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This post is really late and I apologize for that. However, I have not been anxious to get back into the Brokeback Hollywood story. However, it is clearly not going away. I told the folks at Poynter.org — in an email poll they sent me — that I think it’s going to be one of the three or four hottest religion/cultural stories of the year in 2006.
I have a friend who makes fun of the stories that repeat every year on local news stations. His favorites are “Grocery scanners rip you off!” and “Our blacklight shows hotel comforters are dirty!”
Yes, Barry Garron of the Hollywood Reporter is right — that ABC News production on heaven does sound like a TV-ratings-friendly variation on an old joke: “So a priest, a minister, a rabbi, the Dalai Lama, an atheist and Barbara Walters walk into a studio and …”
Forget all those raging debates about art, truth, commerce, faith, tolerance and free speech. It turns out that Hollywood thinks its box-office woes are rooted in — cell telephones, home theaters, rude adults, on-screen ads, ticket prices and fidgety tots. At least, that is what the National Association of Theater Owners told the gatekeepers at the New York Times.
OK, it’s just a little cute Associated Press story about the Alpha Male rock star hanging out with the once powerful arch-conservative U.S. senator.
If, while visiting the usual online newspapers and blogs, you clicked this gay-based Golden Globes story in Variety (“It’s red meat for the culture warriors.”) and then happened, by chance, to click on this sobering summary of movie and DVD trends in 2005 (“Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis”), would one be justified with a click here and even over here to touch base with the American mainstream?
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has put into words part of what I was struggling to say in my post about the God-haunted side of comic genius Richard Pryor.
Face it — it’s very hard for someone who grew up as a Southern Baptist preacher’s son (that would be me) to feel very comfortable with the kind of language that the late Richard Pryor used on stage.
Here’s the rundown of some of the journalistic hackery out there right now, most good, others not so good. I am curious as to how many of your loyal readers will be seeing the film tonight or this weekend. I will not be seeing it this weekend, as I will be out of town. Please feel free to leave links to other reviews of the film and let us know whether you think they accurately portray the movie. Actual news features are even better.
