Entertainment Media

'Elitist' Fail: Profane 'Girls' Episode Insults Iowa, Fails Geography
By Tom Blumer | February 10, 2015 | 6:05 PM EST

John Hinderaker at Powerline is certainly correct when he notes that the media elites love "Girls," the HBO show starring sister-abusing, rapist-misidentifying Lena Dunham.

Critics rave about how great the show and its main characters are, frequently employing complimentary adjectives descriptive of or synonymous with "smart." Hinderaker was brave enough to peruse the script of the show's Season 4 episode which aired on Sunday. What he found instead fit the categories of "insulting" and "stunningly ignorant":

Lefty Blogger Describes Scott Walker As a ‘Tarantino-Like Hero For the GOP’ and a ‘Republican Porn Star’
By Tom Johnson | February 8, 2015 | 9:40 PM EST

Jon Perr of Daily Kos writes that Walker, like the Republican base, “believes his Democratic foes aren't just wrong, but unambiguously evil...He talks and fights tough, which for the right wing is not a means but an end in itself.”

NYT Laments Veterans 'Coming Home to Damaging Stereotypes,' Skips Its Own Notorious 'Trail of Death' A1 Expose
By Clay Waters | February 6, 2015 | 2:46 PM EST

A New York Times military correspondent filed a useful story on the problem of military veterans being stereotyped as violent and troubled on movies and TV. But what about when the Times was guilty of doing the same thing on its Sunday front page, smearing veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as killers on "a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak"?

Fox 'Empire' Star Discusses Fuss Over the Show's 'Obama's a Sellout' Plot Point
By Tim Graham | February 2, 2015 | 3:26 PM EST

Taraji P. Henson, one of the stars of the new Fox drama Empire, gave an interview for the February 9 edition of Time magazine. She plays Cookie, the “fiery matriarch” at a hip-hop record company. Time asked, “What are people upset about?” Henson said “Barack Obama.”

Time replied, “You mean the scene in which one of Cookie’s sons calls Obama a sellout during a drunken rant?” Henson explained:  “It was to prove a point about how reckless young kids are nowadays. Some of them are out of control! They don’t understand hard work, what it took for that man to get in office. But people get so offended. It’s art, baby!"

FX’s The Americans, Showing Evils of KGB and Set in Reagan’s DC, Returns Tonight
By Brent Baker | January 28, 2015 | 4:13 PM EST

The Americans returns tonight with its third season debut at 10 PM EST/PST. While the FX series humanizes undercover KGB operatives working in the U.S., the show illustrates the ruthlessness of Soviet communism and how the American Left in the 1980s advanced Soviet interests. (Four videos below)

On 'Hardball,' Howard Dean Issues Quasi-Apology Regarding 'American Sniper' Slam
By Ken Shepherd | January 27, 2015 | 8:50 PM EST

On the January 27 edition of Hardball, former DNC chairman Howard Dean issued a tepid half-apology regarding his recent ill-advised statement on Real Time with Bill Maher wherein he blasted as "angry" the moviehouse audiences that have made American Sniper a runaway hit. 

Lefty Professor: What Do ‘American Sniper’ and Republicans Have in Common? ‘Delusion and Aggressive Violence’
By Tom Johnson | January 27, 2015 | 11:25 AM EST

In an article for Salon, Penn State professor Sophia McClennen claims the box-office blockbuster has “no nuance, no context and no subtlety” and that its director, Clint Eastwood, “represents a dark, disturbing feature of the GOP mind-set.”

Comedian Jim Gaffigan Mocks Hollywood Hatred of 'American Sniper'
By Ken Shepherd | January 26, 2015 | 5:33 PM EST

Comedian Jim Gaffigan got off a great zinger on Twitter yesterday aimed straight at Hollywood folks who look down on the average American who has given American Sniper their vote at the box office.

Salon Writer: Jon Stewart’s ‘Hostile’ Satire ‘An Apt Response’ to Right-Wing ‘Bullsh*tters’
By Tom Johnson | January 25, 2015 | 2:51 PM EST

Georgetown professor Aaron Hanlon argues that Stewart’s foul-mouthed rants in response to conservatives are appropriate given that “his objects of critique aren’t interested in reasoned dialogue, clever jabs or unveiled truths.”

VandeHei's Sixth Sense: Chris Christie Doesn't Realize He's Dead
By Mark Finkelstein | January 22, 2015 | 9:12 AM EST

Jim VandeHei sees dead people. On today's Morning Joe, the Politico honcho agreed with Joe Scarborough's suggestion that Chris Christie is like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: [politically] dead but doesn't know it.

Ironically, Scarborough distanced himself from his own suggestion, twice saying that he didn't believe it. But when he asked his guest if the characterization was fair, Vandehei replied "I think it is. At best he's a live man stumbling."

Charles Pierce: Conservatives Want to ‘Gut…Everything That Was Accomplished’ By the Civil-Rights Movement
By Tom Johnson | January 20, 2015 | 5:05 PM EST

Esquire blogger Pierce alleges that right-wingers have turned the civil-rights movement “into a weapon against issues on which Dr. King surely would have come down on the progressive side,” and declares that the movement “no longer can be used as history's truncheon against the legitimate social, cultural, and political aspirations of the people who are its truest heirs.”

'American Sniper' Brings Out Leftist Bile; Michael Moore Calls Snipers 'Cowards'
By Tom Blumer | January 19, 2015 | 1:19 AM EST

The popularity of "American Sniper," the story of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, has "shocked" Hollywood. Estimates are that by the time the four-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend ends, the Clint Eastwood-directed film will gross over $100 million and smash records in several R-rated film categories.

That such a movie has been so well received, causing long waiting lines in both red and blue America, has already caused certain leftists to come unglued (examples here, here [warning: profane language] and here). Perhaps the most appalling reaction on the loony left has come from Michael Moore, who, without naming the film itself, described snipers as "cowards" in the following tweet: