Clint Eastwood: “I don’t want to be politically correct.”

If there was an Academy Award for Coolness, 79-year old Clint Eastwood would’ve won hands down. Then again, if the Academy Awards had any credibility left, Gran Torino would have been nominated for Best Picture.

From Yahoo India (Editor’s Note: We are really outsourcing EVERYTHING these days, huh?):

The Dirty Harry star insists that he should be able to tell harmless jokes about nationality without fearing that people may brand him “a racist”.

“I find that ridiculous. In those earlier days every friendly clique had a ‘Sam the Jew’ or ‘Jose the Mexican’ – but we didn’t think anything of it or have a racist thought. It was just normal that we made jokes based on our nationality or ethnicity. That was never a problem. I don’t want to be politically correct.

The only thing that would’ve made this better is if Eastwood then told a joke about a pissed off, old guy. But hey, this is a start.

Top 25 Conservative Movies (1984-2009)

Source: Big Hollywood Blog

National Review has published a list of the 25 best conservative movies over the past 25 years. It’s an interesting list, but I would include Idiocracy on there and I’d certainly bump Gran Torino, Team America and Red Dawn into the Top 10.

Read The Best Conservative Movies on National Review

Movie Review: Idiocracy

NOTE: Idiocracy makes its cable TV debut tonight (February 15, 2009) on Comedy Central at 10pm EST. Highly recommended.

This is an abbreviated movie review for Idiocracy. The movie is an outstanding commentary on the dumbing down of America through politics, pop culture and the marriage of big business with big government.

The movie was released in 2006 after lengthy delays and the eventual release was allegedly sabotaged by a studio that wasn’t happy with the film’s message.

The premise is simple: An ordinary guy named Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) agrees to take part in a one-year study on human hibernation. When the experiment is forgotten, Bowers ends up sleeping for five hundred years. Bowers wakes up to a world that has evolved downward to a mass of stupidity. Imagine a world full of dolts like Julio the Whiner.

Yada, yada, yada, just check out the trailer:

To purchase the DVD through Amazon, click here.

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Breaking News: That 70’s Guy Wakes Up, Whines

[via WWTDD]

Noted Obama supporter and Kabbalah-enthusiast Ashton Kutcher donned a goofy hat and shot this video recently:

Gee whiz, Ashton. You had to wake up early because someone had the nerve to work within earshot of you? Wait till Obama’s make-work infrastructure projects get underway – that shit is gonna be LOUD.

Of course, Ashton Kutcher was one of the most vocal – and annoying – Obama supporters in Hollywood during the 2008 campaign:

UPDATE (2/1/09): Andrew Breitbart at BigHollywood points out that Kutcher was supplementing his video whine with some Twitter whines (twines?):

• “this SOB owl feces cougar placenta jack bone dick!”
• “Jack ass 7am building a goddamn fort next to my house f’in up my view and noise polluting the entire f’in neighborhood with pounding steal”
• “holy moly I’m gonna lose it!”
• “this ass clown has another thing coming!”
• “I’m gonna kill my neighbor”

Adding fuel to the funny fire, Breitbart points out that Kutcher appeared in that nauseating pro-Bama “I Pledge” PSA, which included the following lines:

Ioan Gruffudd: “to meet my neighbors”…
Rex Lee: “Find out their names”…
Cameron Diaz: “I am gonna give ‘em a smile”…
Tatyana Ali: “And ask them how I can be of service to them”…

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Time Magazine: “The Curious Case of Gran Torino”

According to Time Magazine, the success of Gran Torino continues to baffle Hollywood:

“Yet while the critics have been fussing over wrestlers and Mumbai quiz shows, audiences have been flocking to Gran Torino — an Oscar outcast that’s been doing laps around the competition at the box office. At some point this week, the Clint Eastwood drama will pass the $100 million mark, easily surpassing the box-office receipts brought in by not only some of the Oscar front-runners (Slumdog Millionaire now totals $56 million, Milk $21 million) but also Eastwood’s last Oscar winner, Million Dollar Baby.”

The article continues to dance around the 800-pound gorilla in the room:

“It’s an amazing story that no one’s really talking about,” says Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst with Hollywood.com. “For a movie starring a 78-year-old to have a $29 million opening weekend in wide release, and in the process to beat out the likes of Anne Hathaway in Bride Wars, I don’t know if I’ve seen that before … It’s a testament to how people still feel about Clint Eastwood.”

Wrong.

