)at Flickr.com

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage opened this week to very disappointing ticket sales. A LATimes write-up showed that the movie will likely gross a lackluster $30 to $35 million this weekend, despite a $150 million budget.

The slow ticket sales may be what has then led Disney to try a rather unusual marketing ploy where they have teamed up with Fandango to offer “buy one get one free” tickets for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” via its Twitter account and a new account owned by Twitter for promotional deals called Earlybird for a limited time.

A Disney spokesman said the studio was offering the deal to take advantage of Twitter’s new Earlybird account, which has more than 50,000 followers and requires participating companies to offer some kind of promotion. “We have been doing a lot of experimentation with social media and this is an opportunity to be on the cutting edge,” said Disney spokesman John Nicoletti.

This is a first in terms of marketing for a movie like this and a bit of a gamble on Disney’s part. It could be considered a bold move that may or may not work, but with a budget of $150 million and such a weak opening weekend it may be worth the gamble for Disney. The buy-one-get-one-free offer could create enough buzz and word of mouth marketing to get people into the theaters to watch the movie.

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3-D animated movie “Despicable Me” in the black in less than a week

Ian McDonald — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:12:57 +0000

Universal Pictures may have a new formula for making blockbuster animated movies on the cheap.

The latest animated cartoon to hit the big screen “Despicable Me” cost a mear $69 million to produce which by Hollywood standards is extremely cheap, costing less than half what rival films “Toy Story 3” and “How to Train Your Dragon” costs.

The good news for Universal is that the movie has in less than one week already surpassed its costs by taking in $72 million in its first 5 days so it’s all profit from here on out.

“Despicable Me” was produced by Illumination Entertainment, a new animation company founded by producer Chris Meledandri, the former president of Fox Animation whose credits include the “Ice Age” series and is distributed by Universal Pictures.

In an effort to reduce costs Illumination used less experienced and thus less expensive animators and first-time directors who worked for less than half what more experienced professionals would have changed.

On top of that they cut out some more expensive details from scenes that were not considered central to the movie including using matte paintings for backgrounds in some instances than using more expensive computer-generated geometry.

The studio also used fewer more expensive stars then their competitors tend to use and used Universal’s corporate siblings for cross promotions.

“I’m sure all of Hollywood is looking at that movie this week and saying how do we get into that business?” says Peter Chernin, who oversaw Mr. Meledandri at Fox, which is a division of News Corp., as is The Wall Street Journal.

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FCC indecency policy struck down by federal appeals court

Ian McDonald — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:35:30 +0000

Broadcasters scored a major victory over the FCC Tuesday when the federal appeals court threw out the FCC’s rules on indecent speech. It was a blow to the governments’ desire to control what is said on television and radio.

A three-judge panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said the FCC indecency policies violate the First Amendment and are “unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here.”

The three-judge panel found that the agency’s decision to sanction broadcasters’ airing of one-time or “fleeting” expletives is unconstitutional. They also suggested that the FCC’s broader indecency enforcement efforts are unconstitutional as well.

The ruling did appear to leave an opening for the FCC to try to re-write a new indecency policy that could be considered constitutional.

Broadcasters complained they couldn’t figure out when they had run afoul of FCC indecency regulations and considered the rules to have always been somewhat subjective. The judges agreed that the FCC regulations were too vague leading to the ruling that broadcasters and free speech advocates applauded.

The FCC claimed in a statement that they would be reviewing the judges’ decisions. The Federal Communications Commission could attempt to write their current indecent speech policies in a clearer and more concise manner as suggested by the court or they could appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Critics say Airbender movie typical of Hollywood’s slighting of Asian actors

Ian McDonald — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:33:22 +0000

The Last Airbender - Photo By anime.com.br (San Watanabe) at Flickr.com

M. Night Shyamalan’s big budget “The Last Airbender” movie was meant to quiet critics and recapture the success Shyamalan had with “The Sixth Sense”. Movie critics didn’t see it that way calling the movie laughable among other things.

However that’s not the only thing critics of the movie and director found issue with. Before the movie was even released to the public Shyamalan was put on the defensive for his decision to use white actors to fill a number of key rolls that the anime-style TV series that inspired the film were actually Asian characters.

The casting of white actors in what should have been Asian rolls angered Asian-American activist who launched a boycott of the movie, staging demonstrations and creating opposition on Facebook.

“This was a great opportunity to create new Asian-American stars,’’ fumed Guy Aoki, founding president of the Los Angeles-based Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, which urged a movie boycott for the first time in the organization’s 18-year existence. “When you have ready-made material that has Asian or Asian-American people in it, and they still cast white people in it, that’s the last straw.’’

Initially Shyamalan seemed unfazed by the critisism. “Ultimately, this movie, and then the three movies, will be the most culturally diverse tent-pole movies ever released, period,’’ he told the Los Angeles Times last summer.

