September 15, 2025 • 40 mins
In this powerful and emotionally-charged episode of The Hollywood in Toto Podcast, host Christian Toto unpacks the shocking murder of conservative icon Charlie Kirk — a bold voice for free speech, traditional values, and the next generation of American patriots. We examine Kirk’s remarkable life, his lasting legacy, and the deeply personal impact his death had on Toto’s own young sons.
This isn’t just political — it’s personal.
But while many mourn, two Hollywood legends responded with disturbing, disgraceful reactions to Kirk’s murder. We name names and expose what their comments reveal about the toxic anti-conservative bias still festering in the entertainment industry. (And that was before the Emmys completely ignored Kirk's tragic death).
Then, we shift gears and sit down with acclaimed journalist and cultural critic Mark Judge, author of The Devil’s Triangle. We explore: His decades-long career covering the arts and media, the cultural and political trends reshaping Hollywood from the ground up and a potential feature film adaptation of “The Devil’s Triangle." This is a must-listen episode for anyone passionate about free expression, media accountability, and the ongoing culture war in Hollywood.
🎧 Subscribe, share, and join us for honest conversations the mainstream media refuses to have. --------------------------
Films for Freedom: An Anti-Communist Festival: https://www.gofundme.com/f/films-for-freedom-an-anticommunist-festival
Help Mark Judge: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-mark-judge-write-his-book
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
This isn’t just political — it’s personal.
But while many mourn, two Hollywood legends responded with disturbing, disgraceful reactions to Kirk’s murder. We name names and expose what their comments reveal about the toxic anti-conservative bias still festering in the entertainment industry. (And that was before the Emmys completely ignored Kirk's tragic death).
Then, we shift gears and sit down with acclaimed journalist and cultural critic Mark Judge, author of The Devil’s Triangle. We explore: His decades-long career covering the arts and media, the cultural and political trends reshaping Hollywood from the ground up and a potential feature film adaptation of “The Devil’s Triangle." This is a must-listen episode for anyone passionate about free expression, media accountability, and the ongoing culture war in Hollywood.
🎧 Subscribe, share, and join us for honest conversations the mainstream media refuses to have. --------------------------
Films for Freedom: An Anti-Communist Festival: https://www.gofundme.com/f/films-for-freedom-an-anticommunist-festival
Help Mark Judge: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-mark-judge-write-his-book
Subscribe to HiT's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HollywoodinToto
Read Hollywood in Toto - https://www.hollywoodintoto.com
Lend a hand: Leave a tip! https://hollywood-in-toto.ck.page/products/hollywood-in-toto-tip-jar
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto
Read: "Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul" https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Bombs-Hollywood-Woke-Lost/dp/1637580991
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week in the Hollywood and Total Podcast, well, we
try to make sense of a brutal, terrible awful week,
and we speak to entertainment journalists Mark Judge about the
work he does, some of the topics he covers, and
what he does more than just cover the arts, sometimes
he creates art as well. Welcome to the Hollywood in
(00:24):
Total Podcast, Entertainment news and reviews without the woke Hollywood narrative.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Free speech, free expression.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Now that's entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
And here's your host.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Oh lord, winning film critic Christian Toto, What terrible, awful,
unbelievable week. You know, the week of nine to eleven
is something that we should all remember. And this was
something that was so tragic and so horrifying that it
pushed that off the front page. Just unbelievable. Of course,
(01:00):
talking about the assassination, the murder of Charlie Kirk, I
still can't process that. I still can't think it's real,
but it is, and I want to talk about it
before going into the usual Hollywood and Total Podcast fair
It just seems like he can't not talk about it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
My oldest son loved.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Charlie Kirk, watched all of his videos. Was really inspired
by him. I don't really push my politics on my
son at all. I want him to discover things, find
out things, research things on his own.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Don't let dad, you know, get in the way. He
probably wouldn't listen anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
But he loved Charlie called him the goat, and he
was as shocked and horrified as I was, and the
rest of us were. You know, one of the things
I thought about shortly after the news came out was,
you know, what was going to be the Hollywood reaction?
And I think for the most part, maybe most stars
just stayed silent, which is probably not a bad thing.
A few like Chris Pratt said really beautiful things about
(01:57):
what was going on and why it was so such
a terror day, it's such a terrible situation.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And then there were a couple of stars who they
do what the stars do. They seize on tragedy and
they get the facts wrong. It's sad and I'm glad
so few people did at this time, but that's what happened.
George ta Quay of Star Trek fame, he immediately seized
upon the incident to push gun control, because never let
a crisis go to waste. And then later he tried
(02:25):
to push the meme that's been pretty popular on the left.
Oh this was a Trump supporter or something akin to that.
I mean, just absolute nonsense. One of the more alarming
situations was Stephen King came out and shortly after Kirk's
death said that Charlie Kirk wanted gay people to be stoned. Unbelievable.
(02:46):
You know, one of the good things about sharing those
thoughts on X is that a lot of other people
saw it and shamed him into apologizing. Now, good for
him for apologizing, But what were you thinking? What could
possibly be going through your mind? But then I thought
the more about Charlie Kirk and his memory and the
work he did and what he offered to the culture.
(03:06):
His memory is legacy. And I turned to my son
and I, you know, I didn't want to get it
to be hyper political, didn't want to be angry, even
though I'm frankly furious, And I said, you know, the
best way to honor Charlie Kirk is to talk, to debate,
to bring the facts, not just the emotions. To be
kind to people who have disagreements with you. You know, I
pointed out that when my wife was sick with cancer,
(03:28):
that her entire friend circle is to the left, and
pretty aggressively to the left. I found out over the years.
And what did they do when my wife was sick
and we were struggling. Well, they open up their hearts,
They open up their wallets, they opened up their minds,
They opened up everything possible to make our lives a
little better. They baby said, our kids they were younger.
Then they sent us lots and lots of free meals
(03:50):
and coupons and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
He sent us money.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'm sure more than a few sent us their thoughts
and prayers. So we can't forget that. We can't deem
and ize people. We can't use a tragedy like this
and do all the things that Charlie Kirk wouldn't want
us to do. That'd be the absolute worst legacy, the
worst way to honor his memory.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So I talked to my son.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
About that and talked about what we should do moving forward,
and again try to steer clear of the politics in
as much as I could. You know, the last time
I had this emptiness, this pit of my stomach, was
nine to eleven. That particular day, I was working in
DC and working the Washington Times, and I the previous
day was my birthday, and I with my future bride.
(04:35):
We had a wonderful time. We just had a cake
and music. It was just a great evening. The next day,
I woke up and drove to work, and when I
got to work, everyone was looking at their little black
and white monitors because back in the day we didn't
have these big screen TVs like we do now, at
least not as much. And I thought about that and
just the ache I had inside me that day and
how it felt similar and it wasn't wildly different days,
(04:56):
wildly different tragedies. I'm not comparing the two, but just
just what my gut told me after those particular events.
So the best way to honor Charlie is to keep
on talking, to not sing to the people's level, like
the Stephen Kings and the George Decays of the world,
who just want to use this for their own purposes
and to weaponize it in the cruelest of ways. That's
(05:18):
not the way that Charlie would do it, and that's
not the way we should do it. But there will
be a legacy, there will be honors, there will be
memories moving forward, and I think they'll be good.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I think they'll be just.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I think they'll be ways we can all reach out
to other people. So that's what I told my son.
That's what I'm sharing here and I.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
How to share it with you. But an ugly, terrible week.
I'm glad it's over.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But the pit that the nauseous of my stomach, it
just won't go away. Just what a tragedy. And now
some headline, well, don't call it a comeback, don't call
(06:08):
it a retirement. Daniel day Lewis is back with a
new film coming out later this year, directed by his
son Ronan day Lewis. I guess when your son says, hey, Dad,
would you mind being in my movie? You say yes,
because that's what you do when you're a good dad.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But Daniel day.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Lewis is saying that he never actually retired. It's fake news.
Here's exactly what he said. I never tended to retire. Really,
I just stopped doing that particular type of work so
I could do some other work. All right, that's just
gas lighting. I'm sorry, it's gas lighting. He said he retired,
he wanted to retire. It's okay to unretire, and I
(06:43):
kind of hope that Quentin Tarantino after his tenth film,
whenever that comes out, well, he does the same. It says, Hey,
just kidding, I want to make an eleventh film and
a twelve film. These are great artists at the peak
of their careers. We should hopefully get more.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Work from them.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So I think the best news about all of this,
Daniel da Lewis is not retired. And no matter what
you want to way you want to spin it, it's
good news for us because we might get some more
Oscar worthy performances.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's a great thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Charlie we just talked about would have hated this. Comedy
Central and this is no surprise, pulled an episode of
south Park that aired just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
The episode in question had.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Cartman playing a very Charlie Kirk esque character. No, it
wasn't really flattering. Yes, it was kind of funny. And
guess who liked it, probably more than anyone. Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
He said, a bravo.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's fun to be mocked by a great show like
south Park. He took it and stride. He's got a
thick skin. He didn't mind it. So for Comedy Central
to say, ah, we're gonna yank it. It seems not
the right time. Well, it's not exactly what Charlie would
have wanted. Now, the minor good news here is that
it's also available on Paramount Plus and they as of
right now are not yanking it from the platform. Well
(07:56):
that's good. We all should have a sense of humor.
