The television ads for "Frost/Nixon" are in heavy rotation in my neck of the woods, in spite of the fact that the movie has been out since early December and as you might expect, nobody is watching it.

After five weeks, its grossed a total of 8.7 million dollars. Box office was down 36% from the previous week. Not much chance of recouping the 25 million dollar budget, but perhaps buying some ads gets some Oscar buzz before the nominations next week. The Oscars were a key factor in rescuing Brokeback Mountain from financial oblivion.

The irony is that the film might have a shot, since there is so little serious competition. Hollywood just keeps insisting that you listen to its lamentable political opinions.

I followed a link from Instapundit to PJTV and to a Siskel & Ebert style review of Gran Torino.

How can I say this in a charitable way?

I have no idea, so let's dispense with the pleasantries and just ask--are you kidding me?

An 18 minute long review of a movie by two physical derelicts with voices made for newsprint.

The hoary critique my "professional" journalist is that bloggers have no editors, but bloggers only represent themselves, not a newspaper or magazine. If you don't like a blogger, you don't read them, but the blogosphere as a whole continues to thrive. PJTV is a more traditional construct, where bad content reflects on the entire enterprise--that's when you need an editor.

Someone needs to tell Roger L. Simon (whose writing, at least, I enjoy...) and Lionel Chetwynd that this is not a friendly format for them and that video movie reviews should be a three minute segment not including outtakes.

I had a back tooth out this morning. The tooth broke and the dentist spent 10 minutes wiggling and extracting each of the 3 roots. At the end he showed me the apex of each bloody root to prove there was no debris. Then I came home and watched this:

I'd rather repeat the tooth extraction every day till I have no teeth than watch that again. Then you can start on my nails.

Ann Coulter on the absurdity of Frost/Nixon:

Only liberals try to recast their public TV appearances later, in fictional versions where they look good and the conservative looks bad. See, e.g., the movie Frost/Nixon — and I don’t mean actually go see the movie; just consider the utter insanity of developing a fictional version of what was a live TV interview. Rewriting history is bad enough, but now they’re rewriting television interviews. Next, I expect Alan Colmes to release a movie Hannity & Colmes in which the actor playing Colmes suddenly wins all the arguments.

The usual Coulter wit skewers the elaborate liberal fantasy in just 16 words. It sheds new light on why NBC banned her--she brings an Uzi to a knife fight.

I've haven't watched the Oscars since 1998. Apparently I'm a trend-setter.

The people who put on the Academy Awards are in a flopsweat panic as the hours tick away before this year's big broadcast, which is having its major rehearsal and technical run-through today. For weeks now, they've been begging me and the other journalists who cover the Oscars not to trash the planning and performances for this year's telecast like we have in years past. Because their frustration and fear is that, if Sunday's top-to-bottom reworked show can't bring back viewers after 2008's sunk to its lowest ratings ever, then nothing will. And the worst part is that not even Hollywood wants to participate in the Oscars anymore.

I think there is a very simple reason why the Oscars are a colossal bore, and you can see it in the dichotomy between the films that make money, and the ones that get nominated. Gran Torino is a terrific movie as an artistic statement and as entertainment, and its been shut out from the nominations. Mamma Mia! has made 600 million in box office to date. My wife and daughter have seen the film multiple times and I expect they'll see it a few more times before the DVD gathers an significant dust.

These are popular films, meaning that they've captured the imagination of the public. Have you even seen Slumdog Millionaire? Is it even playing in a local theater?

The bottom line is that the Academy Awards are an elitist and not a popular enterprise and that the only real reason to watch it is to see movie stars. Too bad the show doesn't actually have any on hand.

Andrew Breitbart thinks Hollywood elected Barack Obama and that conservative should invest in their own version of Hollywood-style propaganda.

The millionaires and billionaires who feed the conservative think tanks and underwrite those who run for office need to join their high-rolling liberal brethren like Barry Diller and David Geffen and realize their political dollars are better spent making movies and nurturing the culture.

My biggest fear is that later this week I will be among the legions at CPAC rearranging the furniture. Instead, the conservative movement needs to think in revolutionary terms.

And the revolution must begin in Hollywood.

I respectfully disagree.

A friend invited me to see the Watchmen with him--sans spouses.

This is a great movie--if you are a mentally challenged twelve year old boy. Of course no twelve year old boy should be able to get into this movie with its extensive nudity, simulated sex and graphic--really, really graphic violence. You saw "Gladiator"? A Disney movie by comparison.

People are literally blown into fleshy bits that stick to the walls and spectators. Bones are broken with their ragged ends sticking out of the flesh. Arms are chopped off. I'm not squeamish about such things, but it seemed to me that the film makers were going out of their way to shock the audience with no discernable narrative reason for doing so. One of the 'heros' shoots a Vietnamese girl he's impregnated--shoots a pregnant woman!

Yet my objections to the slaughterhouse carnage pales in comparison to my disgust with the character development and particularly the conclusion to the story line. If the movie hadn't have been over, I would have walked out at this insult to my intelligence. The characters have no redeeming qualities--psychopaths, every single on of them. The Dr. Manhattan character is particularly bad--godlike in his power to manipulate matter, insensible to the limitations of space-time, Manhattan still dutifully wipes out the North Vietnamese at the behest of President Nixon and is manipulated by a mere mortal into helping him wipe out millions. If that weren't bad enough, you have to look at this guy's penis the entire movie. He does say one true thing though, "I don't know if there is a God, but if there is, I'm nothing like him..."

Just so you know, I actually enjoyed the last two Batman movies, the first two Spiderman movies and Ironman, so its not like I'm incapable of suspending disbelief, but this was just beyond the pale.

The Watchmen. Rated S for stupid.

I'd gleaned that this movie had sex and Auschwitz, so, despite the say-so of a liberal Jewish acquaintance, I didn't see it. This Powerline post - The Oscar For The Worst Excuse For Sex In A Film - reinforces my instinct that leveraging the emotional power of atrocities into jejune books, films and politics is one of the more disgusting traits of those who lead wholly protected lives.

I put up a quick slideshow from Auschwitz for this post.

We quite often see famous people in my part of London. I've snapped David Blaine, Mike Myers (Austin Powers), Cameron Diaz and others. One evening I left my apartment to be confronted by packed-up plain-clothes guarding the Clintons and Blairs who were dining across the street when the men were both in power. I'm usually blasé about celebrities unless it's Margaret Thatcher. I'm forever in mourning that I wasn't Shakespeare's contemporary and amanuensis. He lived, wrote and acted in these parts. But the news that Clint Eastwood was rumoured to be shooting in the area sent a thrill up my leg. He's been filming at Elephant and Castle, London, SE1, next to where I play football. I wasn't around but here's a couple of shots I found:

I wonder if Clint knows that he was shooting on the ground where Charlie Chaplin grew up. I have a lead that he'll be a couple of minutes from my apartment in a few days. If I can shoot him with my 300mm it will make my day! Woohoo!