Real Time With Bill Maher: New Rules: 'Religion Collection '

Source:Real Time With Bill Maher- The best of religious collection.

Source:The New Democrat

"Bill Maher New Rules | Best of Religion Collection."

From Ultimate Documentary

Atheism is a belief, or even a faith, that there is no God, there is no religious higher power at all. George Carlin didn't call himself and atheist because atheism is a belief or a faith that God doesn't exist. Technically, that would qualify George as an agnostic which is my religious affiliation.  I know so little about religion that my knowledge wouldn't fill a shot glass. But I do know that agnostics don't know if there's a God or not.  That is different from believing one way or the other.

I don't give a damn about people's religion, including Atheists. (Sorry Bill Maher.)  Just keep your religion out of my face, especially, if you believe your religion tells you to make the lives of other people miserable if they commit certain acts of which your fundamentalist tight ass doesn't approve.
As for you fundamentalist Atheists,  people who are not only not religious but put down people for being religious even if they are good decent people, learn something about the First Amendment.

People have the right to be religious or not and to say whatever the hell they want to about it.  Live and let live and your life will be hell of a lot better even if you're going to hell for not believing in God.  If you believe you should get on fundamentalist Christians because you don't like their politics,  keep in mind that fundamentalists Muslims are just as far to the Right on cultural issues.  Maybe you should spread your hate to them as well.

Alfred Hitchcock: Rear Window (1954) Starring Jimmy Stewart

Source:Turner Classic Movies- Jimmy Stewart as Jeff.

Source:The New Democrat  

"A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building." 

From Turner Classic Movies

"A wheelchair bound photographer (James Stewart) spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder." 

Source:Movie Clips- Actor Jimmy Stewart.

From Movie Clips

Rear Window might be the best not so believable movie I've ever seen. . It's about Jeff (Jimmy Stewart), a photographer  in a wheelchair with a broken leg solving a murder, practically. on his own.  He gets some help from his girlfriend (Amazing Grace Kelly) and his nurse (Thelma Ritter).  It's not, you know,  the most believable plot ever written.

Jeff has a friend (Wendell Corey) who's a lieutenant in the NYPD.  The lieutenant is the only person in the movie who has any real life, detective or police experience.  Jeff has a theory about how a supposed murder goes down in the apartment across the courtyard from his.  The lieutenant doesn't believe Jeff's theory.

The movie takes place in Greenwich Village in the middle of one of those famous humid heat waves  they get every summer.  Jeff has nothing to do all day but to look out the window, talk to his nurse (Thelma Ritter) when she comes by to check on him, and, of course, hangout with his hot sexy baby-faced girlfriend (Grace Kelly) when she comes by at night.

From his window, Jeff notices some strange things going on in the apartment across the courtyard.  A woman who's sick and confined to her bed is suddenly missing.  Her husband (Raymond Burr) does strange things at night.  He goes out with a suitcase when it's raining and comes back shortly thereafter.  Jeff thinks there's something suspicious in the suitcase, like the body parts of the missing wife. He wants his detective friend to look into it.

All the while, Jeff thinks his girlfriend is too perfect for him, his job being very stable.  He's always traveling.  He thinks that they would both be better off keeping things as they are.  She wants to marry him and that is not a commitment that Jeff wants to make.  He just wants to recover from the broken leg and go back to work and have his girlfriend available.

This movie stretches credibility but it is very well written and has a great cast, Jimmy Stewart, Wendell Corey, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr and others.  It has a lot of great humor, especially between the lieutenant and Jeff.  The cop sees his friend as an amateur sleuth, at best, and makes fun of him.   He's doing his best to show that Jeff only has a theory and a weak circumstantial case.  It becomes a great murder mystery.

Movie Clips: To Catch a Thief (1955) Starring Cary Grant & Grace Kelly

Source:The New Democrat 

To Catch a Thief is neither the best Alfred Hitchcock movie of all time nor the best Cary Grant movie of all time but I believe it is the best Grace Kelly movie of all time and that includes Rear Window and Dial M For Murder.  It showcases all of her great talents, the hot baby-face, her great sex appeal, her charm, her wit, and her dramatic abilities.  She was the perfect actress for Alfred Hitchcock because he wanted serious movies that were humorous.  Cary Grant was perfect for him as well.

Cary Grant plays John Robey, a retired jewel thief living on the French Riviera. He was so successful as a jewel thief that he doesn’t have to work anymore.  Every time there’s a string of jewel robberies in his new home, law enforcement suspects him, which is exactly what happens in this movie. A new cat burglar strikes Mediterranean France, the legal authorities bring him in for questioning, and he escapes from them.

Robey concludes that the only way to get out of this is to find the real burglar himself.  Thats where Grace Kelly comes in.  Her character, Francy, is the daughter of  a woman who owns a lot of very expensive jewelry and they just happen to be vacationing in the south of France at the time of these new jewel robberies.  Robey needs them to play decoys to get the cat burglar to strike again.  He befriends them, believing they are the next targets.