We should all realize this has nothing to do with
the death of Charlie Kirk. And again, when Charlie was alive,
he got a kick out of it. So let's honor
him in part by laughing at South Park and knowing
we can tell jokes and we don't need to be
protected from jokes that all of a sudden just land
a little differently. Well, I mentioned before that Stephen King
(08:19):
tweet where he said that Charlie Kirk wanted gay people
to be stoned. One of the people who was outraged
by that comment was Dave Rubin, who is conservative and
happens to be gay, and said that he and Charlie
were great friends and never saw anything of the kind
of thinking when he was with him, So it was
fake news. It was nonsense. But I want to add
a little cynical note to the Stephen King situation. And
(08:40):
again yes, he did quickly apologize, no holds barred, said
I'm sorry I got it wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
We should see more of that. A lot of times
celebrities share terrible awful things, and some ofoys they share
terrible awful bits of fake news and they say nothing.
They don't delete the tweets, they don't delete the conversations,
they don't apologize. So Stephen King did. But I had
to say one thing about the situation. Maybe a little
struck me a little cynically, because Stephen King has a
(09:07):
movie coming out now. It's not his movie, per se,
but it's based on his story. It's called The Long
Walk out in theaters this weekend. It's a pretty good film.
It's dystopian, that's what Stephen King delivers, about a future
society where resources are scarce and young men get together
to go.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
In this Long Walk.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's a competition and the winner gets untold riches and
the loser gets their ticket, which is a euphemism for death.
Very Stephen King, like I said, it's a very powerful film.
It's a really well told film. It's a heavy sit
for sure, not the kind of film maybe you want
to see in a weekend, but you know, just want
to give.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Praise where it's due.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And also I wonder if Stephen King was thinking, Jesus,
this is the right time to put out a message
like that that's so corrosive and so inaccurate when I have.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
A new movie coming out this weekend.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Well, I don't know, maybe I'm getting older, maybe getting
too cynical. But crossed my mind and again he did
the right thing. But why did he do the wrong thing,
the really wrong thing in the first place. Journalist Mark
(10:20):
Judge covers the arts from a sane, right up center perspective.
Sound familiar, You know, I welcome the competition in part
because Mark is just.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So good at his job.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
He's so thoughtful, he's so interesting, really does care about
the arts in a way that maybe not enough conservatives do.
I hopefully I think I do. It's been what it's
pushing my career all these years. Andrew Claven's another great example.
I mean, he's someone who really cherishes the arts, and
Mark does as well. And I spoke to him recently
about his career, the work he's done, and also how
(10:51):
he doesn't just cover the arts sometimes he does create art.
He wrote a book a little while ago called The
Devil's Triangle Mark Judge versus the Americans stas and it's
all about something that was very near and dear to
his heart, an attack against him. Now, if you recall
the Christine blasi Ford situation where she claimed that Brett Kavanaugh,
the future of Supreme Court Justice, well, he attempted to
(11:13):
rape her back in the day a long time ago. Well,
she also said that there was someone else in the
room at the time, Mark Judge. She couldn't prove it,
And of course the press attacked both Kavanaugh and Judge,
and Judge has declared his innocence and ever since then
the facts are clearly on his side. Christine blasi Ford
(11:33):
didn't have many facts on her side at all besides
her word, which was pretty darn wildly.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So that book covers it. But it's not just a book.
He actually meant to make that a screenplay.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
He wants to make it into a movie, and he
hasn't been successful yet. But what a great ambitious project,
something we'd really need to see. And it's a hell
of a story. Tragedy for sure, that one man was
railroaded by the press and other people by a political party,
for sure. So I wanted to bring him on the
show for a million different reasons. That's one of them,
(12:04):
because he's such a proponent of the arts, because he
cares about the arts, because he's got so much wisdom
to share. But between the interview and now, he had
another project that came out. He's trying to create an
anti communism film Festival's planned to make it next year,
not this year, but coming soon, and he started a
GoFundMe page to raise money to make this possible. I
(12:25):
really do hope that you will check it out, maybe
give a dollar or two, maybe give a little bit
more than that to make this a reality, because there
have been films over the years that shows the horrors
of communism the lives of others is probably the most
prominent in recent years, but there are many other films
that will be seen at this festival. But to make
it happen, to make it a reality, well, we've got
to all chip in a little bit. Wouldn't it be
(12:47):
wonderful if big stars showed up, if a lot of
people weighed in on it and made it possible with
their efforts. Again, it doesn't take much five dollars here
or there, and all of a sudden, this festival becomes
a reality. So that link will be in the show notes,
but go to GoFundMe dot com you can probably find
it there as well. So here's my conversation with Mark Judge,
a sane, sober journalist, someone who cares deeply about the arts. Yeah,
(13:11):
he's right of center, but he wants great art period.
I think we all should want that too.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Well, Mark, thanks for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
You know I have a million questions on paper in
theory for you, but well, obviously we'll keep it to
a tight twenty twenty five minutes, but generally speaking, I
wanted to get your take on where a conservative pop
culture is right now, because you know, I think if
we had that question ten years ago, we would just say, oh,
nothing's happening, and we'd move on to the next subject.
But there has been progress. There have been documentaries, and
(13:40):
The Daily Wire has done some feature films that have
been interesting and certainly provocative in the greater cultural sense.
And again, you know, indie artists are able to do
their thing much more, much better than ever could just
with the technology. But where do you think we stand
right now? And I don't even mean the hardcore conservative.
It's just sort of like a rebellious take on Hollywood
(14:04):
where it doesn't kind of follow the usual group thing.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Well, it's kind of like where punk rock was in
the seventies, or the alternate filmmakers were in the sixties.
They're young and ambitious and talented conservative filmmakers out there
and they're ready to break through, but they're extremely frustrated.
I'm friends with a couple of them, and I was
talking to one today. And when liberals would enter the
arts over the last fifty years, there was always a
(14:28):
crucial moment where they'd spend all their money, put everything
on their credit card, make an independent movie, and an
outsider would come in and say, Okay, Martin Scorsese's got talent,
let's give him some money. Yeah, the Clash has talent,
let's put them on a major record label. And for conservatives,
that step is not happening. A friend of mine named
(14:50):
Paul Rowland made a film that we've both seen or
written about, called Exemple. He made it for ten thousand dollars,
black and white movie, great movie about a Catholic priest
that goes bad and he is precisely the kind of
person that a conservative organization with deep pockets would come
along and say, hey, this guy made a quite interesting
movie for ten thousand dollars. It's one hundred percent of
(15:12):
rotten tomatoes. Let's throw some money this guy. See what
he's got next. And that step is not happening. That
step does not happen.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
So it wouldn't even need to be a lot of money,
by the way, because he's shown that he can do
a lot with a little. So it's not like we
need twenty million to throw at Paul's way, but just
maybe something little lectra, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, exactly. And you know it's conservatives are running out
of runway to complain about Hollywood because when are we
going to get involved in the popular culture. Well we are.
I mean Quentin Tarantino's movie Once upon a Time in
Hollywood is a conservative movie. It's a movie where he,
you know, throws the can of spaghetti at Squeaky from
the hippie And what is that movie about. It's about
(15:53):
male friendship. It's about a friendship between two men. So
conservatives are increasingly in the popular culture, which means we
can't complain about it as much. However, it's we're not dominant.
I mean, despite losing millions of millions of dollars, liberals
are still cranking out the usual slop and they haven't
learned that this stuff doesn't make money. Although with all
(16:16):
the stuff going on with Star Wars and the forced
political correctness and the stunt casting, they're learning that that
stuff doesn't make money. So I think the short answer
is this, We've got the arsenal, we just need the fuel.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I think are there other right of center artists or
even just free thinkers that you can mention that could
use that kind of a boost. You mentioned Paul Roll,
and I completely agree. I know him a tiny bit
off off screen here, so I've chatted with him.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I think he's very talented.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But other other folks that come to mind, you think, hey,
I think he or she they've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I wish they had a bigger platform.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Well, if I can steer it to the personal real quick.
In twenty twenty two, I published a book called The
Devil's Triangle about my involvement in the bread we have
an a nightmare of twenty eighteen, the book was published,
I got some nice reviews, and everything now Right after
that fiasco happened, I got a call from a well
(17:10):
known Hollywood actor I won't say his name, and he said, so,
how many people have bid for your story? And I
said none? And his response was literally, this just disbelief.
And he said, look, we've got a major political scandal,
historical moment that you were involved in. We've got flashbacks
(17:31):
to the nineteen eighties, We've got courtroom scenes, We've got
flawed and complex characters. Why isn't anybody going to make
this movie? So long, story short, Me and a couple
other guys, one of whom is Paul Rowland, wrote a
treatment of it. We sent the treatment around, people liked
it very much. A professional screenwriter got involved and he said,
(17:51):
this is a twenty five page treatment. I want to
write this screenplay of this. And Christian, it's been incredible
because you hear conservatives can learning about Hollywood and how
do we change this and everything? And for ten million
dollars we could make this movie and and and it's
not like, well, where's your treatment, it's here, Well where's
your script? It's right here? Is the story unique? Yes,
(18:13):
it's the story can't be stolen or imitated. You've got
an American at Stasi trying to destroy a regular citizen.