While Eastwood is great in Gran Torino, I would attribute much of the film’s success to its themes of mentoring, pride, hard work, vigilantism and sacrifice. In other words, Gran Torino is dripping with themes of American exceptionalism and  individualism.

And people are clearly connecting with it.

If you haven’t seen Gran Torino, check out the trailer below and read last week’s post about it:

(via Thanos at Little Green Footballs)

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Oscar Travesty: Gran Torino Shut Out

He ain't shootin' skeet

The Oscar nominations have been announced and Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Gran Torino,” has been shut out.

I’m not surprised… “Gran Torino” is a direct threat to the liberal view of everything from race relations to inner city gangs and the Second Amendment.

The story revolves around Clint Eastwood’s main character, Walter Kowalski. Imagine George Patton and Rudy Giuliani had a baby – and that baby was an 80-year old Korean war vet with a sore spot for Pabst blue ribbon and the ability to strike fear in the hearts of gangbangers by simply pointing his finger at them and whispering the word “pow.”

In a word, badass.

Eastwood’s Kowalski is a complex and conflicted guy… He owns and uses firearms… He has a strained relationship with his family… He uses racial epithets… He is open minded… He is a mentor and a father figure to his Korean Hmong Lao neighbors… He has no time for religion… He laments the erosion of the inner city… He takes direct action instead of calling the police…

I won’t spoil it for you – just go see the movie. This is the type of film that conservatives should support by going to see it in the theater. Not on Netflix. Pay money to see this now, while it can still make an impact on Hollywood.

Go see Gran Torino.

Rating: 5/5 Cheneys

For those of you who have already seen the movie…

Although it might be easy to think the Korean gangs are the villians of the movie, I would say the real villian is the Baby Boomer generation. Thoughts?

UPDATE: Thanks for the commenters (Watson and Jim Copp) who have pointed out that Walt Kowalski’s neighbors are not Korean. They are Hmong. There is a lengthy scene where this is explained and I completely screwed that up – sorry about that.  Apparently, many of the Hmong characters had never acted before – they do an outstanding job, nonetheless.

I also disagree with the notion that the story is slow and undeserving of an Oscar. If you compare it to some recently nominated films, you’ll see that the story, direction and acting are very similar in style and substance.

Put it this way: If Walt Kowalski was an aging hippie who had fled to Canada to avoid going to Vietnam, “Gran Torino” would be the darling of this year’s Oscar nominations.

Hollywood Shills for Obama (Again)

Andrew Breitbart of Big Hollywood has a link to a new PSA featuring several of the dumbest actors in Hollywood telling YOU why YOU should go out and, you know, like, volunteer or something, you know?

I can’t embed the video here because it is still a MySpace exclusive (WordPress and MySpace don’t mix, apparently) but you can watch the video here. Then come back to PoPCON for some more video stuffs:

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge

I pledge to never forget that these are the same jackasses who were ashamed to be American for the last 8 years and who have been in the tank for Obama since Day 1 of his campaign, just like the mainstream media.

Fools:

Golden Globes Blah Blah Who Cares?

Hollywood or French Aristocracy? What's the diff?

There was an awards show last night – the Golden Globes. Nobody watched it, but the important thing is that the big winner was Slumdog Millionaire – a movie with a positive theme and an upbeat spirit.

Not surprisingly, Slumdog Millionaire was produced in INDIA.

That’s right. The best movie to come out of Hollywood this year was about as un-Hollywood as you could get.

Ratings for the Golden Globes telecast were the lowest they’ve been since 1996. RadarOnline thinks the problem for awards shows is threefold:

“First, consumers get a huge fix of celebrities on a daily basis on sites like Radaronline.com. Second, there is a relatively small fan base for many of the critically acclaimed films and TV shows that get nominated, like Slumdog Millionaire and Mad Men. And finally, there are too many options for viewers these days and staged reality shows are more exciting than genuine nailbiters like awards shows.”

Eh. I would counter that readers of RadarOnline are more likely to watch awards shows… I would also say that most viewers don’t care who wins or who is nominated – they are watching to see the stars… And finally, staged reality shows are not that exciting. In short, I’d say the biggest problem with awards shows is that people don’t like watching pompous actors patting themselves on the back. Give or take.

Entertainment blog What Would Tyler Durden Do? puts it best:

I have an alternate theory. It goes like this: people fucking hate you. They hate actors and all their stupid GD award shows. Just say the words on the page, monkey. Then take your millions and STFU.