John Robey’s plan here is to catch the real cat burglar when this person strikes his target so he can get in the clear and move on with his life.  There are a lot of great suspense and action scenes in this movie as well as Cary and Grace taking a lot of humorous verbal shots at each other.  Once she learns that Robey was a cat burglar, she believes he’s still in business and tries to use this to start a romance with him but his goal is to catch the real thief, even if that means using innocent people like this mother-daughter duo.
Source:Movie Clips

Baltimore Orioles 1954: Tribute To Baltimore Memorial Stadium

Source:The New Democrat

The Orioles in their first 10 seasons or so weren't very good at all, but by 1964 or 1965, they not only started winning but also became solid American League contenders and in 1966 not only won the American League but also their first World Series, a 4-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And after that, up until 1986, you are talking about the winningest franchise in baseball, which included a total of three World Series championships, six American League championships, and seven AL East titles. Those are the Orioles at Baltimore Memorial Stadium that I love and respect and have been hoping will get back to that consistent winning ever since they started sliding in the late 1980s.

Michelle Milly: Intimate Portrait Grace Kelly

Source:Michelle Milly-

Source:The New Democrat

The Amazing Grace Kelly, whom I call Grace Kelly, not just because of her first name, but because she was amazing in so many ways was a woman who didn't just look like royalty but was royalty, even though she grew up in Philadelphia. She not only looked like a princess but was the Princess of Monaco until she died in the early 1980s. But before that, she was a hell of an actress who made her mark mostly in the 1950s.

What most impresses me about Grace is her versatility as an actress.  She could play both dead serious and pretty funny in the same movie and was perfect for movies that weren't pure comedies or dramas. I believe that is one of the things that the great director Alfred Hitchcock saw in her when he hired her for films like Rear Window, playing the girlfriend of photographer Jimmy Stewart, who was confined to an apartment with a broken leg. She solved a murder case by spying from his apartment. This is not believable but the movie is very well done.

Another one of my favorite movies starring Grace would be another Hitchcock movie, To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant, which takes place on the French Mediterranean, in which she plays the daughter of a very wealthy woman. Vacationing in France with a lot of expensive jewelry at the high point of a cat burglar's activities, she suspects that Cary Grant, the retired cat burglar, stole her mother's and others' jewelry, but in the end falls in love with him nonetheless.

With Grace Kelly, you are talking about a sexy actress who always looked like she never completely grew up, similar to Marilyn Monroe or Barbara Eden. But she was a real lady and a great actress who again had the versatility and timing that few actresses ever acquired.   She was similar to Elizabeth Taylor or Lauren Bacall, which is what made her unique.  She is still missed today.
Source:Michelle Milly

Nevada Kubrick: The Candidate (1972) The Jarman-McKay Debate

Source: Nevada Kubrick- The Jarman- McKay debate, from The Candidate, in 1972.

Source:The New Democrat

"The Candidate" is the greatest election film of all time, and this is probably the best part of it, as the older Republican conservative incumbent, Crocker Jarman (Don Porter), squares off against his younger Democrat liberal opponent, Bill McKay (Robert Redford). Porter is absolutely brilliant in the role of the stoic but increasingly exasperated Jarman (he should have gotten an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and it is Redford's alltime best performance too."

From Nevada Kubrick

Even with Bill McKay's wishy-washy answer to the first question in this debate, this is still my favorite scene in a great movie about the classic underdog Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford against classic establishment incumbent Crocker Jarman, played by Don Porter. One candidate, Bill McKay, except for school busing and abortion, two critical issues where he essentially dodged the questions, says what he thinks. The incumbent, Crocker Jarman, gave classic sound-bite answers allowing no insight into his philosophy.

This is a classic political film about the establishment vs. the reformer. Where even the reformer or Progressive, ( played by Robert Redford ) has establishment or status-quo Conservatives working for him, at least in the sense that he has his own ideas in how his political campaign should be run, while people on his staff like his own campaign manger ( played by Peter Boyle ) are telling him not to rock the boat and wants to run a boring, cookie-cutter political campaign where his candidate never takes any hard stances on the issues.

Warner Brothers: The Candidate (1972) Starring Robert Redford

Source: Warner Brothers-

Source:The New Democrat

I love the movie The Candidate for several reasons.  Perhaps the main one is that it has given me an idea for a book about an anti-establishment liberal candidate or perhaps a John McCain Conservative Republican. They face each other in the general election with the anti-establishment candidate  beating the establishment, talking point, sound-bite, candidate who always plays it safe in hopes of offending the fewest.

The Candidate is a movie about a little guy running against  big time politicians and the big time political establishment in the Democratic Party. He's Bill MacKay, played by Robert Redford, running against his own party and against Mr. Establishment,  U.S. Senator Crocker Jarman played by Don Porter. McKay's campaign manager played by Peter Boyle is part of that Democratic establishment but wants to run an outsiders campaign without allowing the outsider MacKay to get too far out in left field. You see these two men fighting  against each other in the campaign.

The outsider Bill MacKay runs his campaign based  on his beliefs.  He gives voters a  good idea of who he is and speaks his mind.  He probably doesn't use a speechwriter for the whole campaign.  His opponent, three-term incumbent U.S. Senator Crocker Jarman just tries to be likable expressing traditional America values, speaking mostly to older voters.  He says you should reelect me because I stand up for America etc.
Source:Warner Brothers