And you know, I've heard from people and conservatives and
commentars going, you know, you got it. Why are you
still talking about this? Stop talking about this and asking
this question. If we had failed, if I had lied
and I had sunk my friend Brett Kavanaugh and his
life had been destroyed, answer this question, honestly, would there
(18:35):
have been a Hollywood movie made about it? That there'd
be three? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, so you race to the finish.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
There'd be a race to the finish. So so we
want to do this. Paul Rowlands another guy other than that,
I can't really think of any I mean, I know
there's some musicians that are secretly you know, conservative, that
don't really want to talk about it a lot. But
I've met a couple younger, you know, guys in bands
because I used to work on a record store. I
(19:03):
know that scene, and they don't want to publicly talk
about it, but they kind of like Trump, and they
you know, they don't like you know, when we were
younger in the eighties and everything, the cryptonite to us
was being told what to say and what to sing.
It's like, do not tell us what to say and
what to sing, and they're really pushing back against that.
(19:24):
So they're definitely out there. But I think the big
one is Paul Rowland. He's actually working on a new
project called Punch the Line, which is set in nineteen
eighties California and it involves teenagers and it's great and everything.
But but yeah, but the basic answer is, you know,
The Devil's try Out could be a great conservative movie.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And yeah, well, I want to circle back on something
that I think is really important because I think we've
seen progress and regression. You're mentioning fellow artists who may
lean to the writer, may be open to that, and
they are afraid to say their names, afraid to speak
out publicly, and I get that. I mean, these are
people's lives, bids at stakes, and there's obvious repercussions that
they speak out. And yet you know, during the last
(20:05):
election cycle, we had people like Joe Rogan and Theo
Vaughn and Andrew Schulten, even if they weren't aggressively picking
a side by interviewing people on Team Trump, they did
make a stand. They did give a voice, and I
always thought it was based on they saw free speech
under a significant attack, and I think they chose sides
for that reason.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
But we needed to.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Be an atmosphere where more and more people could speak
out without being punished, without the repercussions. Is maybe that's
the ultimate answer, that there's still this fear across certain
levels that well, I can't support that art, or I
can't write a check for that art, or I can't
be seen attached to that art. Is that maybe were
the next big step or the next domino to fall
(20:47):
to kind of make this happen.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
The next step what has to happen is very simple.
Make a great work of art. Yeah, make a great movie.
When I mentioned that well known Hollywood who called me
in twenty eighteen, he's done movies with Johnny Depp, he's
a successful actor, and he, I said, this is your ballpark,
(21:10):
it's not mine. I don't know, Hollywood, And he said,
I'm gonna tell you something, Mark, And you might find
this hard to believe, but he said, actors, including the
liber ones I know, want good roles. Oh yeah, he said,
if you produce a great screenplay based on the Devil's
Triangle or Paul Rowland makes a great movie like Exemplum,
even a liberal like Alec Baldwin will say, you know what,
(21:30):
I wouldn't mind playing Mark Judge. I wouldn't mind playing
Breck Kavanaugh. I mean they want good roles. And like
I said, I'm Catholic. I love Come to Jesus movies.
They're inspiring. I think the Christian film industry is improving
and improving, and every year the movies get better. Some
of them are genuinely good and great movies. However, we
also need a movie that could have been made in
(21:52):
the nineteen seventies about complex, flawed characters that might have
some bad language, and make it a great movie. And
I'll just quick say a conservative friend of mine the
other day was reading the script and he said, you know,
you've got guys in here from high school who don't
like Kavanaugh. And I go, well, yeah, that's the reality,
and that makes for a better movie. Yeah, yeah, because
if it's all like good guys versus bad guys, which
(22:15):
this was, but if you don't have that complexity of hey,
these were real people with complicated feelings, that makes for
a much better drama. So produce a great movie, produce
a great work of art. That's the best defense.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Looking at some of the things that have been created
in recent years. I mean, am I racist?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
What is a woman?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
One of a documentary I've I've been promoting for a
little while and that was to Fall in Minneapolis, which
I thought was a stunning indictment of the George Floyd era.
Are there things you see out there that have been created?
You mentioned the evolution of faith based storytelling, for example.
Are there any just films or TV shows or documentary
that you've really enjoyed or think that need more attention to.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I'm I kind of like to promote that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Well, there's a horrific group called the Moving Picture Institute
and they do great documentaries. They did this movie called
Pinball about pinball in the nineteen seventies. It was outlawed
in New York and this journalist for GQ went to
war because he loved pinball, trying to make it legal again,
and it was like Ghostbusters. He had to like totally
run the gauntlet of the bureaucracy. And I actually, I
(23:22):
don't think he'll mind that I say this, but the
president of the Moving Picture Institute contacted me and he
was interested in my story. They're working on another production
right now, and I don't know if that will ever
bear fruit. But the Movie Picture Institute this movie about Pinball,
which was genuinely entertaining. It wasn't like, hey, I'm eating
my conservative spinach by watching this movie. The guy who
(23:43):
starred in it was in West Side Story, the Spielberg
West Side Story. The acting was top notch and the
story was fantastic. So something like the Moving Picture Institute,
I think deser's a lot more attention because if you
look at their roster, it's that it's movies. There was
this hair salon owned and managed by African American women
(24:04):
in New York and they did a documentary about that
because they were getting shut down by the bureaucracy and
they were running a successful business, and the Moving Picture
Institute came to their defense and did a documentary on him.
So stuff like that is great. It's just it needs
more exposure. You don't hear about these movies on Fox
or in the Daily Wire. Stuff like that. Hollywood and
(24:25):
Toto talks about him. You talked about example, But we
really need that infrastructure that the left has where someone
like Paul Roland or someone like the Moving Picture Institute
has a springboard to a big audience.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Well, that's one of my frustrations about when you see
the rare right of center or even just contrarian art
comes along. You know, if the Daily Wire has a documentary,
Breitbart won't cover it because they're basically the competitors. They're
at war with each other. There's a whole backstory there
about the key players at each individual organization. But you know,
if Michael has a movie coming out next week, everyone
(25:02):
is going to cover it, you know, variety of Hollywood reporter, Deadline,
the Rap, you name it, it'll get covered. And I
feel like a lot of times when right leaning art
does bubble up that you don't get that mass coverage,
even though conservatives do have an infrastructure now and there
are major players with major eyeballs on them. Any thoughts
about that? Is that fair to say? And how do
(25:22):
we break through that logging?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
God, that's exactly what I was talking to Paul Roland
about that this morning, And we were literally talking about
that this morning, that exact subject. How there's no sort
of osmosis or whatever the right word is for connecting
and communicating between these different platforms, And I don't know
what the answer is I don't know what the solution is.
(25:44):
I mean, and there's also you know, I mean conservative journalism,
even conservative entertainment journalism with you, with the exception because
I've been reading you for years, is not great at
covering a lot of this stuff. Again, I hate the
turn this back to my book, but I've written about
this where you know, I was at the center of
(26:04):
this major thing, and I had this book come out,
you know, not reviewed in National Review, not reviewed in
the Wall Street Journal, and I wrote a piece about
this the Para Line published and I said, whatever you
think about this case, whatever your personal feelings about me
as a journalist, this is news. This is news, whatever
your personal opinions are. So there's a real problem in
(26:28):
just not doing the journalism journalistic thing of hey, this
is news. And you know, the Daily Wire could have said, well,
this is kind of a controversial character. But he wrote
this book exposing all this stuff about the oppo research
that was on and everything. As a journalists, this deserves
to be talked about. And that bleeds into movies. It
(26:48):
bleeds into you know, exemplm that great movie made by
Paul Rowland for ten thousand dollars. He was not getting
a lot of media until I started pushing it and
you started writing about it. We both started writing about it,
and Paul and I have both talked about why didn't
this get kicked up to National Review, to Vanity Fair.
You know, it would have been a great story in
the mainstream media of the New York Times. Young Catholic,
(27:09):
conservative filmmaker makes a movie for ten thousand dollars. Yeah,
so there's no the tribes are not speaking. It's not
like The Lord of the Rings, where you like the
bonfire and everybody sees it. It's just I wish I had
an answer for that.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But yeah, I want to steer towards more traditional Hollywood
right now. I want to get your take on this
because the conventional wisdom, and there's a lot of truth
to it, is that Hollywood is suffering right now. I
don't think the streaming platforms are as profitable as I thought.
We see a lot of big, big bombs at the
box office, but by the same token, we're all still
talking about the White Lotus. And if you look at
the box office recently, there's been some significant hits, Minecraft
(27:47):
movie Sinners, How To Train Your Dragon, The Next Avatar,
at the end of the year will be massive.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I think Superman will do well.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I feel like everyone's keeping lights on for all the
tales of woe, and I don't dismiss the tales as well.
But what do you see where do you see Hollywood
right now? Do you think it's in as deep a
pivot or a problem as you think, or is it
what is gonna get your reaction?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I just think there's such a huge amount of talent
in Hollywood. And it's almost theoretical to say that, but
there's some so much rich talent in Hollywood, and as
long as they make kids movies, because those do well,
you know they'll be an audience for that. Superhero movies
are still doing well and everything, so I think the
key to their economic success is basically kids movies. Because
(28:31):
every summer it's the same story. Hollywood's dying, Hollywood's dead,
Despicable Meet four comes out and makes three hundred billion dollars.