As opposition continued to build, however, Paramount extended an olive branch to critics, inviting Aoki and other activists to a screening last week and releasing a statement to the LA Times noting that the film “has 23 credited speaking roles — more than half of which feature Asian and Pan Asian actors of Korean, Japanese, and Indian descent. . . . We believe fans of the original and new audiences alike will respond positively once they see it.’’

Despite the best efforts of the boycott and of the movie critics “The Last Airbender” movie did have a fairly strong showing as high tech graphics and action was enough to get people to show up to the theater to watch it. Whether enough people ultimately see the movie to convince Paramount to move forward with the trilogy remains to be seen.

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Miley Cyrus’s new personality a turn off to her core audience

Ian McDonald — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:58:47 +0000

Miley Cyrus - Photo By PicturesAllDisney at Flickr.com

Miley Cyrus is not the Disney Channel pop icon Hannah Montana, even if he two share the same body.

Last month Ms. Cyrus released her new album, “Can’t Be Tamed,” and her her once adoring fans were left unimpressed, unmoved by, among other things, the singer’s sexy music video where Ms. Cyrus is seen withering on a bed of peacock feathers.

On the Teen Choice Awards Ms. Cyrus dressed in tight top of the thigh shorts and black boots while seemingly doing a pole dance and then on a TMZ video she gives a 44 year old film director a lap dance.

These types of transitions for young teen artists can be tough as they will tend to alienate many of their former fan base in an effort to pick up new older fans, but in Ms. Cyrus’s case it seems she is losing a much larger base thus far then she is picking up thus far.

E-Poll Market Research, which is a brand and celebrity research firm, did an online survey recently where 24 percent of participant said they liked or liked her a lot, compared with 45 percent who said the same back in 2008.

For some mothers of Ms. Cyrus’s fans, her transition from a once very popular teen idol to sexual icon has become a teachable moment.

“I’m just impressed with kids picking up on the change and saying it’s not that interesting and they don’t relate,” said Megan Calhoun of Ross, Calif. Who is the founder of a blog for mother’s called TwitterMoms. “It’s almost as if these young stars don’t realize it is a turnoff,” Ms. Calhoun said.

But of course there is a never ending set of new faces coming from Disney to replace former teen stars like Hannah Montana with new ones that young children can relate to and look up too. One such up and coming star would be Valerie Gonzalez who stars in Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place”. For parents and young kids this is indeed a relief.

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Prince shuns online services – gives latest album away for free

Ian McDonald — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:22:59 +0000

Prince Tour 2007 - Photo By ebotunes (Iain Mullan) at Flickr.com

No one can deny the success of Prince. He’s a living music legend who has managed to sell more than 100 million albums over his 30 year career. And the amazing part is he’s done that without using modern day online technology to reach such gaudy numbers.

In an exclusive interview with The Mirror’s Peter Willis he let him know that his upcoming album 20Ten will be released in CD format only and that those subscribers of The Daily Mirror will be treated to a cover-mount free giveaway this weekend.

Prince has been in an ongoing battle with online piracy and doesn’t believe he is fairly compensated by such distribution methods.

He says: “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.

“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.

“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

While Prince has every right to dictate how his music is distributed to his fans it’s a bit naive to think that by not allowing online services like iTunes to distribute his music that it will somehow avoid being pirated.

The sad fact is in this world of piracy Prince’s album is likely to be copied and uploaded by someone and shared to the masses online within days of the album’s release.

Prince obviously doesn’t need the money more sales would ultimately bring him by using every available source to distribute his music. However the fact remains his efforts to thwart theft of his intellectual property simply can’t be stopped.

How many people do you see carrying a portable CD player anymore? None, they now listen to music on ipods and cell phones and if you don’t allow your music to be released in formats that use those devices it will still end up being heard on those devices anyway. It will simply be pirated copies being played and that’s money Prince will never see unless he eventually realizes this is no longer 1999 but rather 20Ten.

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Palin family receives apology from Bristol Palin’s Ex Levi Johnson

Ian McDonald — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:17:45 +0000

Palin Family - Photo By Chesi - Fotos CC at Flickr.com

ANCHORAGE (AK) – Bristol Palin and the rest of the Palin family received a private and public apology from Levi Johnson.

The 20 year old Johnson was previously engaged to 19 year old Bristol Palin said in a statement that he was “unhappy and a little angry” after breaking up with Bristol, after their son’s birth in December 2008. He says that against his better judgment, he said things about the Palin’s that “were not completely true.”

“I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palin’s to publicly apologize.”

The apology came as a result of statement Johnson said in a Vanity Fair Magazine article where he claimed that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was a bad mother who was more interested in cashing in on her fame.

Since resigning as governor of Alaska Sarah Palin has done very well for herself with a book deal, speaking engagements and is also a paid on-air contributor to the Fox News Channel.

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