I mean, it's the same story every year. However, there's
needs to be room for more adult fare and the
midlist stuff and everything, and that's where I think Hollywood
can take a chance and make more conservative movies. Several
(28:55):
years ago, me and a few other guys wanted to
make a movie out of Witness, the classic by Whittakers Chambers,
one of the great books in American history, great anti
communist book, and it was a real battle trying to
get that done. And but this was several years Agoing
with streaming and with places like Hulu and Netflix, you
can tell stories like that. You can do you know,
(29:18):
souls and eats and stuff. You can do those stayv
ski There's nothing stop you from doing that. And finally,
on this topic, I'll just say, you know, people are
tired of the Hollywood leftist troops because they've seen them.
They've seen them over and over again. They're not working.
The Girl Boss stuff is not working. People are not
going to see these movies. So you need something else.
(29:43):
And to me, it's there's an entire untilled acre acreage
or force of conservative themed movies.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
You know, I've noticed in recent years that Netflix, after
that whole Dave Chappelle kerfuffle with the trans jokes, they
leaned pretty hard into the comedians as I call them,
the Shane Gillises, the Tim Dillon's people like that, and Netflix,
and obviously they had a head start in the streaming landscape.
They summit the one company that's doing much better financially,
(30:11):
and I think they've got progressive stuff on that platform
as well, no doubt. But I think kind of going
in different directions and affort offering something to everyone, I
think it's really helped their business model and I can't
imagine why others don't do it. I mean, you look
at what happened with Guttfeld, the one right leaning show
on late night ISHTV, and it's a sensation, and you
think that I want a piece of that pie. But
(30:33):
often Hollywood doesn't think that way. Are there trends that
are going on right now in Hollywood that you think
are maybe unsung, under reported, or things that are you
kind of see maybe bubbling up under the surface, that
are that maybe kind of getting bigger in twenty twenty
five or even twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
One thing is the improvement of Christian themed movies. You
and I have talked about this, and I worked for
the Media Research Center ten years ago, and look, I
gotta be honest with you. We were conservative, a lot
of Christian on staff, but we would kind of titter
when some of the movies would come up because they
were so bad. I mean, they were corning some of
the effects. But this was twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and
(31:08):
then they started getting better and better and better. And
then the Chosen came out and DJ Caruso did this
movie about Mary, which I reviewed, which was cinematically a
professional Hollywood movie. So these movies you don't watch because
you have to or because you're a Christian. They're just
good movies. And that's been the main thing is they're
pretty much on part with Hollywood. Now, if they can
(31:31):
make some conservative theme political movies with those kind of chops,
then you've got something. Like I said, the Hollywood actor
that called me said, your movie would cost ten million
dollars to make. That's not a huge budget, and I
guarantee you it could make that back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, So I'm curious you don't didn't name the name, obviously,
But are you protecting that person because you're just being
polite or did they ask you not to share that.
I I cover a lot of artists myself where I
will not share their names because if they get politically
out it it's controversial.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I was just kind of curious in that particular state.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Both Actually I'm being polite, and he's sometimes been a
controversial character. So without talking to him before this interview,
I don't want, like tonight.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
To have him go no, perfectly fine and I respect yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah. And there's other people out there too. I have
a cousin who works at the Los Angeles Time, she's
worked there for thirty years. And you know, I know
their actors out there. As this actor said, he said,
you know, if they adapted your book about the Kavanaugh
thing into a movie, there are liberal actors who would
be lining up to be in this thing because they
like good roles and because you're a complex, flawed character.
(32:41):
You know, that makes it interesting. So I think the
breakthrough will happen with something like that. We're just a
normal movie that's not too preachy, but that's well written
in dramatic and maybe some actors on the left star
crossing the aisle and saying, look, I want to be
in this because this is interesting. And that's where we
are right now.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
The ultimate chum in the water is for an actor
is a great role, and they'll they'll go for it
if they can. You wrote recently about in a sense
praising The New York Times for.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Its arts coverage, and you wish there was.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
More of that on the right. Can you drill down
into that subject, cause I thought it was pretty interesting.
I know, listen, we're all hypercritical the New York Times,
but when it comes to their other kind of reportage,
it's often beautiful. I mean, I've read some of their
sports reporting. It's like, Wow, this is just so eloquantly written,
and it's just such a cut above what other outlets do.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Talk about that.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And what we could people on the right can learn
from that.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I have the same routine every Sunday. I get up,
get some bacon and eggs, get the Sunday New York Times,
curse the communists that run the opinion section, and am
totally delighted and awed and overjoyed at the arts coverage
because it's like a book. It's, you know, profile of chardet,
a new male poet who works in the oil fields.
(33:55):
You know, a great underground movie, a jazz anniversary, and
it's just so rich and so well written, and economically,
there's no reason why conservatives can't do that. We just
haven't built up the infrastructure. And this is also important
conservatives talk about like liberals and nepotism, and all that
other stuff. Conservative media runs a lot on nepotism in
(34:16):
the buddy system, and people who might not otherwise get
jobs and who might not have a huge amount of
talent get jobs as movie reviewers and critics and book critics.
When liberals in the arts field, it's all meritocracy. You
get a job of the New York Times if you've
got the chops to write good book reviews. That's it.
That's why their coverage is so good. And there's no
(34:37):
reason why we can't do that. Just start hiring for talent.
I mean, it's amazing. I get lists of a lot
of books that are coming out because they get early
copies to review, and I'm like, none of these books
get covered in the conservative press, and a lot of
them are conservative leaning, are quite interesting. Yeah, so we need,
you know, we need to cover that. There's no reason
why we don't.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You know, it'd be great if you could partner with
that investor who could create a new platform that would
be be designed to review those kinds of books. And
it's not the kind of thing that would make money initially,
so I think that's the real drawback there. But it
wouldn't it be great if there was that platform, that
place where people can gravitate to a different Next week.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
There's a new biography coming out about Clint Eastwood. I
got an early copy of it because I'm a good
journalist and I scrambled and got an early copy of it.
There's interesting parts about his libertarianism and his politics in there,
and to me, well, I have nowhere to send it.
It's like I can't send it to the New York Times,
so probably covering already. The National Review won't run my stuff.
It's like, I have this opportunity to cover this thing
(35:36):
and be first, and be first with this and look
at it from a conservative angle, so that east was
treated fairly, and there's nowhere in the ecosystem for me
to go even though I have this book right now
on my desk, and that sucks. That shouldn't be the case.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
One of the things that I like about this show
in my website is sometimes I just write purely about movies,
about actors, about a TV show that I admire, and
doesn't even get into politics at all. It's just about
the art, about the enjoyment, about the craft of storytelling.
And I do miss that too. I mean, I understand,
part of my bread and butter is covering right up
center stuff, and I'll do this sort of outray pages
(36:14):
now and then. It's just kind of part of what
I do. But it is nice to kind of just
drill down to a great artist. I mean, the fact
that Clint Eastwood is in his nineties and still making
credible work like Juror Number two is really staggering because
many many directors.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
They just lose their fastball.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean, you know, Coppola and some others we can
mention they just haven't made great movies and many a
moon and Eastwood's still doing it. Before I let you go,
this is something that always kind of teases my mind, so.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I'll kind of throw it your way.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
You mentioned the stories that aren't being told. The Devil's
Triangle is such a perfect example. It's almost cartoonishly perfect.
But I always think about other stories that could make
a great TV mini series or a movie. Are there
any subjects that you think, I mean, it could be political,
it could be cultural, it could be just something.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
That Hollywood wouldn't touch.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Are there any stories like that that you wish we'd
see in the big screen?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
The Great Untapped reservoir of that is the East German Stassi.
There are books written about a guy who wrote a
bicycle to escape the East German Stasi. There's a book
called The Tunnel about people who tunneled through the wall
with the help of the Network News. With the help
of NBC News, probably arguably the greatest conservative movie in
the last twenty years, aside from three hundred, it's the
(37:26):
Lives of others. There's only one movie made about the
East German Stassi, and I've been doing a lot of
research on them, and what's fascinating about them is, unlike
the Nazis, who tended to dislike modern art and entertainers
and stuff like that, the Sassi worked with entertainers. They
worked with art artists. And when you see something going
from Fauci's mouth to Stephen Colbert's mouth, it's the same thing.
(37:49):
And when you see what happened to me in Kavanaugh,
it's identical to the Stasi. So there's a lot of
rich stories to be told there. And I think it's
also more respectful to Jewish people, because I don't like
to overuse Holocaust analogies. You have to be respectful about
that stuff, and people too easily and glibly throw that
out there, and I'm just more comfortable using the sassy
(38:10):
thing because you know, I want to be respectful, right,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
No, no, I agree.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I mean it's a shame that that has become such
a go to in our culture, where it should be
sort of reserved for the most extreme circumstances.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
So yeah, yeah, So digging to the STASKI man, I've
been reading a lot of books on them, and the
Lives of others is twenty years old. It'll be twenty
or thirty years old in twenty twenty six. Rewatch that thing.
It's very similar to what's going on today, even in America.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Well, that's why art matters, and that's why pop culture
is so important.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
You know, the work you do.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I've always enjoyed Andrew Clavin and what he brings to
the arts and his perspectives. But if you want to
help out mark and support his journalism kind of keep
this voice alive in the in the landscape of the media.
It's not easy, Like you said, some of the platforms
that should be gobbling up his work aren't quite doing.
So you can go to go fund me, just go
(39:02):
to the main website. And then punch in support Mark
Judge's journalism. You will find his page, give him a
little bit of a tip of the cap. Of course,
everything helps, and then you'll get more stories from Mark
and maybe even some screenplays down the short or long road.
I know you don't strike me as the kind of
person who gives up easily, So let's make this Devil's
Triangle movie happen. If it doesn't happen next year the
(39:23):
year after, the story is not going to go away.
It's always going to matter and it's always going to
be sadly relevant to the world we live in. So Mark,
thank you so much for your time, for doing the
work you do, and I hope to touch base again
with some more stories.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Thanks for the work you do. Christian, It's always good
to be with you.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Well, it's it for the show this week.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Thank you again to Radio America for having me as
part of their podcast lineup, and apologies have you got
a little too personal, a little too real this week.
I just couldn't do a traditional podcast with the events
of the last few days. I hope you kind of
stick in there with me. But things will be better
back to normal hopefully next week. God willing, but again everyone.
(40:00):
I hope everyone has a wonderful day, a wonderful week.
Stay strong, stay proud, stay true Doctor's Orders M.
This week in the Hollywood and Total Podcast, well, we
try to make sense of a brutal, terrible awful week,
and we speak to entertainment journalists Mark Judge about the
work he does, some of the topics he covers, and
what he does more than just cover the arts, sometimes
he creates art as well. Welcome to the Hollywood in
(00:24):
Total Podcast, Entertainment news and reviews without the woke Hollywood narrative.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Free speech, free expression.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Now that's entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
And here's your host.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Oh lord, winning film critic Christian Toto, What terrible, awful,
unbelievable week. You know, the week of nine to eleven
is something that we should all remember. And this was
something that was so tragic and so horrifying that it
pushed that off the front page. Just unbelievable. Of course,
(01:00):
talking about the assassination, the murder of Charlie Kirk, I
still can't process that. I still can't think it's real,
but it is, and I want to talk about it
before going into the usual Hollywood and Total Podcast fair
It just seems like he can't not talk about it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
My oldest son loved.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Charlie Kirk, watched all of his videos. Was really inspired
by him. I don't really push my politics on my
son at all. I want him to discover things, find
out things, research things on his own.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Don't let dad, you know, get in the way. He
probably wouldn't listen anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
But he loved Charlie called him the goat, and he
was as shocked and horrified as I was, and the
rest of us were. You know, one of the things
I thought about shortly after the news came out was,
you know, what was going to be the Hollywood reaction?
And I think for the most part, maybe most stars
just stayed silent, which is probably not a bad thing.
A few like Chris Pratt said really beautiful things about
(01:57):
what was going on and why it was so such
a terror day, it's such a terrible situation.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
And then there were a couple of stars who they
do what the stars do. They seize on tragedy and
they get the facts wrong. It's sad and I'm glad
so few people did at this time, but that's what happened.
George ta Quay of Star Trek fame, he immediately seized
upon the incident to push gun control, because never let
a crisis go to waste. And then later he tried
(02:25):
to push the meme that's been pretty popular on the left.
Oh this was a Trump supporter or something akin to that.
I mean, just absolute nonsense. One of the more alarming
situations was Stephen King came out and shortly after Kirk's
death said that Charlie Kirk wanted gay people to be stoned. Unbelievable.
(02:46):
You know, one of the good things about sharing those
thoughts on X is that a lot of other people
saw it and shamed him into apologizing. Now, good for
him for apologizing, But what were you thinking? What could
possibly be going through your mind? But then I thought
the more about Charlie Kirk and his memory and the
work he did and what he offered to the culture.
(03:06):
His memory is legacy. And I turned to my son
and I, you know, I didn't want to get it
to be hyper political, didn't want to be angry, even
though I'm frankly furious, And I said, you know, the
best way to honor Charlie Kirk is to talk, to debate,
to bring the facts, not just the emotions. To be
kind to people who have disagreements with you. You know, I
pointed out that when my wife was sick with cancer,
(03:28):
that her entire friend circle is to the left, and
pretty aggressively to the left. I found out over the years.
And what did they do when my wife was sick
and we were struggling. Well, they open up their hearts,
They open up their wallets, they opened up their minds,
They opened up everything possible to make our lives a
little better. They baby said, our kids they were younger.
Then they sent us lots and lots of free meals
(03:50):
and coupons and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
He sent us money.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'm sure more than a few sent us their thoughts
and prayers. So we can't forget that. We can't deem
and ize people. We can't use a tragedy like this
and do all the things that Charlie Kirk wouldn't want
us to do. That'd be the absolute worst legacy, the
worst way to honor his memory.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
So I talked to my son.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
About that and talked about what we should do moving forward,
and again try to steer clear of the politics in
as much as I could. You know, the last time
I had this emptiness, this pit of my stomach, was
nine to eleven. That particular day, I was working in
DC and working the Washington Times, and I the previous
day was my birthday, and I with my future bride.
(04:35):
We had a wonderful time. We just had a cake
and music. It was just a great evening. The next day,
I woke up and drove to work, and when I
got to work, everyone was looking at their little black
and white monitors because back in the day we didn't
have these big screen TVs like we do now, at
least not as much. And I thought about that and
just the ache I had inside me that day and
how it felt similar and it wasn't wildly different days,
(04:56):
wildly different tragedies. I'm not comparing the two, but just
just what my gut told me after those particular events.
So the best way to honor Charlie is to keep
on talking, to not sing to the people's level, like
the Stephen Kings and the George Decays of the world,
who just want to use this for their own purposes
and to weaponize it in the cruelest of ways. That's
(05:18):
not the way that Charlie would do it, and that's
not the way we should do it. But there will
be a legacy, there will be honors, there will be
memories moving forward, and I think they'll be good.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I think they'll be just.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I think they'll be ways we can all reach out
to other people. So that's what I told my son.
That's what I'm sharing here and I.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
How to share it with you. But an ugly, terrible week.
I'm glad it's over.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
But the pit that the nauseous of my stomach, it
just won't go away. Just what a tragedy. And now
some headline, well, don't call it a comeback, don't call
(06:08):
it a retirement. Daniel day Lewis is back with a
new film coming out later this year, directed by his
son Ronan day Lewis. I guess when your son says, hey, Dad,
would you mind being in my movie? You say yes,
because that's what you do when you're a good dad.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
But Daniel day.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Lewis is saying that he never actually retired. It's fake news.
Here's exactly what he said. I never tended to retire. Really,
I just stopped doing that particular type of work so
I could do some other work. All right, that's just
gas lighting. I'm sorry, it's gas lighting. He said he retired,
he wanted to retire. It's okay to unretire, and I
(06:43):
kind of hope that Quentin Tarantino after his tenth film,
whenever that comes out, well, he does the same. It says, Hey,
just kidding, I want to make an eleventh film and
a twelve film. These are great artists at the peak
of their careers. We should hopefully get more.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Work from them.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
So I think the best news about all of this,
Daniel da Lewis is not retired. And no matter what
you want to way you want to spin it, it's
good news for us because we might get some more
Oscar worthy performances.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's a great thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Charlie we just talked about would have hated this. Comedy
Central and this is no surprise, pulled an episode of
south Park that aired just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
The episode in question had.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Cartman playing a very Charlie Kirk esque character. No, it
wasn't really flattering. Yes, it was kind of funny. And
guess who liked it, probably more than anyone. Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
He said, a bravo.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's fun to be mocked by a great show like
south Park. He took it and stride. He's got a
thick skin. He didn't mind it. So for Comedy Central
to say, ah, we're gonna yank it. It seems not
the right time. Well, it's not exactly what Charlie would
have wanted. Now, the minor good news here is that
it's also available on Paramount Plus and they as of
right now are not yanking it from the platform. Well
(07:56):
that's good. We all should have a sense of humor.
We should all realize this has nothing to do with
the death of Charlie Kirk. And again, when Charlie was alive,
he got a kick out of it. So let's honor
him in part by laughing at South Park and knowing
we can tell jokes and we don't need to be
protected from jokes that all of a sudden just land
a little differently. Well, I mentioned before that Stephen King
(08:19):
tweet where he said that Charlie Kirk wanted gay people
to be stoned. One of the people who was outraged
by that comment was Dave Rubin, who is conservative and
happens to be gay, and said that he and Charlie
were great friends and never saw anything of the kind
of thinking when he was with him, So it was
fake news. It was nonsense. But I want to add
a little cynical note to the Stephen King situation. And
(08:40):
again yes, he did quickly apologize, no holds barred, said
I'm sorry I got it wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Good for him.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
We should see more of that. A lot of times
celebrities share terrible awful things, and some ofoys they share
terrible awful bits of fake news and they say nothing.
They don't delete the tweets, they don't delete the conversations,
they don't apologize. So Stephen King did. But I had
to say one thing about the situation. Maybe a little
struck me a little cynically, because Stephen King has a
(09:07):
movie coming out now. It's not his movie, per se,
but it's based on his story. It's called The Long
Walk out in theaters this weekend. It's a pretty good film.
It's dystopian, that's what Stephen King delivers, about a future
society where resources are scarce and young men get together
to go.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
In this Long Walk.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's a competition and the winner gets untold riches and
the loser gets their ticket, which is a euphemism for death.
Very Stephen King, like I said, it's a very powerful film.
It's a really well told film. It's a heavy sit
for sure, not the kind of film maybe you want
to see in a weekend, but you know, just want
to give.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Praise where it's due.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And also I wonder if Stephen King was thinking, Jesus,
this is the right time to put out a message
like that that's so corrosive and so inaccurate when I have.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
A new movie coming out this weekend.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Well, I don't know, maybe I'm getting older, maybe getting
too cynical. But crossed my mind and again he did
the right thing. But why did he do the wrong thing,
the really wrong thing in the first place. Journalist Mark
(10:20):
Judge covers the arts from a sane, right up center perspective.
Sound familiar, You know, I welcome the competition in part
because Mark is just.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So good at his job.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
He's so thoughtful, he's so interesting, really does care about
the arts in a way that maybe not enough conservatives do.
I hopefully I think I do. It's been what it's
pushing my career all these years. Andrew Claven's another great example.
I mean, he's someone who really cherishes the arts, and
Mark does as well. And I spoke to him recently
about his career, the work he's done, and also how
(10:51):
he doesn't just cover the arts sometimes he does create art.
He wrote a book a little while ago called The
Devil's Triangle Mark Judge versus the Americans stas and it's
all about something that was very near and dear to
his heart, an attack against him. Now, if you recall
the Christine blasi Ford situation where she claimed that Brett Kavanaugh,
the future of Supreme Court Justice, well, he attempted to
(11:13):
rape her back in the day a long time ago. Well,
she also said that there was someone else in the
room at the time, Mark Judge. She couldn't prove it,
And of course the press attacked both Kavanaugh and Judge,
and Judge has declared his innocence and ever since then
the facts are clearly on his side. Christine blasi Ford
(11:33):
didn't have many facts on her side at all besides
her word, which was pretty darn wildly.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So that book covers it. But it's not just a book.
He actually meant to make that a screenplay.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
He wants to make it into a movie, and he
hasn't been successful yet. But what a great ambitious project,
something we'd really need to see. And it's a hell
of a story. Tragedy for sure, that one man was
railroaded by the press and other people by a political party,
for sure. So I wanted to bring him on the
show for a million different reasons. That's one of them,
(12:04):
because he's such a proponent of the arts, because he
cares about the arts, because he's got so much wisdom
to share. But between the interview and now, he had
another project that came out. He's trying to create an
anti communism film Festival's planned to make it next year,
not this year, but coming soon, and he started a
GoFundMe page to raise money to make this possible. I
(12:25):
really do hope that you will check it out, maybe
give a dollar or two, maybe give a little bit
more than that to make this a reality, because there
have been films over the years that shows the horrors
of communism the lives of others is probably the most
prominent in recent years, but there are many other films
that will be seen at this festival. But to make
it happen, to make it a reality, well, we've got
to all chip in a little bit. Wouldn't it be
(12:47):
wonderful if big stars showed up, if a lot of
people weighed in on it and made it possible with
their efforts. Again, it doesn't take much five dollars here
or there, and all of a sudden, this festival becomes
a reality. So that link will be in the show notes,
but go to GoFundMe dot com you can probably find
it there as well. So here's my conversation with Mark Judge,
a sane, sober journalist, someone who cares deeply about the arts. Yeah,
(13:11):
he's right of center, but he wants great art period.
I think we all should want that too.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Well, Mark, thanks for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
You know I have a million questions on paper in
theory for you, but well, obviously we'll keep it to
a tight twenty twenty five minutes, but generally speaking, I
wanted to get your take on where a conservative pop
culture is right now, because you know, I think if
we had that question ten years ago, we would just say, oh,
nothing's happening, and we'd move on to the next subject.
But there has been progress. There have been documentaries, and
(13:40):
The Daily Wire has done some feature films that have
been interesting and certainly provocative in the greater cultural sense.
And again, you know, indie artists are able to do
their thing much more, much better than ever could just
with the technology. But where do you think we stand
right now? And I don't even mean the hardcore conservative.
It's just sort of like a rebellious take on Hollywood
(14:04):
where it doesn't kind of follow the usual group thing.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Well, it's kind of like where punk rock was in
the seventies, or the alternate filmmakers were in the sixties.
They're young and ambitious and talented conservative filmmakers out there
and they're ready to break through, but they're extremely frustrated.
I'm friends with a couple of them, and I was
talking to one today. And when liberals would enter the
arts over the last fifty years, there was always a
(14:28):
crucial moment where they'd spend all their money, put everything
on their credit card, make an independent movie, and an
outsider would come in and say, Okay, Martin Scorsese's got talent,
let's give him some money. Yeah, the Clash has talent,
let's put them on a major record label. And for conservatives,
that step is not happening. A friend of mine named
(14:50):
Paul Rowland made a film that we've both seen or
written about, called Exemple. He made it for ten thousand dollars,
black and white movie, great movie about a Catholic priest
that goes bad and he is precisely the kind of
person that a conservative organization with deep pockets would come
along and say, hey, this guy made a quite interesting
movie for ten thousand dollars. It's one hundred percent of
(15:12):
rotten tomatoes. Let's throw some money this guy. See what
he's got next. And that step is not happening. That
step does not happen.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
So it wouldn't even need to be a lot of money,
by the way, because he's shown that he can do
a lot with a little. So it's not like we
need twenty million to throw at Paul's way, but just
maybe something little lectra, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, exactly. And you know it's conservatives are running out
of runway to complain about Hollywood because when are we
going to get involved in the popular culture. Well we are.
I mean Quentin Tarantino's movie Once upon a Time in
Hollywood is a conservative movie. It's a movie where he,
you know, throws the can of spaghetti at Squeaky from
the hippie And what is that movie about. It's about
(15:53):
male friendship. It's about a friendship between two men. So
conservatives are increasingly in the popular culture, which means we
can't complain about it as much. However, it's we're not dominant.
I mean, despite losing millions of millions of dollars, liberals
are still cranking out the usual slop and they haven't
learned that this stuff doesn't make money. Although with all
(16:16):
the stuff going on with Star Wars and the forced
political correctness and the stunt casting, they're learning that that
stuff doesn't make money. So I think the short answer
is this, We've got the arsenal, we just need the fuel.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I think are there other right of center artists or
even just free thinkers that you can mention that could
use that kind of a boost. You mentioned Paul Roll,
and I completely agree. I know him a tiny bit
off off screen here, so I've chatted with him.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I think he's very talented.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But other other folks that come to mind, you think, hey,
I think he or she they've got something to say.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I wish they had a bigger platform.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Well, if I can steer it to the personal real quick.
In twenty twenty two, I published a book called The
Devil's Triangle about my involvement in the bread we have
an a nightmare of twenty eighteen, the book was published,
I got some nice reviews, and everything now Right after
that fiasco happened, I got a call from a well
(17:10):
known Hollywood actor I won't say his name, and he said, so,
how many people have bid for your story? And I
said none? And his response was literally, this just disbelief.
And he said, look, we've got a major political scandal,
historical moment that you were involved in. We've got flashbacks
(17:31):
to the nineteen eighties, We've got courtroom scenes, We've got
flawed and complex characters. Why isn't anybody going to make
this movie? So long, story short, Me and a couple
other guys, one of whom is Paul Rowland, wrote a
treatment of it. We sent the treatment around, people liked
it very much. A professional screenwriter got involved and he said,
(17:51):
this is a twenty five page treatment. I want to
write this screenplay of this. And Christian, it's been incredible
because you hear conservatives can learning about Hollywood and how
do we change this and everything? And for ten million
dollars we could make this movie and and and it's
not like, well, where's your treatment, it's here, Well where's
your script? It's right here? Is the story unique? Yes,
(18:13):
it's the story can't be stolen or imitated. You've got
an American at Stasi trying to destroy a regular citizen.
And you know, I've heard from people and conservatives and
commentars going, you know, you got it. Why are you
still talking about this? Stop talking about this and asking
this question. If we had failed, if I had lied
and I had sunk my friend Brett Kavanaugh and his
life had been destroyed, answer this question, honestly, would there
(18:35):
have been a Hollywood movie made about it? That there'd
be three? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, so you race to the finish.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
There'd be a race to the finish. So so we
want to do this. Paul Rowlands another guy other than that,
I can't really think of any I mean, I know
there's some musicians that are secretly you know, conservative, that
don't really want to talk about it a lot. But
I've met a couple younger, you know, guys in bands
because I used to work on a record store. I
(19:03):
know that scene, and they don't want to publicly talk
about it, but they kind of like Trump, and they
you know, they don't like you know, when we were
younger in the eighties and everything, the cryptonite to us
was being told what to say and what to sing.
It's like, do not tell us what to say and
what to sing, and they're really pushing back against that.
(19:24):
So they're definitely out there. But I think the big
one is Paul Rowland. He's actually working on a new
project called Punch the Line, which is set in nineteen
eighties California and it involves teenagers and it's great and everything.
But but yeah, but the basic answer is, you know,
The Devil's try Out could be a great conservative movie.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And yeah, well, I want to circle back on something
that I think is really important because I think we've
seen progress and regression. You're mentioning fellow artists who may
lean to the writer, may be open to that, and
they are afraid to say their names, afraid to speak
out publicly, and I get that. I mean, these are
people's lives, bids at stakes, and there's obvious repercussions that
they speak out. And yet you know, during the last
(20:05):
election cycle, we had people like Joe Rogan and Theo
Vaughn and Andrew Schulten, even if they weren't aggressively picking
a side by interviewing people on Team Trump, they did
make a stand. They did give a voice, and I
always thought it was based on they saw free speech
under a significant attack, and I think they chose sides
for that reason.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
But we needed to.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Be an atmosphere where more and more people could speak
out without being punished, without the repercussions. Is maybe that's
the ultimate answer, that there's still this fear across certain
levels that well, I can't support that art, or I
can't write a check for that art, or I can't
be seen attached to that art. Is that maybe were
the next big step or the next domino to fall
(20:47):
to kind of make this happen.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
The next step what has to happen is very simple.
Make a great work of art. Yeah, make a great movie.
When I mentioned that well known Hollywood who called me
in twenty eighteen, he's done movies with Johnny Depp, he's
a successful actor, and he, I said, this is your ballpark,
(21:10):
it's not mine. I don't know, Hollywood, And he said,
I'm gonna tell you something, Mark, And you might find
this hard to believe, but he said, actors, including the
liber ones I know, want good roles. Oh yeah, he said,
if you produce a great screenplay based on the Devil's
Triangle or Paul Rowland makes a great movie like Exemplum,
even a liberal like Alec Baldwin will say, you know what,
(21:30):
I wouldn't mind playing Mark Judge. I wouldn't mind playing
Breck Kavanaugh. I mean they want good roles. And like
I said, I'm Catholic. I love Come to Jesus movies.
They're inspiring. I think the Christian film industry is improving
and improving, and every year the movies get better. Some
of them are genuinely good and great movies. However, we
also need a movie that could have been made in
(21:52):
the nineteen seventies about complex, flawed characters that might have
some bad language, and make it a great movie. And
I'll just quick say a conservative friend of mine the
other day was reading the script and he said, you know,
you've got guys in here from high school who don't
like Kavanaugh. And I go, well, yeah, that's the reality,
and that makes for a better movie. Yeah, yeah, because
if it's all like good guys versus bad guys, which
(22:15):
this was, but if you don't have that complexity of hey,
these were real people with complicated feelings, that makes for
a much better drama. So produce a great movie, produce
a great work of art. That's the best defense.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Looking at some of the things that have been created
in recent years. I mean, am I racist?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
What is a woman?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
One of a documentary I've I've been promoting for a
little while and that was to Fall in Minneapolis, which
I thought was a stunning indictment of the George Floyd era.
Are there things you see out there that have been created?
You mentioned the evolution of faith based storytelling, for example.
Are there any just films or TV shows or documentary
that you've really enjoyed or think that need more attention to.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I'm I kind of like to promote that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Well, there's a horrific group called the Moving Picture Institute
and they do great documentaries. They did this movie called
Pinball about pinball in the nineteen seventies. It was outlawed
in New York and this journalist for GQ went to
war because he loved pinball, trying to make it legal again,
and it was like Ghostbusters. He had to like totally
run the gauntlet of the bureaucracy. And I actually, I
(23:22):
don't think he'll mind that I say this, but the
president of the Moving Picture Institute contacted me and he
was interested in my story. They're working on another production
right now, and I don't know if that will ever
bear fruit. But the Movie Picture Institute this movie about Pinball,
which was genuinely entertaining. It wasn't like, hey, I'm eating
my conservative spinach by watching this movie. The guy who
(23:43):
starred in it was in West Side Story, the Spielberg
West Side Story. The acting was top notch and the
story was fantastic. So something like the Moving Picture Institute,
I think deser's a lot more attention because if you
look at their roster, it's that it's movies. There was
this hair salon owned and managed by African American women
(24:04):
in New York and they did a documentary about that
because they were getting shut down by the bureaucracy and
they were running a successful business, and the Moving Picture
Institute came to their defense and did a documentary on him.
So stuff like that is great. It's just it needs
more exposure. You don't hear about these movies on Fox
or in the Daily Wire. Stuff like that. Hollywood and
(24:25):
Toto talks about him. You talked about example, But we
really need that infrastructure that the left has where someone
like Paul Roland or someone like the Moving Picture Institute
has a springboard to a big audience.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Well, that's one of my frustrations about when you see
the rare right of center or even just contrarian art
comes along. You know, if the Daily Wire has a documentary,
Breitbart won't cover it because they're basically the competitors. They're
at war with each other. There's a whole backstory there
about the key players at each individual organization. But you know,
if Michael has a movie coming out next week, everyone
(25:02):
is going to cover it, you know, variety of Hollywood reporter, Deadline,
the Rap, you name it, it'll get covered. And I
feel like a lot of times when right leaning art
does bubble up that you don't get that mass coverage,
even though conservatives do have an infrastructure now and there
are major players with major eyeballs on them. Any thoughts
about that? Is that fair to say? And how do
(25:22):
we break through that logging?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
God, that's exactly what I was talking to Paul Roland
about that this morning, And we were literally talking about
that this morning, that exact subject. How there's no sort
of osmosis or whatever the right word is for connecting
and communicating between these different platforms, And I don't know
what the answer is I don't know what the solution is.
(25:44):
I mean, and there's also you know, I mean conservative journalism,
even conservative entertainment journalism with you, with the exception because
I've been reading you for years, is not great at
covering a lot of this stuff. Again, I hate the
turn this back to my book, but I've written about
this where you know, I was at the center of
(26:04):
this major thing, and I had this book come out,
you know, not reviewed in National Review, not reviewed in
the Wall Street Journal, and I wrote a piece about
this the Para Line published and I said, whatever you
think about this case, whatever your personal feelings about me
as a journalist, this is news. This is news, whatever
your personal opinions are. So there's a real problem in
(26:28):
just not doing the journalism journalistic thing of hey, this
is news. And you know, the Daily Wire could have said, well,
this is kind of a controversial character. But he wrote
this book exposing all this stuff about the oppo research
that was on and everything. As a journalists, this deserves
to be talked about. And that bleeds into movies. It
(26:48):
bleeds into you know, exemplm that great movie made by
Paul Rowland for ten thousand dollars. He was not getting
a lot of media until I started pushing it and
you started writing about it. We both started writing about it,
and Paul and I have both talked about why didn't
this get kicked up to National Review, to Vanity Fair.
You know, it would have been a great story in
the mainstream media of the New York Times. Young Catholic,
(27:09):
conservative filmmaker makes a movie for ten thousand dollars. Yeah,
so there's no the tribes are not speaking. It's not
like The Lord of the Rings, where you like the
bonfire and everybody sees it. It's just I wish I had
an answer for that.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
But yeah, I want to steer towards more traditional Hollywood
right now. I want to get your take on this
because the conventional wisdom, and there's a lot of truth
to it, is that Hollywood is suffering right now. I
don't think the streaming platforms are as profitable as I thought.
We see a lot of big, big bombs at the
box office, but by the same token, we're all still
talking about the White Lotus. And if you look at
the box office recently, there's been some significant hits, Minecraft
(27:47):
movie Sinners, How To Train Your Dragon, The Next Avatar,
at the end of the year will be massive.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I think Superman will do well.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I feel like everyone's keeping lights on for all the
tales of woe, and I don't dismiss the tales as well.
But what do you see where do you see Hollywood
right now? Do you think it's in as deep a
pivot or a problem as you think, or is it
what is gonna get your reaction?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
I just think there's such a huge amount of talent
in Hollywood. And it's almost theoretical to say that, but
there's some so much rich talent in Hollywood, and as
long as they make kids movies, because those do well,
you know they'll be an audience for that. Superhero movies
are still doing well and everything, so I think the
key to their economic success is basically kids movies. Because
(28:31):
every summer it's the same story. Hollywood's dying, Hollywood's dead,
Despicable Meet four comes out and makes three hundred billion dollars.
I mean, it's the same story every year. However, there's
needs to be room for more adult fare and the
midlist stuff and everything, and that's where I think Hollywood
can take a chance and make more conservative movies. Several
(28:55):
years ago, me and a few other guys wanted to
make a movie out of Witness, the classic by Whittakers Chambers,
one of the great books in American history, great anti
communist book, and it was a real battle trying to
get that done. And but this was several years Agoing
with streaming and with places like Hulu and Netflix, you
can tell stories like that. You can do you know,
(29:18):
souls and eats and stuff. You can do those stayv
ski There's nothing stop you from doing that. And finally,
on this topic, I'll just say, you know, people are
tired of the Hollywood leftist troops because they've seen them.
They've seen them over and over again. They're not working.
The Girl Boss stuff is not working. People are not
going to see these movies. So you need something else.
(29:43):
And to me, it's there's an entire untilled acre acreage
or force of conservative themed movies.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
You know, I've noticed in recent years that Netflix, after
that whole Dave Chappelle kerfuffle with the trans jokes, they
leaned pretty hard into the comedians as I call them,
the Shane Gillises, the Tim Dillon's people like that, and Netflix,
and obviously they had a head start in the streaming landscape.
They summit the one company that's doing much better financially,
(30:11):
and I think they've got progressive stuff on that platform
as well, no doubt. But I think kind of going
in different directions and affort offering something to everyone, I
think it's really helped their business model and I can't
imagine why others don't do it. I mean, you look
at what happened with Guttfeld, the one right leaning show
on late night ISHTV, and it's a sensation, and you
think that I want a piece of that pie. But
(30:33):
often Hollywood doesn't think that way. Are there trends that
are going on right now in Hollywood that you think
are maybe unsung, under reported, or things that are you
kind of see maybe bubbling up under the surface, that
are that maybe kind of getting bigger in twenty twenty
five or even twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
One thing is the improvement of Christian themed movies. You
and I have talked about this, and I worked for
the Media Research Center ten years ago, and look, I
gotta be honest with you. We were conservative, a lot
of Christian on staff, but we would kind of titter
when some of the movies would come up because they
were so bad. I mean, they were corning some of
the effects. But this was twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and
(31:08):
then they started getting better and better and better. And
then the Chosen came out and DJ Caruso did this
movie about Mary, which I reviewed, which was cinematically a
professional Hollywood movie. So these movies you don't watch because
you have to or because you're a Christian. They're just
good movies. And that's been the main thing is they're
pretty much on part with Hollywood. Now, if they can
(31:31):
make some conservative theme political movies with those kind of chops,
then you've got something. Like I said, the Hollywood actor
that called me said, your movie would cost ten million
dollars to make. That's not a huge budget, and I
guarantee you it could make that back.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah, So I'm curious you don't didn't name the name, obviously,
But are you protecting that person because you're just being
polite or did they ask you not to share that.
I I cover a lot of artists myself where I
will not share their names because if they get politically
out it it's controversial.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I was just kind of curious in that particular state.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Both Actually I'm being polite, and he's sometimes been a
controversial character. So without talking to him before this interview,
I don't want, like tonight.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
To have him go no, perfectly fine and I respect yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah. And there's other people out there too. I have
a cousin who works at the Los Angeles Time, she's
worked there for thirty years. And you know, I know
their actors out there. As this actor said, he said,
you know, if they adapted your book about the Kavanaugh
thing into a movie, there are liberal actors who would
be lining up to be in this thing because they
like good roles and because you're a complex, flawed character.
(32:41):
You know, that makes it interesting. So I think the
breakthrough will happen with something like that. We're just a
normal movie that's not too preachy, but that's well written
in dramatic and maybe some actors on the left star
crossing the aisle and saying, look, I want to be
in this because this is interesting. And that's where we
are right now.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
The ultimate chum in the water is for an actor
is a great role, and they'll they'll go for it
if they can. You wrote recently about in a sense
praising The New York Times for.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Its arts coverage, and you wish there was.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
More of that on the right. Can you drill down
into that subject, cause I thought it was pretty interesting.
I know, listen, we're all hypercritical the New York Times,
but when it comes to their other kind of reportage,
it's often beautiful. I mean, I've read some of their
sports reporting. It's like, Wow, this is just so eloquantly written,
and it's just such a cut above what other outlets do.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Talk about that.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And what we could people on the right can learn
from that.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I have the same routine every Sunday. I get up,
get some bacon and eggs, get the Sunday New York Times,
curse the communists that run the opinion section, and am
totally delighted and awed and overjoyed at the arts coverage
because it's like a book. It's, you know, profile of chardet,
a new male poet who works in the oil fields.
(33:55):
You know, a great underground movie, a jazz anniversary, and
it's just so rich and so well written, and economically,
there's no reason why conservatives can't do that. We just
haven't built up the infrastructure. And this is also important
conservatives talk about like liberals and nepotism, and all that
other stuff. Conservative media runs a lot on nepotism in
(34:16):
the buddy system, and people who might not otherwise get
jobs and who might not have a huge amount of
talent get jobs as movie reviewers and critics and book critics.
When liberals in the arts field, it's all meritocracy. You
get a job of the New York Times if you've
got the chops to write good book reviews. That's it.
That's why their coverage is so good. And there's no
(34:37):
reason why we can't do that. Just start hiring for talent.
I mean, it's amazing. I get lists of a lot
of books that are coming out because they get early
copies to review, and I'm like, none of these books
get covered in the conservative press, and a lot of
them are conservative leaning, are quite interesting. Yeah, so we need,
you know, we need to cover that. There's no reason
why we don't.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
You know, it'd be great if you could partner with
that investor who could create a new platform that would
be be designed to review those kinds of books. And
it's not the kind of thing that would make money initially,
so I think that's the real drawback there. But it
wouldn't it be great if there was that platform, that
place where people can gravitate to a different Next week.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
There's a new biography coming out about Clint Eastwood. I
got an early copy of it because I'm a good
journalist and I scrambled and got an early copy of it.
There's interesting parts about his libertarianism and his politics in there,
and to me, well, I have nowhere to send it.
It's like I can't send it to the New York Times,
so probably covering already. The National Review won't run my stuff.
It's like, I have this opportunity to cover this thing
(35:36):
and be first, and be first with this and look
at it from a conservative angle, so that east was
treated fairly, and there's nowhere in the ecosystem for me
to go even though I have this book right now
on my desk, and that sucks. That shouldn't be the case.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
One of the things that I like about this show
in my website is sometimes I just write purely about movies,
about actors, about a TV show that I admire, and
doesn't even get into politics at all. It's just about
the art, about the enjoyment, about the craft of storytelling.
And I do miss that too. I mean, I understand,
part of my bread and butter is covering right up
center stuff, and I'll do this sort of outray pages
(36:14):
now and then. It's just kind of part of what
I do. But it is nice to kind of just
drill down to a great artist. I mean, the fact
that Clint Eastwood is in his nineties and still making
credible work like Juror Number two is really staggering because
many many directors.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
They just lose their fastball.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean, you know, Coppola and some others we can
mention they just haven't made great movies and many a
moon and Eastwood's still doing it. Before I let you go,
this is something that always kind of teases my mind, so.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I'll kind of throw it your way.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
You mentioned the stories that aren't being told. The Devil's
Triangle is such a perfect example. It's almost cartoonishly perfect.
But I always think about other stories that could make
a great TV mini series or a movie. Are there
any subjects that you think, I mean, it could be political,
it could be cultural, it could be just something.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
That Hollywood wouldn't touch.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Are there any stories like that that you wish we'd
see in the big screen?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
The Great Untapped reservoir of that is the East German Stassi.
There are books written about a guy who wrote a
bicycle to escape the East German Stasi. There's a book
called The Tunnel about people who tunneled through the wall
with the help of the Network News. With the help
of NBC News, probably arguably the greatest conservative movie in
the last twenty years, aside from three hundred, it's the
(37:26):
Lives of others. There's only one movie made about the
East German Stassi, and I've been doing a lot of
research on them, and what's fascinating about them is, unlike
the Nazis, who tended to dislike modern art and entertainers
and stuff like that, the Sassi worked with entertainers. They
worked with art artists. And when you see something going
from Fauci's mouth to Stephen Colbert's mouth, it's the same thing.
(37:49):
And when you see what happened to me in Kavanaugh,
it's identical to the Stasi. So there's a lot of
rich stories to be told there. And I think it's
also more respectful to Jewish people, because I don't like
to overuse Holocaust analogies. You have to be respectful about
that stuff, and people too easily and glibly throw that
out there, and I'm just more comfortable using the sassy
(38:10):
thing because you know, I want to be respectful, right,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
No, no, I agree.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I mean it's a shame that that has become such
a go to in our culture, where it should be
sort of reserved for the most extreme circumstances.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
So yeah, yeah, So digging to the STASKI man, I've
been reading a lot of books on them, and the
Lives of others is twenty years old. It'll be twenty
or thirty years old in twenty twenty six. Rewatch that thing.
It's very similar to what's going on today, even in America.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Well, that's why art matters, and that's why pop culture
is so important.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
You know, the work you do.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I've always enjoyed Andrew Clavin and what he brings to
the arts and his perspectives. But if you want to
help out mark and support his journalism kind of keep
this voice alive in the in the landscape of the media.
It's not easy, Like you said, some of the platforms
that should be gobbling up his work aren't quite doing.
So you can go to go fund me, just go
(39:02):
to the main website. And then punch in support Mark
Judge's journalism. You will find his page, give him a
little bit of a tip of the cap. Of course,
everything helps, and then you'll get more stories from Mark
and maybe even some screenplays down the short or long road.
I know you don't strike me as the kind of
person who gives up easily, So let's make this Devil's
Triangle movie happen. If it doesn't happen next year the
(39:23):
year after, the story is not going to go away.
It's always going to matter and it's always going to
be sadly relevant to the world we live in. So Mark,
thank you so much for your time, for doing the
work you do, and I hope to touch base again
with some more stories.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Thanks for the work you do. Christian, It's always good
to be with you.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Well, it's it for the show this week.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Thank you again to Radio America for having me as
part of their podcast lineup, and apologies have you got
a little too personal, a little too real this week.
I just couldn't do a traditional podcast with the events
of the last few days. I hope you kind of
stick in there with me. But things will be better
back to normal hopefully next week. God willing, but again everyone.
(40:00):
I hope everyone has a wonderful day, a wonderful week.
Stay strong, stay proud, stay true Doctor's Orders M.
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